The anti-gay industry can't stop lying

An article in Friday's Agape Press demonstrates yet again the tendency for so-called "pro family groups" and their cohorts to spread propaganda about the gay community.

Agape Press is yet another tentacle of the anti-gay industry. This so called "news source" is an extension of Tim Wildmon's American Family Association and is another place where the anti-gay industry can spread lies about the gay community unchallenged.

This Friday's article, Surveys Reveal Sex Practices of Homosexuals (http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/9/152006g.asp) claims that a sex survey in the August 15, 2006 edition of The Advocate reveals that "the homosexual lifestyle continues to be plagued by promiscuity and unsafe sexual practices."

First of all, a sex survey in one magazine cannot be taken to be indicative of an entire community. I for one did not fill out the survey and I know that many others didn't. So what does that say about us?

But the use of sex surveys in order to demonize the entire gay community is an old canard of the anti-gay industry. Our friend Paul Cameron used a sex survey as one of his cites of information in his refuted piece, Child Molestation and Homosexuality.

The survey Cameron used was a book published in 1979, The Gay Report. Now according to the webpage Box Turtle Bulletin (linked below):

"The Gay Report was modeled after many other informal sex surveys which were popular in the 1970s and 1980s. Magazines like Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and Playboy often conducted reader surveys."

In fact, 2,500 of the survey answers from The Gay Report came from a gay pornographic magazine, Blueboy.

Gay pornographic magazines cannot be considered as indicative of the gay community any more than Hustler magazine can be considered as indicative of the heterosexual community.

And andendum to this is the fact that the Traditional Values Coalition continues to claim that the The Gay Report is indicative of the gay community - i.e. The Gay Report: A Survey of Homosexual Sexual Habits. - http://traditionalvalues.org/pdf_files/GayReport.pdf

But more about that later.

My segueway into the history of the anti-gay industry using sex surveys to demonize the gay community was to show that when so-called "pro family" groups do not cite Cameron by name, they copy his bad research tactics.

As it is, Agape Press's usage of the sex survey from the Advocate is filled with distortions that can only be meant as intentional.

For example, look at this quote from the article:

"The poll found that 20 percent of homosexuals said they had had 51-300 different sex partners in their lifetime, with an additional 8 percent having had more than 300."

This is true but the way Agape Press cited the survey findings in this case was a misrepresentation.

The original question was:

"During your lifetime, how many different same-sex partners have you had sex with?"

The 51-300 range given by Agape Press is actually a combination of different answers. The original answers were:

9.92 percent of gays and lesbians said they had 51-100 sexual partners

9.58 percent of gays and lesbians said they had 101-300

Agape Press combined these two totals to make a 20 percent figure.

These other answers were ommitted:

5.6 percent of gays and lesbians said they had no sexual partners

6.95 percent of gays and lesbians said they had one sexual partner

20.24 percent of gays and lesbians said they had two to five sexual partners.

12.72 percent of gays and lesbians said they had six to 10 sexual partners

12.18 percent of gays and lesbians said they had 11 to 20 sexual partners

14.4 percent of gays and lesbians said they had 21-50 sexual partners.

Now if I used the same tactic that Agape Press used to garner its 20 percent figure, then I could say that a very large percent of gays and lesbians have a low promiscuity rate (0-50 partners in a lifetime.)

Another distortion is as follows:

"A survey in Ireland by the Gay Men's Health Project found that almost half of homosexuals said they were having unprotected sex.
The Advocate survey seemed to underscore that. It found that 55 percent of homosexuals said they never (20%), occasionally (10%) or usually (25%) practiced so-called "safer sex."

Agape Press does not give any more information regarding the Ireland survey. And of course the attempt to connect the Advocate survey to this is another distortion.

The actual survey question was "how often do you practice safe sex."

The answers given was as follows:

19.93 percent of gay and lesbians said never

44.65 percent of gays and lesbians said always

10.35 percent of gays and lesbians said occasionally

25.06 percent of gays and lesbians said usually.

So we see that Agape Press combined three of the survey answers to get its total. When the answers stand alone, the great majority of gays and lesbians say that they are practicing safe sex.

Now in its zeal to demonize the gay commuity, Agape Press omitted the following findings:

81.96 percent of gays and lesbians said they would get married if same sex marriage was legalized.

If having to choose, 84.18 percent of gays and lesbians would live without sex rather than living without love.

65.03 percent of gays and lesbians said they never visit bathhouses, sex clubs, sex parties, or backrooms. The answer with the second highest total in that category was "rarely" -17.20 percent.

Two points are obvious from the Advocate sex survey: gays and lesbians are not as sexually wild as people think and members of the anti-gay industry seem to never miss an opportunity to make life harder for us.