Know Your LGBT History - A brief history of gay relationships

No one famous today. Just a reminder that we and our relationships have existed long before Stonewall:



Past Know Your LGBT History posts:

'NOM pouring money into Maryland anti-marriage equality fight' and other Friday midday news briefs

Blogging for LGBT Families Day 2012: Contributed Posts - It’s Blogging for LGBT Families Day!

Illinois School Board Bans Family Diversity Book - Because gay folks don't have families (sarcasm alert).

 How NOM's seemingly limitless cash well is shaping Maryland - NOM literally pouring money into Maryland's anti-marriage equality fight.

  Writer James Robinson Shines a Light on DC Entertainment's Latest Gay Superhero, Earth-Two's Green Lantern - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Green Lantern of Earth Two is gay. Now about NOM and Maryland . . .

  Report: anti-LGBT murders jumped 11 percent in 2011 - And this too. 

Anti-gay groups ignoring researcher's call to stop using his work

From Truth Wins Out:

In 1973, Dr. Robert Spitzer led the charge to successfully have homosexuality removed from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), which is its list of mental disorders. This was a major victory and remains one the gay movement’s signature achievements.

Given his stature and key role in declassifying gay people as sick, it was quite a surprise when Dr. Spitzer published a non-peer reviewed 2001 study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior that claimed some “highly motivated” gay people could reach their “heterosexual potential” through prayer and therapy. When he announced his work at the 2001 APA meeting in New Orleans, it created a media sensation. An Associated Press story called his findings “explosive.”

In 2012, Dr. Spitzer recanted in the American Prospect magazine and in a letter to the Archives of Sexual Behavior, obtained by Truth Wins Out, Dr. Spitzer asked that his study be withdrawn. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show and the New York Times covered his apology.

During an interview with  Lisa Darden and Truth Wins Out's Wayne Besen (see above video), Spitzer said the following:

Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX) is still misusing your study and a video featuring you remains prominently placed on the group’s website. Would you like to address PFOX?

“I ask that PFOX stop showing this video. This is quite misleading. I had no way, really, of knowing when I examined any particular subject whether they really had changed or whether they were deceiving themselves or even outright lying when they claimed that they had changed. So, please don’t show this [video] to anyone.”

The retraction of your study must be very upsetting to anti-gay organizations.

“I’m curious as to whether they have said anything or how they live with the fact that the one study that they have always been citing has now been taken away from them. I would think that’s a pretty rough place to be in.”

Is the “Ex-Gay” Industry capable of unbiased research on homosexuality?

“The people who are pushing the ‘ex-gay’ idea are so full of hatred for homosexuality, really, that I don’t think they can respond in an ethical way.”

They are responding by ignoring Spitzer. The Family Research Council continues to link to his work (the following comes up on FRC's webpage when I google Spitzer's full name) and PFOX hasn't removed any citation of his work from its webpage.

While we shouldn't be surprised, the big question is what are we going to do about it?