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.