Box Turtle Bulletin

Military Continues To Discharge Valuable Arab Linguists

Citing the recent discharge of three gay Arabic linguists under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” 40 House members wrote to the House Armed Services Committee chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) asking for a hearing on the matter. They say in their letter that 58 Arabic linguists have been discharged under the anti-gay policy, and  that this loss of “capable, highly skilled Arabic linguists continues to compromise our national security during time of war.”

One of the three recently dismissed linguists, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Stephen Benjamin, has come forward to describe his ouster:

“I’d always had been out since the day I started working there,” Benjamin said. “We had conversations about being gay in the military and what it was like. There were no issues with unit cohesion. I never caused divisiveness or ever experienced slurs,” said Benjamin, who was in the Navy for nearly four years.

Benjamin, said his supervisor tried to keep him on the job and urged him to sign a statement saying he was not gay. His sexuality became a problem when he was caught improperly using the military’s secret level computer system to send messages to his roommate in Iraq. He said others who weren’t gay kept their jobs even though they were sending inappropriate messages over the same system.

Another Gay Brain Study

It has long been known that men and women, collectively, do not perform mental tasks identically. And previous research has suggested that gay men and women perform mental tasks in a manner closer to that of the opposite sex.

An article in the April 2007 Archives of Sexual Behavior discusses a study by University of Warwick researchers of 109,612 men and 88,509 women which confirmed these observations. Although I’ve not yet seen the article, a summary was presented at Physorg.com.

In general, over the range of tasks measured, where a gender performed better in a task heterosexuals of that gender tended to perform better than non-heterosexuals. When a particular gender was poorer at a task homosexual and bisexual people tended to perform better than heterosexual members of that gender.

The results seem to be a tiered effect in which orientation correlated with gender expectations for mental tasks.

For instance in mental rotation (a task where men usually perform better) they found that the table of best performance to worst was:

— Heterosexual men
— Bisexual men
— Homosexual men
— Homosexual women
— Bisexual women
— Heterosexual women

The summary did not report as to the extent of the variation so I don’t know how much significance can be placed on the information. But to me this is further indication that orientation is “hard wired” and pre-natal.

Others may argue the order of causation (ie. that homosexual behaviors or thinking resulted in change in brain functioning). But in either case, this is another study on the large and growing pile that compellingly argues that orientation is not simply selected behavior and that it impacts more in one’s life than the object of one’s attraction.

The study also reported an item of bad news for gay men and good news for gay women.

However age was found to discriminate on gender grounds but not sexual orientation. The study found that men’s mental abilities declined faster than women’s and that sexual orientation made no difference to the rate of that decline either for men or women.

Sorry guys, both straight and gay.

Mary Cheney’s Baby Arrives

And Virginia’s Neanderthal-like adoption laws notwithstanding, the bouncing baby boy is Heather Poe’s son as well. Samuel David Cheney was born to Mary and her partner Heather Poe, this morning at 9:46 a.m. ET at Washington, D.C.’s Sibley Hospital. Little Sammy weighs 8 lbs., 6 ounces. Congratulations to the proud parents and grandparents.

Vermont Expands Anti-Discrimination Protections

Vermont’s Republican Governor Jim Douglas yesterday signed a bill into law which grants anti-discrimination protections on the basis of gender identity in employment, public accommodations, housing, insurance and credit services. The bill had passed both houses of the Vermont legislature with extremely strong bipartisan support. Vermont had already changed its anti-discrimination law to to include sexual orientation in 1991.

When the law becomes effective on July 1, 2007, Vermont will join California, Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Washington, and the District of Columbia in banning workplace discrimination on the basis of gender identity. Colorado, Iowa and Oregon have also passed similar measures this year.

Driving Don Wildmon Crazy

Donald Wildmon’s anti-just-about-everything organization, American Family Association, has been threatening and boycotting Ford Motor Company for over a year because they are too gay friendly. Wildmon demands that Ford not advertise to gay consumers because, well… selling to gay people is taking sides in a culture war? Yeah, you figure it out.

The AFA has since been taking credit for Ford’s financial woes, carefully ignoring that all American auto makers are suffering. If Ford runs an ad they declare it evidence of Ford’s evil agenda. If Ford doesn’t run an ad they declare it evidence that their pressure is working.

But if one really wants to know whether the AFA boycott is negatively impacting Ford, you only have to look at the response from their competitors. For the first time, General Motors has created an ad specifically targeted at the gay community (click thumbnail to see).  Poor Don Wildmon, he must be apoplectic.

What Some “Ex-Gays” Do In Their Spare Time After Church

Via Wayne Besen’s Truth Wins Out:

TVC’s And NARTH’s Use Of The Derogatory Term ‘Shemale’

Daniel talks with Autumn (a trans contributor at Ex-Gay Watch) about the TVC’s and NARTH’s use of the derogatory term “shemale.” Most recently the TVC used the term in a political cartoon attacking the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, currently in Congress. Autumn notes the term is used almost exclusively in either pornography or by anti-gay/trans activists.

TVC cartoon
NARTH’s use of “shemale”
GoodAsYou.Org’s analysis of cartoon

Chronicle Correction on Cameron Fails to Catch Error

As we reported earlier, the San Francisco Chronicle falsely accredited the anti-gay positions of Focus on the Family to “researcher” Paul Cameron.  Though both provide false stereotypes and untrue claims about gay men and women, Focus does not rely on or quote Cameron.

The Chronicle has issued a correction which, while informative, did not catch the error:

CLARIFICATION: In an article about San Francisco’s campaign to get more gays and lesbians to adopt foster children – as well as an opposing evangelical campaign to get more Christian families to adopt — the Chronicle quoted Paul Cameron, director of the Family Research Institute. The article should have noted that Cameron, who believes gays make unfit parents and self-published dozens of articles he said were based on his research, was expelled from the American Psychological Association in 1983 when he refused to subject his work to peer review. The article also should have reported that his Family Research Institute was named a hate group in 2006 by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

I wrote to the author to inform her of the lack of connection between Focus and Cameron. 

American Psychological Association Announced Committee To Review Position On Ex-Gay Therapy

Given how Focus on the Family bungled initially “reporting” on the APA’s announcement of the nomination process I can’t wait to see “coverage” of how committee members were finally selected.  Here’s how committee members were actually selected:

Task Force members were selected after an open nominations process. All nominations were reviewed by the APA Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns (CLGBTC) which forwarded the complete list of nominations and a suggested slate of nominees to the APA Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest (BAPPI) for review.  The CLGBTC and BAPPI recommendations as well as the full list of nominations were then sent to the APA President who made the final appointments to the task force in consultation with the APA Board of Directors.

Here’s the list of committee members, all of whom appear to be gay-affirming:

 Judith M. Glassgold, PsyD – Dr. Glassgold is a clinician, researcher and visiting faculty at the Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology, Rutgers University. She sits on the editorial boards of Pragmatic Case Studies in Psychotherapy, Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy and PsycCritiques. Much of her work focuses on ethical issues in psychotherapy including the interplay of psychology and religion. Dr. Glassgold will serve as the Task Force Chairperson.

Lee Beckstead, PhD – Dr. Beckstead is a counseling psychologist who has focused his research and clinical work on helping gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people with strong religious affiliations. He works full-time in private practice and is a staff associate in the University of Utah’s Counseling Center.

Jack Drescher, MD – Dr. Drescher is a psychiatrist in clinical practice. His academic appointments include that of Adjunct Clinical Assistant Professor in the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at New York Medical College. He also serves as the editor of the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Psychotherapy.

Beverly Greene, PhD – Dr. Greene is a Professor of Psychology at St. John’s University and a practicing clinical psychologist. She has published extensively in the psychological literature on multi-minority identities and the interplay between multiple identity status, coping with social marginalization and psychotherapy. She was a founding co-editor of the APA Division 44 series Psychological Perspectives on Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Issues.

Robin Lin Miller, PhD – Dr. Miller is a community psychologist and an associate professor at Michigan State University. She is currently the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Evaluation. She was appointed to the Task Force to provide specific expertise in research and evaluation methods.

Roger L. Worthington, PhD – Dr. Worthington is the interim Chief Diversity Officer at the University of Missouri-Columbia and an Associate Professor in the university’s Department of Educational, School and Counseling Psychology. Dr. Worthington is on the Board of Directors of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education and on the editorial board of the Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. His research interests include multicultural counseling, heterosexual identity, sexual prejudice, and lesbian, gay and bisexual issues.

I can’t wait to see Focus get it’s panties in a bind over this.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Slam the Door On Your Way Out

Petty Officer 2nd Class Jason Knight, the Navy linguist who had been discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and then reactivated a few years later, has now been officially discharged again. This time they mean it:

“I got my new DD214 this morning with its gleaming RE4 code and Homosexual Statement.”

According to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, an average of two service members per day are dismissed under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Jason is a linguist, one of the specialties in critically short supply. And according to a Zogby Poll last December, most members of the armed forces have no problem with serving alongside these Patriots. Britain has dropped its ban on gay service members with no problems with unit cohesion. It’s time for the U.S. armed services to join the 21st century and end the ban.

San Francisco Chronicle Confuses Cameron With Focus On The Family

Sometimes reporters are biased, sometimes they’re just careless, and sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Ilene Lelchuk wrote this in an article on Focus on the Family’s opposition to gay foster parents:

Focus on the Family’s objection to same-sex parents is grounded in interpretation of biblical scripture and research by Paul Cameron, director of the Family Research Institute in Colorado.

Believe you me, I’m no fan of Paul Cameron, and I’m the last person in the world to defend Focus on the Family for much of anything. But if there’s one thing I can’t stand is a reporter who doesn’t check her facts.

Paul Cameron generally works with less than $200,000 a year and has maybe four employees — all family members as far as I can tell. Focus on the Family has an operating budget of more than $138 million. Their 1,300 employees are more than capable of generating their own false statistics whenever the mood strikes. They have no need to get their hands dirty with Cameron’s work.

And in fact, Focus on the Family has been avoiding Cameron’s work for almost a decade. They’re even careful to avoid using his work indirectly — although occasionally it does manage to slip through.

Believe me, I’ve been watching for it. And after three years of watching them very carefully, I’ve only found a couple of isolated cases where they used his statistics indirectly. (One isolated example can be found in James Dobson’s book Bringing Up Boys, where he cites William Bennett instead of Paul Cameron to get to Cameron’s gay lifespan statistic).

A lot of people use Cameron’s research. Many more use his work discretely without attributing it to him by name. But Focus on the Family — as a rule — generally doesn’t. And by no means are their positions “grounded” on Cameron’s research. This is astonishingly sloppy reporting coming from the Chronicle.

So then, mark this day. I said something mildly positive about Focus on the Family — if saying that Focus can manufacture bad data without Cameron’s help is at all positive.

I’m sure it’s hard to keep track of all the anti-gay activists. They often sound so much alike. But I think it’s important to set the record straight when the media gets it wrong, especially when they overstate Cameron’s stature. Cameron’s bad enough, but when it comes to overall impact, he’s no Dobson.

Although Cameron’s statement to the Chronicle does beg one question: Would Focus on the Family prefer to keep kids institutionalized than have them go to same-sex couples?

Justified by Superiority

No one wants to be called a bigot. No one wants to think that their own dislikes of others is based on arbitrary presumptions or, worse yet, their own insecurities. We want to justify our feelings of contempt by blaming them on the victims of our contempt and, more importantly, defining ourselves as inherently superior.

And history is filled with just such justifications.

Invading a culture, killing all the men, and taking the land and the women requires something more than whim or need. We must say they were inferior – they worshiped the wrong gods. Enslaving people with another skin color can’t be simply based on power or greed. They are inferior, less intelligent, and therefore they should dutifully recognize our superior role. The shape of the skull or nose of a man shows him inferior and more criminally inclined and therefore worthy of a Final Solution. The economic structure of one nation is superior to that of another and justifies invasion to impose this preferable method.

So much evil starts with the image of ones own superiority. If, after all, one thing is superior to another, is it so wrong to do away with the inferior and support the superior? And doesn’t that ends justify any means – or meanness?

So perhaps it should not surprise us much that Exodus International’s Mike Ensley justifies his endorsement and support for anti-gay discrimination with this comment on Alan Chambers’ blog:

The fact is, heterosexuality is innately superior. Only heterosexual partners enjoy the complimentary aspect of their physiology, and only they can produce children.

I suspect that Mike does not want to think of himself as a bigot. And I suspect that Mike does not want to think of himself as cruel to others. So in order to justify his own personal activism in the cause of harming the lives, livelihoods, and relationships of individual gay men and women, he needs to see these lives – and the people living them – as inferior.

So he does.

(hat tip to Peterson)

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Don’t Support

On April 23, 2007 a captain with the 8th Marine Corps District in Fort Worth named Josh Gibbs wrote an opinion piece for the Marine Corps Times entitled It’s time to allow gays to serve openly in the military.  In this thoughtful article Gibbs challenged many of the assumptions and stereotypes that prop up the discriminatory “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy in the US Military, including the false comparison to the military’s treatment of adultery.

Though Gibbs has contributed pieces on a number of subjects, he discovered that advocating acceptance of gay soldiers is not only taboo but will get you punished.

Fallout from the April 23 column was swift, he said. According to Gibbs, he was notified April 30 that he was relieved of duty due to “loss of confidence” in his ability. His commanding officer shared the news only after Gibbs began asking questions after a posting for his position was prematurely listed on a Corps Web site, Gibbs said during a May 17 telephone interview.

Gibbs will be reassigned to 3rd Marines Logistics group on Okinawa, Japan, he said. His commanders told him, “It is a mark against me, but not one I can’t recover from,” Gibbs said.

After nine years in the service, Gibbs has decided to leave the military and pursue a life where he will be allowed to make change happen. 

South Carolina Man Dies in Possible Hate Crime

Sean William Kennedy, 20, of Greenville, South Carolina  died from injuries he suffered in a fight an assault outside of a gay bar early Wednesday morning. Sherrif deputies last night arrested Stephen Andrew Moller, 18, who is accused of punching Kennedy because Moller didn’t like Kennedy’s sexuality.

According to the sherrif’s department, as Sean was walking to his car from the bar early Wednesday morning, Moller got out of another car and walked towards Sean. Moller made some comments about Sean’s sexual orientation and punched him in the face.

The Greenville sherrif’s office is working with the FBI to determine whether to proceed with a hate crime investigation. If so, it would be for statistics purposes only. South Carolina does not have a hate crime law which covers sexual orientation.

Updates to the Cameron Links

Gary Glenn wrote to me this morning to point out he did not use a Cameron reference for his article, “Deadly Homosexual Behavior.” The links to Cameron had been appended to the end of his article by Earle Fox, the web site’s owner. Mr. Glenn’s name has been removed from the list. I sincerely apologize for the error.

Meanwhile, thanks to your inputs, the list of those who use Cameron’s work has grown a little. Mary Jo Anderson was added to the list, and I have a whole set of additions that still need to be made from the Free Republic web site. If you find any others, please send them my way.