Saturday, July 07, 2007

It's the lesbian gangs I tells ya!!!!

Thank you to Peter LaBarbera and Bill O'Reilly for taking my mind off of my recent trials and tribulations.

Their attempts to start a moral panic by attacking our lesbian sisters (and I mean the community in general) has stirred me out of my Saturday doldrums and into the Barnes and Noble bookstore which was the only place I can be online right now.

I am sure everyone has heard Peter's latest:

Lesbian gangs are raping and bullying girls and engaging in criminal activity, but you probably haven’t heard about this story, right? Now a Memphis TV station and FOX News’ Bill O’Reilly have broken the silence

This lovely piece of nonsense is courtesy of Bill O'Reilly taking a situation and blowing it out of proportion (like he always does).

Peter even tries to claim that GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) tried to shut the story down.

For the record, Peter is lying (yet again).

GLAAD was only calling into question O'Reilly taking this story and making it sound as if an epidemic of female lesbian gangs is plaguing the country. The organization investigated and found the following:

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) contacted the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department to research the statistics Wheeler cited and found that the information he reported is highly suspect. Sgt. Brett Parson, a member and the former commander of the D.C. Metro Police Department?s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit, says the numbers are grossly exaggerated.

Parson is quoted along with GLAAD in a Southern Poverty Law Center Intelligence Report article titled, ?The Oh-Really Factor,? which debunks the June 21 report, pointing out its numerous flaws and highlighting its sensationalistic tone.

"We have 150 to 175 total gangs in the D.C. area, and out of those only nine where the predominance of members are female," Parson said. "You simply can't make the jump that they are lesbians. I think it is fair to talk about violence and female gangs. But to sensationalize or marginalize a community by making a statement like that seems irresponsible."

Gaithersburg, Md., Detective Patrick Word is President of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Gang Investigators Network, an intelligence-sharing organization of 400 criminal justice professionals in Maryland; Washington, D.C.; and Virginia. He told the Intelligence Report, "there is no evidence whatsoever of a lesbian gang epidemic in this region...our membership reports only one lesbian gang."


So this is another case of our friend Peter whose singleminded purpose of dehumanizing gay people has led him to yet again look like a wild-haired looney on a street corner, complete with a "REPENT FOR THE END IS NEAR" sign.

But to me, it's more than that.

Check out how Peter tries to link the situation with another pet peeve of his:

Maybe the young lesbian thugs got some inspiration from “Vagina Monologues,” the vulgar feminist-lesbian play celebrated by liberal elites and performed by many female Hollywood stars.

I can see the scenario now:

Scene: A bathroom in a high school in Memphis. Gang member 1 is holding down a young girl. Gang member 2 is helping her.

Gang member 1: (to the young girl): Shut and don't make any noise. (to Gang member 2): I'm going to try something I saw from the Vagina Monologues.

Gang member 2: Girl, what is that?

Gang member 1: It's a play I heard about on Oprah. Then I went to see it when it played Off-Broadway (to young girl) Shut up. (to Gang member 2): Girl it was good. It's way existential. Gillian Anderson, Alanis Morrissette, Rita Moreno, Rosie Perez, Nell Carter, and Joy Behar was in it. When we get done with this trick, I want to have a deep philosophical discussion about our vaginas.

Yeah, Peter. That sounds about right.

Then to top it off, Peter engages in an old anti-industry trick: distorting a study to implicate the lesbian community:

“A study in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence examined conflict and violence in lesbian relationships,” says the report. “The researchers found that 90% of the lesbians surveyed had been recipients of one or more acts of verbal aggression from their intimate partners during the year prior to this study, with 31% reporting one or more incidents of physical abuse.”

That citation came from a "study" written by Timothy Dailey of the Family Research Council.

The following passage from my book talks about what Dailey did:

From this perspective, it sounds as if lesbians have a problem with partner violence. But if you looked at the source of Dailey’s citation, you get an entirely different perspective.

According to the Journal of Interpersonal Violence’s own web page:

The Journal of Interpersonal Violence offers the most up-to-date information on domestic violence, rape, child sexual abuse and other violent crimes . . . Focusing on both victims and perpetrators, the journal examines theoretical links between all types of interpersonal violence,
exploring the similarities and differences between these types of crimes.


In other words, the Journal of Interpersonal Violence tracks domestic violence, as well as other violent crimes. Of course those surveyed in it had been recipients of violence, verbal or otherwise, because this is what the journal is designed to track.

What is done here is the equivalent of taking the rate of a domestic violence study of African-Americans cited in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence and judging that entire African-American community solely on it.

It always amazes about how people like Peter LaBarbera can complain that they are "unfairly" thought of as homophobic. What do you expect for people to call you when you do things like denigrating all lesbians because of the actions of some?

If you look like a duck and act like a duck, I refuse to apologize for calling you a duck.

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