Monday, September 29, 2008

You're supposed to be steadfast and unmovable in TRUTH, not lies

Well one debate is down and Obama rocked the house. One thing about him, he believes in consistency. Throughout all of the hype, Obama has stayed focused on relaying how he is an excellent choice for president. Now the debate between Biden and Palin is going to be interesting. It's not about knock out punches or one-liners. I have faith that Biden can ignore all of the hype regarding the Lindsay Lohan of Alaska (sorry Lindsay) and continue to show why Obama would be an excellent choice for president.

And that's my two cents about the election for today.

I am not going to do it.

I will not link to Peter LaBarbera's Folsom Street nonsense nor will I talk about it any more than I have to.

Frankly, Peter gets me upset. Not only does he continue to unfairly demonize the lgbt community; that is a given.

But how is it that he, a raging homophobe, can have more visual access to naked men while I in the prime of my life (eat your heart out, Jean Brodie) can't get these mean queens in SC to show me at least a bare ankle.

It's just depressing.

But seriously . . .

An annoying characteristic of the anti-gay industry (and they have several) is their inability to admit wrongdoing even in the face of exposure.

God forbid that any of these so-called followers of Jesus remember the Christian tenet of admitting wrongdoing and seeking absolution. Instead, when confronted with their distortions and lies, they either ignore the exposure or try to "kill the messenger."

A perfect example is a series of incidents that I unfortunately overlooked due to the merriment of South Carolina Pride; that is until I read excellent posts from goodasyou.org and Pam's House Blend.

Allow me to recap as best I can:

Ex-gay Greg Quinlan made the claim that geneticist Dr. Francis Collins had gone on record saying that there is no genetic cause for homosexuality.

In fact Quinlan's exact words were:

" . . . the director of the Human Genome Project, Dr. Francis Collins, said this: homosexuality is not hardwired. There is no gay gene. We mapped the human genome. We now know there is no genetic cause for homosexuality."

But Dr. Collins said no such thing. In fact, Collins was not happy with how his work was being distorted by folks like Quinlan and "ex-gay" organizations like NARTH.

In May 2007 he told Ex-Gay Watch just how he felt.

Now when confronted with this, Quinlan did not backtrack an inch. He actually accused Ex-Gay Watch of making up Dr. Collins' response.

And even after Dr. Collins went on record again verifying what he told Ex-Gay Watch, Quinlan has made no effort to admit wrongdoing.

It gets better. Apparently last week, Southern Baptist Convention member Bob Stith wrote a column making the exact same claim about Dr. Collins that Quinlan did.

Those of us who know the anti-gay industry aren't suprised by Quinlan's and Stith's behavior. We have come to expect it. It's the classic anti-gay industry tactic of repeition, or repeating a negative point about lgbts regardless of the fact that said point has been continuously refuted.

There have been so many examples over the years Let me give you a few of my favorites:

In 1998, 14 anti-gay industry group used the research of pediatrican Dr. Robert Garafalo to make the claim that gay teens indulge in negative behaviors (i.e. drug abuse, suicide) because such things are indicative of the "gay lifestyle." When Dr. Garafalo complained that their citation omitted a crucial part of his findings (i.e. gay teens do these things when faced with abuse from a homophobic society), then Concerned Women for America (CWA) spokesman Robert Knight attacked Dr. Garafalo, calling him a thrall of political correctness.

Bear in mind that Knight has never had any background in field of pediatrics. (the entire story is told here - Boston doctor says ads distorted his work on gays, The Boston Globe, August 4, 1998)

A more up-to-date example would be how both Peter LaBarbera and former CWA spokesperson Matt Barber, this year, tried to infer that the recent MRSA infection scare amongst gay men in a certain area of the country was like the start of the AIDS virus in the early 1980s.

When confronted, both tried to play the game of exact verbiage. They falsely claimed that "gay activists" were accusing them of outright calling the MRSA infection the "new gay plague."

Though I have no proof of this, I like to think that the pitiful way Barber tried to cover up his distortions and the public (and very, very enjoyable from my standpoint) lashing he and LaBarbera received from the blogs led Barber to realize that he was in over his head as an anti-gay spokesperson and slink to the safe confines of Liberty University.

And then there is my favorite: I had an interesting exchange earlier this year with an anonymous poster that reached the level of high camp.

According to him (or her), the anti-gay industry are actually correct when they distort the work of physicians and researchers because these physicians and researchers have such a pro-gay bias that anything they print which can be construed as a negative fact about lgbts is correct because psychologically, they are telling the truth to themselves . . . or something like that.

There have been so many other incidents like the ones I have mentioned in which anti-gay industry members refuse to admit they are wrong, even to the point of lunacy.

And I have to wonder why won't members of the anti-gay industry admit when they make a mistake?

But then I tell myself, "mine is not to wonder why, mine is to nail those suckers for every lie they tell" (I know it doesn't rhyme, but I like it).

Maybe there will be time later to wonder about their mind sets but I could care less.

For now, I am all for exposure.