Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
From the United Kingdom comes a situation regarding gay adoption which I am sure the religious right in this country will try to exploit for its own purposes:
Dr Sheila Matthews, who has been a medical adviser to the Council’s adoption panel for five years, said she believed it would be “inappropriate” to place children in a household with same sex parents.
“Using my professional judgement and having done a lot of reading around the subject, I am satisfied that there are research findings which support my position that a same sex partnership is not the best family setting to bring up children,” she said. . . . "This conflicts with my professional, religious and personal integrity.”
Dr Matthews was told in April by the Council’s Head of Services for Children, Young People and Families, Martin Pratt, that she could no longer be on the panel and that another medical adviser would be found to replace her.
She has sought advice from the Christian Legal Centre. Its director Andrea Minichiello Williams said her case was another example of “how a well respected professional who holds conscientious views on sexual practice, informed by Christian faith, is being asked to choose between her faith and her job."
. . . “And devout Christians are suffering the consequences,” she said. “This is not the mark of a free and civilised society where freedom of speech and religion is carefully guarded.”
This isn't anything new. In 2006, Catholic Charities of Boston in Massachusetts announced that the agency would end its adoption work rather than comply with state law requiring that gays be allowed to adopt children.
So this case may give the religious right more proof that the "gay agenda forces people to choose between their jobs and beliefs."
Therefore, if the lgbt community takes on the religious right in this situation without flipping the script a bit, we are walking into their trap.
You see, adoption is not about the lgbt community nor about the beliefs of those who would place these children. Ultimately, adoption is about giving children good homes.
Now I don't know what Dr. Matthews has been reading (I think I have a good idea, unfortunately), but the vast amount of research out there says no child suffers adverse affects from being placed in a same-sex household.
Regardless of how she spins it, Dr. Matthews is placing her personal beliefs above the needs of the child.
If someone on any adoption board does this, then he or she needs to be removed, point blank.
Also, how far does this "my personal beliefs won't allow it," nonsense go? Will the "personal beliefs" card be allowed when it comes placing children in households of different ethnic origins.
You see how complicated this thing gets when people on these boards start deviating from their actual mission - that mission being to find a child a good home.
Removing Dr. Matthews was the right thing to do. In the cases of adoptions, the needs of the children should always come first. Everything else, especially the personal religious beliefs (however deeply held) of those choosing the homes, is incidental.
On the edge: Religious militancy in the Queen City - For years, Charlotte Pride has been besieged with very vocal anti-gay protesters. This year may be a bit more troubling than most as Matt Comer shows in this special report.
“If you isolate sexuality as something solely for one’s own personal amusement, and all you want is the most satisfying orgasm you can get—and that is what homosexuality seems to be—then homosexuality seems too powerful to resist. The evidence is that men do a better job on men, and women on women if all you are looking for is an orgasm . . . Marital sex tends toward the boring end. Generally, it doesn’t deliver the kind of sheer sexual pleasure that homosexual sex does.” - Paul Cameron, Rolling Stone, March, 18, 1999
Not many people in the lgbt community or the world know who Paul Cameron is.
But we all should.
Paul Cameron is the grandfather of all anti-gay junk science.
When the religious right compares us to pedophiles, when they claim that we have a short life span, when they talk about how "how homosexuality has dangerous physical and medical consequences," it's his discredited "data" that they are inferring.
Paul Cameron is probably singlehandedly responsible for every lie, every distortion, every bastardization of science that has plagued the lgbt community since the onset of the AIDS crisis.
His bad research techniques and tactics has led him to be dismissed from major scientific groups, as well as censured by conservatives and liberals alike.
Unfortunately these techniques and tactics also gave the religious right a "scientific component" to attack the lgbt community. If there was no Paul Cameron, there would be no Peter LaBarbera, no Matt Barber, no Linda Harvey, etc., etc.
The following clips are of Paul Cameron in Poland this year, where he was barred from speaking at a university after his dubious history was made known.
I think you can see the ugly homophobia that has tainted his research from the beginning, especially with his fascination with anal sex in the gay community (of course he omits how heterosexuals also participate in this activity), and his claim that he has been the victim of a conspiracy of "ad hominem" attacks.
The "real fun" starts at 2:45 in this clip when he begins talking about how gays have a supposedly high rate of molesting children.
Now in second this clip, he goes into full detail about anal sex, making sure to imply that it is solely "gay behavior." He also talks about how the attacks against him have been unfair because all he is doing is presenting data that the gay community also presents. He also tells a huge bold-faced lie (as if his entire presentation isn't a lie) when he says that gays aren't showing any evidence that his work is inaccurate.
Of course Cameron omits several things. There is a reason why he has to go to foreign countries to present his "studies." He is a laughing stock in the United States. While religious right groups fully exploit the so-called results behind his studies, they are careful not to call him by name. There is a reason for that.
Let's take a quick look at his history:
"Right now, here in Lincoln, there is a 4-year-old boy who has had his genitals almost severed from his body at Gateway in the rest room with a homosexual act… It’s really awkward. I could see where Gateway would want to suppress this. I could see where the parents would want to suppress it. It could be just a rumor. But enough things have happened recently so that such a thing doesn’t have to be invented.” - Paul Cameron told this story to a group in 1982 in Lincoln, NB in an attempt to kill a human rightsordinance. The police discovered the story to be false but the ordinance was defeated.
And let's not forget the condemnations rained down on him by the medical community:
“(Cameron) misrepresents my findings and distorts them to advance his homophobic views. I make a very clear distinction in my writing between pedophilia and homosexuality, noting that adult males who sexually victimize young boys are either pedophilic or heterosexual, and that in my research I have not found homosexual men turning away from adult partners to children . . . I consider this totally unprofessional behavior on the part of Dr. Cameron and I want to bring this to your attention. He disgraces his profession.” - Dr. A. Nicholas Groth in 1984 after discovering that Cameron distorted his work.
"Paul Cameron (Nebraska) was dropped from membership for a violation of the Preamble to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists - American Psychological Association, 1983
The science and profession of psychology in Nebraska as represented by the Nebraska Psychological Association, formally dissociates itself from the representations and interpretations of scientific literature offered by Dr. Paul Cameron in his writings and public statements on sexuality. Further, the Nebraska Psychological Association would like it known that Dr. Cameron is not a member of the Association. Dr. Cameron was recently dropped from membership in the American Psychological Association for a violation of the Preamble to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists - Nebraska Psychological Association, 1984
Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism" - American Sociological Association, 1985
The Canadian Psychological Association takes the position that Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism and thus, it formally disassociates itself from the representation and interpretations of scientific literature in his writings and public statements on sexuality. - Canadian Psychological Association, 1996
And while we are at it, let's not forget those on the right who dismiss Cameron's work:
"Given what I now know, I believe there are flaws with Paul Cameron's study. One cannot extrapolate from his methodology and say that the average male homosexual life span is 43 years." - former Ronald Regan Cabinet member William Bennett criticizing Cameron's "gay lifespan study." - New Republic (1998, February 23, page 4)
Paul Cameron has been censured and attacked not because his "research" is controversial, but because it is wrong. He ranks right up there with folks who think that the Earth is flat. His organization, the Family Research Institute, has been declared an official hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
And not because it embraces the belief that homosexuality is a sin. According to Mark Potok, the director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, Cameron's group has that designation because Cameron consciously lies about the lgbt community.
The sad fact that Cameron has credibility anywhere (not matter where it is) is testament to people's need to believe that their beliefs are somehow superior to others' beliefs.
This unfortunate need to feel superior has plagued mankind from the beginning of time. And, as in the beginning of time, there will always be people like Paul Cameron to exploit it.
And despite all that has been said about Cameron's lies, this link shows that he still has a degree of credibility with some people, including Peter LaBarbera, Concerned Women for America, and the Family Research Council.
