Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyJanuary 22nd, 2012
TODAY’S BIRTHDAY:
Elaine Noble: 1944. Before Harvey Milk won political office in San Francisco, there was Elaine Noble in Boston. When she won her Massachusetts state House of Representatives seat in 1974, she became the first non-incumbent “avowed homosexual” to be elected to public office. It was a nasty campaign from beginning to end: her windows were shot out, her car was vandalized, and windows were smashed at her campaign headquarters. As she later recalled, “I was elected in a largely Irish-Catholic town. I was elected in spite of being gay. In the height of desegregation in Boston, I was riding on the buses with children of color. The gay community was just as racist as the straight community. So I had a lot of issues around race… There was a level of animosity in all strata of society against homosexuality.” She won 59% of the vote by focusing on the things the people in her district cared about: crime, health care, housing for the district’s many elderly residents, and the neglect in city services.
But the harassment continued even after she took office. “One day, I was walking to the State House and there was a guy, 85 years old, and he walked up and said, ”Rep. Noble.” And I reached up to shake his hand and he spit on me. And then I turned around and he started doing his diatribe. I walked all the way home, showered and changed my clothes. So, even walking to work or riding my bike to work was not terribly safe.” She not only had to deal with obscene profanities, she once found human feces left in her desk. But when she stood for re-election two years later, she won with almost 90% of the vote. In 1977, she was part of the first delegation of gay men and lesbians invited to the Jimmy Carter White House to discuss issues important to the LGBT community. Being such an important “first” took its toll on her though, and she decided against running for re-election in 1978:
My phone was ringing constantly from people all over the country who had very frightened voices. There were people all over the country calling and asking if I would come and speak. They’d say, “Well, you have a responsibility to a bigger constituency.” I was pulled in a thousand different ways. It was not going to have a happy ending and I was smart enough to know that. I thought, “Well, I’ve done my best. It’s time for me to move on to the next step in my own life. I’ve paid my dues.”
Since then, with the exception of an occasional interview, she has mostly been living a considerably quieter private life.
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?
January 21st, 2012
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich dominated the South Carolina primary this evening with 40% of the vote totals, outdistancing former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by twelve percentage points. It is barely a higher winning vote percentage than Romney’s 39% first place showing in New Hampshire and his 25% placement in Iowa. Romney went into South Carolina as the heavy favorite, but saw his final tally drop to 28% after back-to-back drubbings in two debates this week. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum came in fourth at 17% behind the Box of Rocks, and Ron Paul pulled up the rear at 13%.
According to the exit polls, those Evangelical leaders who tried to anoint Santorum as their Messiah don’t have nearly the influence they thought they had. Among those who identify as Evangelical (and they make up two-thirds of the total GOP vote in South Carolina), Santorum actually tied with Romney to pick up 21% each, while Gingrich galloped away with 44% of the born-again vote — although, tellingly, Gingrich came in dead last (not counting a few stray Perry votes) among those who consider “Strong Moral Character” the most important quality in a candidate. Only six percent of those gave Gingrich their nod, while 43% went with Santorum. Also tellingly, among voters who were looking for a “True Conservative,” only 2% thought Romney had it.
The debates this week proved pivotal. Two thirds of voters said that the debates were important in how they decided who to vote for, and half of them went to Gingrich. The biggest surprise in the results is the gender gap in New Gingrich’s support, the surprise being that the gap is a really small one.
January 21st, 2012
TODAY IN HISTORY:
Time Magazine’s “The Homosexual In America”: 1966. Time magazine published an unsigned two-page article which, given that it was a “popular” magazine, provides a mirror of how gay people were viewed in the U.S. at that time:
It used to be “the abominable crime not to be mentioned.” Today it is not only mentioned: it is freely discussed and widely analyzed. Yet the general attitude is, if anything, more uncertain than before. Beset by inner conflicts, the homosexual is unsure of his position in society, ambivalent about his attitudes and identity — but he gains a certain amount of security through the fact that society is equally ambivalent about him.
In the second paragraph, the Time article provides some examples of that ambivalence that straight society had toward gay people: “The latest Rock Hudson movie explicitly jokes about it, Doubleday Book Shops run smirking ads for The Gay Cookbook, and newsstands make room for “beefcake” magazines of male nudes.” It’s hard to know whether Time indulged in some gay-baiting with Rock Hudson, but that line almost certainly raised a few eyebrows in Hollywood. The article went on:
But increasingly, deviates are out in the open, particularly in fashion and the arts. Women and homosexual men work together designing, marketing, retailing, and wrapping it all up in fashion magazines. The interior decorator and the stockbroker’s wife conspire over curtains. And the symbiosis is not limited to working hours. For many a woman with a busy or absent husband, the presentable homosexual is in demand as an escort — witty, pretty, catty, and no problem to keep at arm’s length. …
On Broadway, it would be difficult to find a production without homosexuals playing important parts, either onstage or off. And in Hollywood, says Broadway Producer David Merrick, “you have to scrape them off the ceiling.” … [I]n the theater, dance and music world, deviates are so widespread that the sometimes seem to be running a kind of closed shop.
As the article continues, the ugliness grows. Time cited a Los Angeles psychiatrist who declared homosexuals “failed artists, and their special creative gift a myth.” Time held gay people responsible for plays depicting “the degradation of women and the derision of normal sex. … They represent a kind of inverted romance, since homosexual situations as such can never be made romantic for normal audiences.” And Time projected its obsessions with sex onto gay people: “Even n ordinary conversation, most homosexuals will sooner or later attack the ‘things that normal men take seriously.’ It does not mean that homosexuals do not and cannot talk seriously; but there is often a subtle sea change in the conversation: sex (unspoken) pervades the atmosphere.” And was at this point when Time turned to the notorious psychologist of the 1950s Edmund Bergler who, though dead for four years by the time this article appeared, supplied the following from ten years earlier:
The late Dr. Edmund Bergler found certain traits present in all homosexuals, including inner depression and guilt, irrational jealousy and a megalomaniac conviction that homosexual trends are universal. Though Bergler conceded that homosexuals are not responsible for their inner conflicts, he found that the conflicts “sap so much of their inner energy that the shell is a mixture of superciliousness, face aggression and whimpering. Like all psyhic masochists, they are subservient when confronted by a stronger person, merciless when in power, unscrupulous about trampling on a weaker person.”
Time’s concluding remarks couldn’t be clearer or more condemning — and it couldn’t sound more like Peter LaBarbera or any of the minions at the Family “Research” Council today:
Even in purely nonreligious terms, homosexuality represents a misuse of sexual faculty an, in the worlds of one Catholic educator, of “human construction.” It is a pathetic little second-rate substitute for reality, a pitiable flight from life. As such it deserves fairness, compassion, understanding and, when possible treatment. But it deserves no encouragement, no glamorization, no rationalization, no fake status as minority martyrdom, no sophistry about simple differences in taste — and, above all, no pretense that it is anything but a pernicious sickness.
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?
January 20th, 2012
TODAY’S AGENDA (Ours):
Launch of “Mayors for the Freedom to Marry”: Washington, D.C. Freedom to Marry will hold a press conference today to announce the launch of Mayors for the Freedom to Marry during the U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting in Washington, D.C. More than 75 Republican, Democratic and Independent mayors from across the country have pledged to support marriage equality. The coalition is chaired by mayors Jerry Sanders of San Diego, Thomas Menino of Boston, Michael Bloomberg of New York, and U.S. Conference of Mayors President Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles. The news conference takes place this morning at 10:00 a.m. EST at the Capital Hilton, 1001 16th Street NW in Washington.
TODAY’S AGENDA (Theirs):
The Lepers Among Us: Belfast, Northern Ireland. If you wanted to put on an anti-gay/ex-gay conference, what title could you give it that would be the most offensive title imaginable? “The Lepers Among Us: Homosexuality and the Life of the Church” would have to rank pretty highly in my estimation. That’s the title American author Jim Reynolds chose for his self-published book which he somehow believes is a constructive outreach to “believers who struggle with gender identity issues.” The title of his 2010 ten book on a similar subject, Why We Don’t Shoot the Wounded, is only marginally better. Marginally. But that sets the stage for a two day conference that he is putting on with the Belfast-based ex-gay program CORE Issues, which begins today at 10:00 a.m., with a separate condensed version being held again on Saturday at the Orangefield Presbyterian Church, 464 Castlereagh Rd BT5 68H.
Local LGBT advocates will be protesting the event between 9:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. today and Saturday at the conference site. John Doherty, director of the Rainbow Project, told The Belfast Telegraph, “We have a number of issues with the event. Firstly, the name which refers to lepers. Regardless of the organizers’ intention, we consider it to be homophobic to the LGB community. And, secondly, we consider the practice of reparative therapy to use methods that are possibly dangerous.”
“The Lepers Among Us” will hold a similar conference in London on Friday, January 27 at the Emmanuel Centre, Westminster.
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?
January 19th, 2012
The glasses allow him to see what we're up to!
Yet another pro-homosexual group has been formed in order to force the radical Homosexual Agenda on the rest of America. The new group “Freedom to Work” is mobilizing towards one single purpose: Passage of the Gay Bill of Special Rights. They’re not even trying to hide it.
…This fight will soon be everywhere. Freedom to Work is a dangerous group. The radical Homosexual Lobby has put all their best eggs in this basket and they won’t quit until the government gives them the superior status they believe they are entitled to. Or until we make them go away.
…Public Advocate has stood in the gap for so long, holding off their advance; the radical Homosexual Lobby has grown sick and tired of failure. So they are making this one aggressive push…
Nope. We’re not even trying to hide it. He’s a aiming low on his fundraising game though. He’s only asking for $10 this time.
January 19th, 2012
Marianne (wife #2) and Newt Gingrich. You've really gotta keep your eyes on him girls.
What a day. Going into tonight’s CNN Republican presidential debate in South Carolina, it’s hard to know what the biggest news item will be. Rick rolled, Santorum bubbled up to the top, and now this: former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s second wife revealed that he presented her with the “option” of an open marriage as a fait accompli — he was already sleeping with a “devout Catholic” mistress who would later become wife #3 while he was still married to wife #2. And he dropped this bombshell on wife #2 shortly after she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and his doctor warned the two of them that she should avoid stress. Stress results in more rapid deterioration for MS patients.
So now we have a pattern. Gingrich left wife #1 while she was battling cancer, and started sleeping with a woman who would become wife #2 even though he had not yet divorced wife #1. He then demanded wife #2 to allow him to have sex with a woman who would become wife #3 after she was diagnosed with MS. His hypocrisy goes without saying (denouncing Clinton’s affairs, demanding “one-man-one-woman” marriage in the federal constitution), but it does raise the question that is far more pertinent of someone who wants to be the President of the United States: are there no limits to his narcissism?
A piece of advice for Calista: whatever you do, don’t discuss your doctor’s appointments with your husband.
Joe.My.God has a new nickname for Gingrich: “Swingrich.” Dan Savage jumps in to say that this nickname is totally unfair. To swingers.
The sad thing though is that this will almost certainly have no impact on Saturday’s South Carolina primary where several polls show Gingrich in the lead. After all, all is forgiven at the foot of the rugged cross, isn’t it? Well, almost all. I’m sure it would all be very different if he had left either of his first two wives for a handsome Israeli naval officer.
January 19th, 2012
I thought I was tired of the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association. Anti-gays cite the group constantly as an example of how good Christian folk will be persecuted — persecuted! — by marriage equality. But the story’s back in the news and as it turns out, demonstrates exactly the opposite.
Quick recap: Ocean Grove is a ministry that owns an open-air pavilion which it rents out for weddings and other events. They refused to let two lesbians rent the space for their civil union ceremony, and as a result, lost their property tax exemption on the pavilion.
Oh, the horror. From Ocean Grove’s lawyer:
The government should not be able to force a private Christian organization to use its property in a way that would violate its own religious beliefs.
…ignoring that the group never was forced to rent to the lesbians.
The actual facts aren’t so ominous. Ocean Grove simply applied for the wrong kind of property tax exemption. Instead of basing it on religious grounds, they applied under a state program that gave non-profit corporations a tax break on property that is “open for public use on an equal basis.” Ocean Grove obviously violated that agreement and lost the exemption on their pavilion.
But here’s the thing…
Ocean Grove later applied for a religious tax exemption on the facility, and got it, leaving them free to discriminate without paying property taxes.
And there’s more…
Ocean Grove also owns chapels, chapels that don’t permit same-sex ceremonies, and never have. Those properties are also tax exempt. Why? Because they’re part of the group’s religious work.
Ocean Grove’s religious freedom to discriminate against icky gay people was never violated. In fact, the full story actually affirms the religious right of the Religious Right to discriminate against us.
That’s not how the antigays are spinning it, though. Here’s one juicy headline:
JUDGE: FOLLOWING CHRISTIAN BELIEFS WRONG
You won’t believe latest attack on those faithful to Jesus
Wow, sounds like the judge declared that discriminating against gay people is wrong. But that’s nowhere in his decision. He simply says you can’t break your promises.
Two points: First, Ocean Grove is a favorite anti-gay talking point, brought up over and over again, ad infinitum, ad nauseum, because it’s their best example of how marriage equality threatens their religious freedom in America. What does it say, then, when their best example completely falls apart?
Also, note that Ocean Grove isn’t protecting its religious liberty. No, it’s asking for special rights — specifically, the right to discriminate on its non-religious commercial property. Churches own lots of stuff — restaurants, shopping malls, parking lots. According to Ocean Grove’s lawyer, churches should have the special right to ignore the law, be exempt from the law, on all of it.
For years (literally!) I’ve been searching for an easy way to debunk this imaginary injustice. I think I’ve got it. Next time someone describes the loss of Ocean Grove’s tax exemption as a threat to religious liberty, you can reply:
That was only because they applied for the wrong kind of tax exemption, one that required their property to be open to everyone. Once they applied on religious grounds, they got their exemption back and now they can discriminate to their hearts’ content.
And that is the truth.
January 19th, 2012
Fosters.com sat down with Scott Moody “Chief Economis, [sic] The Maine Heritage Policy Center”, to have him explain the position of New Hampshire’s anti-gay activist group Cornerstone Policy Research.
It goes something like this: If you let same-sex couples marry, then they won’t have children. And that causes a drop in the state’s birth rate. So they should be in a civil union instead.
Also, when a same-sex couple adopts, it means that one or more of the parents isn’t biologically related to the child. And as it is easier to adopt when married as opposed to civil unions, gay marriage should be reversed.
I’m not going to spend any time refuting the “economis” as the average third grader (or a box of rocks) can see through this logic without needing any help from me. But you really should check out his views as they are astonishing in their ignorance and arrogance and offend far more than just gay couples.
January 19th, 2012
The Wall Street Journal is suggesting that there may be enough favorable votes for equality in New Jersey that any veto of the marriage bill by Governor Chris Christie can be overturned. Of course, this is all based on vote counting, a process that is subject to assumptions and promises rather than actual votes.
And Christie continues to be less than fully specific on what his response will be. When asked whether he would trade support on a tax reduction for support for the marriage bill, Christie said (WNYC beginning at 6:21):
My opposition to same-sex marriage has been very well publicized over time. Now, they haven’t been able to get a same sex marriage bill passed. And I think that this type of societal change is something that we need to do very deliberately and have as much public input as we possible can before people decide whether we want to overturn hundreds of years of societal [mo…?] relationship issues.
But we will know soon enough. The first test of the bill comes next Tuesday when the Senate Judiciary hears debate and votes on the bill.
January 19th, 2012
“Wasn’t that weeks ago?” you may be wondering. “And didn’t Romney win by 8 votes?”
Mitt Romney 30,015
Rick Santorum 30,007
Well, that was with 100% of the precincts counted. But now that the Iowa Republican Party leadership has officially “lost” eight precincts, the official winner is Rick Santorum:
Rick Santorum 29,839
Mitt Romney 29,805
No, I’m not making this up. In a scenario that could only be dreamed up by Dodgson, the leadership of the Republican Party in the great state of Iowa have “officially” declared Santorum to have received more votes than Romney in their (meaningless) caucus tally. (WaPo)
“It’s done,” said a party spokesman, who asked that his name not be used. About the missing votes, he said: “We never got ’em. We tried to track ’em down, and for whatever reason, we don’t have them.”
Romney graciously chose not to debate the validity of a tally based on “lost” ballots, saying, “The results from Iowa caucus night revealed a virtual tie. …We once again recognize Rick Santorum for his strong performance in the state.”
But in characteristic manner, Rick Santorum gloated.
This latest defeat of Governor Romney in Iowa is just the beginning, and Rick Santorum is committed to continuing the fight as the clear, consistent conservative voice in this race.
I’m guessing that Rick Santorum actually believes that when they lose your opponents votes, it means that you’ve “defeated” him. The Box of Rocks, which has been enjoying some quiet time with its family, said through a spokesman, “I really pity that man. He is dumber than… well… it’s hard to come up with a comparison.”
January 19th, 2012
He’s out of the race. Some say he was never really in it.. He is expected to make his announcement today sometime before CNN’s GOP debate this evening.
This brings the race for the GOP presidential nomination down to four: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, Texas Congressman Ron Paul, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and former Pennsylvanian Sen. Rick Santorum.
January 19th, 2012
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation has announced their nominees for the 23rd Annual GLAAD Media Awards today:
Among the nominees: Beginners, starring Christopher Plummer and Ewan McGregor, Albert Nobbs, starring Glenn Close and Janet McTeer, J. Edgar, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Armie Hammer, Showtime’s hit shows Shameless and The Big C, Glee, Modern Family, CBS ratings leader NCIS,Becoming Chaz, the AIDS documentary We Were Here, Dancing with the Stars with Carson Kressley and Chaz Bono, the wedding of a gay staffer on Conan, and David Letterman’s interview with Chaz Bono, CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, TheRoot.com’s “Black and Transgender: A Double Burden,” and Lady Gaga for her Born This Way album.
Spanish-language nominees include Ricky Martin for his album Música + Alma + Sexo, telenovelasLas Aparicio, Los Exitosos Gome$, and El Último Matrimonio Feliz, news programs Noticiero con Paola Rojas and Despierta América, and ESPN Deportes’ SportsCenter.
Also nominated is yours truly for Outstanding Digital Journalism Article for last summer’s BTB original investigation, What Are Little Boys Made Of. The same story of four-year-old Kirk Andrew Murphy’s failed treatment at UCLA to “cure” his homosexuality earned an Outstanding TV Journalism — News Magazine for CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 for their series, “The Sissy Boy Experiments.” (You can see parts one, two, three and four.)
The other nominees for Outstanding Digital Journalism Article are:
January 19th, 2012
TODAY IN HISTORY:
The Death of Murray Hall: 1901. The headline in the January 19, 1901, New York Times undoubtedly shocked a lot of people who thought they knew a gregarious Tammany Hall politician pretty well:
Murray H. Hall, the woman who masqueraded as a man for more than a quarter of a century, and the secret of whose sex came out only after her death last Wednesday night at 145 Sixth Avenue, was known to hundreds of people in the Thirteenth Senatorial District, where she figured quite prominently as a politician. In a limited circle she even had a reputation as a “man about town,” a bon vivant, and all-around “good fellow.” She was a member of the General Committee of Tammany Hall, a member of the Iroquois Club, a personal friend of State Senator “Barney” Martin and other officials, and one of the most active Tammany workers in the district.
She registered and voted at primaries and general elections for many years, and exercised considerable political influence with Tammany Hall, often securing appointments for friends who have proved their fealty to the organization never exciting the remotest suspicion as to her real sex.
She played poker at the clubs with city and State officials and politicians who flatter themselves on their cleverness and perspicacity, drank whisky and wine and smoked the regulation “big black cigar” with the apparent relish and gusto of the real man-about-town. Furthermore, Murray Hall is known to have been married twice, but the woman to whom she stood before the world in the attitude of a husband kept her secret as guardedly as she did.
Hall’s secret was found out when his doctor was called to treat him for an illness he had been suffering for many years. That illness, it turned out, was breast cancer. By the time the doctor made the diagnosis, the cancer had spread to the heart. He died two days later. The Times reported that Hall was a book lover, preferring scientific and medical books, which led to speculation that Hall was trying to treat himself for cancer before finally succumbing. C.S. Pratt, the bookseller who Hall dealt with (and who to whom Hall sold his library three months before his death), had no clue that Hall was anything other than a man.
“He seemed to me to be a modest little man, but occasionally he showed an irascible temper. He would never talk about himself and shunned garrulous and inquisitive companions. In fact, when I met him on the street he was either accompanied by his black and tan dog or some woman or women, strangers to me, who I supposed were clients.”
“During the seven years I knew him I never once suspected that he was anything else than what he appeared to be. While he was somewhat effeminate in appearance and talked in a falsetto voice, still his conduct and actions were distinctively masculine. This revelation is a stunner to me and, I guess, to everybody else who knew him.”
Hall had been quite successful in the rough-and-tumble political world of Tammany Hall:
Why,” continued the Senator, “when the County Democracy was in the heyday of its glory, Murray Hall was one of the bright stars in that constellation. He was the Captain of his election district when he lived and kept an intelligence office between Seventeenth and Eighteenth Street, on Sixth Avenue. That was some years ago, when the district was cut down, making Fourteenth Street the northern boundary. Hall moved so as to be in with his political pals. He used to hobnob with the big guns of the County Democracy, and I knew he cut quite some figure as a politician.
He also cut quite a figure as a ladies man. Married twice, both wives complained that he was “too attentive to other women.” His adopted daughter, Imelda Hall, had know idea about Hall’s background. When she testified at a Coroner’s inquest two weeks later, she referred to her father as “he.” The Coroner interrupted to ask, “Wouldn’t you better say ‘she’?” She replied, “No, I will never say ‘she’.”
January 18th, 2012
One of the more fascinating things to watch is the peculiar struggle that Orthodox Jews are going though in their effort to determine where gay Jews fit in the world, the family, and the tribe.
While conservative Christians may be content with “well the Bible says”, the Jewish tradition requires that an observant Jew carefully seek to understand the nuances of the Torah, the realities of the world, the condition of their own heart, run it through the sieve of tradition, and come to a place that reflects G-d’s intention.
Sometimes this can be a bit absurd, like the determination that if one uses a pen for work, then any use of a pen – even moving a pen so as to read a book it lies on – is forbidden on the Sabbath (my apologies if I got that wrong). But that’s a Jewish issue and doesn’t need to make sense to a goy fagela.
But it also can have subtleties that “well the Bible says” simply cannot handle. Take, for example, Rabbi Zev Farber discussion about the “morality question”:
Unfortunately, much of the rhetoric traditionally surrounding homosexuality seems to derive from a confusion of categories. For the believing Orthodox Jew, homosexual congress is a religious offense, akin to eating shrimp or driving on the Sabbath. It is not a moral offense, akin to assaulting women or cheating in business. Much of the rhetoric around homosexuality seems to center on moral discourse, and I feel this is a serious mistake.
But Farber is on one end of the spectrum. And in times of uncertainty on issues of discomfort, extremes arise. And within Orthodox Judaism, there are some pretty drastic extremes, especially on the subject of homosexuality. Peter LaBarbera’s hate-fest yesterday was endorsed by Rabbi Yehuda Levin’s Rabbinical Alliance of America / Igud Harabbonim. And we all know of the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn who show up to protest gay marriage, usually toting signs that make little sense to anyone outside their particular community.
But even crazy sign-wielding Jews who seek to condemn the gay community and deny gay people of civil equality hold to the Jewish tradition of intellectual approach. And so it is with an appeal to logic that the more conservative wing of Orthodox Judaism presented their latest anti-gay screed, the Torah Declaration:
Same-Sex Attractions Can Be Modified And Healed
From a Torah perspective, the question whether homosexual inclinations and behaviors are changeable is extremely relevant. The concept that G-d created a human being who is unable to find happiness in a loving relationship unless he violates a biblical prohibition is neither plausible nor acceptable. G-d is loving and merciful. Struggles, and yes, difficult struggles, along with healing and personal growth are part and parcel of this world. Impossible, life long, Torah prohibited situations with no achievable solutions are not.
We emphatically reject the notion that a homosexually inclined person cannot overcome his or her inclination and desire. Behaviors are changeable. The Torah does not forbid something which is impossible to avoid. Abandoning people to lifelong loneliness and despair by denying all hope of overcoming and healing their same-sex attraction is heartlessly cruel. Such an attitude also violates the biblical prohibition in Vayikra (Leviticus) 19:14 “and you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind.”
This is actually similar to the thought process I utilized when dealing with my own sexuality and spirituality. Mine went something like: 1) God created me same-sex attracted; 2) Despite my best efforts and sincere prayers He seems to have no intention of changing me; 3) therefore either 3a) God is perfectly fine with me the way I am, or 3b) God is a monster. (And yes I know, atheists, that “God doesn’t exist” also works as a possible 3c.)
The logic in the Torah Declaration ultimately leads to the same paradox which I found. In the words of the Declaration, the following concepts all must stand in order for there to be logic and consistency:
But with this declaration, the ultra-Orthodox rabbis have backed themselves into a corner. They have placed their interpretation of G-d’s intent in the Torah subject to an objectively testable reality: reorientation.
Unlike other prohibitions – dietary law, for example – they have not made this a Jewish issue that can be resolved by “it may not make sense to you but this is what G-d said”. They expressly contradicted the position taken by the Statement of Principles of some less extremely conservative Orthodox Jews a year before that declared that while G-d might have created innately same-sex attracted persons, they should nevertheless remain celibate.
Rather they have declared that it is not possible that God would have simultaneously banned same-sex relationships and created humans who naturally, innately, and irreparably long for them. They recognize this to be heartlessly cruel. On this, they are right.
So, having worked out their logic they signed the declaration. Reorientation is the solution. Done.
But they have one little problem. Reorientation doesn’t work. And eventually these rabbis will have to come to that realization. There are far too many orthodox therapists and researchers and professors who value objective reality over rabbinical declarations.
And if these rabbis plug their ears and insist that – contrary to all evidence – reorientation works, they may find themselves without congregations. And that is exactly what happened in the Netherlands.
According to the Jerusalem Post, the Orthodox community in Amsterdam suspended their chief rabbi from his post after he signed the Torah Declaration. Disavowing the notion of reorientation, they issued a press release lest “Rabbi Ralbag’s signature may give the impression the Orthodox Jewish community of Amsterdam shares his view.” Rabbi Aryeh Ralbag (who appears to be headquarted in Brooklyn) was relieved of his duties until he goes to Amesterdam and “discusses the issue.”
And they will not be the last congregation to point out that it ain’t working. And then what? Unlike their less strident brothers, these rabbis are left with only two options. Either God is heartlessly cruel or the Torah’s statement on homosexuality may not be so clear after all.
Of these, it would seem to me that finding nuance in the Torah’s prohibitions might be the likelier eventuality.
January 18th, 2012
Wackadoodle Extraordinaire Randy Thomasson, calling himself SaveAmerica, has prepared a “Report Card of the Natural Family” to let good values voters know just where their Republican nominees “really stand on marriage, children, adoption, family and moral standards.”
To Randy, a “yes” on this chart is a good thing.
You know, should Mitt Romney become the next president, one good thing will be that he won’t owe any favors to the ranting wackadoodle gay-hatin’ loons on the right fringe of his party.
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In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers. This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys.
When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people. But that is exactly what happened. In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people. This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold. Check here for the latest updates.
In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.” What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany. He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects. This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light.
On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International. In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us.
Prologue: Why I Went To “Love Won Out”
Part 1: What’s Love Got To Do With It?
Part 2: Parents Struggle With “No Exceptions”
Part 3: A Whole New Dialect
Part 4: It Depends On How The Meaning of the Word "Change" Changes
Part 5: A Candid Explanation For "Change"
At last, the truth can now be told.
Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality. Download your copy today!
And don‘t miss our companion report, How To Write An Anti-Gay Tract In Fifteen Easy Steps.
Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children. In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings. This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children.
Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship. In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true.
Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage. We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council.
The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception. In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes. Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.
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