Six methods of lies the anti-gay right uses against the lgbt community

Maggie Gallagher of NOM

Earlier today, I published a post detailing how the National Organization for Marriage was using a junk science study to prop up another discredited study. This post put me in the mind to repeat six techniques used by religious right groups in order to dehumanize and bear false witness against the lgbt community. I've listed them before but a reminder is in order.



1. Using nonrepresentative or out of date studies to make generalizations, or distorting legitimate studies to give misleading conclusions about gays.

Example 1:

“In a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age twenty for gay and bisexual men is eight to twenty years less than for all men. If the same pattern of mortality were to continue, we estimate that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged twenty years will not reach their sixty-fifth birthday. Under even the most liberal assumptions, gay and bisexual men in this urban centre are now experiencing a life expectancy similar to that experienced by all men in Canada in the year 1871.” - Getting it Straight, Family Research Council


Truth - In 2001, the researchers of this study complained about how it was being misused. They explained what they actually meant and how it is not feasible to use their work to claim that gay men have a "short life span."

Example 2:

 Alan P. Bell and Martin S. Weinberg studied 574 white male homosexuals, 100 percent of whom had already had at least three sexual partners, 97 percent at least ten, 75 percent at least one hundred, and 28 percent at least one thousand. - House Dems Try to Hide Homosexual Agenda on “Bullying” Bill, American Family Association of Michigan

Truth - Bell and Weinberg’s study was compiled in the 1970s. They used the study to write the book Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity among Men and Women. In Homosexualities is this statement:

“. . . 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. Repetition - No matter how many times a religious right factoid about the lgbt community has been proven to be false, keep repeating it as truth. An unfortunate example of this was shown last week by Religious Right Watch. When a study created by Mark Regnerus about the so-called effects of gay parenting was discredited several times in this country, it was referred to and repeated in Russia as evidence of why the country needed to "crack down" on its lgbt citizens.

3.  Conspiracy Theory:

Example:

The ultimate goal of homosexual-rights activists is not to legalize same-sex marriage. Rather, it is to silence those who disagree with them and, if necessary, to throw them in jail. In a world in which the biblical viewpoint of marriage is demonized, it does not take a constitutional scholar to predict that soon those who hold that view will find themselves in court. - Gary Bauer, June 7, 2013, The Washington Times

4. Dire Consequences 

Example: 

NOM is working all across the country to wake people up to the fact that redefining marriage poses an enormous and imminent threat to our precious religious liberties. But we need your help to reach more people and build the grassroots coalition needed to stop these abuses in their tracks. Please click here right away to support NOM's work to defend marriage and the religious liberties of individuals who stand up for it. - National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown in a recent fundraising letter.

Anti-gay group's latest attempt to create junk science on gay households is simply pathetic

Maggie Gallagher

In the midst of all the mess of this government shutdown, the National Organization for Marriage is trying to establish credibility for a discredited anti-gay parenting study via a tactic I like to call "propping."

Last week, the New Civil Rights Movement posted the following:

Maggie Gallagher Touts Another Regnerus-Type Anti-Gay Parenting ‘Study’.

In the article, former NOM head Maggie Gallagher claims that this is "yet another study" which proves the so-called dangers of gay parenting. The point is to build up the credibility of the Mark Regnerus study, which the organization and other members of the religious right attempted to use in order to sway the Supreme Court in its argument involving DOMA and Prop 8.

That didn't work because the lgbt community, specifically the bloggers like myself,  and watchdog sites like Equality Matters were quick to keep this from gaining credibility by pointing out its numerous, numerous faults. In addition, several of Regnerus' colleagues took him to task.

So with this so-called new study, Gallagher seems to be attempting to build up, or "prop up" the credibility of the discredited Regenerus study. However, the New Civil Rights Movement didn't let her get away with it:

Curiously, Gallagher does not mention that the study’s author, Douglas Allen (image), is on the board of NOM’s Ruth Institute, or that he has a rather ugly perception of LGBT people. (Surprise!)

Then there’s this.

“An article written by Professor Douglas W. Allen — who has previously claimed that lesbian relationships are unstable, unhealthy, and promiscuous – repeats a number of classic anti-gay talking points about the legal ramifications of legalizing same-sex marriage,” Equality Matters wrote last year, “including the claim that allowing gay couples to marry will somehow result in more heterosexual divorces.”

Think I'm being a bit "paranoid" about the attempt by NOM to "prop up" Regnerus' discredited study on gay parenting? Check out this post by Jeremy Hooper.

Hooper is pointing out that Regnerus is attempting himself to prop up the second study by publishing a glowing article on it in on online magazine Public Discourse. Of course, Hooper conveniently points out that Public Discourse is a project run by the Witherspoon Institute, the organization who was one of the funders of Regnerus' original discredited mess to the tune of $695,000.

And let me add my little bit - The Witherspoon Institute is affiliated with NOM and the NOM's Ruth Institute. The Ruth Institute, you will remember from earlier in this post, is the same organization who just happens to have Douglas Allen (the author of the second anti-gay parenting study) on its board.

It's simply pitiful how easy it was to disassemble this latest shuck-and-jive by NOM and Gallagher. I almost miss the days when those attempting to spread anti-gay propaganda weren't so sloppy and transparent in their methods. It's as if they aren't even trying anymore.

Related post: What Media Outlets Should Know About The Latest Same-Sex Parenting Study - Equality Matters blisters this latest junk study by NOM.