Box Turtle Bulletin

An interesting and encouraging poll of Latinos

I get truly irritated by “polls” that refuse to provide the original questions, the selection methodology, the margin of error, or anything else from which to judge if they have meaning. So a new “survey for NBC Latino” of 400 Hispanic Americans by Zogby is driving me nuts. They tell us nothing about the methodology or how those “surveyed” were selected, but they do provide that “Participants were surveyed between August 31 and September 4 and the results have a -/+4.8 percentage point of error.”

I say all that so as to preface that I place no reliance on this report. However, it is good news and probably not altogether surprising news to those who live in a high-Latino density location.

In 2008, Hispanic voters supported Proposition 8 with numbers (53%) that very nearly mirrored the public vote as a whole (52%). And as polls show us that the public position on marriage equality has significantly changed since 2008, it would seem reasonable that the shift in Hispanic Americans has followed the national trend.

Another finding that is interesting is that 74% of American Latinos identify as being “American” while another 19% identify as being both American and as “Being from my home country” (only 4% chose “home country” alone). While these numbers were a little bit higher than I expected, they don’t come as much of a surprise. Being Mexican-American or Salvadoran-American appears to me to be rapidly taking on the cultural relevance of being Italian-American or Irish-American (or may have already to a large degree done so), culturally interesting but not exactly the most defining characteristic.

But I simply refuse to believe one of their reported findings: by 56% to 28%, Latinos prefer burgers over tacos. Burger over tacos? No way!

I did a quick informal survey of my office co-workers. Oddly enough, my very multi-cultural office doesn’t have any Latinos currently working here but the results came out this way:

Burgers: the American born Japanese lady and Vietnamese guy.
Tacos: the coworkers born in Israel, Norway, England, and the Philippines. And me.

Because EVERYTHING is ALWAYS all about TEH GHEYYYYYYY!!!!

The Southern Poverty Law Center has a program called Mix It Up At Lunch Day. The premise is simple:

In our surveys, students have identified the cafeteria as the place where divisions are most clearly drawn. So on one day – October 30 this school year – we ask students to move out of their comfort zones and connect with someone new over lunch. It’s a simple act with profound implications. Studies have shown that interactions across group lines can help reduce prejudice. When students interact with those who are different from them, biases and misperceptions can fall away.

They have a whole website of strategy, planning, tips, advice, and encouragement for the change that can come when – for just one day – kids sit with and talk to someone who is “not like them”. It seems mostly driven to erase racial or ethnic presumptions, but also seems to be attempting to be cross-clique as well.

But, to the homosexually-obsessed, this is about Teh Ghey!!! Because, you know, the Southern Poverty Law Center, in addition to the other thousand hate-groups they track, also list 26 anti-gay hate groups.

Here’s how the American Family Association described the event on Monday:

On, Tuesday, October 30, over two thousand schools across the nation will be observing “Mix It Up” (MIT) day. MIT is a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools. A strong focus is directed specifically to elementary and junior high grades.

MIT is a project of the fanatical pro-homosexual group, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). This is the same organization that launched hateful and malicious rhetoric toward the Family Research Council just prior to the August shooting of a security guard by a SPLC sympathizer.

AFA is joining other family-oriented groups in urging parents to keep their children at home that day if their local school is sponsoring the “Mix It Up” project.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is using this project to bully-push its gay agenda, and at the same time, intimidate and silence students who have a Biblical view of homosexuality.

Today, they toss the last shred of honesty out the window with their description of SPLC:

The homosexual activist group, Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), has been called to task by public school administrators across the nation for falsely listing schools as participants in “Mix It Up” day without authorization or permission.

“Mix It Up” day is an entry-level “diversity” program designed specifically by SPCL to establish the acceptance of homosexuality into public schools, including elementary and junior high schools.

Many school administrators were offended to learn that their school was listed as a “participating” school on the SPLC website and ordered it removed immediately. In some cases, students or teachers independently signed the school up without approval, leaving principals and superintendents unprepared for phone calls from concerned parents.

Does Mix It Up Day seek to establish the acceptance of homosexuality? No. Not that this would be a bad goal, but it appears no where on the event’s website. Not even close.

In fact, the only tangential reference to anything remotely gay that I could find is:

During the past decade we have learned that schools experience deeper impacts from Mix It Up when they plan at least two follow-up activities during the year to sustain the message.

Two other national campaigns are natural allies for this work and can help with timing the follow-up activities: No Name-Calling Week for elementary grades and Day of Silence for middle and high schools.

Also, consider a Day of Service where you carry out a community project (cleaning up a park, helping a local nonprofit, etc.). Working together for a greater good, while crossing those social boundaries, is another way to diminish prejudice and reduce biases. (It’s also another chance for positive media coverage involving young people!)

Or, you can simply Mix It Up at Lunch again, on other days through the year. (Some schools now Mix It Up at Lunch on a monthly or even weekly basis!)

That’s it. A reference to Day of Silence as one of several possible follow up ideas.

As the SPLC noted:

Describing Mix this way is an out-and-out lie. As educators know, Mix It Up is a simple effort to get students to break through social boundaries and make new friends. Each school sets its own agenda, makes its own plans and chooses its own theme. Last year, over 3,000 schools participated in the program without incident. (You can check out some of the great Mix success stories here.)

None of that seems to matter to the AFA, a group that specializes in demonizing the LGBT community and stirring up hate. Incredibly, the AFA has linked homosexuality to the Holocaust, saying, “Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.” It has also made racist claims such as welfare causes black people to “rut like rabbits.”

But when all you can think about, when what you obsess about, when your whole world is focused on homosexuality, everything is always all about teh ghey!!!! (And besides, there’s no money to be made on people getting along)

Martin Ssempa (the “Eat Da Poo-poo” Pastor), Five Others Convicted by Ugandan Court Over False Sodomy Charges

L-R: Pasters Solomon Male, Michael Kyazze and Martin Ssempa in court recently. (Photo via Daily Monitor)

Martin Ssempa and Solomon Male were among four Ugandan pastors, along with a business man and a musician, who were convicted by a Kampala court for conspiring to tarnish a rival pastor’s reputation by accusing him of homosexuality. According to Daily Monitor, Uganda’s largest independent newspaper:

Pastors Solomon Male, Martin Ssempa, Michael Kyazze and Robert Kaira, together with Ms  Deborah Anita Kyomuhendo, a businesswoman and David Mukalazi, a musician, were convicted by Buganda Road Grade I magistrate, Julius Borore.

Mr Borore sentenced them to a fine of Shs1 million each and community service of 100 hours or serve six months in prison upon failure to pay the fine and performing community service.  Community service is where a convict is forced perform manual labour like digging, cleaning public facilities such as schools, collecting garbage among other chores.

The six are still being held in a holding cell at Buganda road court as they make up their minds. Meanhile Kayanja’s supporters are chanting outside court.

The magistrate said the case is sensitive in nature adding that genocides around the world have happened after the propagation of false information.

The fine of Shs1 million is equivalent to US$390.

One of the more immediate fallouts of the infamous March 2009 conference put on by Scott Lively and two other American anti-gay activists in Kampala, besides the notorious Anti-Homosexuality Bill, was a long and fearsome anti-gay vigilante campaign waged by the tabloids and on television and radio, with the full backing and participation by Ssempa and Male. During the anti-gay hysteria that swept Uganda, Ssempa and Male were among other powerful pastors who took the opportunity to launch wild accusations against rival pastors in a bid to increase their own power base and financial clout.

This particular case revolved around charges that Ssempa, Male and others made against Pastor Robert Kayanja of the Rubaga Miracle Center Cathedral of being a homosexual, along with “a group of other pastors.” Before they made their charges public in the summer of 2009, Kayanja’s personal aide, Chris Muwonge, was allegedly kidnapped and tortured by armed men and held for five days. His captors allegedly wanted him to make a video statement accusing Kayenja of molesting young boys. Kayanja accused his rival, Pastor Michael Kyazze of the Omega Healing Center of being behind the plot. The ensuring investigation ultimately connected Ssempa and Male to the conspiracy.

Ssempa at one time had been a darling of American Evangelicals, boasting of ties to Saddleback Pastor Rick Warren; Peter E. Waldron, a Christian Reconstructionist and close advisor to Rep. Michele Bachman; Las Vegas megachurch Canyon Ridge Community Church; Willow Creek Church; among several others. Most (though not all) American Evangelicals have broken their ties with Ssempa since 2009. When Warren denounced the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, Ssempa issued a sharp video rebuke against his former friend.

As part of Ssempa’s public campaign to push the Anti-Homosexuality Bill through Parliament, he resorted to showing graphic gay porn in his church and at new conferences. When one of those news conferences was filmed for CurrentTV’s documentary “Missionaries of Hate,” the clips of Ssempa alleging that gay people “eat da poo-poo” became an internet sensation.

Is Gay Marriage a Threat to Religious Freedom?

Marriage is on the ballot in four states this year. Voters in Maine, Maryland, and Washington will decide whether same-sex couples will be allowed to marry, while Minnesota voters will determine whether to write discrimination into their state’s constitution. The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the Witherspoon Institute, and many, many other organizations are mobilizing their resources to push their anti-gay arguments.  Professor John Corvino is intimately familiar with those arguments, having just published a book with NOM’s co-founder Maggie Gallagher titled Debating Same-Sex Marriage, the only book ever endorsed both by Rick Santorum and Dan Savage. Corvino has also posted a valuable series of videos taking apart those arguements, one by one. You can see the entire series here.

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, October 3

TODAY’S AGENDA:
Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Asheville, NC; Baltimore, MD (Black Pride); Belgrade, Serbia; Cymru UK; Dallas, TX (Black Pride); Ft. Worth, TX; Johannesburg, South Africa; Memphis, TN; Miami Beach, FL (Hispanic Pride); Orlando, FL.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: Columbus, OH; Dallas, TX.

Other Events This Weekend: Gay Days, Anaheim, CA; Alaska Pride Conference, Anchorage, AK; Floatilla, Hong Kong, China; Key West Bear Fest, Key West, FL; Black and Blue Festival, Montreal, QC; OctoBEARfest, New York, NY; Chéries-Chéris Film Festival, Paris, France; Rainbow Festival, Phoenix, AZ.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Congressman Pleads No Contest For Soliciting a Teen Male Prostitute: 1980. Rep. Bob Bauman (R-MD) had a history of voting for anti-gay bills in Congress. He voted twice to deny federal funds to lawyers dealing with gay rights itsues, and he backed a “family protection bill” that would have explicitly legalized discrimination in housing and employment based on sexual orientation. He was one of the brightest stars of the far right, serving as chairman for the American Conservative Union. But on this date in history, Bauman was charged by D.C. police for “soliciting sex from a sixteen-year old boy.” It turns out he had a habit of cruising gay bars in Washington, D.C., a habit he blamed entirely on alcohol. A judge bought his story and accepted his not guilty plea in exchange for entering a six-month alcohol rehabilitation course. Voters in his district didn’t buy it though. Despite the Ronald Reagan-led Republican landslide in November, Bauman lost his Congressional seat, and his wife walked out the following June.

In 1986, he wrote his memoir, The Gentleman from Maryland, not because he wanted to tell his story but because he was broke. He wrote that his downfall was orchestrated by the Carter administration, House Speaker “Tip” O’Neill and a Maryland senator who considered him a potential rival. As for himself, he told one interviewer, “I still don’t like being gay. If I had my druthers, I wouldn’t be gay.” But he did begin to accept himself and, for a while in the mid-1080s, tried to organize a conservative gay rights organization. That effort fell apart when other gay Republicans refused to go public or write checks to support the group. (Some would, however, donate smaller amounts in cash because it couldn’t be traced.) Bauman is now an attorney for the Sovereign Society, a group which provides expatriation services for Americans looking for offshore tax havens.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Gore Vidal: 1925. Okay, I mean seriously. Where does one begin? I guess you can start with his writing: his 1946 novel Williwaw, written when he was 21, was a a success, but not nearly as notorious as his second one two year later. The City and the Pillar (dedicated to “J.T.” in an oblique reference to James Trimble III, Gore’s first love why died on Iwo Jima) was the first major novel to deal directly with male homosexuality — so directly that Orville Prescott, The New York Times book critic, refused to allow the Times to review Vidal’s next five books. Vidal managed to work around the Times’s boycott by publishing several mysteries under the pseudonym of Edgar Box. He worked on the script for the film Ben-Hur, including adding a gay subtext to the relationship between Messala and Ben-Hur (played by Charlton Heston, who was oblivious to the gay references). Over the course of his life, Vidal published thirty-one novels and story collections, eight plays, fourteen screen-plays (including the infamous 1979 cult classic Caligula), and countless essays on whatever subject that struck his fancy — and his fancy was struck by an unusually wide variety of topics.

But as famous as he was for his writing, he was probably just as famous — and maybe even moreso — for his public appearances, for which Gore could always be counted on to say something shocking. Most famous of his public appearances, perhaps, came in 1968 when ABC Nes invited Gore and William F. Buckley, Hr. to provide political analysis during the Republican and Democratic conventions. It was during one of those discussions, carried live on national TV, that Gore responded to Buckley’s complaint about “pro-Nazi” protesters with, “As far as I’m concerned, the only sort of pro-crypto-Nazi I can think of is yourself.” An obviously livid Buckley then replied, “Now listen, you queer. Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi, or I’ll sock you in the goddamn face and you’ll stay plastered.” The Gore and Buckley feud continued to play out in competing essays in Esquire and in court where they sued each other for libel.

When Gore died in earlier this year, many obituaries identified him as either gay or bisexual. If he were alive, he would have loudly railed against pinning an identity on him. He hated the very idea of identity, particularly a gay one, believing that they were inherently false. He believed more in the ninetheenth-century concept which saw sex and sexuality as simply something one does, and he had no patience whatsoever for those who sought to build an identity — let alone a movement — over something called gay. In that way, he had much in common with anti-gay activists who believe that the very concept of “orientation” is some sort of a homosexual plot to change the world. And yet, Gore’s own promiscuous pansexuality — he said that he had had more than a thousand liaisons before the age of 25 — underscored his own comfort with ignoring the constraints that others would put on him. And yet, he was also an iconoclast’s iconoclast: he maintained a loving, loyal and long-term relationship with his partner, Howard Austen, for fifty-two years until Austen died in 2003. Gore said that the secret to their longevity was that they only had sex once, in the beginning, and then no more. He explained it this way: “t’s easy to sustain a relationship when sex plays no part & impossible, I have observed, when it does.”

Jake Shears: 1978. He was born in Arizona, but grew up north of Seattle on San Juan Island. When he turned fifteen, he sought out Dan Savage for advice on whether he should come out to his parents. Savage gave him what he later called the worst advice he has ever given:

And after he told me everything I was like: “Oh, they know. They’re just waiting for you to tell them. You should tell them. Just come out to them. They’re waiting. They’re ready.” And he came out to them and they didn’t know and it was a big disaster and they threatened to pull him out of school and they were really angry and so he called me. I had a radio show and he called me and I got him off the air and got his mother’s phone number and called my mother and gave my mother Jake’s mother’s phone number and had my mom call him mom and yell at her. And it helped, but yeah, I gave him so really shitty advice.

(Savage now says that “not everybody is in a position where that is wise or safe and we have to tell these gay teenagers to take a cold, hard look at who their families are and where they live before they take that step.” But this isn’t about Savage, it’s about Shears.) When Jake was nineteen, he traveled to Lexington, Kentucky to meet up with a former classmate, and that’s where he met Scott Hoffman (a.k.a Babydaddy). They hit it off immediately, and that turned into Shears’s second great turning point in his life. They move to New York the following year, where they immediately immersed themselves into the city’s gay nightlife. In 2000, they formed the Fibrillating Scissor Sisters and began performing in underground clubs. When Ana “Ana Matronic” Lynch joined the duo in 2001, they dropped the word “Fibrillating” from their name and began performing as the Scissor Sisters. They were soon joined by Derik “Del Marquis” Gruen on lead guitar and Patrick “Paddy Boom” Seacor on drums, the band’s token heterosexual. In 2002, th band cut a single, “Electrobix” which proved to be less popular than its B-side, a cover of Pink Floyd’s “Comforably Numb.”

That got the attention of major record labels, and by 2003 they were recording for Polydor. They proved popular in Britain, but their success in America was thwarted by conservative radio programmers and Wal-Mart, then the largest music seller in the country. Wal-Mart, in particular, objected to the song “Tits On the Radio,” which they described as a “snarling, swaggering attack on conservatism,” and demanded the band record a “clean” version. The band refused.

Their latest album, Night Work, came out in 2010, includes vocals by Kylie Minogue and a spoken word segue by Ian McKellen. Later that year, Shears contributed a video to Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” project, where he talked about the abuse he suffered in high school after coming out, and how he channels those memories into his energetic performances today. The Scissor Sisters are currently on a world tour in support of their latest album, Magic Hour, which features the single “Only the Horses.”

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?

Oh Noes! The FBI is going to Teh Ghey!

Don’t you just love self parody?

The Catholic “news” source LifeSiteNews is trotting out the rantings of certified loon, Brian Camenker: “Obama’s FBI and CIA ‘going gay’ warns pro-family activist.”

Both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency have embraced the homosexual movement, posing a new threat to the country’s sexual morals and to pro-family activists, according to Brian Camenker of the Massachusetts pro-life and pro-family organization MassResistance.

Poor Brian Camenker. It must be tough going through life with no sense of irony.

Marriage, just like christening

Marriage is a institution in the United States that has both a religious and a civil component. But it is not the only one.

Another institution that is religious in nature that also has had a civil component is christening. Though this is less evident and a less common practice, christening or baptismal documents can in many instances be presented as evidence of citizenship. Take, for example, the Florida requirements for obtaining a driver’s license. Each citizen must produce a primary document (birth certificate, naturalization papers, etc.) and a secondary document, one of which can be “Baptism certificate, which shows date of birth and the place of baptism.”

Baptismal documents are no longer a frequent proof of birth. The social security system, use of hospitals for birth, and the adoption of state birth certificates has pretty much diminished the need. But as genealogists well know, for a significant time in this country they were the primary evidence of birth and even after the incorporation of birth records, frequently fires, lost records, racial discrimination, reconfigured county lines and inconsistent record keeping would result in church records being far more thorough and reliable than municipal records. For much of our nation’s history it was these religious documents that provided evidence of citizenship. And though it is rare, some very elderly people still rely on these records as proof of birth.

Which is an interesting parallel.

Because, just like marriage, different faiths had strongly divergent baptismal beliefs and practices. Some, like Catholics and Lutherans, practice water baptism (generally a sprinkling or dripping of water) while other protestants strenuously object to baptism before the age of consent and instead will bless or dedicate a child. But in either case, the parent will receive a document recognizing the event and listing the relevant details.

Which raises the point, what if some religious advocates sought an amendment in Florida declaring that baptismal documents would be “defined” by the state to include only for such ceremonies as conformed with Catholic doctrine? And suppose their campaign was sold to the public solely in terms of “what God designed”.

I think that there is little question that a number of denominations would immediately sue to have such an initiative stricken from the ballot as being a violation of the separation of church and state. And they would win, and rightly so.

Which makes me wonder, why doesn’t the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America or the Episcopal Church or Reformed Judaism sue to have Minnesota’s discriminatory amendment stricken from the ballot? It discriminates along doctrinal lines, declaring that such marriages as are sanctioned by one church are recognized by the state while the theological practice of another church is declared to be void. And the campaign is presented purely along theological lines; their ads defend anti-gay marriage law because “it was made by God” which declares in no uncertain terms that the state of Minnesota will vote whether the beliefs about what “God made” will include the teachings of Lutherans and other liberal Christians and Jews or be excluded to just what Catholics, Mormons and other conservatives believe.

It is time for those churches who believe that the call for justice and mercy as an integral doctrine of faith compels them to defend the marriage rights of gay citizens put their faith in action. They are victims of these amendments, just as we are. They need to stand up and be strong and demand that the anti-mainline-Christianity bigotry and anti-Jewish bigotry that is all over the face of these laws cease and hold no legal standing.

Otherwise it seems to me that their beliefs about baptismal documents are more important to them than their belief in equality.

Masturbation is Satan’s Plot to Silence the Church Forever

I found some more unintended hilarity. JoeMyGod points us to a new Christian political party:

As the Party of No Compromise, the New Independent Christian Party intends to influence the outcome of American elections and uphold the Godly principles by which America was built and by which Christians believe, live and exist.

I took a moment to look into the party founders and discovered this, written by  Bishop Janice Fountaine:

The practice of homosexuality and self-pleasure, are age old systems, being recharged and reorganized for end-time warfare. It is being orchestrated from the diabolical realms of the supernatural and manifested on earth, with the overall intention, to silence the church forever. These actions, by satan, is an all out declaration of victory, as the church finds itself caught off guard and intertwined in his evil end-time warafre, strategies and systems.

I imagine the enemy’s plan looks something like this:

Step 1:  Masturbate.

Step 2:  ???

Step 3:  Satan!

Just remember that when your thoughts stray down Gyllenhaal lane.

Ukraine’s Parliament: “Don’t Say Gay”

Svyatoslav Sheremet, head of Gay Forum of Ukraine, was beaten after a scheduled gay-pride parade was cancelled in May, 2012. (Anatolii Stepanov, Reuters/Landov)

Ukraine’s parliament today approved a first reading of a bill which would impose prison sentences of up to five years for anyone who would dare to say anything good about gay people. The vote was 289 deputies voting for the bill, with nobody voting against and just one abstention. Another 60 deputies were absent during the vote.

The bill would prohibit “propaganda of homosexuality,” which it vaguely defines as positive public depiction of gay people. It is in many respects similar to legislation enacted in St. Petersburg, Russia and which may be considered by the Russia’s central government. 

In May, Kiev authorities cancelled a Pride march at the last minute. A Pride organizer was then savagely beaten when he tried to meet with reporters shortly after the cancellation. Reporters merely looked on and snapped photos. That kind of propaganda would be permissible under the proposed legislation.

A second and final vote in Ukraine’s Parliament is tentatively scheduled for October 16.

British Mental Health Group Calls Conversion Therapy Unethical

The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, the U.K.’s largest professional organization for psychotherapists, has issued a new policy statement (PDF: 627KB/1 page) which reminds members that “there is no scientific, rational or ethical reason” to try to change someone’s sexual orientation:

The British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) is dedicated to social diversity, equality and inclusivity of treatment without discrimination of any kind. BACP opposes any psychological treatment such as ‘reparative’ or ‘conversion’ therapy which is based upon the assumption that homosexuality is a mental disorder, or based on the premise that the client/patient should change his/her sexuality.

BACP recognises the PAHO/WHO (2012) recent position statement that practices such as conversion or reparative therapies ‘have no medical indication and represent a severe threat to the health and human rights of the affected persons’.

BACP recognises that the diversity of human sexualities is compatible with normal mental health and social adjustment (Royal College of Psychiatrists). A recent research review (King, et al 2007) showed that those who do not identify as heterosexual may be misunderstood by some therapists, who see the client/patient’s sexuality as the root cause of their presenting issue. The ability to appreciate differences between people, to commit to equality of opportunity, and to avoid discrimination against people or groups contrary to their legitimate personal or social circumstances, is central to ethical and professional practice (BACP 2010, Ethical Framework).

BACP believes that socially inclusive, non-judgemental attitudes to people who identify across the diverse range of human sexualities will have positive consequences for those individuals, as well as for the wider society in which they live. There is no scientific, rational or ethical reason to treat people who identify within a range of human sexualities any differently from those who identify solely as heterosexual.

The BACP cites a recent statement from the Pan American Health Organization which called on governments to impose “adequate sanctions” against Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE), which PAHO said, “health professionals who offer ‘reparative therapies’ align themselves with social prejudices and reflect a stark ignorance in matters of sexuality and sexual health.”

In 2010, the British Medical Association approved a motion saying the National Health Service should not fund SOCE. That statement came after a reporter for The Independent went undercover and reported on a NARTH-affiliated therapist who offered SOCE. In the first session, the therapist sought to uncover the source of the reporter’s homosexuality by asking about childhood neglect, whether he had a difficult birth, and whether anyone in the family practiced Freemasonry. That therapist, later identified as Lesley Pilkington, was expelled from the BACP last May for professional malpractice.

Is Gay Marriage a Threat to Traditional Marriage?

Marriage is on the ballot in four states this year. Voters in Maine, Maryland, and Washington will decide whether same-sex couples will be allowed to marry, while Minnesota voters will determine whether to write discrimination into their state’s constitution. The National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the Witherspoon Institute, and many, many other organizations are mobilizing their resources to push their anti-gay arguments.  Professor John Corvino is intimately familiar with those arguments, having just published a book with NOM’s co-founder Maggie Gallagher titled Debating Same-Sex Marriage, the only book ever endorsed both by Rick Santorum and Dan Savage. Corvino has also posted a valuable series of videos taking apart those arguements, one by one. You can see the entire series here.

The Daily Agenda for Tuesday, October 2

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Baltimore Police Arrest 162 in Bar Raid: 1955. At 200 N. Gay Street — an appropriate address if there ever was one — stood the Pepper Hill Club, a nightclub popular with gay people. Because of its reputation, the Pepper Hill Club quickly became a target for the city’s vice squad. At 11:00 p.m., Lt.Byrne and officer Edgar Kirby stopped in to check on the club, looked around, then left. Less than an hour later, police descended on the club and arrested all 162 patrons, employees and owners for “lewd behavior,” which consisted of male couples hugging, dancing and kissing. “We were met by a human wall,” Sgt. Hyman Goldstein later testified. “We found complete disorder, and in the rear of the place there was no light at all. Back there we found several couples.” He also testified that most of those arrested were from Washington. “We have received word that Washington police are conducting a drive on homosexuals; apparently some of them are coming to Baltimore for their entertainment.”

The raid, which was billed as “the largest night club raid ever conducted in Baltimore,” took place in direct contravention of police policy. Just a few weeks earlier, police had conducted a mass raid at a straight nightclub, and outrage over that raid led police commissioner James Hepbron to ban mass raids. And so when the courts acquitted nearly everyone in the Pepper Hill case — only five were convicted of disorderly conduct — Circuit Judge James K. Cullen sharply reprimanded the police department for the mass arrests. Commissioner Hepbron agreed with the judge and promised that it wouldn’t happen again, saying that the department’s policy against wholesale arrests would be “reiterated, re-emphasized and, if necessary, re-enforced.” The following year, the state legislature passed what became known as the “Pepper Hill Law” which formally outlawed mass arrests during bar raids.

Federal Panel Urges Decriminalizing Homosexuality:1969. A fourteen-member panel of doctors, lawers, and social and behavioral scientists led by UCLA’s Evelyn Hooker released a report urging the United States abolish all laws forbidding private same-sex relationships among consenting adults. The panel found, “Homosexuality presents a major problem for our society largely because of the amount of injustice and suffering entailed in it not only for the homosexual but also for those concerned about him.”

About existing anti-gay laws on the books, the panel noted, “There is evidence to indicate that entrapment is not uncommon, that existing laws are selectively enforced, and that serious injustice often results.” The report added, “Many homosexuals are good citizens, holding regular jobs and leading productive lives. The existence of legal penalties relating to homosexual acts means that the mental health problems of homosexuals are exacerbated by the need for concealment and the emotional stresses arising from this need and from the opprobrium of being in violation of the law.”

At the time the report was issued, homosexuality was a criminal offense in every state except Illinois. Between 1971 and 1980, twenty-two more states would descriminalize homosexuality. But progress slowed with the onset of the AIDS hysteria, when only fifteen states and the District of Columbia removed their anti-homosexuality statutes from the books between 1981 and 2003, when Lawrence v. Texas finally struck down anti-gay laws nationwide.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Annie Leibovitz: 1949. “My mother and father took photographs and made eight-millimeter home movies when I was growing up, but I didn’t start taking pictures myself until the late Sixties when I was studying at the San Francisco Art Institute,” she explained in her 2006 monograph, A Photographer’s Life: 1990-2005. She further developed her photography skills while on a kibbutz in Israel in 1969, When she returned to the U.S. in 1970, she became staff photographer for Rolling Stone, quickly rising to chief photographer from 1973 to 1983. While she is known as a portraiture artist, she took her favorite photos while doing reportage, particularly when she was concert-tour photographer for the Rolling Stones in 1975.

While she liked that work, her personal style of reportage was distinct from photo-journalism. “I’m not a journalist,” she wrote. “A journalist doesn’t take sides, and I don’t want to go through life like that.” Her point of view took her all over the world, including the Sarajevo siege in 1993 and the world’s capitals to photograph kings, queens and celebrities. It’s hard to pick one photo as a perfect example of her intimate style — the touching photos that she took of her lover Susan Sontag on her death bed are particularly poignant — but the most iconic photo perhaps is the 1980 portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono that appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone. It turned out that Leibovitz would be the last person to professionally photograph John Lennon on that fateful December day: Lennon was murdered five hours later outside his apartment building in New York City.

In 2001, Leibovitz became a mother for the first time at the age of 52, but the years following would prove to be difficult for her. She spent most of 2004 taking care of Sontag, who was dying of myelodysplastic syndrome which evolved into leukemia. Sontag died the following December. Leibovitz’s father died six weeks later. Editing the photos for A Photographer’s Life: 1990-2005 was an important part of her grieving process. “I would go into (her workshop) every morning and cry for ten minutes or so and then start working, editing the pictures. I cried for a month. I didn’t realize until later how far the work on the book had taken me through the grieving process.”

Her grieving wasn’t over: her mother died in 2008, and in 2009 Leibovitz fell into serious financial difficulties. She borrowed $15.5 million, using the rights to all of her photographs as collateral. The New York Times< tried to figure out how an artist of such renown could be in such financial trouble. It cited several personal issues, including the recent loss of her father, mother, and Sontag, who died in 2004, and a costly renovation of her townhouses in Greenwich Village. Eventually she was able to negotiate her way through her financial problems and retain control of her work.

In 2011, she published her latest book Pilgrimage, which probably represents her most personal work to date, even though there are no people in the book. She began photographing the pictures for it while dealing with her financial struggles in 2009. She decided to go to places where she had no agenda, no assignment, no requirements from clients. Instead, she chose locations and subjects that meant something to her: Emily Dickinson’s house, Niagara Falls, Sigmund Freud’s couch. “I have a bit of a feeling that I’ve had it with people,” she told The New York Times. “But you don’t ever get away from people, really. And these are pictures of people to me. It’s all we have left to represent them. I’m dealing with things that are going away, disappearing, crumbling. How do we hold on to stuff?”

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?

Polls are looking good

There is more than a month to go and polls on marriage seem to overestimate support. However, the latest round of polls should give us tentative encouragement.

Maine: (Morning Sentinel)

The referendum proposal to legalize same-sex marriage in Maine leads 57 percent to 36 percent in the poll, with 7 percent saying they are undecided.

The 21-percentage point lead is almost identical to the findings of the June poll. It is a larger lead than was measured by three other recent polls, although the differences are within the polls’ margins of error.

Maryland: (Baltimore Sun)

Five weeks before the election, a measure to legalize same-sex marriage in Maryland has seen a surge of support and is now favored by likely voters, 49 percent to 39 percent, a new Baltimore Sun poll has found.
…
A high black turnout was a prospect once viewed with trepidation by proponents of same-sex marriage. In March, an OpinionWorks poll found less than a third of African-Americans supported the measure.

Since then, however, there’s been a dramatic shift in the attitudes of black voters, according to the new Sun poll. It found more than half of likely black voters favor legalizing same-sex marriage, compared with a quarter who are opposed.

Minnesota:

The latest is about a week old but it is a virtual tie with 49% favoring the ban and 47% opposed.

Washington: (Washington United)

According to the KING 5/Survey USA poll of 524 Likely Voters from Sept. 7 through Sept. 9, 56% of those surveyed would vote to approve Referendum 74 while 38% would vote to reject. The poll has a margin of error of 4.3%.

Because biblical marriage is jumping a broom or something

From time to time you come across a group so misinformed that you wonder if it’s a spoof. Today I ran across Jump the Broom for Marriage, and anti-gay group. This is their “about” description:

Jumping the Broom: The First African American Civil Right

Conceivably, the first civil right African-Americans obtained in this country was their right to marry. After being brutally forced to a country without their consent to serve as slaves, they were strategically separated from their homeland, homes, families and family traditions. Viewed as property, they possessed no legal rights. Their names were even taken from them. Yet, these resilient people had something that no man or demon in hell could take away, their faith! A simple act of jumping the broom symbolizes the first civil right. Today, the gay community is saying Marriage Equality is a Civil Right.

Jumping the broom, during the slavery of Africans in America, was an act with no legal consequence. Being denied even the basic human dignity of family, having those whom considered themselves superior restrict any civil protection, this was a sign to the couple and those around them that they were committing to each other – to the extent they were allowed. There is no parallel in today’s society, but some echoes can be heard in same-sex commitment ceremonies in those parts of the country in which gay couples are seen as inferior and granted no civil protections.

And as for the faith of African-Americans, only someone lacking the most basic knowledge in history would be unaware that the faith that West Africans brought with them across the ocean was largely replaced by the faith of their oppressors.

Jump the Broom for Marriage are a confused mess. Their motto is “Marriage: True to Our God, True to Our Native Land” and they are shooting for the goal of “preserving the biblical values and covenant rights of marriage between one man and one woman in all communities throughout Maryland through education, mobilization, advocacy and public policy that promote our spiritual values and heritage.”

But, and I may be cynical, I suspect that very little time went into planning the strategy page and more attention was paid to the “donate here” page. After all, when I read that I could sponsor lunch on election day for ten people for the tiny price of $465 or ten lawn signs for $30 each, I had a suspicion that just maybe this particular group was less dedicated to the mission than they were to the money.

NARTH, Liberty Counsel to Challenge California’s Ex-Gay Ban for Minors in Court

The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) has just sent an email blast by president Christopher Rosik, announcing that they fight California’s new ban on licensed therapists providing Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE) to minors:

NARTH is saddened but not surprised by this unprecedented legislative intrusion and will lend its full support to the legal efforts to overturn it. California citizens and especially parents should know the indifference that supporters of this bill have toward their freedom of choice, as reflected in Senator Lieu’s recent acknowledgement that, “The attack on parental rights is exactly the whole point of the bill…” The Senator went on to equate the harms to minors of smoking and alcohol abuse, which have been documented over decades of research, with the reported harms of sexual orientation change efforts, the prevalence of which the American Psychological Association admits we have no way of knowing.
 
Anecdotal stories of harm are no basis from which to ban an entire form of psychological care. If they were, the psychological professions would be completely out of business. We fully anticipate that activist groups like Equality California will be back next year to see what further erosions of parental rights and professional judgment politicians and mental health associations will authorize in California and other states. Counselors adhering to traditional values cannot be blamed for wondering what other practices disliked by these activists are going to be targeted as “unprofessional conduct” in the future, particularly in states that have legalized same-sex marriage.

The non-sequiter about same-sex marriage is puzzling. California currently prohibits same-sex marraige. NARTH will join forces with Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel in challenging the California law in court.

“We are filing on behalf of mental health professionals who find themselves in a catch-22,” Staver said.  Therapists have an ethical obligation to help clients deal with conflict. If a client is experiencing conflict between religious beliefs and same-sex attractions and wants to prioritize those beliefs over such attractions, the counselor is ethically obligated to directly help or refer for help. Under this law, the counselor will be forced to disregard the client’s religious beliefs or change them. “This bill and the ethical codes of all of the licensing boards in California are on an inevitable collision course,” Staver said. “The licenses of countless mental health professionals hang in the balance.”

Therapists also have an ethical obligation to provide effective treatment. There is, to date, no evidence (PDF: 816KB/138 pages) that SOCE is or has been effective in changing sexual orientation, making it, essentially, the Laetrile of the social sciences.