Box Turtle Bulletin

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, February 7

TODAY’S AGENDA:
National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day. Today marks the 13th year for National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, a national HIV testing and treatment community mobilization initiative targeted at the African-American community regardless of sexual orientation. There are four specific focal points: education, testing, involvement, and treatment. Educationally, the focus is educate African-Americans about the basics of HIV/AIDS in their local communities. Testing is at the core of this initiative, as it is hoped that Blacks will mark February 7th of every year as their annual or biannual day to get tested for HIV. Of the nearly 50,000 Americans who test positive for HIV each year, about 20,000 of them are African-Americans, making the Black community’s burden disproportionately high. Health Black Communities, Inc., is the lead organization spearheading events for the day. Click here to learn about events near you.

Events This Weekend: Cologne Street Carnival, Cologne, Mardi Gras, New Orleans, LA; Germany; Sydney Mardis Gras, Sydney, NSW; Sitges Carnival, Sitges, Spain; GayWhistler Winter Pride, Whistler, BC.

Charles H. Hughes

THIS MONTH IN HISTORY:
Gay Man Seeks Castration To Cure His Homosexuality: 1904. “How often is there delivered from the womb of some noble and grand woman — some little soul, scarred in such manner that stigmatizes its after life and brings a stain so deeply colored as to stamp it in the eyes of the world a ‘social outcast and criminal.'” So begins Dr. Charles H. Hughes’s article in the February 1904 edition of the journal Alienist and Neurologst. (An “alienist” is an archaic nineteenth century term for what today we would call a psychologist or psychiatrist.) Medical journals at the turn of the last century had a very different editorial tone than they do today, with morality holding as much or greater sway over scientific evidence the vast majority of the articles published, particularly where sexual matters were concerned. The scientific method, clearly, had yet to make may inroads into the mental health professions.

Those lines, which opened an article by Hughes of a “homosexualist’s self-description,” were actually penned by the “homosexualist” himself — the word “homosexuality” having only entered the English language ten years earlier(see May 5), and English speakers were still sorting out the word’s usage and derivatives. This particular person, “a gentleman degenerate” of thirty-nine years of age, was an American of Irish ancestry whose father graduated “from one of the old world’s best colleges” before fighting on the losing side in the 1848 Irish rebellion, fleeing to the U.S., marrying, starting a family, and dying young of either “epilepsy or apoplexy.” That the man’s father had epilepsy was considered significant, as Hughes saw it as evidence of inherited degeneracy. That diagnosis was based on Degeneracy theory, a derivation from Darwin’s theory of evolution, which postulated that thanks to the conveniences of modern society and its advances in medicine and hygiene, modern man was increasingly imune from the natural “culling of the herd”. And because modern man was no longer being culled by natural forces, the human race was actually experiencing a devolution — or “de-generation” — into a more primitive state. Because the letter writer’s father had epilepsy, Hughes concluded that the son’s homosexuality was an expression of a congenital degeneracy inherited from his father.

With the father’s early demise, his wife was left to raise an unspecified number of children. One of those boys, the letter writer, wrote of himself in the third person to Dr. Hughes, and described himself as:

“a regular ‘girl boy’ as he was called, always afraid to tell a fib — never using bad language, never smoking nor chewing, thoroughly honest, shunning the girls and always having some boy friend he fancied for his good looks and endeavoring to show him some kindness in the way of making him presents — never cared for an ugly boy — in fact did not know why he particularly cared for any, always studious, receiving high honors at school for thoroughness in his studies and exemplary deportment. The child mind not understanding the features of certain matters recalls his desire to bunk with any gentleman who might be the guest of his father, and to them, no doubt revelations were made, but naturally ascribed to childish innocence. I felt myself growing stronger in this way. In other words showing a preference for such society and ignoring girls — yet being timid in the presence of both male and female — was frequently twitted about it.”

As the writer grew older, his attractions toward other men grew, along with the horror of knowing that he would never be able to fit in with society as a homosexual. He also lamented the loneliness that being gay brought him in a society with few social opportunities for people like him:

“Haunting the parks, seaside resorts and other localities, a lonely man afflicted, no hope of cure as intimated by physicians and neurologists, this being repeated to me in all localities, large cities and small towns. …

“Twenty-five years of this misery is a long time for such torture, yet the struggle goes on. If the wishes of this lonely man were realized, and he trusts it may not be long before he may find the surroundings illumined and he be enabled to step into the sunlight — a clean and wholesome man — or in the absence of such bliss — his mother’s arm be extended down from the region beyond into which he may be embraced and find that rest which may be emblemized as eternal.”

The image of his mother’s arms extending from “the region beyond” refers to the fact that she died fifteen years earlier, when the letter writer was twenty-four years old. In other words, it was an expression of the writer’s own yearning for death, as perhaps the only way out of his predicament. Hughes tried surgery:

In this case an operation was performed on the filaments of the pudic nerve supplying to testes, but the morbid inclination still persists, notwithstanding the operation and a course of chologogues, antiseptic intestinal treatment and full bromism.

Damaging the pudic nerve would have resulted in blocking the sensations of orgasm. In animals, it was known that this type of operation would have also resulted in a loss of erections. But as Hughes discovered, this operation did little to alter his patient’s sexual attractions. “The case appears to be in the head and not in the genitals,” Hughes concluded, and urged his patient to “do as other men have to do and do do, keep his passionate impulses in abeyance to the higher purposes of his nature and the nobler ambitions of life.” The patient wrote back:

“What you claim to be accomplished through efforts on my part is impossible — of course you will dispute this. Were our positions reversed for a month, you could understand. If the difficulty is with the head, all I have to say is that it has centered there with such vigor and tenacity that it would appear to me that the elimination of the trouble in one center has been doubly concentrated in another.”

By this point, the writer was getting desperate. His employer found out about his condition and fired him. “I will be upon the streets next week — to go where — the Lord only knows.” He against asked Hughes again whether he thought castration would help. “If so,” he wrote,” I will go into a charity hospital and have it done.” Several months later, in January of 1904, the patient wrote again, this time announcing that he decided to commit himself to a sanitarium, although he was still, in his desperation, weighing the option of a full castration:

“I am now convinced that from an experience in St. Louis during my last visit (an experience without consumation) that there is absolutely no avenue of escape from my trouble but to be placed under restraint, and if I can get back to St. Louis it is my intention to place myself in the hands of the authorities irrespective of the consequences, as I am certain to get into trouble, and I can not stand this thing any longer. I know just what Dr. —— and yourself would suggest, yet from the statement of other physicians — the trouble is of the head and there would be no certainty that the operation in question (castration) would be successful. You well know the debilitating experiences through which I passed after the first surgical work. I jumped on a train in St. Louis last night and followed a party clean through to South McAlester. I was expected back at the hospital that night. I spent all my money…

“I came very near getting in serious trouble on the trip. If I am compelled to pass through another surgical opeartion it will have to be at the city hospital. … I fell terribly over this, as I promised Dr. —— I would conduct myself with decorum. If the remedy he suggested is a sure cure, then I will have to accept it.”

[Source: Charles H. Hughes. “The gentleman degenerate: A homosexualist’s self-description and self-applied title. Pudic nerve section fails therapeutically.” Alienist and Neurologist 25, no. 1 (February 1904): 62-70. Available online via Google Books here.]

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

NOM, you crack me up.

The National Organization for Marriage is upset.

“For far too long, media outlets and reporters have allowed activist groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center to label opponents of same-sex ‘marriage’ as ‘hate groups’ and regularly describe organizations that hold traditional Judeo-Christian views of sexual morality as ‘anti gay,'” said Brian Brown, NOM’s president. “But words have consequences, and we know that allowing such inflammatory terms to be used in media reports describing those who object to redefining marriage can lead to harassment and even violence against members of those organizations.”

Oh, my heart weeps for you.

NOM has a blog and provides a forum for its supporters. I wouldn’t hold NOM responsible for random comments left there, except that NOM moderates the blog thoroughly, deleting many (not all) polite and informative gay-positive comments. Let’s have a look at what NOM doesn’t delete, and see if we can pinpoint any “inflammatory terms.” I’ll stick to just this past week.

I find it totally UNACCEPTABLE that the [Boy Scouts of America] may be willing to expose our children to this country’s most dangerous Predators.

Every single Catholic priest caught up in that Church’s abuse scandal is a self identified “homosexual.”

Homosexuals, especially the “openly gay” ones should not be around children period.

It appears that your real agenda is to obscure the innate and immutable differences that exist between the sexes in a vain attempt to appease your sense of guilt for your crimes against humanity.

Denying service to sexual deviants is no worse than denying service to a drug addict, alcoholic, a felon, or a stray dog.

I did not make these miscreants perverts, immoral, or heathens, but that is what they are

The perverts have nothing real to point to in defense of their demands for special consideration; only transitory emotions that cannot be defined or quantified.

People are just standing up against those who are demanding these perverts be declared moral.

And it goes on. And on. And on.

NOM, it’s your blog. You have every right to censor reasonable comments from the opposition while giving a forum to your most hateful followers. Just don’t turn around and get all righteous about the very thing you so fervently support.

Uganda’s Parliament Resumes With Anti-Homosexuality Bill Waiting In the Wings

Uganda’s Parliament has returned after a nearly two month break, with the Anti-Homosexuality Bill listed as number eight under “Business to Follow” in yesterday’s order paper (Word: 37KB/2 pages), as well as today’s ( Word: 42KB/2 pages). There are at least a couple of ways to read this. First, this is the lowest position the Anti-Homosexuality Bill has occupied on the Parliament’s agenda since the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee announced that it had completed its report on the bill. That announcement included unverified claims that the death penalty would be removed from the bill, claims that we had seen before and were proven to have been falsely made. So for those looking for signs of encouragement, the bill’s low placement on the agenda — after a report on the African Space Research Program — may be taken as something of a positive sign.

But there is also another way to look at it, and it is consistent with what I’ve observed before: the Anti-Homosexuality Bill always seems to be hanging around whenever any other divisive issue is consuming the public’s or politicians’ attention. You may recall that when Parliament was fighting over the highly controversial Petroleum Bill last December, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was waiting in the wings at number one under “Business to Follow,” and there it remained until after the Petroleum Bill passed in a hurriedly-called session. That Petroleum Bill was extremely controversial because it gave sweeping powers to a presidential appointee to sign and cancel oil drilling licenses, opening the way to massive corruption in the oil sector. Within a week of that bill’s passage — in a very hurriedly-called session when, coincidentally, there just happened to be a bare minimum of MP’s on hand to form quorum — the Anti-Homosexuality Bill was shoved down to number six, then to number seven, under “Business to Follow,” where it more or less remains today.

So look at where the bill is today. Placed above the Anti-Homosexuality Bill under “Business to Follow” are various reports investigating payouts for road construction and a cement company (both of which are mired in allegations of financial irregularities), a report on an investigation on irregularitites in the Electrical Subsector of a Petroleum Bill (a different Petroleum Bill from last December’s), and the Public order and Management Bill. That last one is likely to be particularly contentious, as it would grant the President and his cabinet unilateral powers to quash the freedom of peaceful assembly and dissent. And none of those issues even hint at a massive controversy taking place outside Parliament over the sudden death of a popular young Member of Parliament and the government’s ham-handed attempts to repress an independent investigation of the mysterious circumstances surrounding her death.

And so once again, the Anti-Homosexuality Bill placement on the agenda follows a fairly well-established pattern, and is consistent with my earlier speculation that the Anti-Homosexuality Bill’s true role in Parliament is to remain close at hand as a potent distraction (if needed) or as a unifying rallying point after a controversial vote (again, if needed).

For our clause-by-clause of the Anti-Homosexuality Bill’s provisions, start here. For a quick view of how a bill becomes law in Uganda, click here. The bill’s place in that process is little changed since that post was written, as it has not yet gone to the plenary stage. For a review of what happens if Parliament does pass the bill, click here. And if someone tries to tell you that the death penalty has already been removed from the bill, refer them here.

Boy Scouts Delay Decison on Gay Ban

According to the Boy Scout Law, which every Boy Scout recites regularly, a Boy Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. You can now add indecisive to that list. The Boy Scouts of America’s Governing Board announced today that they will put off their decision on whether to life their ban on gay scouts and scout leaders until the BSA’s national meeting in May. According to a statement released this morning:

For 103 years, the Boy Scouts of America has been a part of the fabric of this nation, providing it’s youth program of character development and values-based leadership training. In the past two weeks, Scouting has received an outpouring of feedback from the American public. It reinforces how deeply people care about Scouting and how passionate they are about the organization.

After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America’s National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy.

To that end, the executive board directed its committees to further engage representatives of Scouting’s membership and listen to their perspectives and concerns. This will assist the officers’ work on a resolution on membership standards. The approximately 1,400 voting members of the national council will take action on the resolution at the national meeting in May 2013.

Chris Kluwe on Being a Straight Ally

Sweden’s Crown Princess Makes Surprise Appearance for Gay Of The Year

Jonas Gardell and Crown Princess Victoria (Photo: Christian Hagward/QX)

That has to be one of the gayest headlines I’ve ever written. The fun doesn’t stop there:

Princess Victoria presented the Gay of the Year award to an author who wrote about the 1980s AIDS crisis.

Taking to the stage to ABBA’s Dancing Queen, the 35-year-old, presented the award to Jonas Gardell, whose book and TV series, Never Dry Tears Without Gloves, sparked debate on the treatment of gay men during the onset of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.

Her surprise appearance earned her a standing ovation.

The book’s title refers to the instructions given to a nurse as she wiped tears off a dying man’s face. When it was published, is set off a wave of soul-searching in a country which prides itself on its tolerance and compassion.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, February 6

Boy Scout Handbook, 2nd ed. (1914-1916), with cover art by the famous gay illustrator J.C. Leyendecker.

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Boy Scouts of America Concludes Annual Board Meeting: Irving, TX. The Boy Scouts of America’s annual governing board meeting winds up for the last of its scheduled three day get-together today. The big item remaining on the agenda is the proposed elimination of the Boy Scout’s ban on gay scouts and scout leaders, and replacing it with a policy which will allow local troops to decide for themselves whether to discriminate against gay people. Anti-gay activists have been working overtime in trying to defeat the proposal. One group, Texas Values, has scheduled a 10:00 a.m. prayer vigil and rally at the BSA’s national headquarters in Irving. On Monday, former gay scouts and leaders hand-delivered 1.4 million petition signatures urging the organization to lift its ban. We’ll find out what the board decides sometime today.

Events This Weekend: Cologne Street Carnival, Cologne, Mardi Gras, New Orleans, LA; Germany; Sydney Mardis Gras, Sydney, NSW; Sitges Carnival, Sitges, Spain; GayWhistler Winter Pride, Whistler, BC.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Reagan Orders AIDS Report: 1986. In a message sent to Congress two days after the State of the Union Address, President Ronald Reagan made his second public mention of AIDS:

We will continue, as a high priority, the fight against Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). An unprecedented research effort is underway to deal with this major epidemic public health threat. The number of AIDS cases is expected to increase. While there are hopes for drugs and vaccines against AIDS, none is immediately at hand. Consequently, efforts should focus on prevention, to inform and to lower risks of further transmission of the AIDS virus. To this end, I am asking the Surgeon General to prepare a report to the American people on AIDS.

Reagan’s first mention of AIDS was during a news conference five months earlier (see Sep 17). That last sentence in the report to Congress came as a surprise to Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. As he wrote in Koop: The Memoirs of America’s Family Doctor, the White House had worked keep him out of the loop during the AIDS crisis. So when Reagan made the public announcement, Koop jumped at the tasks, working feverishly to complete the report, and to thwart administration official’s attempts to delaye or shelve it. The Surgeon General’s Report, which called on schools and parents to have “frank, open discussions” with very young children and teens about AIDS, was finally released in October (see Oct 22).

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Ramón Novarro: 1899. The Mexican leading man was hailed as the next male sex symbol after Rudolph Valentino died. His first major success was in the 1923 silent film Scaramouche, but his greatest fame came with 1925’s Ben-Hur. His transition to talkies was mildly successful, but not enough for MGM to renew his contract in 1935. Besides, MGM feared trouble: Novarro had already rejected Louis B. Mayer’s demand that he enter into a “lavender marriage.” From 1935, Novarro worked only sporadically in films and television, but fortunately he made some wise investments in real estate early in his career. He was murdered in 1968 by two brothers who he solicited for sex, but who beat him mercilessly in an attempt to get him to reveal where he kept his money. They left with $20, leaving Novarro to choke to death on his own blood.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Marriage advances in Illinois

NBC

The Executive Committee voted 9-5 to move legislation giving marital rights to same sex couples to the Senate floor. Democrats with a 40-member majority say they have the needed votes.

Senate leadership is coordinating the timing so as to vote for equality on St. Valentine’s Day.

British Parliament votes for marriage (second reading)

NPR

By an overwhelming majority, the British House of Commons passed a bill that legalizes gay marriage. The bill is expected to become law because it is supported by Prime Minister David Cameron.The House passed the bill with a vote of 400 to 175.

After a weekend of threats of revolt from conservative Tories and whining from church leaders, Parliament has soundly supported the change.

Now the bill goes to committee, a third reading, and the House of Lords.

For a recap of the drama: the Times.

The Sandusky Principle

As the Boy Scouts decides on its policy toward gays, many of our opponents are clamoring about gays and pedophilia, some of them even invoking the strange, self-negating example of Jerry Sandusky, the heterosexually-married child molester.

Others are shying away from the pedophilia connection. Instead they ask whether you’d let a straight man take a troop of girl into the woods for an overnight stay. That sounds so reasonable it’s enough to give you a moment’s pause.

But just a short moment. Because if you’re trying to be reasonable you have to remember this fact:

You’re safer leaving your son in the care of a man who says that he’s gay than with a man who says that he’s not.

This seems like a good time to repost a video I made three years ago on that topic, inspired the research done by our host Jim Burroway:

Call it the Sandusky Principle. If we known about this criminal back when I made the video I’d have offered him up as an example.

One last thing, something I pointed out the clip: When our opponents demonize openly gay men and falsely shine the spotlight on us, they’re letting the real abusers hide in the darkness. And continue their abuse.

Canadian Ex-Gay “Shock Doc” Therapist Sentenced To Prison For Sexually Assaulting Patients

Aubrey Levin being taken into police custody, 2010.

Aubry Levin, 74, a South African national who relocated to Calgary, Canada in order to resume his ex-gay therapy in the post-Appartheid era, has been sentenced to five years in prison for fondling his male patients. His wife, Erica, was also charged with “defeating the ends of justice” for trying to bribe a juror in her husband’s case.

“Your patients came to you for help. Instead, you were responsible for creating more problems. This was a horrible violation of trust,” court of queen’s bench Justice Donna Shelley told Levin during sentencing.

Levin was found guilty on three of nine charges against him. His Canadian offences came to light in March 2010 when the original complainant showed two videos, taken on a spy camera, which showed Levin fondling his genitals.

Longtime BTB readers may recall that when Levin was first arrested in 2010, his work for the South African military during the apartheid era drew considerable attention. In the 1980s, electric shock therapies had mostly come to an end throughout the world, but it was still employed in apartheid South Africa right up until the fall of the regime. Levin was one of the more notorious practitioners in South Africa , so much so that he was known as “Dr. Shock”:

Among the allegations levelled at Levin was that he used severe electric shocks as part of “aversion therapy” that was supposed to “cure” homosexuals. “Political deviants” who refused to bear arms in the apartheid forces were also referred to Levin, who commanded the major psychiatric wing of the military hospital at Voortrekkerhoogte in Pretoria and rose to become the apartheid government’s head of mental health.

Levin fled South Africa just before its transition to democracy, and settled in Calgary where he became a Canadian citizen. He refused to testify before South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where it was alleged he had been guilty of gross human rights abuses. According to South Africa’s The Daily Maverick:

Ward 22 of 1 Military Hospital at Voortrekkerhoogte, near Pretoria, was where he operated. That’s where suspected gays in the army were sent to Dr Aubrey Levin for “treatment”. Levin was positively evangelical about curing homosexuality: in 1968 he wrote to Parliament asking to address its members on potential changes to the laws on homosexuality, noting that he had “treated many homosexuals and lesbians and enjoyed some measure of success in therapy.”

This “therapy” took the form of drugs, electro-shock therapy and hormone treatment. For those who didn’t show signs of responding, it is claimed that chemical castrations or sex-change operations were in store. Most of Levin’s patients were young, white and male, and they were referred to him by military officers, chaplains and doctors.

Once settled in Canada, Levin became an expert witness, performing court-ordered psychiatric assessments of convicted offenders awaiting sentence.

According to press reports at the time of Levin’s arrest, a 36-year-old former patient had been accusing Levin of sexually abusing him, but he couldn’t get authorities to believe him. The break came when the patient went to an appointment with a hidden camera in order to obtain evidence. The videos, which were played in court during the trial, showed Levin undoing the man’s belt and jeans and appearing to fondle him. The patient, identified only as R.B. in court, was on probation and had been ordered to see Levin twice a month. Two other accusers were also patients of Levin’s while under court order.

A support group of former patients has been established online.

Think About the Children

Self-described Catholic blogger Brandon Vogt recently published Rebuttals to arguments for same-sex marriage. He tries to disprove 10 common same-sex-marriage arguments, but merely highlights the most common mistakes of his own camp. I’m addressing each of his 10 points in separate posts as a kind of back-to-basics review of our opposition.

In his quest to rebut “our” arguments, Vogt now goes where our opponents always go: to the children.

7. Children will not be affected since there is no difference between same-sex parents and opposite-sex parents.

This argument was most famously stated in 2005 when the American Psychological Association (APA) wrote that “not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents.”

However, several recent studies have put that claim to rest. In June, LSU scholar Loren Marks published a peer-reviewed paper in Social Science Research. It examined the 59 studies that the APA relied on for its briefing. Marks discovered that not one of the studies used a large, random, representative sample of lesbian or gay parents and their children.

Over and over again, we’ve seen Vogt’s anti-gay eagerness overwhelm his dispassionate reason. It’s happening again. Compare these statements:

1. The APA says that “not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents.”
2. Vogt claims studies that studies showing positive outcomes for same-sex parenting are flawed.

Do you see the problem? #2 does not contradict #1. Vogt’s #2 simply claims we have no good studies favoring same-sex parenting. But that doesn’t invalidate the APA statement that there are no studies damning same-sex parenting.

Linger on this a moment. Our opponents would love to claim that same-sex parenting is bad, but they haven’t been able to, despite their long and sustained effort. They’ve been limited to throwing stone at same-sex-positive studies. And that’s all.

Let me be clear: Vogt might invalidate every study the APA looked at in favor of same-sex parenting. That still doesn’t invalidate the APA’s statement that “not a single study has found children of lesbian or gay parents to be disadvantaged” — a statement which remains true even if the number of valid studies (for either viewpoint) is zero. There’s a clear logical distinction here. And Vogt, for some reason, is unable to see it.

The only way Vogt can save himself is to give us a study showing the harms of same-sex parenting. He tries, and in doing so, wrecks his own argument.

Texas sociologist Mark Regnerus released a comprehensive study titled “How Different Are the Adult Children of Parents Who Have Same-Sex Relationships?” His research used a large, random and national sample and its scope was unprecedented among prior work in this field. Contrary to the APA, Regnerus found that for a majority of outcomes, children raised by parents with same-sex relationships drastically underperformed children raised in a household with married, biological parents.

He quickly noted that his study didn’t necessarily show that same-sex couples are bad parents, but that it did definitively put to rest the claim that there are “no differences” among parenting combinations.

Anyone who damns same-sex parenting by invoking the Regnerus study has simply damned their own argument, because Regnerus simply did not report outcomes for the cohort of kids raised by same-sex parents. Here’s what actually happened:

• Regnerus reported negative outcomes for 175 children with at least parent who had a same-sex relationship, whether it lasted for years or was a brief one-time deal, labeling these parents “gay dads” and “lesbian moms.”*

• Nearly all of these 175 kids came from broken heterosexual homes.

• Of those 175 children, only 30 lived with same-sex parents at least 3 years (a meager 3 years!).**

• Regnerus did not report outcomes for this group of 30 kids, and even if he had, he tells us in his own study that a number this small does not allow for solid conclusions.

Vogt would have us believe that Regnerus “definitively put to rest the claim that there are ‘no differences’ among parenting combinations.” He doesn’t seem to realize Regnerus’ study didn’t tell us anything about the same-sex parenting combination.

Not that Vogt is necessarily lying to us. It’s at least as likely that he’s blind to the flaws of any study supporting his anti-gay agenda (as ever, I wish we had a word to describe this kind of irrational blindness when it comes to all things gay).

By now, some of you may have noticed a strategic mistake on my part. I’ve been entirely on the defensive, ripping apart Vogt’s arguments that harm will come to children. Really, though, our best argument is not Children will not be affected by same-sex marriage. No. Our best argument in this area is that Children will benefit.

Gay and lesbian couples have been raising kids for decades. Whether it comes about through previous marriages, surrogacy, IVF, rescuing kids from unparented poverty, or pulling them out of foster care, same-sex couples will continue making sacrifices to raise children whether same-sex marriage is legal or not. Given that fact, that indisputable truth, it’s a hideous moral breach to deny these children the stability and protection they would get from allowing their parents to marry. Our opponents desperately need to take their own words to heart: They must realize that when they say, Think about the children!, they truly need to think about the children.

Tomorrow: Is opposition to same-sex marriage based on bigotry, homophobia and religious hatred?

* In college I had sex with two women whom I dated. Does this make me “straight” or even bi? (The answer is no.)

** This number is uncertain due to oddities in the data. For instance, a number of kids (now grown) reported having lived with their biological mother’s girlfriend long than with their biological mother. Whether that’s true or a problem with the data collection I cannot say.

Ex-gay Writer Caught on Gay Dating App

Blogger and activist Zinnia Jones got word of a Grindr profile belonging to Matt Moore. Who is Matt Moore, you say? He’s the latest ex-gay activist to have a smartphone. Or, more specifically, a particular smartphone app, one which he apparently uses for some rather distinctly non-ex-gay things:

After my last post about a profile on Grindr using ex-gay writer Matt Moore’s photo and personal details, I contacted Moore, who responded as follows:

The grindr profile was really mine. I’ve been on it on and off for the last couple of weeks.

Like I told the guy who sent you the picture, I am wrong in having been on grindr. I haven’t changed my views on homosexuality, the bible, etc.

Creating a grindr profile and talking to guys on it was major disobedience on my part….disobedience to Christ. Disobedience to a loving and gracious God.
Thankfully, I believe that He forgives me for this disobedience. I believe the blood of Christ covers this disobedience. And I won’t be on grindr again….ever.

The pastor of my church and the church body I am a part of were informed about me being on grindr (I told them) before all of this came out, publicly.

As a blogger for the Christian Post, Moore has said some pretty terrible things about the people he’s chasing on Grindr:

…If you don’t think homosexuality hurts anybody, just check out the statistics. Check out the number of murders among the gay community. Check out the addiction rate among homosexuals. Check out the average lifespan of a male homosexual. Seriously, just google it. You can see for yourself.

He chalks his own homosexuality up to inappropriate childhood sexual exposure, and claims that this is at the root of very nearly everyone else he has talked to:

Moore’s story of redemption is profound. Though he was never molested, he says he was “inappropriately exposed” to pornography and sexuality at a young age.

“From my experience in talking now to people who are either confused about their sexuality or repenting of homosexuality, 99.9 percent of the ones that I’ve talked to were sexually violated, molested or exposed to pornography at the young age of four- to seven-years-old,” he said.

Returning to his testimony, he wrote about flunking out of school due to excessive drinking, partying and promiscuity. But instead of taking responsibility for his own choices and irresponsible behavior, he blames it on his sexuality. But after two years in the ex-gay movement, he wrote that he had progressed so far in his ex-gayism that his “stomach actually turns” at the sight of “homosexual ‘relations'”:

…I can, in truth, firmly say that the longer I keep turning away from my homosexual desires, the less in strength they become. My homosexual feelings have definitely diminished since the night God started drawing me to Himself in September of 2010. Are they completely gone? No, they are not. Will they ever be completely gone? I do not know. But I do know this, I trust my God. I trust that everything He is doing is for my good (Romans 8:28). And I know this as well, no matter what thorns I may suffer in my flesh in this life, they are nothing to be compared with the unceasing joy and pleasure that will flow in and through me in when I step into glory with Jesus Christ.

I do not want to in any way insinuate that I have itD altogether and have completely overcome my struggle with sin, because I have not. A true Christian is in battle against sin every day of their entire life. The main thing that I struggle with the most still is pornography, but even that is changing. I don’t get the same satisfaction that I used to from it. My stomach actually turns at the site [sic] of homosexual “relations.” But I also know that if I continue to watch it and harden my heart toward the Holy Spirit’s conviction, I will start to see things again through the eyes of my sinful flesh rather than through the eyes of the Spirit.

The issue here is not that Matt Moore was caught on Grindr. The issue isn’t even that he was caught on Grindr while extolling the virtues of never being anywhere near something like Grindr. Nor is it that his stomach doesn’t really “turn” over what he says it does. It’s that he’s being promoted in a way to bring hope to other young people who are either being pressured into the ex-gay movement by their parents or peers, or who are desperately trying to deal with their “struggles” while looking to Moore as an example. As in this Christian Post article whose title says it all: Testimony of Gay Blogger Rescued From Lifestyle Inspires Others.

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, February 5

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Fundraising Campaign for Jamaica Anti-Gay Violence Documentary: Kickstarter. Micah Fink is a documentary filmmaker whose credits include PBS, National Geographic, CNN, and HBO, among others. For the past four years, he’s been working on a documentary, titled, An Abominable Crime: Anti-Gay Violence in Jamaica, which centers on two gay Jamaicans who were forced by homophobic violence to flee their homeland:

• Simone Edwards is a brave lesbian mother, who barely survives a murderous attack — and then is forced to choose between a life in hiding in Jamaica with her young daughter — or a life alone as an asylum seeker abroad.
• Maurice Tomlinson, Jamaica’s leading human rights activist and an active member of the MCC Church, is also forced to flee his homeland when he is publicly outed by a Jamaican newspaper — shortly after filing a legal challenge to Jamaica’s destructive anti-gay laws. The filmmakers follow him as he decides to risk his life by returning home to continue his work.

Since filming started in 2009, five characters in  have fled Jamaica after dealing with gunfire, mob violence, and death threats. The film is being partly supported by the Pulitzer Center of Crisis Reporting, a non-profit organization which will support the film’s distribution and screenings on college campuses. To complete the film itself, a Kickstarter campaign was launched to raise another $35,000 by March 2. For more information and to contribute, please click here.

British Parliament to Debate Same-Sex Marriage Bill: London, UK. British MPs will take up debate on the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill in the House of Commons today when the Bill comes up for its Second Reading. The text of the Bill as it stands today is here. This bill would apply to England and Wales Only. The  Scottish Parliament is working on a separate bill, but there is no movement on marriage quality in Northern  Ireland. The debate, which is scheduled to last for up to seven hours, starts today sometime after 12:30 UTC (7:30 a.m. EST). It will be carried live on BBC Parliament as well as on a television feed from the Parliament’s own web site.

Once the Second Reading is complete, the Bill goes to committee stage, where each clause and any amendments to the Bill may be debated. Once the committee stage is completed, the bill will return to the House floor for final debate and Third Reading. From then it goes to the House of Lords for its three Readings before being granted Royal Assent from the Queen.

Illinois Marriage Bill May Be Brought Up In Senate Committee: Springfield, IL. Reports are circulating that a bill granting marriage equality to Illinois same-sex couples is expected to go before a state Senate Executive Committee meeting today when it meets at 1:00 p.m. The bill, SB 110, could see a floor vote on Valentine’s Day.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Rep. Jon Hinson Arrested on Sodomy Charge: 1981. The closet can be a crazy place. When Rep. Jon Hinson (R-MS) was running for re-election to a second term in 1980, he admitted that in 1976, while he was working as a Congressional aide, he had been arrested for exposing himself to an undercover policeman at the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington National Cemetery. At that same news conference, Hinson also revealed that he was one of the survivors of a 1977 fire that broke out at Cinema Follies, a gay club in Washington’s seedy Southeast. That fire killed nine people. “I must be totally frank and tell you that both of these incidents were in areas frequented by some of Washington’s homosexual community,” he told stunned reporters. But he vowed to stay with his wife and denied that he was gay, blaming those incidents on heavy drinking, which he said that he had now gotten under control. Mississippi’s Republican party rallied around the Congressman and he was elected to a second term.

But just barely a month into that second term, Hinson was in trouble again. Hinson was arrested, along with another man, for having sex in a public men’s room in the Longworth House Office building. Hinson and the other man were arrested on charges of sodomy, a felony which carried a maximum penalty of ten years in prison. The charge was reduced to attempted sodomy, a misdemeanor — then a standard practice in D.C. —  to which Hinson entered a plea of not guilty and promptly checked himself into a hospital for “mental and physical fatigue.” He finally yielded to calls for his resignation in April and later changed his plea to no contest, for which he was given a 30-day suspended sentence and one year’s probation.

Soon after, Hinson finally came out as gay. He helped organize Virginians for Justice — by then he decided to remain in Fairfax, Virginia rather than return to Mississippi — and became something of a local gay rights activist as a founding member of the Fairfax Lesbian and Gay Citizens Association. Hinson died in 1995 from complications of AIDS.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
William S. Burroughs: 1914. A canonical figure of the Beat Generation, the novelist, poet, and spoken word performer’s best known work is his third novel, Naked Lunch. Published in 1959, it was immediately controversial for its obscene language, unabashed portrayal of Burroughs’s heroin addiction and frank descriptions of sex, including his own homosexuality. Naked Lunch was banned in Los Angeles and Boston, where it became last the work of literature to be prosecuted for being obscene in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court lifted the ban in 1966, following a series of trials that included testimony by Allen Ginsberg and Norman Mailer in support of Burroughs.

If there was a secret to Burroughs’s art, it was this: He simply put his chaotic life to paper. A longtime heroin addict, he and his wife fled to Mexico in 1950 after Louisiana police discovered letters between himself and Allen Ginsberg discussing a drug delivery. While there, he shot and killed his wife while playing “William Tell” at a party. He was eventually able to avoid imprisonment after witnesses testified that the gun went off accidentally. For the several decades, he was in and out of drug rehab and financially destitute much of the time before finally kicking the habit, temporarily, in the mid-1970s. It was at about that time when friends hit on the idea of booking him to read from his works in bookstores and other small performance spaces. His career as a performance artist was launched, which also revived his literary career. He went on to collaborate with Laurie Anderson, Throbbing Gristle, Kurt Cobain, Ministry, and Sonic Youth. He also appeared in Gus Van Sant’s 1989 film Drugstore Cowboy. He died in 1997 following a heart attack.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. Don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

And feel free to consider this your open thread for the day. What’s happening in your world?

Where do the Mormons stand on the gay scouting issue?

I’m sure most Turtlers who read that headline think they know the answer and that it isn’t pretty. But I’m not sure it’s all that clear. (New York Times)

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which sponsors more Scout troops than any other church, has deferred comment on the proposed change. But even if gay scouts were allowed into Mormon-sponsored troops, the same church membership rules would apply as they do now, a church spokesman said.

Gay and lesbian Mormons are welcomed into the church, the spokesman said, but must follow the same rules as heterosexual Mormons. That means no sex outside marriage, and in Mormon doctrine, same-sex marriage is not recognized as legitimate — even in states where it is legal.

To allow gay youth into a Mormon troop might not be all that much of a challenge. If there’s simply a ‘no boinking’ rule (as opposed to the ‘no existing’ rule favored by many opponents of our community) then it’s not more of an impediment to the good Mormon gay boy than it is to the good Mormon straight boy.

And considering their newfound support for gay Mormons – provided that they marry someone of the opposite sex – it would not surprise me to see them welcome as scoutmaster that peculiar oddity, the openly gay Mormon living as a straight man.