Box Turtle Bulletin

Christianity Today: “Evangelicals Behaving Badly”

The January edition of Christianity Today has a very worthwile commentary that everyone should read. Titled “Evangelicals Behaving Badly With Statistics“, Dr. Christian Smith writes:

American evangelicals, who profess to be committed to Truth, are among the worst abusers of simple descriptive statistics, which claim to represent the truth about reality, of any group I have ever seen. At stake in this misuse are evangelicals’ own integrity, credibility with outsiders, and effectiveness in the world. It is an issue worth making a fuss over. And so I write.

Dr. Smith examines one simple statistic that went out in an ad for a national leadership summit that screamed “Christianity In America Won’t Survive Another Decade Unless We Do Something Now”. According to the summit’s organizers, “only 4 percent [of teenagers] will be evangelical believers by the time they become adults. Compare this with 34 percent of adults today who are evangelicals.” Dr. Smith looked into it and discovered something that our regular readers can well anticipate. That statistic was based on a convenience sample, not a nationally representative one. We’re not surprised, and neither is Dr. Smith:

I find the misuse of statistics described above appalling. If this were an isolated incident, it might be excusable. But, having been a watcher of evangelicalism for many years, I know that this is not an aberrant case. Evangelical leaders and organizations routinely use descriptive statistics in sloppy, unwarranted, misrepresenting, and sometimes absolutely preposterous ways, usually to get attention and sound alarms, at least some of which are false alarms. The widespread influence of much-cited evangelical pollsters, who do not actually come entirely clean on their methods, does not help matters either. It seems that one of two situations pertains. Either statistically reckless evangelicals are somewhat aware that they are playing fast and loose with numbers. Or they are not, they simply do not know better. Either is unacceptable.

In Proverbs 14:5, we read, “A reliable witness always tells the truth, but an unreliable one tells nothing but lies.” That proverb, like all of them, is profoundly true. When someone is caught in a lie, it destroys their credibility and from then on everything they say is treated with suspicion –a suspicion that is reserved for one who “tells nothing but lies.” After all, who has “ears to hear” once you discover someone has been caught playing fast and loose with the facts?

John wrote his followers, “I write you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it and know that no lie is of the truth.” (1 John 2:21). St. Augustine expounded on that verse, saying, “Therefore, it is not true that sometimes we ought to lie. What is not true we should never try to persuade anyone to believe.” And yet so many evangelicals who oppose gay rights do exactly that. And knowing that they do that, some observers are left to wonder whether the fruit by which we know them (see Matthew 7:18, 20) is rotten to the core. Dr. Smith is very tough on his fellow evangelicals on that very point:

The real question is not whether evangelicals can clean up their statistical act. The deeper question is whether American evangelicals can learn to live without the alarmism that is so comfortably familiar to them. Evangelicals, by my observation, thrive on fear of impending catastrophe, accelerating decay, apocalyptic crises that demand immediate action (and maybe money). All of that can be energizing and mobilizing. The problem is, it also often distorts, misrepresents, or falsifies what actually happens to be true about reality. And to sacrifice what is actually true for the sake of immediate attention and action is plain wrong. It should be redefined as a very un-evangelical thing to do.

A very pertinent wake-up call for those with ears to hear.

“It’s Not Gay”: It Most Certainly Isn’t

The American Family Association’s video It’s Not Gay is back in the news again, now that its principal star has begun to re-emerge from a scandal that brought down his ministry.

Michael Johnston was at one time a darling of the ex-gay movement. He founded Kerusso Ministries, and built it on his testimony of contracting HIV while engaging in dangerous and promiscuous sexual activity before “walking away from homosexuality” through a spiritual transformation. He parlayed that testimony into national prominence, working with James Kennedy’s Corral Ridge Ministry in 1998 to produce a commercial in which he appears with his mother. In response to the National Coming Out day that is observed every October 11, he initiated his so-called “National Coming Out of Homosexuality Day” to coincide with the larger event. Charismatic, articulate, calm, young and good looking, Johnston was a bright star in the ex-gay constellation.

Johnston’s fortunes came crashing down in 2003 when it was learned that while he was traveling around the country decrying the “depravity” of homosexuals, he was hosting orgies, taking drugs and practicing unsafe sex without disclosing his HIV status. He immediately closed his ministry and went underground. A spokesman for the American Family Association concluded “I don’t foresee he would ever be back in a place of public ministry, especially in an outreach to homosexuals like the ministry he had.”

Before Johnston’s downfall, his story was the centerpiece for the American Family Association’s 2000 video, It’s Not Gay. In it, Johnston is joined by other anti-gay activists, including Richard Cohen (then president of PFOX), Kirmit Rainman (Focus on the Family) and David Pruden (Evergreen Ministries). The video, as is typical with most anti-gay propaganda, is loaded with unsupported statistics (Cohen exclaims at one point that “80% of homosexual men have a sexually transmitted disease!”) or statistics that are derived from unreliable and unrepresentative sources. The two “medical experts” were about as obscure as you can get: an osteopath and a urologist from Middletown, Ohio (misspelled “Middleton” in the video).

Richard Cohen, former president of PFOX and current director of something he calls the “International Healing Foundation” was one of the “experts” featured in the video. The is the same Richard Cohen who was permanently expelled from the American Counseling Association in 2003 for ethics violations, and has been denounced for espousing “touch” or “holding” therapy to “cure” homosexuality. In the video, not only did he provide the unsubstantiated claim that 80% of gay men have a sexually transmitted disease, he also cherry picked other outdated and non-representative “studies” (including the McWhirter book that the FRC used in their fraudulent brief to the Maryland Supreme Court) to claim that 95% of gay couples are not monogamous.

But the star of the show is Michael Johnston himself. It’s his face we see and voice we hear throughout the video as he describes his life as a “former homosexual.” We hear him describe all of his behavior — and his contracting AIDS — as being the consequences of homosexuality, as though homosexuality were a power outside himself. He blames his decisions to be promiscuous, to enter into poor relationships, and to engage in unsafe sexual activity — including his decision to spread his infection to others without disclosing his health status — on “the homosexual lifestyle”. He appearently does not consider his own responsibility for his choices, choices which could have included exercising self-control, and living as a faithful, honest, responsible, mature gay man. Instead, he avoids the question of his personal responsibility for making the choices he made, and blames them on homosexuality itself. And in doing so, he paints a picture that leaves the false impression that all gay men behave exactly as he did.

When the scandal first broke, Johnston sought refuge at a live-in facility with Pure Life Ministries at an undisclosed location in Kentucky. From there, he apparently disappeared, out of the limelight, and most assumed that would be the last we would hear of him. But now Wayne Besen reports that Johnston has emerged from his self-imposed isolation as a speaker for Pure Life. According to Pure Life’s website, Johnston “walked away from the gay community in 1988 after almost 11 years of involvement in homosexuality and testing positive for HIV in 1986.” But the same website says he led a double life, which leads one to question whether he really walked away or not.

So Michael Johnston said he experienced a wonderful spiritual transformation before. He even went on television to announce it. But what happened? Did it not take? What sort of spiritual transformation did Mike not undergo before that he has undergone now? He said in his 1998 commercial that he “walked away from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ.” What’s different today? Pure Life has an answer:

For the first time in his life, Mike has gained a genuine understanding of what it really means to be a follower of Jesus and God has given him a fresh vision of helping others find real freedom; this time not for the purpose of self-promotion but to glorify Christ.

I don’t know. Maybe it’s a different Jesus Christ this time from the one Johnston proclaimed before. Maybe God not really mean it the first time. At any rate, we can be assured that he’s not acting in self-promotion. Not this time. Not on a full-page of a web site featuring his photo and proclaiming his availability as a public speaker.

And in case you were wondering, his video is still for sale at the American Family Association’s website. They’ve even been stepping up their promotion of it through e-mails to the faithful offering special discounts. But nowhere on that website will you learn the real story behind the video, or of its star. While the contents of the video are fraudulent, the title is very appropriate. It’s Not Gay does not describe what it is to be gay. It’s not gay at all. Instead the video describes what happens when someone makes a series of bad choices without taking personal responsibility for his actions.

That’s not gay. That’s just pathetic.

Focus: “N.J. Pastors Spared From Performing Civil Unions”

Did all the anti-gay extremists skip class on the day they were to learn about the First Amendment? It’s beginning to look that way.

We’ve seen Focus and other anti-gay special interest groups falsely claim that passing hate crime laws to protect gays and lesbians would infringe on their religious freedoms. This, of course, is utter nonsense. The proposed hate crime laws covers only violent crimes, not speech or beliefs. And for good reason — any attempts to curb speech would quickly run afoul of the First Amendment. Anyone who passed high school civics can understand that.

They have also opposed gay marriage while claiming that pastors would be “forced” to conduct wedding ceremonies for gay couples. This, too, is nonsense. There has never been an instance in all of American history in which the government compelled a minister to perform a religious service. That would strike at the very heart of the anti-establishment clause of the First Amendment. But as ludicrous as that idea may be, anti-gay lobbyists continue to sound that drumbeat.

Now, in a move that advances that argument to the surreal, Focus on the Family has distributed a story in which Peter LaBarbera, of the terribly misnamed and fraudulently-classified “Americans for Truth” is joined by several other extremists to perpetuate the myth that New Jersey’s civil unions law (and gay marriage in general) might have forced ministers to perform civil unions against their will:

Gay couples in New Jersey will be allowed to apply for civil unions starting in February, but Attorney General Stuart Rabner has announced that clergy members are not required to perform such unions.

Len Deo, president of the New Jersey Family Policy Council, said the decision was a relief for ministers who feared being charged with hate crimes for refusing to perform the ceremonies. …

But Peter LaBarbera, president of Americans for Truth, said pastors are not yet in the clear.

“To me, what’s shaping up is, yes, they are not forced to by the law,” he said, “but we will see the other side start to demonize and ostracize pastors that do not bless homosexual unions.”

C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League, said the weight of the law will likely eventually come to bear.

“The whole tendency is once something is legalized, it moves from being simply a liberty or a right, so-called, to something that is required,” he said. “This is something that is very dangerous.”

This is preposterous. One reason states like Vermont and New Jersey opted for civil unions was to avoid the religious connotation of the word “marriage.” While every religious tradition recognizes marriage, there is no such thing as a “civil union” in Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or any other religious tradition. The very word “civil” in civil union should be the clue here. There is no religious ceremony that corresponds to a civil union because a “religious” civil union would be an oxymoron. This whole argument is beyond ridiculous.

But what if New Jersey had followed Massachusetts’ lead and enacted marriage instead of civil unions? Again, pastors are in the clear. There is nothing in the Constitution that empowers a government to force churches to accept beliefs they don’t want to accept. That’s the whole reason the anti-establishment clause of the First Amendment exists in the first place. And there is no hate crime law anywhere in the land that can force pastors to perform a wedding. Hate crimes address acts of violence, not thoughts, beliefs, speech or religious practices.

C.J. Doyle of the Catholic Action League should know this better than anyone. The Catholic Church defends its teachings against divorce by refusing to marry divorced persons whose previous marriage hasn’t been annulled by the Church. Any couple who shows up with a marriage license from the state won’t get very far with the parish priest if one of them were divorced and doesn’t have an annulment. As far as that priest is concerned, that civil marriage license is meaningless. In fact, that couple won’t get very far if they haven’t completed Pre-Cana counseling to the pastor’s satisfaction. Marriage license or no, a wedding ceremony won’t go forward unless that couple complies with the teachings of the Church to that pastor’s satisfaction. This has been common practice for practically forever, and the Church has the full backing of the First Amendment in doing so.

The very idea that the state of New Jersey — or anyone else — can require a minister to perform a religious ceremony is preposterous. But when it comes to scaring ordinary Americans, nothing is beyond the pale for LaBarbera, Focus, or anyone else in the anti-gay lobby.

Focus on the Family Lies About Proposed Hate Crimes Bill

Focus on the Family is running around with a twisted interpretation of the proposed hate crime legislation before Congress. But before we delve into what they have to say, let’s take a look at what the proposed legislation actually looks like. It’s in legalese, but bear with me. Here’s the text of H.R. 254:

Section 245 of title 18, United States Code, is amended–

(1) by redesignating subsections (c) and (d) as subsections (d) and (e), respectively; and

(2) by inserting after subsection (b) the following:

`(c)(1) Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, or an explosive device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin of any person–

`(A) shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, or fined in accordance with this title, or both; and

`(B) shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or fined in accordance with this title, or both if–

• `(i) death results from the acts committed in violation of this paragraph; or

• `(ii) the acts committed in violation of this paragraph include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill.

`(2)(A) Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, in any circumstance described in subparagraph (B), willfully causes bodily injury to any person or, through the use of fire, a firearm, or an explosive device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any person, because of the actual or perceived religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability of any person–

`(i) shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, or fined in accordance with this title, or both; and

`(ii) shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or fined in accordance with this title, or both, if–

• `(I) death results from the acts committed in violation of this paragraph; or

• `(II) the acts committed in violation of this paragraph include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill.

`(B) For purposes of subparagraph (A), the circumstances described in this subparagraph are that–

`(i) in connection with the offense, the defendant or the victim travels in interstate or foreign commerce, uses a facility or instrumentality of interstate or foreign commerce, or engages in any activity affecting interstate or foreign commerce; or

`(ii) the offense is in or affects interstate or foreign commerce.’.

Focus on the Family won’t quote from the proposed bill itself. Instead, they make stuff up by saying things like this:

“We oppose hate-crimes laws because they do not equally protect all Americans as the U.S. Constitution demands,” said Tom Minnery, senior vice president of government and public policy for Focus on the Family Action.

Wrong. The proposed legislation protect all Americans, just as the U.S. Constitution demands. It protects everyone regardless of race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. That includes white people, evangelical protestants, men, straight people, and able-bodied people. They are protected against violent bias-motivated crimes as well. The FBI reported that in 2005 there were 935 anti-white incidents (including one murder or manslaughter), 58 anti-Protestant incidents, and 23 anti-heterosexual incidents.

And these incidents are all either violent crimes or property crimes. Name-calling and letters to the editor aren’t crimes and aren’t counted. As I noted in Federal Hate Crime Statistics: Why the Numbers Don’t Add Up, there are many reasons to believe that these numbers represent an undercount. In fact, the undercount may be quite substantial since most people assume that hate crime laws only protect the minority. But that’s a problem with poor training and law enforcement, not a problem with the law itself.

And hate crimes protects everyone equally in another way: they protect everyone even if they are perceived to be something they are not. In other words, a straight man can be attacked by someone who simply thinks he’s gay. That’s what happened to National Guardsman Matthew Ashcraft two years ago in Newport, Kentucky:

Steven Ard, 38, of Newport, is accused of attacking Matthew Ashcraft on the evening of June 26, following a dispute outside Woolly’s on Monmouth Street. He is charged with assault and faces up to 20 years in prison.

Ashcraft, who is straight, and two gay friends were heading to the nightspot on June 26 when they saw Woolly’s customer Leon Hughes being harassed outside. When Ashcraft intervened, Ard left, then returned with a baseball bat and beat him, Campbell County prosecutors said.

Focus on the Family continues:

“The job of our law-enforcement agencies and courts is to punish crime, not thoughts. We must seek justice for those who are victims of violence, absolutely, but not by passing a law that tramples Americans’ right to free thought.”

Wrong again. Re-read the proposed legislation. It is all about violence: sexual assault, bodily injury, kidnapping, murder. Nothing in the proposed legislation even comes within five miles of “trampling American’s right to free thought”.

And as for Alan Chambers’ objections, we’ve already dealt with his strawman arguments.

Focus on the Family and Exodus both have tried to derail this bill by acting like Chicken Little, crying that our constitutional sky is falling. It isn’t. But Exodus and Focus may end up with egg on their faces.

Exodus, Meet The First Amendment

Update: Mark, from Slapped Upsite The Head, left a comment to correct my feeble understanding of the intricacies of Canadian law. Meanwhile, Tor Billgren updates me via E-mail on the origin of Sweden’s hate speech law. Corrections and additions are noted below.

Many anti-gay organizations oppose extending hate crime laws to cover sexual orientation, claiming that to do so will take away their religious freedoms. Exodus added their voices to the chorus just yesterday by issuing this press release:

Today, as the nation celebrates Religious Freedom Day, Exodus International, the world’s largest ministry to those desiring freedom from unwanted homosexuality, joins pro-family groups around the nation in urging Congress to stop a hate crimes bill that would penalize those with faith-based beliefs about homosexuality.

Alan Chambers, President of Exodus International, said, “Today, we celebrate a sacred right to freely practice our individual religious beliefs, and at the same time, Congress is debating legislation that could eventually destroy these freedoms. Hate crimes legislation does not prosecute illegal actions that harm others, it prosecutes beliefs about homosexuality that for many Americans, is consistent with their faith.”

This is utter nonsense. Nothing in the hate crime legislation prosecutes beliefs of any sort. Anyone can believe whatever they want to about sexual orientation, and anyone can say anything they want to about their beliefs.

Alan Chambers is displaying an abysmal ignorance about one of the most basic tenants of our constitution. While we already have hate crime legislation in place for categories of gender, race and religion, none of it even remotely affects speech or beliefs. And the reason is simple: our First Amendment protects our right to say pretty much anything we want, no matter how ugly, hateful, or factually wrong we may be.

That’s right. The Nazis are free to march in predominantly Jewish Skokie, IL (with the ACLU’s help, I might add) because of the First Amendment, and the Klan is free to spew hatred against racial minorities in Cleveland. You can advocate genocide, you can defend Al-Qaida, and you hurl any racist epithet you want. It won’t help your comedy career much, but you can’t be fined or jailed for it. As long as you’re not shouting fire! in a crowded theater or threatening to kill the president, you can say pretty much anything you want.

The courts and legislators at every level have been exceptionally diligent in protecting everyone’s right to say anything, no matter how stupid, hateful, or disgusting that speech may be judged by others. Hate crime legislation in the U.S. simply cannot criminalize speech. Our constitution forbids it right there, in our cherished First Amendment, something that Alan Chambers really ought to read sometime:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

He also ought to remember that he lives in Florida, not Canada, Australia, Sweden, or Britain:

Canada, Australia, Sweden and other European nations have used hate crimes law to punish, even imprison preachers for speaking out against protected persons. Preachers have been fined or jailed in Canada and Sweden for quoting passages from the Bible about homosexuality. In England, a Christian was thrown in jail for passing out pamphlets with Bible verses condemning homosexual activity. In Philadelphia, eleven Christians were jailed for sharing a message from the Bible to a crowd of people attending a public pro-gay event.

Canada, Australia, Sweden and other European nations don’t have anything like our First Amendment. We’re quite exceptional in our absolute insistence on our infettered freedoms to say whatever we want. What happens elsewhere does not automatically happen here, nor can it. Our courts and constitution simply won’t allow it. If our laws can’t stop the Nazis and the Klan from marching, they won’t stop Exodus from denigrating gays and lesbians. Or exaggerating and lying about what has happened elsewhere.

Canada’s Bill C-250 criminalizes certain types of hate speech towards persons of any sexual orientation: homosexuals, bisexuals, or bisexuals. In other words, it protects everyone equally. But there is a clause, known in Canadian law as a “not withstanding” clause, which specifically exempts religiously motivated speech. In other words, religious freedom always trumps hate speech in Canada according to this particular law.

Sweden has a similar law that protects people from “unfavorable speech,” and like the Canadian law, it protects everyone equally: homosexuals, bisexuals, and heterosexuals. Swedish journalist Tor Billgren, who writes the blog Antigayretorik, was angered by Chambers’ press release. Defending his beloved Sweden, he e-mailed me to say that while they have hate speech laws there, no preacher has been fined or jailed for quoting the Bible:

Pastor Ã…ke Green was sentenced to 1 month inprisonment by the district court, but was aquitted by the court of appeal and the supreme court. He wasn’t jailed. There’s another case as well: Leif Liljeström, a christian (not a preacher) who owned a discussion forum on the web. He was sentenced to 1 month for things another person wrote on the forum (according to the swedish law the owner of the forum is responsible). However, this wasn’t quotes from the Bible, but extreme hate speach. This case will be dealt with by the supreme court. He hasn’t been jailed.

(Update) Sweden’s hate speech law goes back to 1948, when it was origionally written in response to the Holocaust. Laws like these limiting hate speech are quite common in many European countries. But that’s because their constitutions allow such laws to exist. Ours doesn’t.

Britain is a separate case altogether. The U.K. has no written constitution, nor does it have anything like our Bill of Rights. If I remember, that was one of the sore points between us more than two hundred years ago. While we may think of Britain as a free country, there is, in fact, no constitutional protections of free speech whatsoever. Consequently, Britain has a long history of banning all sorts of speech. As recently as 1988, Margaret Thatcher’s government banned the broadcast of all appearances and interviews of members of Sinn Fein and the IRA. (According to the BBC, “instead of hearing Gerry Adams, viewers and listeners would hear an actor’s voice reading a transcript of the Sinn Fein leader’s words.”). You just try to get that past our Constitution here.

And as proof further that our First Amendment protects everyone, each of the eleven Christians from Repent America who were jailed in Philadelphia “for sharing a message from the Bible” — messages that were lovingly shouted through bullhorns — saw all of their charges dropped. Why? It’s simple. As it was with the Klan and the neo-Nazi’s, their actions were protected by the First Amendment.

To defend our freedoms, sometimes some pretty disagreeable people wind up paying a price. That is unfortunate, but as we all know, freedoms aren’t free. Freedom of speech is only meaningful when that speech is offensive, and Repent America, Fred Phelps, the Klan and Nazi’s have all advanced the cause of free speech for the rest of us by being thoroughly offensive and disgusting. I guess we have to give them that. Exodus can thank them as well.

The hate crime laws that Congress in considering doesn’t address speech for one simple reason: It can’t. For Exodus to claim otherwise shows an abysmal ignorance of the law — or dishonesty. It’s one of the other. Take your pick.

Santa Cruz Student Threatened Over Blood Drive

As I said before, kids can be very passionate. Thank God for that. It’s clear that the younger generation is truly our best hope for a better future.

But progress doesn’t come without a price. No pain, no gain, as one Santa Cruz high school student recently discovered:

Ronnie Childers, 17, student body president at Harbor High School, said he volunteered at a blood drive at his school earlier this month for five hours and waited in line for three more before being turned away.

That’s a lot of youthful passion to give eight hours of his time for a blood drive, and to wait three hours for his turn to give blood. Why says young people are apathetic. But Ronnie’s good work ran afoul of the ban on gay men donating blood. Ronnie spoke out against the ban to the local newspaper, and his case prompted the Santa Cruz school district to reconsider its participation in the blood drive. In the end, the school system decided to continue the drive, but student donors are required to obtain parental permission before donating.

But now, Ronnie is paying the price for speaking up:

Ronnie Childers, Harbor’s senior class president, said Monday he’s received about 50 letters attacking his sexuality since his complaints about national blood donor rules, and his photo, were published in a Sentinel story last month. The story later attracted state and national attention.

Some of the letters were hostile enough that Childers forwarded them to police, “just to be on the safe side”

“There are a couple key phrases, ‘I know where you go to school,'” he said. “I think adults need to understand that letters like this are inappropriate”

As Ronnie has discovered, activism attracts attention, the wrong kind of attention. Believe me, I know. It shouldn’t be this way, and there is absolutely no excuse for threatening anyone, especially a teenager. But as long as we live in a society where some members value might over right, and who don’t see the irony of cherishing freedoms by threatening the freedoms of others, this is the price we will all pay.

Something to think about on the day after Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday observances.

Americans For Truth: Did They Lie To The IRS?

Dr. Kevin Kaatz noticed something interesting about Peter LaBarbara’s so-called “Americans For Truth’s” 501(c)(3) tax-exempt designation:

I didn’t realize that the actual name for Americans for Truth is Americans for Truth about Homosexuality… When I looked this organization up in GuideStar (a source of information about non-profit organizations), their ‘National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities,’ code is R26–Lesbian/Gay Rights. These NTEE codes are used to help people search for non-profit organizations. And get this–this code of R26 is used for “R20 Civil Rights, Advocacy for Specific Groups”! So Americans for Truth about Homosexuality claim to be a civil rights group for lesbians and gays!

The section for R26 is reserved for: “Organizations that support the passage and enforcement of laws and other social measures that protect and promote the rights and interests of individuals who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered.”

Dr. Kaatz observes that this places the so-called “Americans For Truth About Homosexuality” alongside Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, as a group that defends gay and lesbian rights. When in fact, it doesn’t.

How did this happen? According to an update on the same post, Dr. Kaatz received emails from both Guidestar and Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy, indicating that the codes are selected by either the organizations themselves or by the IRS.

Update: The codes come from the organizations themselves. They didn’t come from the IRS:

Go to http://www.guidestar.org/npo/index.jsp. At the bottom, in the section called “More Info”, click on eDoc–try the demo. This will bring up a demonstration for how people fill out their non-profit reports. Go to slide 12. It is here where organizations ADD THEIR OWN NTEE CODES. The directions clearly state that if you aren’t sure of which codes to enter, then then give a link to the NTEE code lists. Clearly LaBarbera added the code of R26. His name is on the form. If he didn’t do it, then who did?

Mexico’s Coahuila Approves Civil Unions

Reuters is reporting that lawmakers in the Mexican state of Coahuila, a mostly rural mining and ranching state that borders with Texas, has approved civil unions for same-sex couples. Coahuila legistlators passed the bill 20-13, which, among other things, grants social security benefits to gay couples. The bill was promoted by the PRI, Mexico’s traditional ruling party before the PAN’s Vicente Fox became the first non-PRI president since 1911. Gov. Humberto Moreira, who is also in the PRI, is expected to sign the bill into law. This means that Coahuila will soon join Mexico City, which passed a civil union law last November.

Sonja Dalton Matches Wits With A 16-Year-Old

Ah, youth! A time of incredible optimism and idealism. A new Zogby poll of how young people view their lives, futures and politics (PDF: 892KB/45 pages) shows an encouraging outlook on homosexuality. While the 18-25 year old set (dubbed the “Gen Nexters” by Zogby) is nearly evenly split on the subject of gay marriage (47% favor, 46% oppose, 7% don’t know. Margin of error: 5%), they clearly don’t see gays and lesbians as a threat to society. Fifty-eight percent see homosexuality as a way of life that should be accepted by society, and 61% are in favor of allowing gays and lesbians to adopt.

Gen Nexters are also very likely to use a social networking website such as Facebook or Myspace — 44% have created a personal profile. These websites have become a forum where teens can begin to flesh out how they see the world and their place in it. Naturally, teenagers being who they are, are eager to share their thoughts, no matter whether they be misguided or profound. Take, for example, this Myspace blog by a 16-year-old student who goes by the moniker, “Doc Holidâ™ y“:

There simply is no respect anymore. No respect for beliefs, no respects for individualism, no respect for humanity. I just read my friend Emily’s note about a group called ‘Americans For Truth’ and I visited their website. It made me want to vomit and cry. …

Doc, I know the feeling. A cursory look around the so-called “Americans for Truth” website reveals an immaturity that would make any decent high school sophomore question the supposed wisdom of their elders. Doc may not have all his facts straight (what teenager does?), but his heart and passion are in the right place (and what teenager’s isn’t?).

But me, I’m not one to go looking around on Myspace for perspectives on gay and lesbian issues. Teens’ observations may be of tremendous interest to their peers, but they’re usually not something an adult would find worthy of comment. Unless that “adult” happens to be one Sonja Dalton, of Peter LaBarbara’s misnamed website “Americans for Truth”. She ran across Doc’s posting and became completely unglued:

I ran across this MySpace blog a few days ago. It merits note. I have sat in a number of school meetings where board members, administrators, and teachers insist that 15-16 -17 year old high school students are “mature” and “wise.” This teenager’s post will henceforth suffice as my response to that claim. It is full of typos, misspellings, incorrect punctuation, and (most importantly) misplaced emotion, arrogance, ignorance, poor logic, misinformation, and lies.

Now, mind you, I dedicated this website to the task of correcting the misplaced emotion, arrogance, ignorance, poor logic, misinformation, and lies of supposedly mature and professional adults who malign gays and lesbians. I’ll not invest my limited time and energy in monitoring teen websites. Besides, I find the thought of trolling through Myspace just a little bit creepy. But I’ll leave Sonja to it — maybe somewhere on Myspace she’ll find her intellectual equal. But she’ll evidently have to aim lower than a high school sophomore to find it.

Hat tip: Jody Wheeler

American Family Association Picks Up The “Ailing General” Theme

They must have shared a conference call or something:

Conservative military watchdog Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness (CMR) says she believes pro-homosexual activists are using an ailing former U.S. Army general [John Shalikashvili] to push their agenda in the hopes of overturning the ban enacted by Congress on homosexuals serving in America’s armed forces… Donnelly notes that Shalikashvili has in the last year or so suffered a debilitating stroke and is, in her words, “struggling to retain his health.” She says it is “really sad” to see someone like the general being used by the homosexual propaganda machine as “the latest tool of a public relations campaign.”

You can read Gen. Shalikashvili’s op-ed piece for yourself. Both Focus and AFA are now dismissing his stance as the ramblings of an “ailing general” who has become a “tool” for homosexual activists. It looks like this will be the agreed-upon theme for the day. Expect to see more of the same.

See also:

Focus on the Family’s Reaction to Gen. Shalikashvili

Focus on the Family’s Reaction to Gen. Shalikashvili

Army Gen. John Shalikashvili, who retired as Charmian of the Joint Chiefs in 1997, says he supported the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy which bans gays serving in the military when it was enacted in 1993. Now he says it’s time to rethink that policy:

Last year I held a number of meetings with gay soldiers and marines, including some with combat experience in Iraq, and an openly gay senior sailor who was serving effectively as a member of a nuclear submarine crew. These conversations showed me just how much the military has changed, and that gays and lesbians can be accepted by their peers…

I now believe that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces. Our military has been stretched thin by our deployments in the Middle East, and we must welcome the service of any American who is willing and able to do the job.

Gen. Shalikashvili cited the same Zogby poll we reported on earlier, which shows that only 37% opposed gays and lesbians serving in the military, and of those who said they were certain that a member of their unit was gay or lesbian, 64% didn’t believe it hurt their unit’s morale.

How did Focus on the Family react to Gen. Shalikashvili’s op-ed?

Military analyst and retired Army Lt. Col. Bob Maginnis said the general’s flip-flop appears to be motivated, at least in part, by lobbying from homosexual activists who may be trying to take advantage of Shalikashvili as he recovers from a stroke.

“I just believe he’s being used by those that want to use this as a political mechanism to pry open the military and to use it for their own social experimentation,” Maginnis said.

Gen. Shalikashvili’s stand doesn’t strike me as one taken by a wobbly, feeble-minded invalid. It’s a brave stand, a principled one driven by personal conversations, clear evidence that gays and lesbians won’t hurt morale, and concern over a military stretched thin in two wars. In contrast, Focus on the Family’s reaction didn’t come from any of those things, so they went with the only thing left: conspiracy theories and unwarranted attacks on Gen. Shalikashvili’s intelligence and fortitude. Which of these do you think are the hallmarks of the better argument?

See also:

American Family Association Picks Up The “Ailing General” Theme

Out and About in the Midwest

The New York Times ran a great article last Thursday about the gay-rights awakening taking place in Kansas, where the bitter contest over their same-sex marriage amendment in 2004 prompted many Kansan gays, lesbians, and transgenders to come out to their neighbors and families. Box Turtle Bulletin commenter Cyd Slaton was featured in that article:

Cyd Slayton, a resident of the affluent Kansas City suburb of Mission Hills, said she too was energized by the heated political debate. “I think the venom and the zealous campaigns to portray us as sinners has been a blessing, a catalyst for many more of us to share our stories,” she said.

She had spent her adulthood, if not fully closeted, then with the door only slightly ajar. Although she has been with a partner for a number of years, Ms. Slayton, who is 54, did not discuss her sexual orientation with her mother, her sisters or her colleagues at various companies where she worked making promotional films.

Even when she began campaigning against the constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, she said, she was reluctant to identify herself as gay. Last year when a local TV news reporter asked her about her own sexual identity, she responded: why should it matter?

“I panicked and then I took a very long pause and looked deep into the lens of the camera and said that I was gay,” she said. “It was the first time I’d ever said it publicly, and it was quite a moment.”

I saw a similar trend in Ohio, which saw a particularly notorious marriage-amendment battle in 2004. My partner and I were touring a historic home at a state park outside of Chillicothe, Ohio. The man who lead our group ended the tour in a room overlooking the gardens. He described a program that the park ran in which Chillicothe-area schoolchildren raised plants and crops in the gardens during the summertime. He made a particular point of mentioning that he and his partner sponsored several children in that program.

And there’s the story of Ray Vahey and Richard Taylor of Wisconsin, who for nearly forty-nine years were devoted partners who did not speak openly about their lives, neither to their family nor to their friends at work. But when Wisconsin extremists proposed an amendment to the constitution banning gay marriage, Ray and Richard decided it was time to end the silence. A year ago in December, they testified at a state hearing on the proposed amendment.

There are many more stories like these all over the country. The New York Times article mentions a study by the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy, a think tank at the University of California, which noted that according to US census data, the number Kansas households headed by same-sex partners increased 60% between 2000 and 2005. Gary J. Gates, the study’s author, suggests that this figure does not mean gay Americans are flocking to the state, but that those who live there have been prompted to come out to their neighbors and families.

That same study (PDF: 2.1MB/25 pages) found similar dramatic increases in the heartland: Wisconsin (81%), Nebraska (71%), Ohio (62%), Colorado (58%), Missouri (56%) — six of the top ten states in percentage increases in same-sex couples are states with marriage bans in their constitutions. The more gay-rights opponents press their case, the more gays and lesbians are galvanized to stand their ground and come out.

Many gay activists on the coasts have looked down upon the so-called “square states” as politically hostile and culturally backwards. But one square state, Arizona, rejected a gay marriage ban for the first time in history, and South Dakota passed theirs with the tightest margin of all the others. One has to wonder how differently it might have gone if the national coastal-based organizations hadn’t written South Dakota off as hopeless. California never managed anything that positive when marriage was put to a popular vote there.

But it is in the heartland, the “flyover” states, where the battleground is found. Heroes are made in battle not in conferences. Move over, HRC. The heroes in Kansas, Chillicothe, South Dakota and Arizona are the new faces of gay activism.

Hat Tip: Cyd Slayton. Congratulations on the NYT mention.

New Survey: 95% Have Had Premarital Sex

Finer, Lawrence B. “Trends in premarital sex in the United States, 1954-2003.” Public Health Reports 122, no. 1 (January 2007): 73-78. Abstract available here.

A new study on premarital sex has been published in the peer-reviewed journal Public Health Reports by Lawrence Finer, Director of Domestic Research of the Guttmacher Institute. Dr. Finer observes that “Over the past decade, increasing amounts of advocacy, finding and programmatic effort have focused on encouraging Americans to abstain from sexual intercourse until they marry.” But Americans have been pushing the age of marriage later than previous generations, so that now the median age of first marriage for women has increased from 22.1 to 25.8 years in the past 25 years. The median age of first marriage for men increased from 24.4 to 27.4 years in the same period. This study examines whether Americans are actually likely to buy into the “abstinence until marriage” approach favored by social conservatives.

This study is based on the probability-sampled National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), a set of nationally representative surveys conducted in 1982, 1988, 1995 and 2002. From this data, we learn:

• By age 20, 75% of respondents had had premarital sex.
• By age 44, 95% of respondents had had premarital sex.
• Even among those who abstained until age 20, 81% had had premarital sex by age 44.
• Even among those women who turned 15 between 1954 and 1963 (generally before the “sexual revolution”), 82% had had premarital sex by age 30 and 88% had done so by age 44.

So, in short, the answer is no, the “abstinence until marriage” message is not taking root. What’s more, it wasn’t followed by more than four-fifths of the women born between 1939 and 1948. These figures are difficult to refute. They come from a very large set of nationally representative surveys, with margins of error of around a single percentage point or less.

As you can imagine, this survey has social conservatives in a tizzy. Focus on the Family has led the way with the talking points that other social conservatives have picked up on:

But Linda Klepacki, analyst for sexual health at Focus on the Family Action, said the motive behind the Guttmacher report is suspect, especially given the group’s close affiliation with Planned Parenthood.

“This is the condom cartel’s attempt at normalizing out-of-wedlock sexual behavior,” she said. “This is one in a series of documents that is designed to set the battle lines for January’s congressional battles over (funding for) sex education.”

Glenn Stanton, senior analyst for marriage and sexuality at Focus on the Family, questioned the method used to collect the data.

“These numbers seem a little high to me,” he said. “Additionally, what they don’t tell us is how active people were before marriage. Were most of these encounters among people who were engaged or were they simply casual hook-ups? We don’t know.”

Other reactions continue in that vein: Personal attacks on Dr. Finer’s integrity, vague references to un-named studies on unrelated issues, and comments like “these numbers seem a little high”. There are virtually no critiques of this study’s methodologies, just gripes about its findings.

Most telling in Focus on the Family’s reaction is their attempt to go after Dr. Finer’s reputation, citing his connections with Planned Parenthood and claiming that he is biased towards condom-based education. But as Paul Cameron recently wrote, “Accuracy is the most important aspect of empiricism. If investigators are clear about their method and employ it to generate ‘facts,’ their opinions are irrelevant.” (Letter: “Facts, not opinion, drive science: A reply to Morrison” Journal of Biosocial Science 39, no. 1 (January 2007): 155-156)

Far be it for me to ever agree with Paul Cameron, but as my father used to say, even a broken clock is right twice a day. If the methodology is sound, then it doesn’t matter what personal opinions the researcher holds. The data stands on its own. But if the methodology is flawed, it should be relatively easy to list those flaws and what they may mean for the findings. But because these findings are based on nationally representative surveys with margins of error of about 1% or less, Focus on the Family didn’t cite flaws in the methodology, apparently because they couldn’t find any. So they did the next best thing. They attacked the messenger.

But as far as I can tell, this data is solid. And it’s not the first time we’ve seen evidence that premarital sex is normative behavior in overwhelming numbers. Just last February, a survey of devout Baptist newlyweds (all of them “professed faith in Christ,” 99% attended church weekly, and 84% grew up in church) found that only 27% of them “entered the marriage bed chaste.” In other words, 73% of these devout Baptists had had premarital sex. And this came from a researcher who claimed that abstinence-until-marriage messages were successful!

And so the pattern continues. When Focus on the Family is caught manipulating research, they dig in their heels and claim they are victims of attacks by “homosexual activists” — even when the scientists themselves denounce Focus’ misrepresentations. But when Focus on the Family is confronted by real science like this, they do the very thing they claim “homosexual activist” are doing. They attack the messenger. That’s a very poor way to bolster scientific credibility, and it’s a funny way to promote values. But that’s what passes for scientific inquiry and family values at Focus on the Family.

The Temerity of a Kiss

You must remember this
A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.
The fundamental things apply
As time goes by.

It all began exactly forty years ago this New Year’s Eve, on Sunset Blvd., in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, in a small bar called the Black Cat. There were some sixty or seventy patrons gathered during those final moments of 1966, counting down the last few seconds to midnight. Couples gathered and stood next to each other, and as the countdown approached zero, they leaned into one other, and, amid the shouts of “Happy New Year!” and the opening strands of Auld Lang Syne, they did something all couples do all around the world.

They kissed.

And immediately at least six plainclothes officers who had infiltrated the gay bar began viciously beating and arresting the kissing offenders. As the melee widened, several people tried to escape to the nearby New Faces bar. Undercover officers followed and raided that bar as well. One of the New Faces workers was beaten so badly by police that they cracked a rib, fractured his skull and ruptured his spleen.

Six Black Cat kissers were tried and convicted of “lewd or dissolute conduct” in a public place, conduct that consisted of male couples hugging and kissing. According to one police report, one couple had “kissed on the mouth for three to five seconds.” Apparently, three to five seconds are what constituted “lewd or dissolute conduct” among the LAPD.

It’s hard to describe what it was like to be gay in Los Angeles in the 1950’s and ’60’s. It was virtually illegal to be gay in LA, where undercover officers displayed unusual zeal to “clean up the streets.” No place was safe, not even private homes, bars or clubs. “Gay bars” barely existed. If one establishment gained a reputation as a gay hangout, it would be raided and shut down. Undercover officers would infiltrate private parties and bars suspected of being frequented by gay men. If they saw anyone who engaged in any sort of social touching, hand-holding, dancing, or even simple small-talk that might, in the imagination of the undercover officer, conceivably lead to “something more”, they were arrested. Entrapment was the norm and it didn’t take much to get arrested. Simply arranging to meet for dinner or exchanging phone numbers with an undercover officer was often enough to trigger an arrest — and being labeled a sex offender under California Law.

But all of that began to change with the profoundly radical act of a kiss.

It’s still the same old story
A fight for love and glory
A case of do or die.

Two and one half years before the Stonewall rebellion in New York, there was another rebellion underway in Los Angeles as the gay community stood its ground in defense of a kiss. In this case of do or die, more than 200 activists gathered at the corner of Sanborn and Sunset to protest the arrests and the ongoing police brutality and intimidation. At a time when few would dare to publicly identify themselves as homosexual for fear of intimidation and arrest, this first open gay-rights protest in Los Angeles was a very bold step. It led to the formation of PRIDE, a gay rights group in Los Angeles, and it swelled the ranks of the Mattachine Society. Where previous raids drove gay men further underground, this time the reaction was different. Gay activism in Los Angeles came of age that night forty years ago.

In the ensuing publicity, two of the convicted kissers, Charles W. Talley and Benny Norman Baker, were able to find some very brave heterosexual lawyers who agreed to handle their appeals. No gay lawyers were willing to publicly come out to take the case. Charles (the one described in the police report kissing someone “on the mouth for three to five seconds”) and Benny appealed their convictions all the way up to the U.S. Supreme Court. But their kiss was much too radical for that august institution. In 1968, the court refused to hear Talley vs. California, and so their convictions stood.

There’s no question that we have come a very long way since 1966. But in some ways, we haven’t yet come far enough. Male couples can still be beaten for simply holding hands in public. The ordinary act of placing one’s hand in another’s – the same thing so many heterosexual couples do with such ease and innocence – is still too provocative even today in many places. A kiss would be downright heroic.

In a society where heterosexual couples can kiss wherever they please and lesbians kissing is considered “hot”, a kiss is still a very radical act when that kiss is shared between two men. Critics point to the popularity of Will & Grace as evidence that gay men were accepted, but long-suffering Will Truman (Eric McCormack) rarely had a boyfriend. And when he finally got one, he was never allowed to kiss him on the lips. It wasn’t until the the show had been on the air for eight seasons that Will was finally allowed to kiss James Hanson (Taye Diggs).

A few years ago, Oliver Stone put Alexander the Great in bed naked with Hephaistion after they expressed their undying love for each other. But even though Stone’s reputation is supposedly built on his bold interpretations of history, he chickened out and only let Alexander share his kiss with Olympia in a love scene that was more a struggle for dominance than an expression of love. And while Ennis Del Mar and Jack Tripp were finally allowed to kiss each other in the remotest reaches of Brokeback Mountain where nobody could see them, all of that kissing still came to an end some twenty-five years ago with Jack’s brutal murder.

Forty years after the Black Cat raid, men still cannot be seen kissing each other, unless ratings are tanking during the final season or one of them dies.

And yet, what are two lovers supposed to do?

And when two lovers woo
They still say, “I love you.”
On that you can rely
No matter what the future brings
As time goes by.

A lot has changed since 1966, but the passage of forty years has not tamed the temerity of a simple kiss. For gay men, a kiss is still seen a boldly radical act. But it is also our declaration of independence, on which forty years ago many have pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor.

So all you men out there, do something radical this New Year’s Eve. Kiss him. On the Mouth. For three to five seconds.

I don’t care who you kiss or why. You can kiss him for love, you can kiss him for lust, or you can kiss him just because he’s cute. You can kiss him because he’s the love of your life, or you can kiss him because he’s a total stranger who you’ll never see again. But just kiss him, and kiss him boldly.

Kiss him for all of those who were not allowed to kiss. Kiss him for those who were beaten and arrested for kissing, and for those who fought back to defend that kiss. Kiss him for those heroes who declared an end to the shame of kissing. Kiss him because now you can; because today your greatest freedom is in that kiss. Kiss him on the mouth. And for good measure, kiss him for much, much longer than three to five seconds. Kiss him hard and long, with a kiss of forty years and still counting.

And wish him a very happy New Year.

True Irony

It seems this website has brought a smile to anti-gay blogger Stacy Harp’s face. Let’s just consider this my Christmas gift to her:

Box Turtle Bulletin Advertises for Focus on the Family

For those of you who don’t know the website Box Turtle Bulletin is pretty much a site that bashes the Christian right, so I found it hilarious to see a google ad on their website that says to tour Focus on the Family. Sometimes the irony is palpable.

Indeed the irony is quite palpable.

I added Google Ads because, in order to do the work that I do on this site, I drop a ton of money in the copy machines at the university library and spend quite a bit more buying books from Amazon.com. This isn’t stuff that I would normally read for my own pleasure. I even purchase, from time to time, books and DVDs from the American Family Association and Focus on the Family. My e-mail inbox and my postal mailbox have gotten quite interesting lately. After all, how else can I know what they’re saying?

So heck, maybe I should go ahead and sign up for a tour of Focus on the Family myself.

This costs money, and yes, Focus on the Family manages to get a little of it from time to time. But Stacy has gotten her headline backwards. You see, it isn’t Box Turtle Bulletin who advertised for Focus on the Family, it was the other way around. An ad supporting Focus appeared on my website. And I was quite thrilled to see that ad, for a short while at least, has helped to make my work possible. The irony, indeed, is quite palpable.

So let’s just consider this bit of merriment my Christmas gift to Stacy. Merry Christmas to you, Stacy and I’m very pleased to count you among my readers.

When it comes to Google Ads, my control over who advertises and who doesn’t is limited. But if anyone can find an instance where I “bashed” the Christian Right, please let me know. You can leave it in the comments or you can e-mail me. I’d love to know what she may be referring to.

I hope each and every one of you have a very blessed and enjoyable Christmas. Keep warm, and go easy on the eggnog.