Through this flyer, the right-wing Liberty Counsel (home of
arch-homophobe Matt Barber) is channeling the "homosexuality is more dangerous than smoking" lie:
The Liberty Counsel is the latest religious right group to push that lie and it has been a mistake of the gay community to not challenge it aggressively.
Not to refute this lie, mind you, because the notion is ridiculous.
Rather, all the gay community has to do is reveal where this "homosexuality is more dangerous than smoking" lie came from. And then watch members of the religious right stumble over each other in an effort to retreat from the charge.
It was a 2007 study
published by discredited researcher Paul Cameron.
It was Cameron who in the 80s came up with the idea of aggressively
using science to prove that homosexuality is a “dangerous lifestyle.”
The problem is to do this, Cameron
attained a reputation for either distorting legitimate science or distorting his own work to gain the conclusions he wanted from his “studies.” He has also been
discredited
and censured by many group and individuals on the left, the right, and
in the middle due to his bad research techniques. Several of his studies have been
criticized for
such errors as having small sample sizes, showing an anti-gay bias in
interviews, and not having enough responses to establish a suitable
analysis.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, who has designated Cameron's group The Family Research Institute as a hate group because of his history of deliberately putting out fraudulent information on the gay community, Cameron created his study via the
following specious means:
First, Cameron presents it as a given that the average gay life span is
43 years, citing his own 1995 study as evidence. Then he compares 43
years to the average life span of smokers to conclude that having gay
sex is far more dangerous that cigarettes.
Every time the gay community allows this lie to be repeated without saying where it comes from is a missed opportunity to connect the religious right groups to their tendency to rely on junk science in order smear us.
As for the Liberty Counsel, it's rather brazen for the organization to talk about Jesus and God's love while at the same time breaking one of the Ten Commandments by "bearing false witness" against the gay community.
There is an old saying in the African-American community that's very appropriate here.
When members of the Liberty Counsel die, they are going to bust Hell wide open.
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