Box Turtle Bulletin

Will Lou Engle Unleash Another “Nuclear Bomb” In Uganda?

Here is an audio recording of Lou Engle’s The Call rally held in Las Vegas on September 25, 2007.  (I have posted the transcript after the jump for those with slow Internet connections.)

This provides a good idea of how Engle sees gay people, and it raises reasonable fears that he will provide similar over-the-top rhetoric when he holds another The Call rally in Kampala, Uganda on May 2.

Now compare Engle’s rhetoric to Scott Lively’s “Nuclear Bomb” from last year:

April 19, 2009 edition of Uganda's Red Pepper (Scans via GayUganda. Names and faces obscured by Box Turtle Bulletin. Click to enlarge).

That talk, along with subsequent meetings with members of Parliament, added fuel to an already raging anti-gay bonfire, which eventually led to the introduction of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill into Parliament later that year. That bill calls for executing gay people who happen to be HIV positive or who are “serial offenders” of homosexuality and related offenses — related offenses which include advocating on behalf of LGBT people, providing aid and services to LGBT people, and failing to turn LGBT people over to police.

That was just the official reaction. Unofficial reaction to that “Nuclear Bomb” include demonstrations, public outing campaigns of private individuals, arrests, and even at least one death.

This is the tinderbox that Engle will strut into with his flame-throwing rhetoric in a little more than a week. If he deploys similar rhetoric as he did in Las Vegas — and there’s absolutely no reason to believe he will in any way modify his well-established routine — the aftermath will be entirely predictable. We have a well-documented precedent.

If Engle continues on his well-trodden course, he cannot pretend that no one can forsee the consequences of what he says. He risks unleashing another round of bloodletting in Uganda. And if he does, he will bear those stains for the remainder of his days.

Click here to read about Lou Engle’s Homosexual Demons.

Obama’s “repeal DADT this year” pledge now seems disingenuous

Some members of the gay community may wonder why it is that Get Equality and other activists are not content to rely on President Obama’s pledge – as announced in the State of the Union Address – to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell by the end of the year. Some may question the wisdom of aggressively challenging the administration instead of allowing the military review process to dictate the timing.

The answer may be that these activists rightly recognize that this President has little to no intention of ending DADT this year, and probably never has.

On January 27, 2010, President Obama addressed the

Abroad, America’s greatest source of strength has always been our ideals. The same is true at home. We find unity in our incredible diversity, drawing on the promise enshrined in our Constitution: the notion that we are all created equal, that no matter who you are or what you look like, if you abide by the law you should be protected by it; that if you adhere to our common values you should be treated no different than anyone else.

We must continually renew this promise. My Administration has a Civil Rights Division that is once again prosecuting civil rights violations and employment discrimination. We finally strengthened our laws to protect against crimes driven by hate. This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are. [emphasis added]

Four days later, on February 1, the White House met with national gay leaders. And the promise had lost a lot of it’s renewal in that short time. (The Advocate)

Yet just days after the January 27 speech, White House officials convened a meeting on February 1 with LGBT advocates in which they said the policy would not be included in the president’s recommendations for this year’s Department of Defense authorization bill, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the meeting.

“It was a definitive shut-down from [Jim] Messina,” said a source, who was present at the meeting and agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, referring to the White House deputy chief of staff. “He said it would not be going into the president’s Defense authorization budget proposal.” The news was a blow to activists since the Defense funding bill is the best legislative vehicle for including a measure to overturn the policy. “It almost seemed like the bar on the hurdle got raised two or three times higher,” said the source.

Strategically, including the change in the military defense budget is the safest and easiest way for the law to change. Once incorporated by committee, it would require every Republican Senator plus one third of the Democratic Senators to remove it from the bill, a rather unlikely scenario.

The President is a powerful ally and when it comes reelection time it can be a tremendous help if he thinks you are in line with his wishes. If the President want the change it in the budget, it will go into the budget.

From all evidence, he does not.

But more frustrating than the knowledge that this president has played us for the fool, is the knowledge that some national gay groups were complicit in the deceit. If this report is true, the Human Rights Campaign lied about the administration’s intentions in order to give the President cover – and they appear to be continuing to do so.

Rushing to refute the Advocate’s story was Robert Raben, a paid strategist for the Human Rights Campaign.

Raben said Messina relayed that advisers were still discussing different options with the president. He added that the main area of focus for the meeting was the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that would be taking place the next day with Defense secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs chair Admiral Mike Mullen.

And then he promptly changed the subject.

“It’s even more wrenching in the immigration context,” he said. “The president gave that a line the State of the Union too. It’s April 22, where’s the bill?”

Other sources are saying that the administration was less “shutting down” than it was “vague” and “non-committal” in the meeting. But whether dismissive or vague, it clearly was a different message than the one announced by the President in his public speech four days earlier. And, from my perspective, it has stayed so ever since.

It is rapidly becoming my impression that this President has no intention on repealing DADT, or at least not if it requires even the slightest expenditure of political capital. In fact, while his public position is supportive, his administration is fighting tooth and toenail to keep the ban on open service in place. I think that Obama sees the potential difficulties in dealing with some annoyed military personnel as having greater importance than the promise that “you should be treated no different than anyone else.”

And it is rapidly becoming my impression that those who represent themselves as our community’s leadership in Washington, DC, and so enjoying being part of the party in power that they are placing their own access and the agenda of the Democratic Party ahead of the reasons we entrust them with our voice and support their organizations.

But while President Barack Obama said many things in his State of the Union Address that appear calculated in hindsight and suggest either a lack of integrity or a lack of commitment, the words he spoke just a few paragraphs after his pledge to end DADT ring ever more true:

No wonder there’s so much cynicism out there.

No wonder there’s so much disappointment.

Status of Ugandan Anti-Gay Bill Appears In Doubt — For Now

Tomorrow’s edition of Uganda’s largest independent newspaper, Daily Monitor, citing unnamed sources, reports that a Cabinet committee has recommended changes to the proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill “that preclude the possibility of discarding it.” But later, the same article says:

The recommendations mean that the legislation may never be passed in its current shape, if at all, and that it may be long before it is discussed with seriousness.

Which makes it difficult to discern exactly where the bill stands.

Daily Monitor does not indicate what changes were recommended to “soften” the proposed legislation.

When Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni cited international opposition and cautioned ruling party leaders in January to “go slow” on the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, he announced a Cabinet committee to meet with the bill’s sponsor, MP David Bahati, to iron out some of the issues with the bill. Four months later, this may well be the same Cabinet committee preparing to making their recommendations to the full Cabinet.

The unnamed Cabinet source castigates the bill’s sponsor, MP David Bahati, for “not applying the kind of sophistication that would have anticipated the international condemnation” of the bill:

“It is far from being a law,” a source on the committee said, requesting anonymity so as to preserve his credibility. “It is a [good] principle, but the approach of the mover has stigmatised his mission.”

It is not known when, if ever, the bill will be taken up by the full Cabinet.

Meanwhile, the bill has been referred to two Parliament committees: the Presidential Affairs committee and the Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Committee. Despite earlier promises that the bill would be among Parliament’s top priorities when it returned from its recess last February, the bill has apparently languished in both committees with little if any action. Two weeks ago, one Legal Affairs committee member declared the bill “useless” and the chairman confirmed that the bill was not a priority.

Yesterday, the Guardian observed that Ugandan officials “appear to be using stalling tactics, suggesting it will not come to a vote until 2011,” but warned that this could change depending on the political climate in next year’s presidential elections.

One factor that could lead to the bill’s revival could be whether presidential candidate Olara Otunnu of the Uganda Peoples Congress poses a serious challenge to Museveni’s bid to extend his 25-year reign for another five year term. Otunnu, whose party is on record as opposing the draconian bill, is unmarried and the subject to a widespread anti-gay whisper campaign. Otunnu himself has declared the bill “a violation of basic human rights.” Otunno’s candidacy has already drawn a steady stream of official harassment on the part of police and governmental officials against his campaign.

Another factor, of course, could be overwhelming popular sentiment. As we reported earlier, the first week of May will mark several high-profile Pentecostal rallies and marches, including one rally to be staged by American anti-gay extremist Lou Engle. That May 2 rally in Kampala, The Call Uganda, will identify “homosexuality and increased immorality” as a “social evil” to be addressed at the rally.

Ugandan LGBT people fear that these rallies may unleash another anti-gay pogrom and wave of public vigilantism similar to the one that followed a much smaller anti-gay conference put on by three American activists last year. That conference went ahead despite warnings from international human rights groups, local LGBT advocates, one lone American Evangelical, and even this humble blogger. The potential fallout from The Call Uganda is anybody’s guess but one man’s direct responsibility: Lou Engle.

“The Enemy of My Enemy…”

Bob Ellis runs the extreme right-wing website Dakota Voice. He loves Sarah Palin and the Tea Party, and is against everything Obama and everything gay. But in his latest post, he poses as the rare right-winger who, when pushed to choose between the Obama and the gays, sides with the gays.

Writing about the latest protest in front of the White House and the unusually swift and heavy police response it elicited — Police aggressively cleared media, tourists, and other onlookers from the area in front of the White House — Ellis, who is no stranger to protests himself, decides to defend the “apparently compliant and nonviolent homosexual protesters”:

Did President Obama feel so threatened by these homosexual activists that he had to call out 10 or more police officers to deal with six compliant homosexual activists and run off the public and the media? Was it embarrassing for him? Could this be considered a homophobic reaction by President Obama?

While it’s extremely unlikely that the President personally got on the phone within minutes of the start of the protest to call Park Police and have them run off the media, the unusually swift and aggressive response did come as a surprise to reporters and activists alike. And at least one Paul Cameron-citing anti-gay activist who dislikes Obama more than he does the gays.

American Evangelist To Rally Against Gays In Uganda

The month of May will be a very dangerous time to be gay in Uganda, as Pentecostal churches there gear up for a series of crusades, marches and rallies commemorating the 50th Jubilee of the Pentecostal movement there. An anonymous BTB reader in Uganda reports that television is already carrying commercials advertising at least one event, a three-day conference to be held at the sports grounds at Makerere University (Uganda’s largest institution of higher learning) with a march and rally to be held the following Friday, May 7.

In the midst of that expected furor steps yet another American anti-gay extremist, Lou Engle of The Call, who has announced plans to hold a rally in Kampala on May 2, also at the Makerere University Sports Field. The Call Uganda’s web site gives these reasons for holding the rally:

It is intended to awaken and revive the young and the old, men and women, church and family, government and the public and to fight vices eating away at our society. We shall all join our hearts across tribal, political, denominational, and generational boundaries, to cry to God to help us with the challenges in our country such as:

• The heightened political tensions and wrangles in the country, especially as we go towards the 2011 general elections
• The increasing level of social evils in our society, some which are threatening our values and lifestyles e.g.
  • Witchcraft and human sacrifice
  • Homosexuality and increased immorality
  • Disasters and the resultant suffering of the people
  • The decay of morals and infrastructure of our city Kampala

Engle’s emotionally-charged extremism and violence-laden rhetoric has become quite familiar here in the U.S. Engle believes that gays are possessed by demons, and was part of a major rally for Prop 8 in San Diego where he called for Christian martyrs. Casey Sanchez, of the Southern Poverty Law Center describes one talk that Engle gave this way:

“I believe we’re headed to an Elijah/Jezebel showdown on the Earth, not just in America but all over the globe, and the main warriors will be the prophets of Baal versus the prophets of God, and there will be no middle ground,” said Engle. He was referring to the Baal of the Old Testament, a pagan idol whose followers were slaughtered under orders from the prophet Elijah.

“There’s an Elijah generation that’s going to be the forerunners for the coming of Jesus, a generation marked not by their niceness but by the intensity of their passion,” Engle continued. “The kingdom of heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force. Such force demands an equal response, and Jesus is going to make war on everything that hinders love, with his eyes blazing fire.”

Engle has also said, “The most ‘dangerous terrorist’ is not Islam but God. One of God’s names is the avenger of blood. Have you worshiped that God yet?”

Lou Engle at The Call in Nashville, 2007

Last year, a BTB reader shared with me his experience of attending a Call rally in Nashville in 2007.  Tyler (his last name is being withheld) remembers that day vividly — July 7, 2007 (07/07/07 was their “Holy Date”):

I went to Nashville and the day was a whole day of fasting and prayer to “turn the nation back to God.”  Their tactics include, in my opinion, a lot of manipulation using emotionally-driven songs, yelling, dancing, and the like to get individuals charged up.

The Call Uganda’s web site lists the following endorsements by Ugandan Christian leaders:

• Bishop Simon Peter Emiau – Chairman Evangelical Fellowship of Uganda;
• Archbishop Luke Henry Orombi – Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Uganda;
• Pastor Jotham Mutebi – Chairman Full Gospel Churches of Uganda;
• Pastor Titus Oundo – Chairman Deliverance Churches of Uganda;
• Apostle John Mulinde – World Trumpet Mission, which also has extensive staff in Orlando, Florida under International Director Mark Daniel.
• Apostle Jackson Ssenyonga – Christian Life Ministries;
• Pastor Gary Skinner – Watoto (formerly Kampala Pentecostal) Church. An elder of that church is Stephen Langa, who helped to organize last year’s anti-gay conference featuring three American anti-gay activists. That conference delivered the “nuclear bomb” that served as a precursor and catalyst to the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill that is now before Uganda’s Parliament.
• Apostle Joseph Ssewadda – General Overseer of Born Again Federation;
• Peter Asiimwe – Uganda Evangelical Mission Agency;
• Pastor Fred Wantaate – Coordinator for Pentecostal Golden Jubilee – Full Gospel Church.

April 19, 2009 edition of Uganda's Red Pepper (Scans via GayUganda. Names and faces obscured by Box Turtle Bulletin. Click to enlarge).

The next several weeks will prove to be exceedingly dangerous for LGBT Ugandans. Last year’s conference led to a massive public anti-gay pogrom that included a public vigilante campaign in a major Ugandan tabloid and various FM stations in Kampala in which gay people were forcibly outed. We have reports that several people lost their jobs and were abandoned by their families as a result. Several were arrested, and there are reports of at least one death in the eastern city of Mbale.

Frank Mugisha, president Sexual Minorities of Uganda, said, “Gay people are already fleeing their homes and have to move from house to house because of threats to their lives. Americans need to stop Lou Engle from coming to Uganda.”

When we first reported on the anti-gay conference last March in Uganda, we warned that it was a very dangerous move. But even knowing and warning of those dangers, we had no idea that it would ultimately lead to a proposal to put gay people to death under certain circumstances.

After that experience, there now can be no excuse. We know what can happen following rallies like this one. And whatever happens as an aftermath of this rally, no one can say they could not predict what would happen next. Given the virulent hatred openly expressed by ordinary Ugandans and their religious leaders toward the gay community, Engle’s rally is a dangerous and reckless escalation.

Exodus Co-Founder: We Were All Still Struggling Silently As We Promised Change

In today’s video Michael talks about an evening in New York City with another ex-gay leader that caused him to begin to question if anyone in the ex-gay movement was really changing. After talking to other Exodus leaders Michael finally came to the conclusion:

“[T]here were very few of us, if any, who were completely celibate, and we were all still silently struggling with out own sexuality, at the very same time we were promising change.  And that lack of integrity, that psychological and spiritual split just got wider and wider and wider until I couldn’t take it any more.”

(transcript after the jump)

Read the rest of this entry »

BREAKING: Six Vets Chain Themselves to White House Fence

In a repeat of last month’s protest against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell:, six veterans have chained themselves to the White House fence.

In a protest that is currently ongoing according to The Advocate’s Kerry Eleveld’s Twitter feed, Lt. Daniel Choi and five others have handcuffed themselves to the White House fence. The protesters consist of three men and three women, including Lt. Choi, who reportedly is calling on the President to include the repeal of the ban on gays serving openly in the military in the Defense Authorization Bill.

Joe Sudbury identifies another protester as Autumn Sandeen, a transgender blogger with Pam’s House Blend who is a retired twenty-year navy veteran. Another protester has been identified as  Capt. Jim Pietrangelo, who was discharged under DADT in 2004. Pietrangelo also handcuffed himself to the White House fence last month alongside Choi.

The protest was organized by GetEQUAL, which also organized a protest at a fundraiser for Sen. Barbara Boxer last night. The protest target was President Barack Obama, whose address was interrupted by hecklers demanding action on DADT’s repeal.

Update: GetEqual identifies the six as Capt. Jim Pietrangelo II, Petty Officer Larry Whitt, Petty Officer Autumn Sandeen, Cadet Mara Boyd, and Airman Victor Price.

Update 2: All six protesters have now been place under arrest.

DADT opponents heckle Obama at CA fundraiser

President Obama was in Los Angeles yesterday to raise funds for Senator Barbara Boxer’s reelection campaign. Opponents of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell took the opportunity to draw attention to that issue. (USA Today)

“Repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell!” yelled several protesters at a Los Angeles fundraiser for the Democratic Party and Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., referring to the Pentagon’s policy on gay servicemembers.

As the president said he agreed with the request — “we are going to do that; hey, hold on a second, hold on a second” — the protesters began echoing an Obama campaign chant: “Yes, we can! Yes, we can! Yes, we can!”

“Here we go,” Obama replied. “All right — guys, guys, all right. I agree, I agree.”

A little later, Obama pleaded for political solidarity on gay rights and other issues.

“When you’ve got an ally like Barbara Boxer and you’ve got an ally like me who are standing for the same thing, then you don’t know exactly why you’ve got to holler, because we already hear you, all right?,” Obama said to applause.

The problem is, of course, that the President does not appear to hear our community already. And his response at the fundraiser suggests that he is unaware – or unconcerned – about the growing discontent that our community feels from having our issues delayed or dismissed.

We are annoyed that this administration seems incapable of providing a clear, consistent answer about how and when DADT will be overturned. Instead, we hear promises offset by stalling, the Presidents say one thing only to have the Department of Justice say exactly the opposite. We have military leaders contradicting each other in front of Congress and the White House sits silently while our allies in the House and Senate beg him to lend his voice to the cause.

All of this adds to a creeping supposition that this President has little to no intention on capitalizing on a Democrat control of the legislature to fulfill his promises. It feels more and more likely that November will come without action and Republican successes will be used as an excuse to continued institutionalized discrimination for another decade.

President Obama said at one point that the hecklers should go holler at the people who disagree with them. I’m not sure they weren’t doing just that.

UK Prepares to Ban Ugandan “Kill the Gays” MP; Ugandan Parliament To Delay Until 2011

The Guardian reports two new developments in Uganda’s attempt to legislate gay people out of existence. First, the British Foreign Office, the Department for International Development and the Borders Agency are drawing up plans and procedures to ban Ugandan MP David Bahati, sponsor of the draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill, if he does not drop the bill. That bill, if passed, would provide lifetime imprisonment for gays and lesbians, and would impose the death sentence under certain circumstances. It would also criminalize knowing gay people with three years imprisonment for failure to report them to police. The Guardian also reports that a senior unnamed British governmental official said that the bill would become “major diplomatic incident if the Ugandans do not back down.”

The second development also comes from the same story in the Guardian:

Ugandan government officials appear to be using stalling tactics, suggesting it will not come to a vote until 2011, deflecting pressure from a government that could change in the forthcoming general election.

If true, that would confirm earlier reports which suggest that the bill is dead for now. But with President Yoweri Museveni’s bid to extend his twenty-five year rule for another five years, the bill could be resurrected at any time if Museveni decides it is to his political advantage.

Baker/Tisei win MA GOP nomination

The Republicans in Massachusetts have selected their nominee for Governor. And this year, they can choose between a Democrat, a Republican, and an Independent, all of whom are pro-choice and all of whom support same-sex marriage.

Charles Baker, the Republican, had a primary opponent going into the state convention. Christy Mihos also supports gay marriage but believes that “the people should be able to vote on it.” As Mihos did not get at least 15% of the nomination vote, and Baker will be the candidate without a primary election vote.

The convention also endorsed Baker’s running mate, Senate minority leader Richard Tisei; as the sole candidate he won unanimously. If Tisei is elected as Lieutenant Governor, he will be the highest ranking openly gay politician in the nation.

It is six years since same-sex marriage became legal in Massachusetts and it is so non-controversial that there were no candidates who favor “traditional marriage” laws. And the one candidate who supports “let the people vote” wasn’t able to get more than 11% of Republican Party delegates to vote for him.

How does that fit with your “poll“, Maggie Gallagher?

Sonoma County Forcibly Separates Elderly Gay Couple

Some of the opposition to President Barack Obama’s directive to HHS to formulate rules requiring hospitals and health care institutions to honor LGBT patients’ ability to choose their partners as hospital visitors and decision makers stem from the mistaken belief that if those LGBT couples had signed powers of attorneys and advance medical directives, none of those problems would take place. But as tragic stories like this show, that simply isn’t true:

Clay and his partner of 20 years, Harold, lived in California. Clay and Harold made diligent efforts to protect their legal rights, and had their legal paperwork in place—wills, powers of attorney, and medical directives, all naming each other. Harold was 88 years old and in frail medical condition, but still living at home with Clay, 77, who was in good health.

One evening, Harold fell down the front steps of their home and was taken to the hospital. Based on their medical directives alone, Clay should have been consulted in Harold’s care from the first moment. Tragically, county and health care workers instead refused to allow Clay to see Harold in the hospital. The county then ultimately went one step further by isolating the couple from each other, placing the men in separate nursing homes.

Ignoring Clay’s significant role in Harold’s life, the county continued to treat Harold like he had no family and went to court seeking the power to make financial decisions on his behalf. Outrageously, the county represented to the judge that Clay was merely Harold’s “roommate.” The court denied their efforts, but did grant the county limited access to one of Harold’s bank accounts to pay for his care.

What happened next is even more chilling: without authority, without determining the value of Clay and Harold’s possessions accumulated over the course of their 20 years together or making any effort to determine which items belonged to whom, the county took everything Harold and Clay owned and auctioned off all of their belongings. Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will. The county workers then terminated Clay and Harold’s lease and surrendered the home they had shared for many years to the landlord.

Harold died, and Clay wasn’t allowed to be there to comfort him. Clay is also without all of their momentos and life possessions that they two had acquired together, with the exception of one photo album. The National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) has filed a lawsuit on their behalf against Sonoma County. Trial begins on July 16.

In 2007, a Florida hospital denied Janice Langbehn access to her dying partner, again despite having a legal power of attorney.

BREAKING: Georgia Teen Attends Prom

Derrick Martin, the rural Georgia teen who quietly got permission to bring his boyfriend to the Bleckley County High School prom, apparently got everything that he hoped for:

When Martin, 18, and his boyfriend Richard Goodman, also 18, stepped onto a makeshift “red carpet” and their names were announced, a few parents whispered but many in the crowd gave him a loud cheer. No one yelled out in protest.

“I wonder if they realize what they’ve done,” said Arturro Beeche, a San Francisco professor who flew into Georgia on Friday and drove Martin and Goodman to the prom. “Once it happens in small-town America, it will inspire so many,” he said.

Maybe someday all proms will be this uneventful.

Exodus Co-Founder: Gay Kids Ending Up On Our Doorstep

As we learned earlier this month the thinly veiled  ex-gay front group “American College of Pediatricians” issued a letter to school officials across the country advocating ex-gay therapy for teens questioning their sexual orientation.

Prior to the 2005 controversy where 16 year old Zach Stark was sent to the Love In Action residential ex-gay program against his will few people were aware that children are forced and coerced into exgay programs against their will.

However as this video interview with Exodus co-founder Michael Bussee shows, children have been victims of the ex-gay movement since it first began.  The details are in many ways even more upsetting than Zach’s experience:

(transcript after the jump)

Read the rest of this entry »

National Institutes of Health Director condemns anti-gay pediatrician group

Dr. Francis Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is perhaps best known for his leadership of the Human Genome Project. He is also known for being a scientist that has written about his Christian faith and serves on the scientific academy of the Catholic Church. Collins is a man of intellect and integrity and is consequently an immensely respected man.

And it was this integrity and respect that the bogus anti-gay group American College of Pediatricians sought to coopt in the letter to school principals they issued a few weeks ago. They thought this would impress the reader:

Dr. Francis Collins, former Director of the Genome Project, has stated that while homosexuality may be genetically influenced, it is “… not hardwired by DNA, and that whatever genes are involved represent predispositions, not predeterminations.” He also states [that] “…the prominent role[s] of individual free will choices [has] a profound effect on us.”

But the ACP has now learned that with increased impressiveness comes increased risk. The more prominent the person you seek to misrepresent, the more prominent their rebuke.

Dr. Collins has now issued the following on the NIH Director’s Page:

Statement from NIH Director Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., in Response to the American College of Pediatricians

April 15, 2010

“It is disturbing for me to see special interest groups distort my scientific observations to make a point against homosexuality. The American College of Pediatricians pulled language out of context from a book I wrote in 2006 to support an ideology that can cause unnecessary anguish and encourage prejudice. The information they present is misleading and incorrect, and it is particularly troubling that they are distributing it in a way that will confuse school children and their parents.”

Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D.
Director

Well, I guess it doesn’t get any clearer than that.

Sex sells. Is that a problem?

There’s an interesting minor dust-up taking place over on the Bilerico Project. Publisher Bil Browning published a post about “Hot Mormon missionary boys masturbating” and that led one of his contributors, David Badash, to quit the site.Badash explains his reasons this way (while helpfully providing links to the content he objects to):

I recognize the need to “pay the bills,” and sadly, I understand that “Prince William’s penis pictures,” “First all Israeli gay porn movie,” and even “Top 10 Stores to Pick Up Gay Men” (three of the top-ten most popular posts on The Bilerico Project) may serve that purpose, but as a journalist, I have to believe that these are the easy way out, and, just as I wouldn’t expect to see that type of content coming from a think tank, or mainstream journalism site, I don’t expect to see it coming from what I thought Bilerico was. And perhaps that was my mistake.

Browning counters that the Bilerico Project is sex positive, and his editorial decisions go beyond merely figuring out how to “pay the bills.” He denies that any of the posts amounts to porn, and besides that, he posits that such criticisms stem from the desire to maintain a facade of respectability which he calls “the losing strategy behind the closet”:

The reason we have been ostracized for centuries from “normal” society is because we don’t conform to the community expectations about penises and vaginas. We need not neuter our sexuality to advance the cause. The best way to press our movement onward is not by trying to convince the public that we’re “just like them.” We’re not. We do not need to assimilate to gain acceptance; respect is not won by submission and false exteriors.

I would have to agree with Bil’s reasoning. And I’d also add that defining and maintaining a particular tone on a web site is both the Publisher’s responsibility and prerogative. And yes, we do need to pay the bills; that’s why you see advertising on this site as well. And I believe we do see ourselves as sex-positive, but that kind of judgment is always in the eye of the beholder. We certainly don’t avoid topics touching on sexuality, but we tend to approach those topics with a certain seriousness. That’s probably because BTB sees itself as an oh-so-serious web site that resists stooping to the lowest common denominator of base sexuality to promote our site. Are we too serious? Maybe. Personally, I’m a big consumer of what could be described as lowest common denominator-type stuff, and I can’t say I have any qualms about it whatsoever. But our readership doubles in size every nine months quite dependably simply by providing you with what you’ve come to expect: news, analysis and fact-checking of anti-gay rhetoric.

And speaking of news and analysis, the world welcomed singer Ricky Martin as he publicly declared that he was no longer in the closet. Which brings up an interesting question: when a performer comes out of the closet, it’s natural to speculate on how it will affect that performer’s art. After all, if sexuality is something that all people see as one of their core traits, it would seem that escaping the closet would be a freeing experience and that this experience would be reflected in the artist’s work. So in an attempt to provide further data to this artistic theory, we present Ricky Martin’s very first promotional video since coming out and let you be the judge.

Analyze away!

Update: The promotional video isn’t exactly new. It was filmed in 2007, but Martin tweeted it to his followers this week. Featuring tatood messages like “find yourself” and “change your life,” Martin said, “It’s all about positive affirmations.”