'Porno Pete' LaBarbera getting hot and bothered over upcoming street fair

Oh mercy, it's that time again.

Time for your friend and mine, Porno Pete LaBarbera to fake shock and outrage over Folsom Street Fair.

And of course he doesn't disappoint:

Deviance and Folly of Liberal ‘Tolerance’

Nothing screams “Perversion!” like the annual Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco, America’s first homosexual Mecca — where mostly homosexual men (and some “straights,” using that term loosely) party in the city’s streets — many in near- or total nudity. AFTAH has documented the unprecedented public perversions and nudity of this bizarre outdoor “fair,” as police stand idly by.  [See our photo-reports: Folsom 008 (part one); Folsom 2008 (part two); "Slavery Makes a Comeback" (Folsom 2008); "Up Your Ally" fair 2008; Folsom 2010 and  Folsom 2007.] Here is the link to the Folsom Street Fair website (warning: offensive material). Below is the 2012 poster for this well-attended sadomasochism and “sexual freedom” celebration, which demonstrates that for the liberal minded, there are few if any limits to “tolerance.” THIS is the depraved end game of the Sexual Revolution. (Click on image to enlarge.) – Peter LaBarbera, AFTAH

I find it interesting how he attacks gays for this street fair while at the same time acknowledging that heterosexuals also attend and participate.

Oh well, I look at it as progress. In writings about past Folsom Street Fairs, LaBarbera was very reluctant to acknowledge heterosexual appearances there.

At any rate, I will say what I always say when Porno Pete starts on his fake outrage (which is extremely Freudian, seeing that he provides links to past "street reports" which he and his supporters "forced themselves" to view and talking about in lovingly long details):

I have never attended one of these nor do I have any desire to. So to generalize about the gay community because of those who attend this thing is like generalizing about heterosexuals because of  the straight men and women who attend the fair.

Although between you and me, if it was discovered that the committee behind Folsom was paying LaBarbera under the table to publicize this event, I wouldn't be shocked.

Video superbly refutes lies about marriage equality

Want a simple way to refute the lies about marriage equality? Check out this video from the Australian Marriage Equality Campaign. Send it to your friends and especially your favorite homophobes


Hat tip to ThinkProgress and Goodasyou.

'AFA:' Big gay' activists are going to hell' and other Monday midday news briefs

Buster Wilson Warns 'Big Gay' Activists That They Are Destined for Hell - First of all, what in the world is a "big gay" activist? Secondly, who designated a guy named "Buster" to send people to hell? I don't remember that verse in the Bible.

In other news: 

Woman Becomes First Openly Gay General - THIS is a pretty darned big deal! 

Paul Ryan Has Acted On Every Anti-Gay Belief Mitt Romney Has - Translation: the religious right will love Paul Ryan.

Anti-Gay Groups Officially Launch Campaign To Remove Pro-Equality Iowa Justice - Nothing says fairness like voting out a judge simply because you don't agree with his or her opinion.

Regnerus was approached to do anti-gay parenting study by Witherspoon Institute

Regnerus

A new article about the anti-gay parenting study created by University of Texas Mark Regnerus gave some new details about how the study came to being.

And these details should lead to more questions.

First, a little background

Earlier this year, Regnerus published a study which claimed that children in same-sex households face several problems. Conservatives and the religious right quickly lauded this study. But many others pointed out errors in the study's conclusion and methodology. In fact, over 200 professors and researchers signed a letter condemning it.

A chief complaint has been where Regnerus received his funding.  According to Wayne Besen of the group Truth Wins Out, the head of the study, Mark Regnerus, received a $695,000 grant from the Witherspoon Institute for the study

The Witherspoon Foundation is affiliated with Princeton professor Robert George. At the Witherspoon Foundation, he is a Herbert W. Vaughan Senior Fellow  George is also a founder and chairman emeritus of the National Organization for Marriage, an organization whose goal is to stop marriage equality.

Since Regnerus's study was published, NOM and the Witherspoon Institute has been pushing it steadily.  According to the Huffington Post, Maggie Gallagher, the former president of NOM and other groups associated with the organization have widely publicizing Regnerus' work:

Gallagher has been especially active in promoting the study, writing three posts about it on the website of the conservative National Review.  She penned a column for the conservative Town Hall under the headline, "The Gay Murphy Brown Effect."

Gallagher's Culture War Victory Fund, which was incubated at the American Principles Project, a group founded by Robert George in 2009, promoted the same articles that NOM did on its blog.

Another NOM-connected group, the Love and Fidelity Network, also promoted the study.

The Love and Fidelity Network shares an office with the Witherspoon Institute. Gallagher and George, the founders of NOM, are on the Network's advisory board. Luis Tellez, who founded the Witherspoon Institute with George, is also on the advisory board of the Love and Fidelity Network.

For its part, the Witherspoon Institute wrote a lengthy analysis of Regnerus' study under the headline, "The Kids Aren't All Right: New Family Structures and the 'No Differences' Claim."

The Witherspoon Institute also launched a website featuring Regnerus' data.

Regnerus has insisted that the study's funders had nothing to do with its outcome.  But this is where the new information comes in from The Statesman newspaper in Texas.

According to an article which appeared on Thursday, Regnerus was approached to do the study by a member of the Witherspoon Institute. This is noted at least two times in the article:

1. The Witherspoon Institute approached Regnerus, a sociologist, about doing a study on gay parenting and contributed about $700,000 to his project, according to Regnerus and Luis Tellez, president of the Princeton, N.J.-based institute. The Bradley Foundation, based in Milwaukee, supplied $90,000 for the work, according to Regnerus. The Bradley Foundation did not respond to requests for comment.

The grant — the largest the Witherspoon Institute has ever given for faculty research — came with no strings attached and no pressure for a particular outcome, Tellez says.

2. In the case of the Regnerus study, Witherspoon solicited Regnerus for the work, according to Tellez, the institute's president. Tellez said he sought money to help pay for the study from liberal philanthropists as well as Witherspoon's mostly socially conservative contributors. But no liberal individuals or groups gave money for the project, he said.

Regnerus, in an email to the Statesman, said, "the plan for the particular study that was carried out was generated by me, with the help of a variety of consultants."

Tellez said he approached Regnerus for the study because he had met the scholar at events sponsored by Witherspoon and found him to be "a darn good scholar, a careful scholar, (and) easy to work with."

"We knew that (the study) would probably, one way or the other, be a disappointment to some people. It would disappoint us, or donors, or people on our left," Tellez said, later adding, "We let the chips fall where they may."

Sorry but I have a hard time believing, in spite of the assurances, that the Witherspoon Institute, a conservative organization with a specific agenda, would approach someone to do a study and freely give what it calls "the largest grant given to faculty research" if it didn't have expectations of what it would be receiving.

Certain questions need to be asked of the parties involved in the creation of this study - specifically why did the Witherspoon Institute want to create such a study and what did it hope to accomplish?