Family Research Council's anti-lgbt stance built on distortions

 Editor's note - bear with me this week, folks. I've got training at my job in addition to my usual duties. My postings will continue but a little off schedule.

In a post on ThinkProgress, the anti-lgbt history of the Family Research Council was recently examined due to an email sent out by the organization claiming that President Obama is trying to "impose homosexuality" via ENDA:

In a four-page solicitation letter mailed to supporters this month, which was obtained by ThinkProgress, the conservative organization went even further in its rhetoric, claiming that President Obama wants to “impose homosexuality and silence Christianity in workplaces”

It's the usual balderdash from Tony Perkins and company but it's good that ThinkProgress is devoting attention to FRC.

The ThinkProgress piece links to a Media Matters Action post which also looks at the Family Research Council's history of being anti-lgbt by including the many extreme and totally anti-Christian comments and stances taken by the group.

But I want to add a little more.

The Media Matters Action post did an excellent job breaking down just how anti-lgbt the Family Research Council is, but I think some specific attention should be paid to just how deceptive they have been in pushing their anti-lgbt stance. The following posts by me and others demonstrate few instances in which the group have distorted facts to make the case against lgbt equality:

November 23, 2009 - Family Research Council caught falsely accusing Congresswoman of religious bigotry - While not lgbt-oriented per se, this post demonstrates just how the Family Research Council will truncate a quote to push a false image of religious persecution.

November 18, 2009 - Video: FRC invited Chai to speak; now slicing both her footage and her back - Goodasyou.org shows how FRC used spliced footage to make the case against EEOC nominee Chai Feldblum. 

October 27, 2009 - Family Research Council's coldhearted attack on lgbt senior citizens -In an ugly attack on lgbt seniors, the Family Research Council uses the work of the discredited researcher Paul Cameron (Editor's note - the Media Matters Action post inaccurately says that Cameron started the Family Research Council. While this is not true, the organization has a history of using his work, irregardless of his dubious history.)

Family Research Council: Obama program to help gay elderly is wasted since gays die young anyway. Is FRC again using "science" of known hate group? - Americablog Gay added another view of the FRC/lgbt senior controversy.

October 26, 2009 - It's just good for FRC that crimes against truth aren't tracked - From Goodasyou.org comes  another FRC distortion. This time, it's about hate crimes statistics.

October 21, 2009 - Family Research Council brags about ability to fool 80,000 people - FRC pushes the lie that hate crimes legislation will "silence" Christians.

October 1, 2009 - Family Research Council head misrepresents credible information to hurt ENDA  -  In testimony against ENDA, FRC head Tony Perkins uses anecdotes and distorts a study on lgbt health.

June 9, 2009 - More attacks on GLSEN'S Kevin Jennings - Now the Family Research Council gets in the act - During the attacks on Obama appointee Kevin Jennings, FRC distorted incidents about his life.
  
May 20, 2009 - Another flawed piece of work courtesy of the Family Research Council - Making an awful comparison between unmarried lgbt couples and married heterosexual couples, FRC pushes the study Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples.

January 13, 2009 - The Family Research Council continues to use 'outdated' work - via communication with an employee of the Family Research Council, I discovered that the organization eliminated several anti-lgbt studies from its webpage due to "outdated sources." However, I also learned from the same employee that while the studies were eliminated, the information contained in the studies (and a lot of it can be considered "outdated" i.e. studies from the early 1970s) were included in future studies.

Family Research Council wants us to pray

"Praying with the Family Research Council makes about as much sense as me going to a Klan rally in search of a boyfriend."

I received this email from the Family Research Council via its leader Tony Perkins today:

Dear Friend of FRC,

The Lord has impressed on me the need for us, as followers of Jesus Christ, to take responsibility for the broken state of our nation and go to God. But we must go to Him on His terms, in humility, prayer, and repentance as outlined in 2 Chronicles 7:14. Then and only then can we claim the promise of God's forgiveness, healing and the renewal of our lives and our land.

Visit www.Call2Fall.com and click "I'm in" to participate in this nationwide effort.

The day after we celebrate our "Independence," we need to re-declare our "Dependence" upon God in humble and repentant prayer. At minimum, we hope that you will spend at least a few minutes literally on your knees in prayer during worship services on Sunday, July 5th.

Can you help us spread the word about Call2Fall?

Please take a couple of minutes and send an email to your family and at least five of your friends. Just copy and paste the link below into your email and encouraging them to visit this link:

http://www.call2fall.com/welcome_participant

There they can view a video, visit the website, and join this movement. Ask your church leaders to sign-up your church to become a host for Call2Fall.

Visit www.Call2Fall.com and click on "I'm in" and encourage five friends to do the same.

Can you imagine what God would do if millions of Christians all across our land would actually do this and mean it?

Bear in mind that the Family Resarch Council is the same organization that:

- admits that it relies on "outdated" work to demonize the lgbt community:

The Family Research Council continues to use 'outdated' work

Another flawed piece of work courtesy of the Family Research Council

- and recently took part in a huge attempt to destroy GLSEN's Kevin Jennings via a campaign of innuendoes and outright lies:

More attacks on GLSEN'S Kevin Jennings - Now the Family Research Council gets in the act

And that's just the stuff that I'm not too tired to mention. From its inception, the Family Research Council has set the bar high when it comes to breaking the commandment on bear false witness.

Yet this is the same group that is encouraging us all to pray with it? Praying with the Family Research Council makes about as much sense as me going to a Klan rally in search of a boyfriend.

Don't get me wrong. I believe in the power of prayer because it's how I was able to reconcile myself with my sexual orientation.

But if I am going to pray, it won't be with the Family Research Council.

I'm too pretty to be struck by lightning.

The Family Research Council continues to use 'outdated' work

In December of last year, I emailed the Family Research Council inquiring about the quiet removal of several studies from its webpage. These studies were designed to prove the alleged "dangers of homosexuality."

They were:

"Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse"

"The Negative Health Effects of Homosexuality,"

"Homosexual Parenting: Placing Children at Risk"

Tuesday night, I received an answer via email:

Dear Alvin,

Thank you for contacting Family Research Council.

The papers that you inquired about have been removed from our website indefinitely due to the fact that they have outdated sources. However, we have other resources on our website that contain similar information, such as the following:

Getting It Straight
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=BK04A01

What's wrong with letting same-sex couples legally "marry?"
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IF03H01

Why Marriage Should Be Privileged in Public Policy
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS03D1

Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS04C02

Ten Arguments From Social Science Against Same-Sex 'Marriage'
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IF04G01

You think that would be the end of the story.

Hardly.

The Family Research Council seems to have taken the studies it claims to contain "outdated sources," polished them up, and are now pushing them as credible, up-to-date work.

However, many of these "new" resources contain the same information as the "outdated" studies, sometimes verbatim, including the same endnote citations.

Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples (still on the webpage) and the Negative Effects of Homosexuality (removed from the webpage) is a perfect example of this. Among other things, both contain the following:

- A citation of the book Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women by Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg as a correct generalization of lgbt sexual habits despite the fact that it was written in 1978 and was not meant by the authors to be a correct assessment of the lgbt community in general.

A passage from Homosexualities clearly says:

“. . . given the variety of circumstances which discourage homosexuals from participating in research studies, it is unlikely that any investigator will ever be in a position to say that this or that is true of a given percentage of all homosexuals.”

- A citation of the book The Male Couple: How Relationships Develop by David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison despite the fact that the book was written 1984 and was not meant to be a correct assessment of the lgbt community in general.

A passage from The Male Couple says:

“We always have been very careful to explain that the very nature of our research sample, its size (156 couples), its narrow geographic location, and the natural selectiveness of the participants prevents the findings from being applicable and generalizable to the entire gay
male community.”


This is important because even if one were to ignore the obvious misusage of these books, their published dates (1978 and 1984 respectively) leads one to ask what exactly does the Family Research Council consider to be an "outdated source?"

And that isn't all I found.

As I said before, some of the studies now present on the Family Research Council's webpage (and thus considered to be accurate) contain some of the same information and citations present in the "outdated" studies.

Some of this information has gotten the Family Research Council in trouble a number of years ago.

Look at the study, Getting It Straight for example.

In chapter 4 - Is Homosexuality a Health Risk, there is this passage (pg. 88):

A study of 3,365 high school students published in Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine found: “Gay, lesbian, bisexual, or not sure male students were 6.50 times more likely to report a suicide attempt than heterosexual male students. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, or not sure female students were 2.02 times more likely to report a suicide attempt than their heterosexual female peers.”

Robert Garofalo, et al, “Sexual Orientation and Risk of Suicide Attempts among a Representative Sample of Youth,” Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine 153 (May 1999): 490.


In 1998, Garofalo complained that FRC and several other religious right groups was distorting his research. According to him, the groups omitted a crucial part of his findings (i.e. gay teens engage in negative behavior - suicide attempts - when faced with abuse from a homophobic society). Interestingly enough, when Garofalo complained, then FRC staff member Robert Knight questioned his credibility. (Boston doctor says ads distorted his work on gays, The Boston Globe, August 4, 1998 )

Then there is this passage in the same chapter on pg. 89:

A study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology on the mortality rates of homosexuals concluded that they have a significantly reduced life expectancy:

• “In a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age twenty for gay and bisexual men is eight to twenty years less than for all men. If the same pattern of mortality were to continue, we estimate that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged twenty years will not reach their sixty-fifth birthday. Under even the most liberal assumptions, gay and bisexual men in this urban centre are now experiencing a life expectancy similar to that experienced by all men in Canada in the year 1871.”

In 2001, the researchers of this study complained that their work was being distorted by organizations like FRC.

Now wouldn't complaints by a study's author render it unusuable or a possible "outdated source?"

Apparently not to the Family Research Council.

Also:

Chapter 5 of Getting it Straight, Do Homosexual Parents Pose a Risk to Children, is interesting in that except for a few alterations (i.e. rearranging of text) it is identical to Homosexual Parenting: Placing Children at Risk - one of the studies FRC removed from its webpage claiming that it contained "outdated sources."

By that same token, chapter 6 of Getting It Straight, Is There a Link Between Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse? is a total rehash of Homosexuality and Child Abuse, yet another study that FRC removed from its page for having "outdated sources."

What's interesting about Homosexuality and Child Abuse is that a researcher cited in it, Nicholas Groth, sent a letter to FRC in 2002 complaining about how his work was being distorted to prove that gays molest children at a higher number that heterosexuals - something that his work found not to be true.

However, despite his complaint over five years ago, Groth's work is cited in Getting It Straight (pg. 123):

Another study found that “some authors now believe that boys may be sexually abused as commonly as girls (Groth, 1978; O’Brien, 1980).”

These are just a few of the things that I found. There so many other inaccuracies in these supposed credible studies. All of it makes one wonder just exactly is FRC's definition of an "outdated source."

And if I can take the question further - just what exactly is FRC's definition of truth and Christian principles?

It is ironic that while FRC head Tony Perkins pleads innocent ennui and criticizes lgbts for our supposed intolerance, his group engages in tactics that justify our position of anger.

Regardless of one's personal beliefs about homosexuality, no one should approve of FRC's deceptive tactics.

Hat tip to Emproph for sending me a link to FRC's "outdated" studies.

Family Research Council deliberately misinterpret words of Obama official to discredit ENDA

John Berry is President Obama's director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

He is also openly gay and according to the Family Research Council (FRC), he is also proof that the ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act) is some type of nefarious plans by the gay community to gain "special rights." Tony Perkins, head of the FRC, said the following in an email:

If ENDA becomes law, the government will order businesses -- including faith-based businesses -- to cast aside their personal beliefs and hire homosexuals and cross-dressers, even if the employer considers these lifestyles immoral and inappropriate for their business.

Even groups like the Boy Scouts and child care providers aren't exempt from the bill's oppressive demands.

Worse still, ENDA will make it easier for activist judges to overturn the federal Defense of Marriage Act -- the most important protection for marriage that exists in our country!

I know that because the most powerful open homosexual in the Obama administration says it will:

John Berry, the director of the federal personnel office, says: "If we can get ENDA enacted and signed into law, it is only a matter of time" before pro-family, pro-marriage laws topple under its weight.

Even without FRC's track record for relying on distortions and fear tactics, it's easy to see that the organization's email contains a complete bastardization of Berry's words.

According to the Washington Blade (by way of lgbt-positive webpage Queerty and the anti-gay web page Americans for Truth), Berry was addressing Out for Work’s national convention at the Westin City Center Hotel in D.C. in September of last year and this is what was actually said:

Berry advocated for the importance of ENDA — and identified repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and the Defense of Marriage Act as other priorities — in response to an audience member’s question about possible legislative issues on the horizon and criticism that President Obama isn’t moving quickly enough on LGBT issues.

“The most important thing we can do right now is we got to … secure the passage of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act — and it’s got to include full transgender protections,” Berry said. “I believe that if we all concentrate our efforts where it needs to be concentrated, which is on the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, we can get the job done.”

Other pro-LGBT legislation can be more easily achieved, Berry said, if Congress were to pass ENDA.

“If we can get ENDA enacted and signed into law, it is only a matter of time before all the rest happens,” he said. “It is the keystone that holds up the whole bunch, and so we need to focus our energies and attention there.”

This is what Berry said about DOMA:

Berry noted that Obama has called DOMA [discriminatory] and urged for its legislative repeal, but the OPM director added the best way toward overturning the law would be through the courts and not Congress.

“I will tell you personally I believe that I think the courts will strike this down before Congress will have to repeal it legislatively,” he said. “And thank goodness because, in this case, the backbone is not there in Congress.”

Now some may argue that the definition of a  "pro-family" law is up for interpretation, therefore there may not have been any distortion of Berry's quote on that point.  This is a matter of perspective. Clearly to FRC, anything that benefits the gay community is not pro-family,  in spite of the fact that a myriad of lgbt families populate this country.

However in regards to so-called "pro-marriage" laws,  Berry in no way said that ENDA would make it easier for judges to overturn DOMA. He merely said that litigation through the courts could overturn DOMA.

Whatever the case may be, for FRC to claim that Berry said "If we can get ENDA enacted and signed into law, it is only a matter of time" before pro-family, pro-marriage laws topple under its weight is a deliberate misinterpretation of his words.

And for those familiar with FRC's habit of claiming angel wings while hiding its horns and pitchfork, it's business as usual.


Related posts:

Lgbt employment protection? Absolutely not. Ugly anti-gay comments at work? Sure.

Family Research Council getting extremely 'scary' about ENDA

Religious  right groups can't make up their minds when lying about ENDA

Family  Research Council exploiting Amanda Simpson's appointment to stop ENDA
  
Family  Research Council head misrepresents credible information to hurt ENDA

Bathrooms,  Church Exemptions, and Lies: Five ways the religious right  misrepresents ENDA   

The Family Research Council continues to use 'outdated' work
 

Religious right spokesperson who wanted to 'export homosexuals' nominated for an award

PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays), that bastion of ex-gay phoniness has just nominated Family Research Council's Peter Sprigg for an award for "distinguished service in public education."

PFOX head Regina Griggs said the following:

For the past four years, Mr. Sprigg has served on the school board's Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development. The 15-member Committee consults with professional educators within the public school system in developing and evaluating the student sex education curriculum.

Mr. Sprigg has spoken out in favor of including former homosexuals in the county's "Respect for Differences in Human Sexuality" school lessons. These lessons promote tolerance of homosexuals, lesbians, bisexuals, transgenders, cross-dressers, and the intersexed, yet failed to include ex-gays, which is the only disfavored group within the public school system. Without Sprigg, the ex-gay community and parents would not have a voice in the public schools.

Mr. Sprigg also enabled public school staff to promote a positive learning environment that holds mutual respect for others by participating in PFOX's flyer distribution program. PFOX distributed flyers to every high school student in the Montgomery County public schools urging the elimination of bias and prejudice against former homosexuals and their supporters. Students also received factual information on sexual orientation and resources on alternatives to homosexuality.

How sweet.

Griggs doesn't give the name of the award but based on his past history, nominating Sprigg for any award having to do with the tolerance and the advancement of education is like nominating one of those really bad American Idol rejects for a Grammy.

Isn't Peter Sprigg the SAME GUY who said the following:

" . . . I would much prefer to export homosexuals from the United States than to import them into the United States because we believe that homosexuality is destructive to society."

And you don't have to take my word for it, isn't that right, Peter:



Also based on some of the papers he has written for the Family Research Council, Sprigg wouldn't know factual information if it came to life and kicked him in the keister.

He helped to write the paper Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples and the book Getting It Straight, both of which have a plethora of inaccurate information (including numerous studies taken out context) regarding the lgbt community.

I talk about both the paper and the book and their numerous errors here and here.

At the time in which I wrote the two posts, I inaccurately gave another employee of FRC, Timothy Dailey, sole credit for writing these pieces. As you can see here, Sprigg had a hand in writing these pieces.

The only reason why Sprigg exists on this committee is to undermine anything that would benefit lgbts in a positive manner. He doesn't speak for tolerance and understanding but lies and obstruction.

From what I understand, his appointment was the result of a long and drawn out lawsuit over the school board's sex education program.

Also, there are enough reasonable members of that committee to cancel out any madness he may bring up.

But isn't it alarming that this man who would like to export gays and lesbians from the United States, who has no problem with creating junk science on gays and lesbians is on a committee that is supposed to look after the well-being of children, including those who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender?

I don't know what award PFOX nominated Sprigg for but I've got one for him.

But to say what it's called would cause me to "lose my religion."

Peter Sprigg's "research:"

The Family Research Council continues to use 'outdated' work

Another flawed piece of work courtesy of the Family Research Council


The lies of PFOX:

UPDATE - PFOX answers my question. And someone is still distorting the issue

Another update from yesterday's post: PFOX caught distorting study

UPDATE - The following letter from David S. Fishback, Member, Board of Directors, Metro DC PFLAG and past Chair of the Citizens Advisory Committee (2003-05), gives a very good view of the situation regarding Sprigg's appointment to the committee:

While Peter Sprigg was appointed to the Montgomery County Board of Education's Citizens Advisory Committee on Family Life and Human Development in 2005 as part of the settlement of a court suit seeking to stop the Board from implementing changes in its health education curriculum setting forth accurate information on sexual orientation, the settlement agreement has expired, and the Board was under no further obligation to seat Mr. Sprigg.

Readers should be aware, however, that after the 2005 lawsuit was dropped, the Board started the process over again and, after winning a second lawsuit in 2007-08, implemented curriculum revisions that, in most respects, were even better than the curriculum that was derailed by the temporary restraining order issued by a federal court judge in May 2005. Mr. Sprigg's presence on the Advisory Committee failed to stop the Committee from recommending and the Board from implementing the curriculum improvements.

Mr. Sprigg's presence on the Committee is irrelevant to what PFOX says about the flyers it distributes: "Mr. Sprigg also enabled public school staff to promote a positive learning environment that holds mutual respect for others by participating in PFOX's flyer distribution program. PFOX distributed flyers to every high school student in the Montgomery County public schools urging the elimination of bias and prejudice against former homosexuals and their supporters. Students also received factual information on sexual orientation and resources on alternatives to homosexuality." These flyers are distributed pursuant to a quarterly program by which any non-profit group may distribute flyers in the schools. In fact, most of these flyers -- which assert nonsense that is contradicted in the curriculum and is contradicted by the information provided to the Guidance Offices -- are simply tossed in the trash can by the students. Indeed, Metro DC PFLAG also uses the flyer distribution program to pass out accurate information for students and parents.

It is worth noting that it appears that none of the other 14 members of the Advisory Committee (including members of the Metro DC Chapter of PFLAG and Teachthefacts.org (a grassroots group formed to support comprehensive, accurate sexuality education in Montgomery County), as well as the immediate past and now present Chair and Vice Chair) share Mr. Sprigg's views. Indeed, PFOX conveniently omits from its press release the fact that Mr. Sprigg has been remarkably unsuccessful in convincing his fellow Committee members or the Board of Education or the MCPS staff to follow the fringe views of PFOX and of his employer, the Family Research Council.

The advantage, I suppose, of having Peter Sprigg on the Advisory Committee is that it gives the other members a preview of the right-wing party line. Those members are well aware that they have to examine closely everything he says and examine any "authority" he cites.) Indeed, by having him on the Advisory Committee, the right-wing is deprived of the argument that their views are not even being listened to. What we have done in Montgomery County over the past 6 years is to give Mr. Sprigg and his allies every opportunity to make their case. The rest of us listen, check out their sources, check out what the mainstream medical and mental health professional associations have concluded -- and then roundly reject the PFOX/Family Research Council nonsense.

As long as Mr. Sprigg does not engage in the kind of obstructionist tactics that his allies in Montgomery County sought to use in years past, his presence is not a problem. In dealing with public policy, there is no reason not to listen to many sides -- as long as no one acts like the shouters at the current Congressional recess town hall meetings. I have debated him on a state-wide news program, and I have never seen him behave in such a manner.

Family Research Council accused of undermining support for resolution against Uganda's anti-gay bill

The Family Research Council claims to stand against the lgbt community because it believes in "traditional morality.".

However, according to blogger Joe Jervis, the organization's idea of "traditional morality" includes undermining Congressional support for a resolution denouncing the Ugandan "kill the gays" bill:

According to the FRC's official lobbying report for the first quarter of 2010, they paid two two of their henchmen $25,000 to lobby Congress against approving a resolution denouncing Uganda's plan to execute homosexuals. The resolution passed in the Senate on April 13th, but remains languished in the House almost four months after being referred to the Foreign Affairs Committee. Did the FRC's lobbying kill it? As we learned last week with Malawi, international pressure CAN sway even the most virulently anti-gay government.

To make matters more interesting, Jervis has three screencaps of the FRC lobbying report saved on his site. The resolution, H.RES.1064., is marked as "pro homosexual promotion."

Opposition to gay rights or any progression of the lgbt community has been a hallmark of FRC since its inception in 1981 even to the point that the group published "research papers" supposedly proving that homosexuality is a "dangerous lifestyle.  FRC removed several of these "research papers" from its web page, claiming that some of the sources were outdated. However, the organization continued to use the same sources in new "research papers."

FRC also employs Peter Sprigg as its Council Senior Fellow for Policy Studies. Sprigg has, in the past, called for the deportation of gays and lesbians out of the United States and outlawing "gay behavior."

Evan Hurst of Truth Wins Out, an organization which combats groups like FRC, said this new revelation is not surprising.

"Fundamentalist groups like to bitch ad nauseam that mean old gay groups and journalists are the real haters, but yet I don’t think any of us have ever advocated for or supported jail sentences or the death penalty for Fundamentalist Christians," he said.

David Bahati, the creator of the Ugandan anti-gay bill, recently said that some evangelicals in America have privately told him that they support his bill.

After this revelation about the FRCs' lobbying efforts, one has to wonder if maybe his claim was correct.

Related posts:

Family Research Council's anti-lgbt stance built on distortions

Family Research Council pushes bogus report supporting DADT
  
Family Research Council continues to use 'outdated' work

Ugandan anti-gay bill creator wallows in the filth of his own homophobia

 

• Gay Rights
• Africa

Family Research Council's coldhearted attack on lgbt senior citizens

Religious right groups often place themselves on the pedestal of virtue and respectability. However if one assesses how they conduct business, one would wonder if they actually deserve to be knocked off that pedestal.

Last weekend, it was Matt Barber of the Liberty Counsel actually defending countries who torture and execute lgbts

Yesterday, the Family Research Council spoke out against Obama Administration plans to create a national resource center for lgbt seniors:

HHS has no idea how many LGBT seniors exist. No one does! The movement is only a few decades old, and people who are 80- or 90-years-old didn't grow up in a culture where it was acceptable to identify with this lifestyle.

Of course, the real tragedy here--apart from the unnecessary spending--is that, given the risks of homosexual conduct, few of these people are likely to live long enough to become senior citizens! Yet once again, the Obama administration is rushing to reward a lifestyle that poses one of the greatest public health risks in America.

Only a few decades old? Who knew 20 or 30 years was such a short time?

What a crude and totally insensitive remark.

And totally untrue. Via that ugly statement, FRC tried to refute information supplied by the Obama Adminstration as to the number of lgbt seniors:

Experts estimate that as many as 1.5 to 4 million LGBT individuals are age 60 and older. Agencies that provide services to older individuals may be unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the needs of this group of individuals. The new Resource Center for LGBT Elders will provide information, assistance and resources for both LGBT organizations and mainstream aging services providers at the state and community level to assist them in the development and provision of culturally sensitive supports and services. The LGBT Center will also be available to educate the LGBT community about the importance of planning ahead for futurelong term care needs.

Also, according to a September 18, 2008 issue of Newsweek:

Over the next 25 years, persons in America who are 65 and older are expected to grow from about 12 to 20 percent of the total population, and various estimates indicate that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals will comprise 7 to 10 percent of that senior population. Meanwhile, like the Baby Boomers of all stripes, aging gays and lesbians are radically redefining what it means to be a senior—and how they fit into the larger community. They're coming out of the closet, vocalizing their experiences and needs, and, most importantly, demanding public recognition. "If you go back 40 years, there were virtually no openly gay seniors," says Gary Gates, a senior research fellow and demographer at the Williams Institute. "But now you have a large enough group that people are paying attention."


It doesn't matter whether or not the specific number of elderly lgbts are known.

The point is finding out who they are and taking care of their needs, i.e. a perfect reason for the creation of this national resource center.

But we shouldn't be surprised that FRC feels the need to attack the idea.

Just noting the existence of lgbt seniors refutes the "gays have a short life span" and the "homosexuality poses a great health risk" lies that FRC and other so-called pro-values groups push.

In fact, it is their continued citings of discredited Paul Cameron data, reliance on outdated studies, and constant distortion of legtimate studies that have led these lies to take root in the minds of many people.

But the meanspirited way FRC went about attacking the idea of an lgbt senior resource center belies its claim to be a Christian organization.

Expressing a belief that homosexuality is a sin is one thing. Actively trying to throwing a monkey wrench into plans to help senior citizens simply because you do not agree with their sexual orientation is entirely  something else.

And part of FRC's reasoning for its opposition actually goes against the nature of Christianity.

In the Bible (Matthew 25:45), Jesus said " . . .whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me." 

So now FRC,  which claims to espouse the values that Jesus taught, is implying that since the number of lgbt senior citizens are allegedly small, they shouldn't warrant any help from the government.
The organization must be reading that new Conservapedia version of the Bible everyone is talking about.

In its eagerness to espouse its version of "values," FRC seems to have abandoned basic Christian decency, as well as common human decency.

The organization forgets that some of these lgbt seniors could be someone's mother, someone's father, or a veteran.

And  isn't it moral to take care of our elderly citizens, period?

In the real world, the answer to this question would be yes. But in the bizarro world of pseudo Christian values that FRC populates, we know the answer is "only if they are not homosexuals."

Hat tip to www.Goodasyou.org

Related articles and posts:

Gay couples enter golden years with more risk

‘Invisible And Overlooked’

The Family Research Council continues to use 'outdated' work

How religious right groups distort legitimate research to demonize the gay community

Why we should care about Paul Cameron

U.N. official defends murder of lgbts and the religious right defends HIM

Mary Cheney's Baby: The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Distraction

Unless you live in a cave with your fingers in your ears, you know that Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary, is pregnant.

Needless to say, the anti-gay industry is not happy about it, as seen in this link.

And they are all up in arms in Freeperland over it.

So what exactly is the problem here? Mary Cheney chose to become pregnant because she has a maternal instinct to raise and care for a child, just like the vast majority of women worldwide.

And for that, I applaud her. A child raised by gay parents can thrive and be successful and loved. All studies point to this fact.

Also, the birth of a child is a blessing from God, so I wish all the best for the entire Cheney family as they welcome two new additions (Vice President Cheney's other daughter is also expecting) to their circle.

I just hope that my fellow gays and lesbians don't get distracted.

I enjoy seeing the anti-gay industry show its true hateful colors just as much as the next gay man, but there is still work to do. Mary Cheney's pregnancy does not eliminate the fact that there is still a war going on. Mary Cheney's pregnancy does not eliminate the fact that the anti-gay industry continues to spread lies about our community in order to shape public policy.

Yesterday, I wrote about Linda Harvey and Mission America's phony risk audit plan. This plan is yet another attempt by the anti-gay industry to censor American gay students from establishing support networks. In my zeal to point out the errors in her plan, I excluded something very crucial; something that underscores Harvey and the rest of the anti-gay industry's knowledge that what they are feeding to people are lies.

One of Harvey's sources for her "risk audit" trash is a study by Timothy Dailey from the Family Research Council entitled The Negative Effects of Homosexuality.

Check out this link and read what is on the top of the page.

Just in case the Family Research Council tries to change it, this is what it says:

Please note: this article is an archived item on Family Research Council's website; the information contained therein may be outdated.

What you are reading is what is known as a "cover your ass" disclaimer. I have one question for the Family Research Council and their leader, Mr. Tony Perkins.

If you have problems with the truthfulness of Mr. Dailey's piece, then why is it on your web page for anyone to use in order to demonize the gay community?

I am happy for Mary Cheney and her family, but I am also concerned about the lesbian teenager who will have problems receiving support because of Linda Harvey's "Risk Audit Plan," a plan that cites Mr. Dailey's piece, excluding the disclaimer.

I am concerned for the people who will go to the myriad of sites that have The Negative Effects of Homosexuality on them (excluding the disclaimer) and actually believe the study to be gospel truth.

These people are going to form groups and committees, write letters to the editor, stand up in front of legislative bodies and school boards and repeat what they have read.

And that means more hell for us, especially our lgbt children.

For that reason, we cannot allow the controversy over Mary Cheney's baby to distract us.

She has the monetary and social support to make life better for her child.

Let's concentrate on making life better for those lgbts who don't have those trappings.

Family Research Council continues to post inaccurately bad studies on lgbt community

Last week, I wrote about how the Family Research Council was posting an outdated and flawed study, Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples to denigrate same-sex couples.

This week, I am now reporting that the organization has done even worse by posting yet another flawed study. However, this study denigrates the lgbt community as a whole

The study, The Negative Effects of Homosexuality,  was actually removed from FRC's webpage in 2008. An employee of the organization, Kathy Athearn, told me that the study was one of a few removed because it contained outdated sources.

But it has now returned to FRC's webpage and it has not been updated.

The study is supposed to show the so-called “dangers of homosexuality" and all of the religious right talking points about lgbts are touched on including:


Gays have a short life span,
Gays and lesbians don’t know how to be monogamous,
Gays and lesbians have high rate of domestic violence.

But strangely enough, this study includes the same inaccurate information as the study I talked about last week:

- A citation of the book Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women by Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg as a correct generalization of lgbt sexual habits despite the fact that it was published in 1978 and was not meant by the authors to be a correct assessment of the lgbt community in general.  A passage from Homosexualities clearly says:

“. . . given the variety of circumstances which discourage homosexuals from participating in research studies, it is unlikely that any investigator will ever be in a position to say that this or that is true of a given percentage of all homosexuals.”

- A citation of the book The Male Couple: How Relationships Develop by David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison despite the fact that the book was written 1984 and was not meant to be a correct assessment of the lgbt community in general.  A passage from The Male Couple says:

“We always have been very careful to explain that the very nature of our research sample, its size (156 couples), its narrow geographic location, and the natural selectiveness of the participants prevents the findings from being applicable and generalizable to the entire gay
male community.” 

But there is more:

Gay Bowel Syndrome (GBS): The Journal of the American Medical Association refers to GBS problems such as proctitis, proctocolitis, and enteritis as "sexually transmitted gastrointestinal syndromes." Many of the bacterial and protozoa pathogens that cause gbs are found in feces and transmitted to the digestive system: According to the pro-homosexual text Anal Pleasure and Health, "[s]exual activities provide many opportunities for tiny amounts of contaminated feces to find their way into the mouth of a sexual partner . . . The most direct route is oral-anal contact."

"Gay bowel syndrome" is a term no longer used because it is considered outdated and many physicians  no longer use it.

Then there is this citation:

Reduced Life Span. A study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology on the mortality rates of homosexuals concluded that they have a significantly reduced life expectancy:

In a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age twenty for gay and bisexual men is eight to twenty years less than for all men. If the same pattern of mortality were to continue, we estimate that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged twenty years will not reach their sixty-fifth birthday. Under even the most liberal assumptions, gay and bisexual men in this urban centre are now experiencing a life expectancy similar to that experienced by all men in Canada in the year 1871.

In 2001, the researchers of this study complained that religious right groups were distorting their work. As a matter of fact, as recent at last year, one of the researcher, Julio Montaner, was still complaining about how the study was being distorted:

"To use my report to support the notion that gay and bisexual sex is somehow the reason why people die early is misusing the data," Montaner said.

Montaner noted that his group’s original report was conducted at a time when the HIV epidemic was poorly controlled and treatments were ineffective. Since then, there have have been great strides in treating the disease and preventing its spread, Montaner said. In British Columbia, annual diagnoses of new infections have dropped from 900 in the mid-1990s to 300 in recent years, he said. Deaths from HIV also have fallen sharply, he said.

Let me take a guess. It's all about "religious liberty," isn't it, FRC?

NOM-affiliated lawyer cites Paul Cameron. What would Maggie Gallagher say?

Does NOM-affiliated Charles LiMandri actually believe that gays ingest blood and feces during sex? What would Maggie Gallagher and Brian Brown say to that?

By now, everyone knows that former Ms. California Carrie Prejean is suing pageant officials for libel, slander and religious discrimination.

But there are some things you don't know about her counsel.

According to Jeremy from Goodasyou.org, she is being represented by the National Organization for Marriage's counsel Charles LiMandri.

Goodasyou.org further says that LiMandri has a history of anti-gay "activism."

Jeremy also posts one of LiMandri's position papers, The Impact of Same-Sex Marriage On Religious Freedom.

I downloaded a copy and looked it over.

You have to see it to believe all of the discredited and misused studies LiMandri uses. Allow me to break down a few of his inaccuracies:

From pages four to 11, he lists anecdotes of incidents in which Christians are allegedly discriminated against because of a "gay agenda." Not only do a lot of these incidents have nothing to do with same sex marriage, but LiMandri gets the facts wrong.

Included in LiMandri's examples is my favorite, the David Parker incident, as well as the Repent America incident in which a group of people protesting a gay pride celebration were arrested in Pennsylvania after they wouldn't comply with the police at the scene. LiMandri claims that they were "peacefully protesting."

LiMandri lists another case of so-called persecution:

The Oakland city government found the words "Marriage the foundation of the natural family and sustains family values" to be a hate crime and reprimands a group ofOakland city government employees for using these words on a flyer in the workplace.

LiMandri is obviously distorting the case. Oakland city government did not say that those words were a "hate crime." What happened was this:

Gay employees working for Oakland's government formed a group. In response, two Christian employees formed their own group. In the flyer advertising the Christian group, terms like "integrity" and "natural family" were used in ways that attacked the gay employees.

The Christian group was told to revise the flyer. They refused and sued the city of Oakland. They subsequently lost their case.

LiMandri even has the temerity to mention the initial controversy with Matt Barber. You will remember that before Barber became an anti-gay spokesperson, he was fired from AllState for using the company's equipment to write anti-gay columns as well as including his employment at the company in his bio. LiMandri omits that fact but makes sure to note that Barber wrote the pieces while away from work.

But the "real choice meat" of LiMandri's work comes after those inaccurate anecdotes.

In the rest of the 31 pages of his piece, LiMandri manages to reconstitute and rehash the most popular anti-gay propaganda out there, including:

Family Research Institute, “Medical Consequences of What Homosexuals Do” by Paul Cameron, Ph.D, www.familyresearchinst.org

That's right. LiMandri is citing Paul Cameron's discredited work as a link that people can use to "stay informed." And not just any Paul Cameron work, but the one that accuses gay men of ingesting blood and using gerbils and feces as sexual instruments.

Other bits and pieces from Cameron's distortions are throughout LiMandri's paper including claims that lgbts are more likely to molest their children.

Also, LiMandri uses the following from the Family Research Council:

“Homosexuality and Child Abuse”

This study is no longer on the Family Research Council's webpage because, as I was told in this link, the studies used in it are outdated.

Other distortions in LiMandri's paper include:

1. The distortion of Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women by Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg as a correct assessment of gay men's sexual behavior even though it was published in the late 1970s. Homosexualities looked at gay men in the city of San Francisco in the early 1970s and the authors even said that their work could not be generalized to include all gay men:

“. . . given the variety of circumstances which discourage homosexuals from participating in research studies, it is unlikely that any investigator will ever be in a position to say that this or that is true of a given percentage of all homosexuals.”

2. The life expectancy at age 20 for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 20 years less than for all men - The distortion of the 1997 Canadian study that claims that gay men have a short life span. In 2001, the authors of this study complained about how it was being distorted.

LiMandri did not say where he got this statistic but odds are the 1997 Canadian study was the place. The only other place he could have gotten this was the discredited Paul Cameron study on the supposed gay life span.

3. Citing The Health Risks of Gay Sex by John R.Diggs even though it uses some of the same distortions that LiMandri used in his paper (i.e. the Bell and Weinberg book and the 1997 Canadian study distorted to claim that gays have a short life span. So in essence, LiMandri is inaccurately double dipping.)

The most comical of LiMandri's claims when he says lgbts "demonized" certain people for saying that homosexuality is immoral, including Anita Bryant, Dr. Laura and Michael Savage.

For the record, even though there were a lot of protests against Dr. Laura's show, it failed because it bombed with audiences, Bryant's rhetoric (gays are trying to recruit children) eventually became her undoing because it turned off a lot of fair-minded people

And (I was saving the best for last) Michael Savage lost his television show after he said he wished that a caller would catch AIDS and die.

Basically, Carrie Prejean's lawsuit is as vapid as her continued pursuit of the spotlight and NOM's exploitation of her controversy.

But the lgbt community needs to look past Prejean and take the fight to NOM.

Its head, Maggie Gallagher has made an artform out of turning the argument of marriage equality on its head.

According to her, the argument about same sex marriage is not about protecting lgbt couples or lgbt families in general. Gallagher claims that the argument is about keeping her and those who believe like her (i.e. that only correct family structure is the "Leave It To Beaver" family image) from being "unfairly" labeled as "bigots."

NOM is no different than any other religious right group. Beneath its veneer of family, faith, and traditional values that are a lot of lies, discredited studies, misused studies, and appeals to fear and ego.

And there are many unanswered questions as to where the organization is getting its funding.

The lgbt community has done a lot of laughing at NOM because of the missteps the organization has taken, especially with its "Gathering Storm" video. But as NOM continues to make its presence known in same sex battles across the country, it is time we stop laughing and start asking questions and demanding answers.

And the first question we should ask is why is the organization affiliating itself with a person who puts out such filthy lies about our community?

Ms. Gallagher, if you are knowingly affiliating yourself and your organization with someone who thinks that gays are a threatening horde of interlopers who engage in dangerous sexual practices and molest their children, then you are, in fact, a bigot.

The American College of Pediatricians and the Laundering of Junk Science

Two weekends ago, I was embroiled in an intense discussion about gay parenting on the webpage Truthwinsout.org

Comments had gone back and forth, spurred by someone who spouted what he thought was credible information proving that gay marriage was not a good idea.

The subject drifted to gay parenting. Naturally the person did not agree with the idea and he cited information by a group called the American College of Pediatricians (ACP) that supposedly proved his point.

I took a look at this group's webpage and from what I saw, it looked like a group masquerading as a legtimate medical organization while spouting religious right dogma about the lgbt community.

Mike Airhart, a writer employed by Truth Wins Out and a very good friend of mine, broke it down like this:

The “American College of Pediatricians” screens its membership according to a pro-life philosophy spelled out on its “Core Values” page and an anti-gay philosophy spelled out here. The organization’s Bible Belt charter members are listed here.

According to Concerned Women for America, ACP formed in retaliation against the American Academy of Pediatrics after AAP released scientific studies finding no significant harm to children in same-sex parenting. ACP accuses the AAP of “bad science” but does not say how AAP’s studies were flawed.

The ACP’s family resources page links primarily to religious-right organizations. In contrast to the scientific approach of the AAP, ACP employs what it considers a predetermined “moral” filter to pediatrics.

Translation: The American College of Pediatricians is a group masquerading as a legtimate medical organization while spouting religious right dogma about the lgbt community.

I pretty much said the same thing already, but didn't Mike say it much better than me?

Seriously though, I took a look at the work ACP put out about the lgbt community, particularly a piece called Homosexual Parenting: Is it Time for Change?

What I found was a hot mess of the usual lies put out by the religious right. I'm sure those who keep up with this blog have heard these before but I'm a stickler for consistency when it comes to religious right distortions, so bear with me.

The distortions of the ACP piece can be broken down in three brackets:

1. Outdated data

The paper says:

Homosexual partnerships are significantly more prone to dissolution than heterosexual marriages with the average homosexual relationship lasting only two to three years

As proof of this, the ACP paper cites sources from over 15 years ago:

David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison, The male couple: how relationships develop (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1984), pp. 252-253.

M. Saghir and E. Robins, Male and female homosexuality (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1973), p. 225; L.A. Peplau and H. Amaro, "Understanding lesbian relationships," in homosexuality: social, psychological, and biological issues, ed. J. Weinrich and W. Paul (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1982).

M. Pollak, "Male homosexuality," in western sexuality: practice and precept in past and present times, ed. P. Aries and A. Bejin, translated by Anthony Forster (New York, NY: B. Blackwell, 1985), pp. 40-61, cited by Joseph Nicolosi in Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 1991), pp. 124, 125.

To make matters worse, the ACP is inaccurately using the data to generalize about all lgbt couples.

The authors of The Male Couple said their book could not be used to generalize about the lgbt community:

“We always have been very careful to explain that the very nature of our research sample, its size (156 couples), its narrow geographic location, and the natural selectiveness of the participants prevents the findings from being applicable and generalizable to the entire gay male community.”

Another outdated source the ACP piece uses is:

A. P. Bell and M. S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: a study of diversity among men and women (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), pp. 308, 309

Homosexualities was published in 1978. And with it, the APC paper continues to inaccurately generalize about lgbt couples.

A passage in Homosexualities clearly says:

“. . . given the variety of circumstances which discourage homosexuals from participating in research studies, it is unlikely that any investigator will ever be in a position to say that this or that is true of a given percentage of all homosexuals.”

Generally speaking, if you looked at all of the sources in the ACP paper, you see that the majority of them are over 10 years old. And many of the ones that can be construed as current are misused.

But that is the next section.

2. Misusage of studies

Many of the studies the ACP uses to claim that children will suffer adverse effects in lgbt households in fact did not have anything to do with looking at children in lgbt homes at all. They include:

A. Marie Xiridoui, et al., "The contribution of steady and casual partnerships to the incidence of HIV infection among homosexual men in Amsterdam," AIDS 17 (2003): 1029-1038. [Note: one of the findings of this recent study is that those classified as being in "steady relationships" reported an average of 8 casual partners a year in addition to their partner (p. 1032)]

As pointed out in a post two weeks ago , this study only looked at casual relationships between gay men. It had nothing to do with the lesbian population and certainly nothing to do with children in lgbt households. The ironic thing is that this study has been used to also claim that lgbts have no concept of monogamy in marriage even though the data was compiled before marriage was even legalized in the Netherlands.

B. Joanne Hall, "Lesbians recovering from alcoholic problems: an ethnographic study of health care expectations," Nursing Research 43 (1994): 238-244.

In my 2007 book, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, I talk about how this article in Nursing Research was distorted. The author of the article, Joanne Hall, Ph.D. of the University of Tennessee’s College of Nursing, wrote me a letter outlining how it was being misused. She said that not only did the study have nothing to do with gay parenting but also:

“My study was an investigation of experiences of lesbians who ALREADY have self-identified as having ‘had an alcohol problem.’

They were not recruited as ‘alcoholics,’ ‘addicts’ or such terms, because I realized people have different understandings and preferences about ‘labels.’ These women were not necessarily under treatment at all, but living in the community. I did not ‘verify’ either their sexual orientation (that was also self-identification), nor a ‘diagnosis’ of substance abuse. They responded to a flyer. They all lived in the Bay Area. There were 35 women in the study. ONLY 35. They do not REPRESENT a population. My point was to try to get a handle on what they were experiencing—to UNDERSTAND their patterns . . . . "

C. Gwat Yong Lie and Sabrina Gentlewarrier, "Intimate violence in lesbian relationships: discussion of survey findings and practice implications," Journal of Social Service Research 15 (1991): 41-59.

Again a study having nothing to do with children in same sex households. The original study was conducted in 1985 at a Michigan Women’s Music Festival. It included only 1099 participants and all were lesbian.

According to a reviewer of the study, Suzana Rose, Ph.D., of the 1099 lesbians participants, most were white and between the ages of 20-45. - Intimate Violence in Lesbian Relationships: Discussion of Survey Findings and Practice Implications, Journal of Social Science Research, 1991

D. "Sex survey results," Genre (October 1996), quoted in "Survey finds 40 percent of gay men have had more than 40 sex partners," Lambda Report, January 1998, p. 20.

Not only did this Genre article have nothing to do with children in same sex households but check out the entire citation. The Lambda Report was an anti-gay publication put out by an old friend of ours - Peter LaBarbera - before he began Americans for Truth.

So in all honesty, it can be said that the ACP paper does not misuse Genre article because it does not cite the article at all, but what LaBarbera (a man with an anti-gay bias) claims the Genre article says.

3. Researcher complaints

A consistent factor of religious right studies is how they inaccurately use studies even after complaints by the work's original author. There are two in the ACP paper:

A. It cites the infamous 1997 study Canadian study as proof that lgbts have a short life span even though the study's authors complained in 2001 of its misusage by the religious right. (This is getting to be a favorite citation of mine. In almost every religious right paper I've talked about on this site, the distortion of the Canadian study is included.)

B. Judith Stacey and Timothy J. Biblarz, "(How) Does the sexual orientation of parents matter," American Sociological Review 66 (2001): 174, 179.

Judith Stacey has said repeatedly that nothing in her work says that same sex parenting is a bad idea.

Finally, the most interesting thing about the ACP paper is that it is not original. Some of the citations and passages in the paper are identical to a Family Research Council paper, The Negative Effects of Homosexuality.

This is the same paper is considered "outdated" by the Family Research Council.

So basically, the American College of Pediatricians is a puppet organization that can do damage if no one researches its background.

The folks who founded this organization are clearly sacrificing the integrity of their profession by laundering religious right propaganda as credible medical research.

And it makes one wonder as to how many other "groups" like ACP are out there. And also what can we do to bring attention to these groups.

Washington Post exposes conservative fake medical group I already exposed 14 years ago

Earlier on Thursday, the Washington Post ran a huge article exposing a right-wing organization masquerading as legitimate medical group. 

According to The Daily Beast:

Internal documents from a conservative group of doctors shows how the organization has lobbied to limit transgender rights and restrict access to abortion, according to a report. A review of the American College of Pediatricians’ records from The Washington Post showed how the organization has lobbied in at least eight states to ban puberty blockers and and hormone therapies for transgender minors, and sought new recruits with mailers targeting Christian MDs and pediatricians in “red states.” The group has also successfully pushed its message in conservative media, with the American College of Pediatricians being mentioned in more than 200 articles on right-wing news sites since 2016. Jill Simons, the organization’s executive director, told the Post that the group’s “recommendations are based on the medical research and what is best for children.”

I'm happy that the American College of Pediatricians is finally getting some mainstream scrutiny even if it is long time coming. The Southern Poverty Law Center had already listed the organization as a hate group. 

But even before then in 2009, I called the group out in a blog post.

 Back then, the American College of Pediatricians was targeting gays.  Below is the published post. If anything, it should serve as a reminder that all of the LGBTQ community are in this together because we are targets of the same haters:

The American College of Pediatricians and the Laundering of Junk Science, July 6, 2009

Two weekends ago, I was embroiled in an intense discussion about gay parenting on the webpage Truthwinsout.org

Comments had gone back and forth, spurred by someone who spouted what he thought was credible information proving that gay marriage was not a good idea.

The subject drifted to gay parenting. Naturally the person did not agree with the idea and he cited information by a group called the American College of Pediatricians (ACP) that supposedly proved his point.

I took a look at this group's webpage and from what I saw, it looked like a group masquerading as a legtimate medical organization while spouting religious right dogma about the lgbt community.

Mike Airhart, a writer employed by Truth Wins Out and a very good friend of mine, broke it down like this:

The “American College of Pediatricians” screens its membership according to a pro-life philosophy spelled out on its “Core Values” page and an anti-gay philosophy spelled out here. The organization’s Bible Belt charter members are listed here.

According to Concerned Women for America, ACP formed in retaliation against the American Academy of Pediatrics after AAP released scientific studies finding no significant harm to children in same-sex parenting. ACP accuses the AAP of “bad science” but does not say how AAP’s studies were flawed.

The ACP’s family resources page links primarily to religious-right organizations. In contrast to the scientific approach of the AAP, ACP employs what it considers a predetermined “moral” filter to pediatrics.

Translation: The American College of Pediatricians is a group masquerading as a legtimate medical organization while spouting religious right dogma about the lgbt community.

I pretty much said the same thing already, but didn't Mike say it much better than me?

Seriously though, I took a look at the work ACP put out about the lgbt community, particularly a piece called Homosexual Parenting: Is it Time for Change?

What I found was a hot mess of the usual lies put out by the religious right. I'm sure those who keep up with this blog have heard these before but I'm a stickler for consistency when it comes to religious right distortions, so bear with me.

The distortions of the ACP piece can be broken down in three brackets:

1. Outdated data

The paper says:

Homosexual partnerships are significantly more prone to dissolution than heterosexual marriages with the average homosexual relationship lasting only two to three years

As proof of this, the ACP paper cites sources from over 15 years ago:

David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison, The male couple: how relationships develop (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1984), pp. 252-253.

M. Saghir and E. Robins, Male and female homosexuality (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1973), p. 225; L.A. Peplau and H. Amaro, "Understanding lesbian relationships," in homosexuality: social, psychological, and biological issues, ed. J. Weinrich and W. Paul (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1982).

M. Pollak, "Male homosexuality," in western sexuality: practice and precept in past and present times, ed. P. Aries and A. Bejin, translated by Anthony Forster (New York, NY: B. Blackwell, 1985), pp. 40-61, cited by Joseph Nicolosi in Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 1991), pp. 124, 125.

To make matters worse, the ACP is inaccurately using the data to generalize about all lgbt couples.

The authors of The Male Couple said their book could not be used to generalize about the lgbt community:

“We always have been very careful to explain that the very nature of our research sample, its size (156 couples), its narrow geographic location, and the natural selectiveness of the participants prevents the findings from being applicable and generalizable to the entire gay male community.”

Another outdated source the ACP piece uses is:

A. P. Bell and M. S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: a study of diversity among men and women (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), pp. 308, 309

Homosexualities was published in 1978. And with it, the APC paper continues to inaccurately generalize about lgbt couples.

A passage in Homosexualities clearly says:

“. . . given the variety of circumstances which discourage homosexuals from participating in research studies, it is unlikely that any investigator will ever be in a position to say that this or that is true of a given percentage of all homosexuals.”

Generally speaking, if you looked at all of the sources in the ACP paper, you see that the majority of them are over 10 years old. And many of the ones that can be construed as current are misused.

But that is the next section.

2. Misusage of studies

Many of the studies the ACP uses to claim that children will suffer adverse effects in lgbt households in fact did not have anything to do with looking at children in lgbt homes at all. They include:

A. Marie Xiridoui, et al., "The contribution of steady and casual partnerships to the incidence of HIV infection among homosexual men in Amsterdam," AIDS 17 (2003): 1029-1038. [Note: one of the findings of this recent study is that those classified as being in "steady relationships" reported an average of 8 casual partners a year in addition to their partner (p. 1032)]

As pointed out in a post two weeks ago , this study only looked at casual relationships between gay men. It had nothing to do with the lesbian population and certainly nothing to do with children in lgbt households. The ironic thing is that this study has been used to also claim that lgbts have no concept of monogamy in marriage even though the data was compiled before marriage was even legalized in the Netherlands.

B. Joanne Hall, "Lesbians recovering from alcoholic problems: an ethnographic study of health care expectations," Nursing Research 43 (1994): 238-244.

In my 2007 book, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, I talk about how this article in Nursing Research was distorted. The author of the article, Joanne Hall, Ph.D. of the University of Tennessee’s College of Nursing, wrote me a letter outlining how it was being misused. She said that not only did the study have nothing to do with gay parenting but also:

“My study was an investigation of experiences of lesbians who ALREADY have self-identified as having ‘had an alcohol problem.’

They were not recruited as ‘alcoholics,’ ‘addicts’ or such terms, because I realized people have different understandings and preferences about ‘labels.’ These women were not necessarily under treatment at all, but living in the community. I did not ‘verify’ either their sexual orientation (that was also self-identification), nor a ‘diagnosis’ of substance abuse. They responded to a flyer. They all lived in the Bay Area. There were 35 women in the study. ONLY 35. They do not REPRESENT a population. My point was to try to get a handle on what they were experiencing—to UNDERSTAND their patterns . . . . "

C. Gwat Yong Lie and Sabrina Gentlewarrier, "Intimate violence in lesbian relationships: discussion of survey findings and practice implications," Journal of Social Service Research 15 (1991): 41-59.

Again a study having nothing to do with children in same sex households. The original study was conducted in 1985 at a Michigan Women’s Music Festival. It included only 1099 participants and all were lesbian.

According to a reviewer of the study, Suzana Rose, Ph.D., of the 1099 lesbians participants, most were white and between the ages of 20-45. - Intimate Violence in Lesbian Relationships: Discussion of Survey Findings and Practice Implications, Journal of Social Science Research, 1991

D. "Sex survey results," Genre (October 1996), quoted in "Survey finds 40 percent of gay men have had more than 40 sex partners," Lambda Report, January 1998, p. 20.

Not only did this Genre article have nothing to do with children in same sex households but check out the entire citation. The Lambda Report was an anti-gay publication put out by an old friend of ours - Peter LaBarbera - before he began Americans for Truth.

So in all honesty, it can be said that the ACP paper does not misuse Genre article because it does not cite the article at all, but what LaBarbera (a man with an anti-gay bias) claims the Genre article says.

3. Researcher complaints

A consistent factor of religious right studies is how they inaccurately use studies even after complaints by the work's original author. There are two in the ACP paper:

A. It cites the infamous 1997 study Canadian study as proof that lgbts have a short life span even though the study's authors complained in 2001 of its misusage by the religious right. (This is getting to be a favorite citation of mine. In almost every religious right paper I've talked about on this site, the distortion of the Canadian study is included.)

B. Judith Stacey and Timothy J. Biblarz, "(How) Does the sexual orientation of parents matter," American Sociological Review 66 (2001): 174, 179.

Judith Stacey has said repeatedly that nothing in her work says that same sex parenting is a bad idea.

Finally, the most interesting thing about the ACP paper is that it is not original. Some of the citations and passages in the paper are identical to a Family Research Council paper, The Negative Effects of Homosexuality.

This is the same paper is considered "outdated" by the Family Research Council.

So basically, the American College of Pediatricians is a puppet organization that can do damage if no one researches its background.

The folks who founded this organization are clearly sacrificing the integrity of their profession by laundering religious right propaganda as credible medical research.

And it makes one wonder as to how many other "groups" like ACP are out there. And also what can we do to bring attention to these groups.