Wayne Besen does it again!!

Way to go with the bold move, Wayne:

COMPLAINT FILED WITH ILLINOIS ATTORNEY GENERAL AGAINST RIGHT WING GROUP FOR SELLING FRAUDULENT ‘EX-GAY’ VIDEO

So-Called Miracle ‘Cure’ Did Not Endure, Yet Consumers Intentionally Kept In The Dark About ‘Ex-Gay’ Leader’s Failed Sexual Conversion

CHICAGO – Truth Wins Out filed a complaint today with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan against the Naperville, Illinois-based non-profit organization Americans For Truth and its president Peter LaBarbera for selling a misleading video on its web-site titled, “It’s Not Gay.” In a letter to Madigan, Truth Wins Out urged her to expeditiously pull this fraudulent video from the marketplace, require a written apology from LaBarbera and that refunds be offered to dissatisfied consumers.

“Nowhere does Americans for Truth inform potential viewers that Johnston’s ‘cure’ did not endure,” wrote Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen in the letter to Madigan. “This organization is undeniably peddling false hope to vulnerable and desperate people and bilking them out of their hard earned money. In doing so, Americans for Truth is unscrupulously capitalizing on the sincere and heartfelt religious convictions of its followers and exploiting them for the organization’s financial gain.”

The primary spokesperson featured in “It’s Not Gay” is Michael Johnston, an HIV+ so-called “ex-gay” leader who offers testimony claiming he became heterosexual in 1998 “through the power of Jesus Christ.” He went on to collaborate with The American Family Association, Coral Ridge Ministries and Rev. Jerry Falwell.

In August 2003, Johnston’s claims at sexual conversion collapsed in an embarrassing scandal. Michael Hamar, a Virginia attorney, called Besen to say he had a client who had been having an affair with Johnston, not realizing, at first, Johnston’s true identity as a prominent ex-gay figure. Besen was also introduced to another young man who claimed to have had unprotected sex with the ex-gay leader. While in Virginia, Besen was shown a video of a man that looked eerily similar to Johnston having unprotected sex with several men. Hamar’s client signed an affidavit swearing the man was Michael Johnston.

The news broke in Southern Voice, a respected gay publication in Atlanta. Johnston resigned his ministry in disgrace and fled to a sex addiction facility in Kentucky, Pure Life Ministries, where he sought counseling. In reaction to Johnston’s fall, LaBarbera told Southern Voice, “He obviously had a moral failing, that’s true.”

Despite publicly admitting that Johnston had failed in his efforts at heterosexuality, Labarbera is now selling the specious “It’s Not Gay” video and portraying Johnston to unsuspecting viewers as a “former homosexual.”

Truth Wins OUT is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life. For more information, visit www.TruthWinsOut.org.

- 30 -
________________________________

January 18, 2007

Attorney General Lisa Madigan
Attn: CONSUMER FRAUD
100 West Randolph Street, 12th Floor
Chicago, IL 60601

Dear Ms. Madigan:

I am writing to file a complaint against the Naperville, Illinois-based non-profit organization Americans For Truth and its president Peter LaBarbera. This organization is selling a misleading video on its web-site, titled “It’s Not Gay.” The primary spokesperson featured in this video is Michael Johnston, an HIV+ so-called “ex-gay” leader who offers testimony claiming he became heterosexual in 1998 “through the power of Jesus Christ.”

In August 2003, Johnston’s claims at sexual conversion collapsed in an embarrassing scandal. Michael Hamar, a Virginia attorney, called me to say he had a client who had been having an affair with Johnston, not realizing, at first, Johnston’s true identity as a prominent ex-gay figure. I was also introduced to another young man who claimed to have had unprotected sex with the ex-gay leader. While in Virginia, I was shown a video of a man that looked eerily similar to Johnston having unprotected sex with several men. Hamar’s client signed an affidavit swearing the man was Michael Johnston.

The news broke in Southern Voice, a respected gay publication in Atlanta. Johnston resigned his ministry in disgrace and fled to a sex addiction facility in Kentucky, Pure Life Ministries, where he sought counseling. In reaction to Johnston’s fall, LaBarbera told Southern Voice, “He obviously had a moral failing, that’s true.”

Despite publicly admitting that Johnston had failed in his efforts at heterosexuality, Labarbera is now selling the specious “It’s Not Gay” video and portraying Johnston to unsuspecting viewers as a “former homosexual.” Indeed, on the front of the box under a picture of Johnston it says, “Former homosexuals tell a story few have heard.”

How can Johnston continue to be presented as a “former homosexual”? The word “former” clearly implies that he has ceased all homosexual activity prior to filming “It’s Not Gay.” However, abundant homosexual activity on the part of Johnston had occurred after the video was released. This makes LaBarbera guilty of deceptive advertising and duping unsuspecting consumers who are led to believe that Johnston had miraculously changed sexual orientations.

Nowhere does Americans for Truth inform potential viewers that Johnston’s “cure” did not endure. This organization is undeniably peddling false hope to vulnerable and desperate people and bilking them out of their hard earned money. In doing so, Americans for Truth is unscrupulously capitalizing on the sincere and heartfelt religious convictions of its followers and exploiting them for the organization’s financial gain.

It is in the state’s best interest to expeditiously pull this fraudulent video replete with bogus claims and outright fabrications from the marketplace. Truth Wins Out also urges the state to require a written apology from LaBarbera that he must post prominently on his website and that refunds be offered to dissatisfied consumers.

Thank you for reviewing the enclosed information and I look forward to hearing back from Ms. Madigan after the investigation is complete. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. I am happy to assist you and provide you with additional information that will help ensure consumers in Illinois and nationwide will not be taken advantage of by a dishonest and unprincipled organization.

Sincerely,

Wayne Besen
Executive Director
Truth Wins Out

Hate Crimes Legislation and Isaiah Washington

Let's get this out of the way first: Isaiah Washington is a dumb ass. And his derogatory comments about T.R. Knight are very disappointing; especially seeing that he once played a gay man in the Spike Lee movie "Get on the Bus."

And do you know how hard it is to find a good representation of a gay black man in movies these days?

But having said that, I refuse to get caught up in the hoopla about making him apologize. Why? Because this gay black man is still reeling over the lack of comments when that awful movie Soul Plane came out.

You know Soul Plane don't you? The movie featuring the chubby black gay "stewardess" named Flame complete with purple lip gloss whose every appearance in the movie was either to make fun of gay black men or emphasize the point that some consider us outsiders in the African-American community; unwanted and unloved.

Now where was these folks pushing for "positive portrayals of gays and lesbians" when this movie came out a few years ago?

I don't like to fit the stereotype of the jaded, cynical gay male, but in this case, please don't get offended when I say I don't really give a shit about Isaiah Washington or his big mouth.

What does concern me is the push for hate crimes protection. Apparently, the anti-gay industry are alarmed that Congress is going to make sure that the gay and lesbian community will be protected under these laws.

Now correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't this country already have hate crimes laws that punish people for crimes committed because of religious or racial hatred?

This being the case, why is it such a problem to include us? Apparently the anti-gay industry seems to think that if we are included, pastors will be arrested in their churches for speaking out against homosexuality.

This is just subterfuge backed by lies backed by distortions backed by . . . well you get the picture.

As the days go by, I expect this battle to heat up.

Good cause I am in an ass kicking mood.

Put me back in, coach! It's just a scratch!

I have some of the most rotten luck with computers. This Saturday, my internal modem died. Subsequently, I have been offline until now.

I am able to get online, because like the Bionic Woman, I have been given better equipment, i.e. DSL. (I know you all are thinking that I should compare myself to the Six Million Dollar Man, but the Bionic Woman had the better villains, i.e. fembots.)

While offline, I was able to prepare the index of my upcoming book as well as assess where I am with the project. I was pleased with the results, but like a football player who just made it to the Superbowl, I was anxious to get back into the game.

I was mainly worried that some huge revelation would take place involving the anti-gay industry and no one would be there to cover it.

I didn't have anything to worry. Wayne Besen (www.waynebesen.com), Joe Brummer (www.joebrummer.com), and www.goodasyou.org, as well as many others had things covered.

I did notice that Wayne Besen has given an update on where Michael Johnston is. In one of my last entries before my modem died, I covered the fact that Americans for Truth was selling a video featuring Johnston's claim that he was "delivered from homosexuality" when such was not the case. While Johnston was traveling the country making this claim, he was allegedly having unprotected sex in hotel rooms with gay men.

In all honesty, I entered the controversy rather late. Wayne Besen was at the forefront of exposing Johnston's escapades in 2003 and was also there to make sure that people knew the anti-gay industry was still peddling his lies last year.

According to Besen, Johnston is now on the staff of Pure Life Ministries as a member of the speaking team, He is still peddling his story of "deliverance from homosexuality," complete with an admission of his fall from grace in 2003.

But neither him nor Pure Life Ministries is forthcoming as to the depth of his fall. Johnston said that he was HIV positive and was no longer gay. If the stories are true, while he was making this claim, he was having unprotected sex with gay men.

This portion of the story regarding his "fall" is conveniently omitted from his Pure Life Ministries biography.

My heart goes out to Johnston and I don't mean him any malice but I have to ask just where is his integrity. He should not be speaking to anyone but those men he could have infected due to his carelessness.

He has no business presenting himself as a speaker or any type of leader until he makes restitution with those men. And as far as I know, he has not.

Score one for the good guys

Almost every time the anti-gay industry tries to keep children from forming gay/straight alliances in high schools, it gets its hand smacked.

The most recent incident is yet another pleasurable bitch slap to those who try and keep our lgbt children in the closet:

A settlement has been reached between the American Civil Liberties Union--representing students in a gay-straight alliance--and officials in White County, Ga., who had refused to permit the club to meet at White County High School, the ACLU announced Wednesday.
Local media reported December 26 that a settlement had been tentatively reached, but Wednesday's announcement makes it official.

“I’m just so happy this is all over and that our school is doing the right thing,” Charlene Hammersen, one of the founders of the alliance, called Peers Rising in Diverse Education (PRIDE), told the ACLU. “It’s taken almost two years to get here, but we’re as determined as we’ve always been to promote diversity and fight harassment against gay students at our school. This is really great for every student that goes to White County High.”

The future of the lgbt community is in good hands.


Unbelievable nonsense

From the web page of my friend Joe Brummer comes some outrageous nonsense from our friend Peter LaBarbera and his ironically named group Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. If the report is true, LaBarbera's group is listed in GuideStar (a source of information about non-profit organizations) as a lesbian and gay civil rights group:

Somebody has been asleep on the job


$60,000? Maybe I am on the wrong side of the argument

Arkansas is paying for its opposition to gay adoption in a way it probably did not expect.

According to this article:

Arkansas taxpayers will pay $60,000 for the testimony of a university professor who testified for the state that gays and lesbians are unfit to serve as foster parents.

But it is a far cry from the $200,000 George Rekers had sought.

The Arkansas the Department of Health and Human Services hired George Rekers as an expert witness in the case, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of four couples who wanted to foster parents.

Rekers's original $200,00 bill included "research" and "late fees." What makes matters worse is that Arkansas lost the case.

Rekers is not as well known as Paul Cameron but according to the ACLU, he is cut from the same cloth:

Rekers is one of the founders of the Family Research Council, a notoriously anti-gay group.

Rekers relies on the discredited research of Paul Cameron, an anti-gay "researcher" who was kicked out of the American Psychological Association for misrepresenting the research regarding homosexuality.

Rekers has suggested that gays are unsuitable to serve as foster parents because they're at higher risk for AIDS and other sexually-transmitted disease, ignoring the fact that there is a physical examination required of all foster parent applicants in Arkansas that would weed out any applicants with health conditions that could jeopardize a foster child.

Rekers says that children are best served when raised by both a mother and a father, but doesn't favor excluding single heterosexual single women from fostering.

That's it! I am switching sides. Who needs integrity when you can get $60,000.

Americans for Truth, American Family Association team up to sell fraudulent video (Another one for my book)

I almost missed this one.

Americans for Truth (our friend Peter LaBarbera's group) is helping the American Family Association pull a big fraud.

On the Americans for Truth web page is a solicitation for the video "It's Not Gay." According to the group, the video:

" . . . presents a story that few have heard, allowing former homosexuals the opportunity to tell their own story in their own words. Along with medical and mental health experts, these individuals express a clear warning that the sanitized version of homosexuality being presented to students is not the whole truth."

Those who click on the video link is directed to the American Family Association site where they can order the video.

Besides the usual bit of misrepresentation (i.e. the claim that those in the video have been "freed from homosexuality") is something a bit more sinister and blatant.

Notice how the cover of the video on both links seem to be blurred.

I can't help wondering if this is intentional. Why you ask? Because of the person it features.

This link from Ex-Gay Watch plainly shows who this person is: Michael Johnston.

For a while, Johnston was one of the anti-gay industry's "golden boys." He traveled across the country telling his story of how he was "delivered" from homosexuality after testing HIV positive. He was even the leader of his own ministry, Kerusso Ministries. In addition, he helped to start "National Coming Out of Homosexuality" Day in order to counter "National Coming Out" Day.

However, Johnston's star crashed in 2003 when it was discovered that while he was doing all of these things, he was also engaging in unprotected sex with men.

So why in 2007 is the American Family Association and Americans for Truth trying to sell a video featuring him making his claim that he was "delivered" from homosexuality when it was obvious that he wasn't.

And it's obvious that LaBarbera knows what his group is doing. He is quoted in the above link about Johnston's transgressions.

This is not the first time this subject has come up. Last year, Wayne Besen of www.truthwinsout.org asked the same question about "It's Not Gay."

What AFA and Americans for Truth are doing is like selling a hammer with a broken handle. One can always take back the hammer.

But who will seek recompensement for the lives of the lgbts who are going to be attacked by churches and others who will probably buy this tape and believe its claims?

The fact that the American Family Association and Americans for Truth are encouraging people to buy this tape speaks to both groups' lack of integrity. God does not like ugly, even when it's done in his name.

The AFA of Pennsylvania tries to scare people

It seems that the anti-gay industry has depleted their anti-gay marriage equality hysteria.

So whither where they fly? Or rather what's the next target for these folks.

A Pennsylvania incident may give an indication of where they are going. However, I don't envision them having as much success as they had scaring everyone about gay marriage:

According to Agape Press, the American Family Association of Pennsylvania is up in arms with school districts for working with the organization GLSEN.

GLSEN is an organization that works to make school climates better for our lgbt youth. Subsequently, that makes them public enemy number one in the eyes of the anti-gay industry:

According to (Diane) Gramley (President of the AFA of PA), many public school officials simply do not realize the danger of partnering with GLSEN or other groups like it whose primary goals, she insists, are to normalize homosexuality and to encourage students to experiment with same-sex partners. "That's what they want," she asserts. "They want the kids to believe that 'gay is okay,' and that if you feel that you are homosexual -- if you feel you're tugged in that direction -- [you should] go ahead and try it."

Gramley is partly right. We do want children to know that gay is okay because being lgbt is perfectly fine, regardless of the climate folks like her attempt to create. However, this idea that we want children to have sex is just "ignant."

That's right, I said "ignant." It's a new word describing an idea so stupid that it doesn't deserve three syllables to declare it dumb.

In her next statement, we get the gist of what Gramley is going for:

Gramley believes groups pushing the acceptance of homosexuality will eventually target the First Amendment rights of Christians who understand the Bible to prohibit sexual activity between people of the same sex. Therefore, she suggests, the homosexual agenda is a direct threat to the free speech and religious liberty of those who believe homosexual activity is sinful.

There they go again with the "dire consequences" propaganda technique. In the absence of truth, some members of the anti-gay industry spin the theory that gay people want to curtail the rights of those who think that homosexuality is a sin.

The "dire consequences" tactic is usually effective because it simultaneously appeals to the ego and the fears of the audience. Its usage is also a sign of desperation. Scaring people is the way to go for those who have depleted their logic.

Now it is here that I would make a joke that lgbts don't want to arrest Christians for believing that homosexuality is a sin because we want to send them to re-education camps where they will be strapped down and forced to watch 24 hours of Bette Davis movies or Larry Kramer speeches.

However, I have a feeling that our friends Peter LaBarbera and Matt Barber would take me seriously and make my joke the subject of a new action alert/call to arms.

But I will say to Ms. Gramley, we don't want to cause you all trouble because some of us are enjoying watching you self-destruct.

Manufactured martyr gets a promotion - CWA hires Matt Barber

Concerned Women for America has hired a replacement for the departing Robert Knight. And if this man's past history is any indication of his future at the organization, he may provide me with more fun than Knight ever did.

Matt Barber is the new hiree and if he sounds familiar, it's because he was a cause celebre in 2005. At that time, he was an employee at AllState Insurance who was fired because of a column he wrote. The column in question gave the usual anti-gay nonsense about how diseased we are, like the following Cameroneque excerpt:

As a result of the concerted effort by liberals to mask the devastating effects of the gay lifestyle, many people are shocked to learn that the average life expectancy of a homosexual male is only about 45 years old - 30 years younger than that of a heterosexual male.

Barber was fired because he involved AllState in his nonsense. He claimed that he wrote the column on his own time. Now the bio on the column said the following:

J. Matt Barber is a non-practicing attorney, an undefeated heavyweight professional boxer (Matt "Bam Bam" Barber), and a professional jazz drummer in the Chicago Land (IL) area. In addition to his Law Degree, Barber holds a Master of Arts in Public Policy. Matt Works for Allstate Insurance Company as a Territorial Senior Manager in Allstate's Law and Regulation Corporate Security (Internal Fraud Investigations) Department.

Or if you want to see the column with the bio, this is the link

Barber sued AllState for violating his religious beliefs because he was not allowed to receive unemployment benefits as a employee who was fired for willfull misconduct. The Illinois Department for Employment Security said this was not the case, so Barber was able to get unemployment benefits.

Barber continued with a lawsuit against AllState. He was aided by religious right lawyers, anti-gay industry figures such as Donald Wildmon and the American Family Association, and blogs like Free Republic who claimed that he was the newest victim of the "gay Mafia."

Barber settled with AllState and the settlement was not made public. However, I did notice two things.

I find it interesting that Concerned Women for America did not milk Barber's firing for its own purposes. The organization doesn't even mention it. An article speaking of his settlement clearly says, "no mention of a dollar figure was revealed, according to a WorldNetDaily report."

But go to AllState's web page and you will find the insurance company is talking about it:

The company has stated its position to the court in our answer to Mr. Barber’s lawsuit, and the following statement is included in those papers: “Plaintiff, James Matthew Barber, was not discharged from his employment with Allstate Insurance Company because of his religious beliefs or practices, but because he used the company’s information technology systems and other resources for his personal journalism activities, many of which took place on company time, and which identified Plaintiff as an employee of the Allstate Insurance Company.”

The article references a determination made by the Illinois Department of Employment Security. The role of the Illinois Department of Employment Security is to implement the Illinois Unemployment Insurance Act, which provides unemployment compensation to residents of the state who meet the eligibility requirements provided in the act. The Department determines whether anyone is eligible for unemployment compensation. Apart from this role, the Department does not rule on the reason for terminations.

To reiterate, Allstate would not terminate an employee for expressing personal religious or lifestyle views on his or her own time.

Seems to me that Barber and his cohorts aren't telling the entire story. He was not fired for "willful misconduct," but apparently his firing was very justified.

Barber should fit in very well with Concerned Women for America. After all, liars generally like each others' company.

Needing your help with information

There is so much going on today and I intend to comment on it on future dates.

But first thing's first.

I have just finished a marathon session of editing and correcting my book. Now I get to do it all over again. At least one more time, then I will wrap things up.

I need your help on something.

One of my goals in writing this book is to spotlight attention on those of us who are working to expose the lies of the anti-gay industry piece by piece. In doing this, I want to give out a list of sites where people can go when the anti-gay industry comes out with a lying press release and the like.

If any of you know of any sites, please send them to me via this blog or my email address, CharleKenghis@aol.com

I know of the official sites (i.e. HRC and Lambda Legal) but the sites I want are of bloggers and web pages who are doing good work without getting the right type of notoriety.

I will check out the site and include it in my book.

I already have a few but more wouldn't hurt.

This is highly important. It seems that unofficially, we have a network of (I am paraphrasing your words, Wayne Besen) "truth-tellers." I just want all of us to be better connected.

Does anyone actually care what Gary Bauer thinks?

I see that Gary Bauer is pushing hackneyed "gay agenda" line yet again:

" . . .A conservative spokesman and former U.S. presidential candidate warns that efforts to advance the homosexual agenda will intensify when the new Democrat-led Congress convenes Thursday. Gary Bauer of American Values believes the homosexual rights movement sees the new Congress as a vehicle to make further progress in getting homosexuality to be considered a protected civil rights category."


Oooh I'm so scared (those who are familiar with ghetto girl dialect can slur their vowels now).

I'm going to fight my first impulse of insulting Mr. Bauer by referring to him as Skeletor (come on, you know he looks like the villain from Masters of the Universe) because I really don't care about him.

When Bauer was the head of the Family Research Council, he did have some degree of power. But since resigning to run for President in the 2000 election, he has become as irrelevant as an 80's hair band.

I do sincerely hope, however, that is new Congress do their duty and work to pass laws that will make life better for the gay and lesbian community.

After all, we are Americans, too.

Can we stop the flow of lies?

I like to go online and check out sites that are anti-gay. I find it empowering to know what the other side is thinking. Reading their lies reminds me of the work I need to do by writing my book.

It can get depressing too. Today, I located a South African web page that spoke against gay adoption. No doubt the creators of the page considers themselves Christian and it is for this reason that they oppose gay adoption. I have no problems with this. What I have a problem with is the information the page contained, like the following:

A study of 4340 adults in five metropolitan areas of the USA showed that bisexuals and homosexuals (about 4% of the sample) compared to heterosexuals:

· exposed themselves sexually to more different bodies (more frequently admitting to participating in orgies and reported larger numbers of sexual partners);

· more frequently participated in socially disruptive sex (e.g., deliberate infection of others, cheating in marriage, making obscene phone calls);

· more frequently reported engaging in socially disruptive activities (e.g., criminality, shoplifting, tax cheating); and

· more frequently exposed themselves to biological hazards (e.g. fisting, bestiality, ingestion of faeces and sadomasochism).

That is Paul Cameron's infamous ISIS study of the early 1980s. Bear in mind that the citation does not mention Cameron as the author of the study nor does it talk about how Cameron conducted the study.

It does not mention:

That only 41 gay men and 25 lesbians took part in this study,

the study consisted of over 500 questions, given to the first person answering the door, and was picked up a week later, and

the study has been discredited over and over again.

The South African web page piece contains other distortions.

Which leads me to ask this question: can we ever stop the lies?

That web page is just one of a myriad of web pages that repeat Cameronesque lies about the gay and lesbian community.

When people seek to do evil, they are usually successful. Mopping up the mess they make tends to take a long time. And it is tiresome work. And it does get discouraging at times.

I guess I should be reminded of the title of a song Shawn Colvin sings:

Steady On!

Book stuff and history

Yaaaayyyy! I've finished making the copy editing changes in my book and it only took two days.

Now I get to do it all over again.

Seriously though, I have given myself a deadline of February 1 for my manuscript to be fully ready to be published.

I would like to give huge props to Joe Brummer for his excellent recap of last year's events. I didn't realize that so much good was done for our community. I encourage everyone to read it.

Lastly, I received an interesting package in the mail from my copy editor. It was a book he wrote entitled We're So Glad You Asked: 52 quizzes for the Whole Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Heterosexual Family.

It is an excellent book that challenges readers to become knowledgeable on gay history.

We need more of that.

I am an African-American and the proud history of black people has been drilled in me on many occasions. My schools celebrated Dr. King's birthday long before it became a national holiday. We celebrated Black History Month when it was originally Black History Week with a schoolwide assembly in which we all participated.

The sense of urgency had by those who taught me to love my African-American heritage is something the gay and lesbian community needs.

There has been so much discussion on the similarities and differences between the African-American and gay rights movement. I have sat on the fence because I believe that both groups want to disavow or acknowledge the similiarities based on selfish reasons.

I will acknowledge that both groups are similar in one way: we have been miseducated and taught to hate ourselves.

Just as some folks want to push the idea that African-Americans and black people in general did nothing to contribute to the history of the world, some people want to deny the gay and lesbian community our rich heritage.

They want to keep us in the dark, pushing the idea that we are defined by how some of us have sexual relations.

The anti-gay industry wants to hold us back from being celebrating our orientation while they tell the world how nasty and evil we are.

We shouldn't let their ignorance stop us. We need to tell the story of Alexander the Great, who conquered much of the known world before he was 33; of Billy Tipton, who started her own jazz combo; of Bayard Rustin, who organized the 1963 March on Washington, of Egyptian queen Hatshepsut and Swedish queen Christina, both ruling as capable as a man.

The list goes on and on.

We owe to our gay children that they know these people.

And we owe it to ourselves. A refresher course in pride never hurts.

Massachusetts GODDAMN Massachusetts

Well I hope everyone had a good holiday. I spent a good bit of time editing my manuscript while totally ignoring this blog.

And now when I am ready to come back to it, an issue hits me in the face with the urgency of a runaway locomotive.

By now, everyone has heard what has happened in Massachusetts, so there is no need to rehash it. Check out this link if you are not aware of the situation.

What is happening gets me angry on so many levels. The first level, of course, is envisioning the press releases that will surely come from Agape Press and that bunch.

Trust me when I say that there is nothing more annoying than a self-righteous gloater.

On a more important level, I cringe to think about another go-round on the "marriage train fight."

I'm probably in the minority when I say that this fight over marriage equality has revealed a bourgeois element of our community.

This point was driven home to me when I read the article about how difficult it is for gay students to get gay/straight alliances started in high schools, despite the fact that the law is on their side.

Meanwhile us black gay men and lesbian women are still fending for ourselves, invisible to two communities that won't give us any respect or visibility.

I am all for marriage equality but gaining it is not the salve for the ills affecting our community. I know gay men who are out but have a negative view of our community. Some don't even know why we should fight for the rights that should be ours, including the right to take care of our families. Some have drunken the kool-aid of lies and actually believe that being gay condemns them to a life of loneliness and vapid sexual relations. Why? Because while there has been so much work about our legal rights, no one has said a word about our spiritual and psychological well-being.

Legal rights are good things, but having a positive spiritual and psychological foundation is more important. Having pride in ourselves is not something we can get from a clique of friends, going out to a club, our material possessions, or fighting for rights that some of us don't even feel we deserve to have.

We have been forgetting that for too long.

WHEW! My manuscript returns

I know that it's a stupid title but that was the first word that came to mind when I opened the package sent by my copy editor.

I have tons (and that's not an exaggeration) of work to do in applying the corrections he sent. As such, I will be busy for a while. I will cotinue to post but barring something major taking place(and with people like Peter LaBarbera and Lou Sheldon around, it is possible), count on me being less loquacious than I usually am.

Meanwhile, Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin wrote an excellent piece about the hypocrisy of the anti-gay industry - New Survey: 95% Have Had Premarital Sex

Hypocrisy in the religious right? No way.

More sarcasm on my part; it's starting to look like a trend.

Dancing around the Federal Equal Access Act

In Minnesota, some folks are all upset because while a school district brought in gay groups for voluntary staff workshops, it said no when they wanted to bring a conservative organization, the Minnesota Family Institute, to present "the other point of view."

The school district claimed that it said no on the grounds that the presentation is based "on religious beliefs and that schools avoid religion."

But based on what Abby Ludvigson, coordinator of the Institute's seminar program, is quoted as saying, the school district should base its opinion on the fact that the Minnesota Family Institute is going to tell lies:

"They're putting our children at risk by affirming a lifestyle that is dangerous and unhealthy."

The issue of gay student safety in schools is one that I am very point blank on. Students should be allowed to form gay/straight support groups and legislation that would keep gay students from being bullied should be passed with the utmost fervor. Also school staff should be educated on their gay students.

I personally believe that for the most part, gay children are our responsibility. We older gays and lesbians have a responsibility to make sure they are not only proud of their orientation, but that they also make the right decisions in their lives. We should be at the forefront of pushing for these things.

So I get angry when I hear people like Abby Ludvigson turn the tolerance argument on its head.

This is yet another tactic of the anti-gay industry. In court battles regarding gay/straight clubs in high schools and the like, they have been on the losing end thanks to the Federal Equal Access Act. This act guarantees the right of students to form clubs, including gay/straight alliances. With these alliances come the knowledge that schools have to be educated on the needs of gay pupils.

Seeing that they cannot use the courts to block students from forming these groups, the anti-gay industry has engineered a new tactic. They claim that students should have the "right" to hear the other side of "homosexual argument." They claim that school districts should show "tolerance" for the supposed "ex-gay" side.

They have also banded together and started the "Day of Truth" to combat GLSEN's "Day of Silence."

The "Day of Silence" speaks to the problems that gay students face on a daily basis in schools.

The "Day of Truth" is yet another way for the anti-gay industry to spread their Paul Cameroneque lies, which serves to villify gay youth and make them at risk.

Now I believe in tolerance for people who think that homosexuality is a sin. However, I do not believe in allowing people to come into schools and, in the name of tolerance, spread the lie that homosexuality is some sort of death sentence.

This argument for tolerance has created a stalemate between us and the anti-gay industry. What we need to do is to combat it with truth.

First of all, no study has ever said that homosexuality in itself is a "dangerous lifestyle." No study has ever said that being openly gay will guarantee a short lifespan or disease.

Studies do say that negative outside influences can lead to gay youth making bad choices. These negative outside influences include being bullied by classmates or not having access to proper information regarding one's sexual orientation. Or maybe being told by a well-meaning but ignorant wannabe authority figure that being gay is some sort of death sentence.

When gay children are given proper support, they grow up to be contributing members of society. However, what the Minnesota Family Institute wants to give are lies.

What's next? Saying that gay children need a lobotomy?

Who cares if its dangerous. After all, shouldn't one show tolerance for all opinions, even if some opinions are lies?

In case you couldn' t tell, that was sarcasm.

Careening towards the new year

A couple of things are happening.

First from Massachusetts, a victory for our side.

The Massachusetts Supreme Court said that it cannot force lawmakers to vote on a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. The court rebuked the legislature for not voting, but regardless, Massachusetts is still the only state that allows gay marriage and that won't change for a while.

However, the only joy I can take from this decision is that it will drive James Dobson and company out of their minds with anger.

I really don't like this new tendency to base the success or failure of our movement on whether or not we get marriage equality. The success of the gay rights movement will not be decided on whether or not we can walk down the aisle, but whether or not many of us feel that we deserve to walk down the aisle.

Meanwhile, former President Ford passed away yesterday and it got me thinking about Oliver Sipple, the man who prevented Ford from being assassinated in 1975.

What happened to him was a negative in the history of gay America. Sipple was a closeted gay man and because of his diligence, he found himself to be a "poster child" for gay rights, even though he didn't want to be. Sipple was outed by those who claimed to be on his side and slowly his life was ruined because of it.

This is not to blame anyone for what happened. If anything, it should serve as a reminder to those of us who are leaders in this struggle for equality to never forget the individuals they are trying to help.

Behind the movement are individual people with different lives and different circumstances. Some may be able to come out quickly, but others will take time; that is an unfortunate fact of life.

If it becomes okay to sacrifice the life of one person for the greater good (i.e. visibility), then we have lost our souls.

Remember that the next time a new controversy about a "closeted" movie, television, or singing star takes place.

Holiday over, back to the battlefield

I hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas. Mine was nice and quiet - my favorite type of holiday. And I even managed to get some work done.

Which reminds me - I want to marry my copy editor.

Okay maybe not, but over the weekend, he spoke to me about my manuscript and gave me a bunch of excellent ideas for making my prose better. Thanks to him, I took care of a problem that had plagued me since I finished my manuscript.

And speaking of problems, a while back, someone wrote in (in a not very nice way) that our friend Robert Knight of the Concerned Women for America had moved on to the Media Research Center (MRC). The MRC is yet another one of those right winged, the world sucks until everyone does what we think they should do groups.

At the time, I wasn't aware of the move because I didn't see any press release and such. Apparently though, Mr. Knight has moved on.

Robert Knight figures greatly in my book due to his lying exploits with the Concerned Women for America and the Family Research Council. It really doesn't matter where he goes because Mr. Knight has created an interesting paper trail and I have copies of almost all of it.

Lastly, I think our friend Peter LaBarbera is slipping:

Chevron scholarships are available to students in the University of Colorado's School of Engineering who are in the "gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender" community or who support its activities through volunteering. WorldNetDaily reports that CU engineering students received an e-mail recently that offered $1,000 scholarships from Chevron for meeting those qualifications, and writing about their involvement in an essay. It was a move the story quotes a school official as saying is Chevron's attempt to benefit engineering field minorities that are "under-represented." Peter LaBarbera is president of Americans for Truth, a group that monitors homosexual activity in the culture. LaBarbera thinks the scholarship symbolizes a society that increasingly rewards people for sinful behavior. "It's a shocking thing when you come to the point where America is going to have affirmative action based on affiliation with homosexual practices," says the activist. According to LaBarbera, the practice of affirming homosexuality is everywhere -- from the educational and corporate worlds to the political realm. "America is becoming a society that is rewarding people for practicing homosexual sin, essentially -- and it's incumbent upon Christians to speak up and say how wrong that is," he adds. The Americans for Truth spokesman says a society cannot be healthy when it rewards people for what he describes as "unhealthy and immoral behavior."

No claims about the "short life span of gay men" or how Chevron is rewarding "dangerous behavior?"

Why Peter, are we getting to you?

First, three items

A victory for our gay and lesbian children - Appeals court backs ruling favoring straight-gay student group.

I wonder how long it will take before Agape Press quotes the Allied Defense Fund as to how much of a shame it is to push children into "dangerous behavior."

Items 2 and 3 don't exactly look good for us. According to the Conservative Voice, a Denmark study has claimed that "provides interesting and tantalizing evidence that the less stable or traditional a child's home is, the more likely that the child will turn to homosexuality as an adult."

Here we go again. Now I don't know what the study actually says. I do know that the anti-gay industry is notorious for distorting studies from the Netherlands to claim that homosexuality is evil; one of the most infamous being a study they said claimed that gay marriage was not a good idea.

Of course they failed to mention what the study was actually about and also omitted the fact that none of the gay couples in the study were married and that lesbians were excluded.

I chronicle this study and how the anti-gay industry distorted it in my upcoming book.

No doubt before we get the actual truth about the study the Conservative Voice referred to, anti -gay industry pundits will be citing it repeatedly on television and to their followers.

In Britain, a couple has been paid monetary damages for an incident in which the police questioned them regarding their anti-gay beliefs.

I am sure that Robert Knight, our friend Peter LaBarbera, and the rest will attempt to use this unfortunate incident to push the theory of a worldwide gay conspiracy to "harm Christians."

Oh vey!

Boot camp comes to a close

Next week, I should be receiving my manuscript from my copy editor and I am anxious to see what he thought of my book.

Since I am off of work until Wednesday, I should be working on the appendix and acknowledgements, but u know the old saying - the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

Not too weak though because I had to talk myself out of adding new chapters to my book. No sense in overwhelming anyone. Keep it simple and sweet.

So keeping that spirit, I thank everyone (even my wannabe spammers) for supporting my blog and keeping up with how my book is progressing.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Something I forgot to mention

Democrats are also supported by homosexual advocacy groups that routinely give organizations like NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association, positions in “gay rights” parades, where they proclaim such slogans as “sex by eight or it’s too late.” - Gary Bauer, National Review, December 20, 2006

Yesterday, I neglected to mention another tirade from a right winger. An online friend of mine pointed it out to me.

The above comments about NAMBLA and gays is from wannabe "pro family" activist Gary Bauer during a column he wrote for National Review talking about the Mark Foley scandal. For the benefit of those not wanting to read it, he rehashed the "Democrats are hypocrites, blah blah blah, Gerry Studds did the same thing" nonsense that so many others in the anti-gay industry tried to spin when the controversy broke.

Mr. Bauer's comments are so late that they transcend the "who the hell is he and why does he think anyone cares what he says" point. His comments border on "Geez, is that dumbass still around" territory.

Bauer used to be a big wig in the anti-gay industry. He led the Family Research Council for a time until an ill advised move to run for president in 2000. Rumor control has it that his decision pissed off James Dobson. And rumors that Bauer was having an affair with a female co-worker didn't exactly help matters either.

Of course, Bauer was very unsuccessful in his presidential aspirations. He is now president of American Values and chairman of Campaign for Working Families, but in all honesty, Bauer is totally irrelevant; except for when Agape Press or some other right wing and/or anti-gay publication wants a comment.

Hence his very late Mark Foley tirade.

I don't know what is worse about Bauer's comments; the fact that they are extremely late and add nothing new to the situation or the fact that his lies about gays and NAMBLA is such an old headless monster that even the stubborness of a thousand anti-gay activists can't hold it up.

These two weeks have been pitiful for the anti-gay industry. First Mary Cheney becomes pregnant, then James Dobson is caught three times misrepresenting legitimate studies. And now, Gary Bauer repeats lies that have been refuted so many times till it's just sad.

Bear in mind that I am not gloating. I know that there are a few people who follow Bauer religiously and believe every word that comes from his mouth.

But still, it's nice to watch the train wreck.

So many issues going down today

I tell you, the right has gone ape crazy today. I usually make only one post regarding the anti-gay industry, but so many things have gone on, I think I will make several posts.

Dobson answers

James Dobson finally answered charges that he distorted and cherry picked the work of various researchers and professors during his Time magazine tirade last week.

Or something like that.

Another member of Focus on the Family, Bill Maier, attacks the notion that Dobson misrepresented anything.

As usual, the routine anti-gay industry standby excuse is pushed: it's a "liberal conspiracy," or in this case, a "liberal groupthink":

"These are well-respected scientists who probably feel they have no choice but to cry 'foul' because they work in a field that is so dominated by liberal groupthink," Maier explained. "But the fact they aren't happy their data was used to reach a conclusion they disagree with doesn't mean the data was not properly applied. Dr. Dobson never claimed these researchers share his view on this issue -- they clearly do not. But there is no denying that the data they compiled can be appropriately cited to show the unique contributions mothers and fathers make in the lives of their children.

Feel free to go over the past posts about the researchers complaining over Dobson's misuse of their work and see how the answer his subordinate gave is yet another lie.

While I like it when the anti-gay industry shoots itself in the foot, the desire of Dobson to continuously cut his own throat in this matter is just pitiful.

Claiming 'War on Christmas' yields profits

The People for the American Way (an excellent organization) is claiming that the so-called War on Christmas that Dobson and company claim folks like myself declare every year is a fluke that garners them much influence and money:

The conservative Christian groups declined to provide all the numbers behind their Christmas efforts, but some did disclose how many items they had sold and distributed.

Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based Christian legal group, has shipped 20,000 "Christmas packs" this year, said spokesman Greg Scott. The value of the "goods and services" included is $4, receipts show. The rest of the money goes into ADF's general fund, Scott said. A majority of the packs were sold for less than the suggested $29 donation, he added, though he declined to provide details.

To that, I say - no shit!

Obama fears

I will say something for Barack Obama - he may or may not become president, but he certainly has some people showing their true colors, or rather, prejudices:

In a December 18 column headlined "Barack Hussein Obama: Once a Muslim, Always A Muslim" and posted on her website, right-wing pundit Debbie Schlussel argued that because Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) middle name is Hussein, his late, estranged father was of Muslim descent, and he has shown interest in his father's Kenyan heritage, Obama's "loyalties" must be called into question as he emerges as a possible Democratic presidential candidate. In the column, Schlussel asked: "So, even if he identifies strongly as a Christian ... is a man who Muslims think is a Muslim, who feels some sort of psychological need to prove himself to his absent Muslim father, and who is now moving in the direction of his father's heritage, a man we want as President when we are fighting the war of our lives against Islam? Where will his loyalties be?" She ended her column by asking if Obama becoming vice president instead would be acceptable. Answering her own question, she wrote: "NO WAY, JOSE ... Or, is that, HUSSEIN?"

Where do they dig these people up and why do they give them their own shows? I was born the wrong gender, color (skin and hair). Although for a brief period in college, I was a blond and yes, they do have more fun.

Finally, penguins in North Carolina

Some people have too much time on their hands. Apparently a school district in North Carolina banned a book because it featured two male penguins who "adopted" a hatchling in order to nurture it and keep it from dying.

Now to some, it looks like a usual move by penguins to make sure baby penguins don't die from neglect.

But to the school district and Mecklenberg Commissioner Bill James, it is another example of the "gay agenda":

"I am opposed to any book that promotes a homosexual lifestyle to elementary school students as normal," he said.

Now this is the same Bill James who has gone very public on many occasions with his disagreement of the supposed "gay lifestyle," as witnessed by a letter he wrote to a constituent:

“You really think that a pool of people (homosexuals) where 45% of them eat feces from the rear end of another male is "normal"? If you do, you are frankly nuts. A lifestyle where one of their past times is buying gerbils and hamsters from the pet store and cramming them up their rears in an activity called feltching? A group of people who like to urinate on their partners and call them "golden showers"? Where one of the honored members of the Gay Alliance is an organization called the "Man-Boy Love Association" that promotes sex with underage boys? That behavior is worthy of protection? That behavior is worthy to be taught in our schools? to our children? You are one sick "Independent, white, married-heterosexual, presbyterian" if you do. . .”

Such a nice fellow. I'm personally rooting for the penguins.

Yet another headless monster!!!!

In the middle of my euphoria of Wayne Besen's consistent smackdown of James Dobson's lies, I received word of yet another lie perpetrated by the anti-gay industry.

I've always believed that citizens speaking out are powerful. If they speak out with no knowledge of what they are talking about, they can be downright dangerous.

Case in point - Bill Wilson, a "news service senior analyst" writing on what he feels are the most dangerous issues pressing America:

"Homosexuality and abortion represent as much a clear and present danger to the national security of America as does terrorism. The public immorality of the United States of America is appalling and the nation is fast heading for massive decline."

Here we go again.

Mr. Wilson goes on an ill informed tangent, specifically about the gay community, especially when he mentions this little canard:

" . . .many studies indicate that the average lifespan of the homosexual is far less than heterosexuals."

For the benefit of those who are not aware of this blog and my upcoming book, Mr. Wilson just repeated what is known as a "headless monster."

A "headless monster" is an opinion that has been refuted continuously but continues to be repeated as truth; either due to the ignorance or the stubborness of the person repeating it.

In Mr. Wilson's case, I will chalk his repeititon of the lie that gay men have shorter life spans than heterosexuals to ignorance.

So I will correct him.

There are no legitimate studies that say that gay men have shorter life spans than heterosexual men. The Centers for Disease Control does not collect statistics on the life spans of gay men:

"[The CDC] does not collect statistics on the life span of gay men. While gay men continue to be severely impacted by HIV and AIDS, AIDS-related death data cannot be used to indicate that homosexual men live shorter lives than heterosexual men overall." - Ronald Valdiserri, deputy director of the CDC’s National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention, Weird anti-gay science, The Washington Blade, June 17, 2005

Now there was a 1997 Oxford study that made a hypothetical claim about the life span of gay men. But in 2001, the six researchers who conducted the study went on record saying that their work was being distorted by the religious right - http://ije.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/30/6/1499

The only person who has attempted to make an unadulterated claim about the life span of gay men is our friend Paul Cameron. Cameron is hardly a legitimate researcher, as referenced by this link.

Mr. Wilson's claims would be funny if not for the fact that his nonsense was published on a "Christian" web page. I have to seriously ask how many Christians already believe his lies and how many more will be taken in by his falsehoods?

Wayne Besen strikes again!
Meanwhile, James Dobson is trying to get his followers to do his dirty work for him

Wayne Besen is on the ball.

Not only did his organization, Truth Wins Out, film a video featuring Carol Gilligan rebuking James Dobson for distorting her work (see past posts) but he has also found yet another researcher who claims that Dobson is distorting her work:

JAMES DOBSON REBUKED ON VIDEO FOR DISTORTING RESEARCH OF NYU PROFESSOR CAROL GILLIGAN

Renowned Author/Researcher, England’s Angela Phillips, Condemns Focus on the Family’s Leader For ‘Seriously Misrepresenting’ Her Work'

Miami Beach, FLA. – Truth Wins Out released an exclusive video today featuring celebrated New York University educational psychologist Carol Gilligan, PhD, who upbraided Focus on the Family leader, James C. Dobson, for misrepresenting her research in a guest column he wrote in last week’s issue of Time Magazine.

Additionally, Angela Phillips, the renowned author of “The Trouble With Boys” also sent a pointed letter to Dobson today accusing him of “seriously misrepresenting” her work and asking him to publish her letter “prominently” on Focus on the Family’s website. Last week, Kyle Pruett, M.D. of the Yale School of Medicine, also expressed concerns that the Focus on the Family leader "cherry picked" his work.

“This is a revolt of serious scholars who are revolted by the way James Dobson has unethically incorporated their research to fit his political aims,” said Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen.

“Three researchers have now come forward in just one week to take Dobson to task. The media should finally realize that Dobson lacks the academic integrity and moral authority to talk credibly on family issues.”

In the video, filmed for Truth Wins Out by videographer Lisa Darden, Dr. Gilligan expressed her extreme displeasure with Dobson and how she was “mortified” by his use of her work.“I was stunned to hear that James Dobson had quoted me in TIME Magazine. I had no idea. I was mortified, frankly,” Dr. Gilligan, author of several books including, In A Different Voice, said in the video.

TO WATCH VIDEO CLICK HERE

“It was a completely distorted and unfounded use of my work…it is such a simplification and caricature of my work…for someone who represents morality and the family it is disrespectful.”

Earlier today, Professor Angela Phillips, author of “The Trouble With Boys,” echoed Drs. Gilligan and Pruett in a letter to Dobson, obtained exclusively by Truth Wins Out. TWO received a tip that Phillips’ work had been misquoted by Ray Foster, a concerned citizen who wanted the truth to be told.

In her letter, Phillips, a journalist and professor at Goldsmiths College in London, asked that Dobson print the following letter “prominently” on his organization’s website.

Dear James Dobson:

It has come to my attention that my book "The Trouble with Boys" has been seriously mis-represented in writings by James Dobson. Having read his newsletter; "How Boys Learn to Become Men" on the Focus on the Family web site I was incensed to find that I have been quoted as a source for suggesting that:

" The high incidence of homosexuality occurring in Western nations is related, at least in part, to the absence of positive male influence when boys are moving through the first crisis of child development."

I certainly agree that boys suffer from a lack of positive men in their lives but I am at pains to point out that positive men are often as much lacking in two parent households as they are in lone mother (or two mother) households. I do not suggest that lack of positive male role models leads to homosexuality (or indeed that it would be problematic if it did). My concern is that boys without positive men around them are more likely to be violent, angry and lacking in self control.

I have never heard that these are characteristics that are associated with homosexuality.

Dobson goes on to say: " One of the primary objectives of parents is to help boys identify their gender assignments and understand what it means to be a man.My concern is that boys are currently learning, either from their fathers, or in the absence of fathers, from the women who rear them, and the men they encounter, that the most important thing about being a man is being: "not gay", "not gentle" and not "girlie".

While adult men are afraid to demonstrate that it’s okay to be gentle and caring how are boys to learn anything positive about what it means to be a man?I would be grateful if you could publish this letter prominently on your website.

I look forward to a swift acknowledgement.

Yours sincerely
Angela Phillips
Author of The Trouble with Boys

“The media is the great enabler that continues to offer a platform to James Dobson to tell his lies, malign gay people and mock science,” says Truth Wins Out’s Executive Director Wayne Besen.

“It is time the media be held accountable for journalistic standards, the same way Dobson is now finally answerable for his misleading propaganda.” Truth Wins OUT is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life. For more information, visit www.TruthWinsOut.org.

Dobson has given no comment regarding the claims that he distorted legitimate research.

Meanwhile, one of the American Family Association's new rags, Baptist Press News, has featured Dobson's column.

It half heartedly addresses the claims by Pruett and Gilligan that Dobson cherry picked and distorted their work:

"Focus on the Family sent an e-mail to supporters asking them to send a "brief, polite note" to Time editors thanking them for publishing the column. Homosexual activists, Focus said, are asking their supporters to write Time and tell the magazine Dobson's column was inaccurate."

The fact of the matter is that this is not the first time Dobson and company have distorted a legitimate researcher's or professor's work. I have nine examples in my upcoming book and in private conversations with one of my sources, there have been others.

God don't like ugly, Mr. Dobson. Especially if it is done in his name.

Boot camp starts

As of yesterday, a copy of my manuscript, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, has been sent to my copy editor.

And I am hoping that he will be as harsh as possible.

I am not one of those writers who think that I am so infalliable that my work can't stand a bit of correction. I value the opinion of a ruthless copy editor.

He should be sending me his thoughts by the end of this year.

I can't wait!

By the way, James Dobson still has not spoken out about the claims of Dr. Kyle Pruett and Carol Gilligan that he cherry picked their work in his Time magazine column.

Just thought I would mention that.

Two for Two
or
Doggone it Wayne Besen! You are making me jealous!

YALE PROFESSOR SAYS JAMES DOBSON ‘CHERRY PICKED’ HIS RESEARCH IN TIME MAGAZINE ARTICLE

Kyle Pruett, M.D., is Second Professor In Two Days To Challenge Dobson’s Use Of Research Miami Beach, FLA. – Truth Wins Out urged Time Magazine today to renounce a guest column written by James C. Dobson in this week’s magazine after a second professor, Kyle Pruett, M.D. of the Yale School of Medicine, expressed concerns that the Focus on the Family leader “cherry picked” his work.

In a letter to Time and Dobson, Dr. Pruett asked that Focus on the Family, “not quote from my research in your media campaigns, personal or corporate, without previously securing my permission.”Yesterday, New York University Professor Carol Gilligan, PhD, also wrote a letter to Time and Dobson saying that her research was distorted and twisted.

“Time Magazine should take Dobson’s article off the web and pledge that they will never again use his group as a source on family issues,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “Focus on the Family has damaged its credibility and should stop misleading Americans by misquoting respected researchers.”

TODAY, Pruett wrote the following letter:

13 December 2006

Dr. Dobson,I was startled and disappointed to see my work referenced in the current Time Magazine piece in which you opined that social science, such as mine, supports your convictions opposing lesbian and gay parenthood. I write now to insist that you not quote from my research in your media campaigns, personal or corporate, without previously securing my permission.You cherry-picked a phrase to shore up highly (in my view) discriminatory purposes. This practice is condemned in real science, common though it may be in pseudo-science circles. There is nothing in my longitudinal research or any of my writings to support such conclusions.

On page 134 of the book you cite in your piece, I wrote, “What we do know is that there is no reason for concern about the development or psychological competence of children living with gay fathers. It is love that binds relationships, not sex.”

Kyle Pruett,
M.D.Yale School of Medicine

Additionally, New York University educational psychologist Carol Gilligan, PhD, demanded an apology from Dobson yesterday and asked that Focus on the Family “cease and desist” from quoting her work in the future.

Truth Wins OUT is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the “ex-gay” myth and educates America about gay life.

For more information, visit www.TruthWinsOut.org

** TAKE ACTION **

James Dobson is a discredited political hack who has serially distorted research and twisted the truth to fit his right wing political agenda. He should never have been given a platform to discuss GLBT families in a respected major media outlet, such as Time Magazine.

The use of pseudo-science that aims to discriminate has no place in a publication like Time. Let's face it, they would never dare provide a similar platform for extremist groups to bash other minorities.

Tell Time, that it is way past time, to be giving a stage to Focus on the Family and other groups that blatantly and provably lie about gay life.

Memo to Time: "If the right can't prove it, Don't use it.

"WRITE A LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
Time MagazinePatrick_Smith@timemagazine.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kudos to Wayne Besen for exposing another anti-gay industry attempt to use bad research in order to lie about the gay community.

This is not the first time the anti-gay industry has distorted Dr. Pruett's work for their own purposes.

An excerpt from my upcoming book:

In November 2004, Dr. Kyle Pruett, a clinical professor of psychiatry in the Yale Child Study Center and School of Nursing, complained that a local anti-same sex marriage group incorrectly used one of his studies.

He said that Oregon’s Defense of Marriage Coalition claimed that a study of his said that infants just eight weeks old could already detect the difference between male and female interaction. This, the group claimed in a flyer, says that the role of a mother and father are not interchangeable when it comes to raising children.
Dr. Pruett said that first of all, the research was not his. The citation in question was another researcher’s work he mentioned in a book he authored. However, Pruett said, secondly, there is no research in his book that can be used to criticize same sex marriage.

“They were cherry picking research,” he told The Yale Herald, “for their own purposes . . . In my book, I talk about how gay and lesbian marriage is not currently thought to place children at risk.”

According to the same article, Michael White, the executive director of the Defense of Marriage Coalition, denied Pruett’s claim. He also said he was surprised by the controversy because many organizations have been using Pruett’s research for years.
“We get a lot of stuff from the organization Focus on the Family,” he said, “and they’ve printed Pruett’s stuff for years.”

I think that there should be some clearity as to what needs to be done. Those of us who are trying to expose the lies of the anti-gay industry are not out to bash Christians or any other persons of faith. If one's faith teaches that homosexuality is an abomination, then that is okay. You should have that right to believe this.

This is not about telling people that they cannot believe what they want. This is about exposing groups who are spreading propaganda designed to reinforce negative stereotypes about the gay community.

The phony studies spread by Dobson and company are no different than the lies the Nazis spread about Jews or the Ku Klux Klan spreads about African-Americans. In the historical context of things, we need to establish this point and hammer it home time and time again.

At the end of the day, victory will not come to the gay community through pleadings for tolerance. We will win through cold hard facts. Luckily we have them on our side.

We need to start using them.

BUSTED!!!!!!!!!!!

Sometimes, certain things happen that bring a smile to my face, like the following:

JAMES DOBSON SLAMMED BY PROFESSOR FOR DISTORTING HER RESEARCH IN TIME MAGAZINE ARTICLE ON MARY CHENEY’S PREGNANCY

'I was mortified to learn that you had distorted my work,' NYU Professor Carol Gilligan Tells Focus on the Family Leader in Blistering Letter

Miami Beach, FLA. - New York University educational psychologist Carol Gilligan, PhD, today slammed Focus on the Family leader, James C. Dobson, for "twisting" and "distorting" her research in a guest column he wrote in this week's issue of Time Magazine. Dobson misrepresented her work in an effort to smear gay families while discussing Mary Cheney's pregnancy. In a pointed letter to Dobson, Gilligan demanded that he apologize and "cease and desist" from quoting her work in the future.

"Dobson's group is a fib factory that should change its name to Focus on the Fallacies," said Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen. "This organization habitually lies and shamelessly mangles research to support its anti-gay agenda. Time Magazine should immediately withdrawal Dobson's column because it is so riddled with scientific errors that it is essentially fiction."

In a letter to Dobson, obtained exclusively by Truth Wins Out after the group contacted Gilligan and informed her of the Time article, Gilligan expressed her dismay and demanded that the right wing leader apologize. According to the letter:

Dear Dr. Dobson:

I am writing to ask that you cease and desist from quoting my research in the future. I was mortified to learn that you had distorted my work this week in a guest column you wrote in Time Magazine. Not only did you take my research out of context, you did so without my knowledge to support discriminatory goals that I do not agree with. What you wrote was not truthful and I ask that you refrain from ever quoting me again and that you apologize for twisting my work.

From what I understand, this is not the first time you have manipulated research in pursuit of your goals. This practice is not in the best interest of scientific inquiry, nor does bearing false witness serve your purpose of furthering morality and strengthening the family.

Finally, there is nothing in my research that would lead you to draw the stated conclusions you did in the Time article. My work in no way suggests same-gender families are harmful to children or can't raise these children to be as healthy and well adjusted as those brought up in traditional households.

I trust that this will be the last time my work is cited by Focus on the Family.

Sincerely,

Carol Gilligan, PhD
New York University, Professor

"No reputable media outlet should continue using Focus on the Family as a resource because they are chronically dishonest and lack credibility," said Besen. "James Dobson should start to wonder if there is something inherently wrong with his stance on gay issues if the only way he can support his positions is outright lying."

Truth Wins OUT is a non-profit organization that counters right wing propaganda, exposes the "ex-gay" myth and educates America about gay life. For more information, visit www.TruthWinsOut.org.

This is yet more proof that the anti-gay industry is lying about our community. This rebuke will go in my upcoming book as the 9th example of a professor or researcher going on record crying foul over the distortion of their work by Dobson and company.

Keeping our focus

I took a visit to Freeperland today.

From time to time I will hold my nose and read the comments on the forum having to do with the "homosexual agenda." Today was interesting.

There was a young man on one of the post who was sure that he had the right idea about what the "homosexual agenda" actually was. He kept posting links that supposedly proved all sorts of negatives things about the gay community.

I don't think that I have to tell anyone that those links encompassed "research" and "studies" done by Paul Cameron, Timothy Dailey of the Family Research Council, as well as other bits of propaganda issued by other groups such as the American Family Assocation.

Meanwhile a lot of our attention seems to be paid a ridiculous article on the World Net Daily site where some writer actually said that soy was turning America's children gay. His piece is ludicrous, so ludicrous in fact that I have seen it mentioned on several sites.

Then there is the "Wedding Wars." The "Wedding Wars" is an upcoming movie starring John Stamos that takes a comedic look at the marriage equality argument. I am sure the makers mean to entertain and take a satirical look at the issue of gay marriage.

I have not only seen many bloggers talking about the soy makes children gay articles, but I have received emails inviting me not to forget when the John Stamos movie is airing.

This mindset reveals something I don't like about my community. We tend to worry about public media events that are a lot of hot air, but don't pay attention to issues that could in the long run mean our survival or destruction. Pointing out the ridiculousness of one right-wing author or enjoying a movie with a "hot guy" with a message about gay marriage sounds like fun, but they are a waste of time.

Meanwhile, this young man on Free Republic and others who will buy into the lies of the anti-gay industry will repeat those lies. They will organize themselves on web pages, in groups, and in front of school boards. They will repeat those lies over and over again in front of legislative bodies.

How can we combat this if we are distracted by other things?

A John Stamos movie is cute but it is a waste of time unless it can refute the lies that we molest children at a high rate. Pointing out the inanity of a right wing column is momentarily empowering but unless it can refute the lie that we have a shorter life span due to promiscuity and disease, I don't want to waste my time commenting on it.

There has been an organized campaign to dehumanize the gay community and devalue our lives and we all must combat it head on, detailing and refuting every lie.

But yet we continue to lie to ourselves, thinking that our circle of friends, our distractions (i.e. the "Wedding Wars" et. al.), or our pursuit of material possessions will insulate us from the fact that the anti-gay industry is determined to devalue our lives with lies more scurrilous than those the Nazis said about the Jews or the Klan has claimed about African-Americans.

An old saying says that evil prospers when good men do nothing.

In that same spirit, propaganda does a lot of damage when those who can expose it allow themselves to be distracted by transitory things.

Another Ted Haggard

Ted Haggard lives again, nuff said - link

Dobson speaks (whoop te doo)

Mary Cheney's pregnancy seems to have brought all of the anti-gay industry leaders out of the woodwork. Last week, several of them (including our friends Peter LaBarbera and Paul Cameron) voiced their opinion on how Mary Cheney is harming her child by raising it "without a father by design."

I tell ya, you gotta love how they constantly push semantics.

Now, the grand poobah himself, James Dobson of Focus on the Family, has issued a column via Time Magazine on the situation. I guess he felt that since everyone else has something to say, why not him:

"With all due respect to Cheney and her partner, Heather Poe, the majority of more than 30 years of social-science evidence indicates that children do best on every measure of well-being when raised by their married mother and father. That is not to say Cheney and Poe will not love their child. But love alone is not enough to guarantee healthy growth and development. The two most loving women in the world cannot provide a daddy for a little boy -- any more than the two most loving men can be complete role models for a little girl."

This statement is not true, but I will let this link from Media Matters for America do the work in refuting it.

Dobson also distorts the work of Dr. Kyle Pruett of Yale Medical School. Media Matters does an excellent job in proving this point. I would just like to point out that distortion of Dr. Pruett's work is one of many times that the anti-gay industry has gotten in trouble for misusing studies.

In my book, I talk about the Pruett distortion, as well as seven others.

Dobson's comments point out one of the biggest problems with the anti-gay industry and their view of the world. They deal with aesthetics, not actualities.

Dobson and company seem to think that advocating for their view of family is the antidote for all societal ills.

This is not true. Dobson and company claim that gays raising children is an "untested social experiment," but this is also not true. According to the 2000 census, over 300,000 same sex households in the United States are raising children.

That doesn't sound like a social experiment to me.

Furthermore, what about the children who are taken away from their natural mothers and fathers because of abuse? Should they be kept in orphanages and foster homes until the "correct" type of family (not having anything to do with love and support but having two adults inlcuded) comes along?

What about single-parent families. My mother pretty much raised me alone. In the Dobson world, she is looked at in a patronizing manner; she would be tolerated but not looked upon as an actual good parent.

The fact of the matter is that this is a complex world. Man is not God, and therefore we cannot control the curves that life throws at us. All we can do is do the best we can with what we are given.

And personally, I think single parent families and same sex families are doing just that.

Dobson says "The traditional family, supported by more than 5,000 years of human experience, is still the foundation on which the well-being of future generations depends."

By this, he means a family led by a mother and a father. His claim is not necessarily true.

A good friend of mine (who I talked about before in this blog) is raising two children. He will probably adopt those two children. They refer to him as daddy. They aren't forced to do it and they aren't suffering from it. They would suffer if there was no one to give them love and support.

My friend didn't choose to be a father figure because of selfishness. He made the decision because he wanted the responsibility of supporting two children who needed it; that is the epitome of family.

My friend may not lead any nationally-known organization and may never get a column in Time Magazine, but I will tell you this:

Whenever I want to learn about family, I look at his example, not that of James Dobson.

Excellent weekend

I think I will post a short comment today because I am busy revising my book.

It has been a really good weekend for a number of reasons.

The most important and specific piece of good news is that I have finally found a copy editor.

And just in time too.

I reached a period of stagnation with this book a while ago. I wrote and said everything that I felt I could say but there was so much more to talk about when it comes to the anti-gay industry. I, like so many writers, am terrible when it comes to spotting the errors in my work.

After finding this reputable copy editor, I have been working nonstop on new information and new pages, naturally I am excited.

I think I found my muse again, so to speak.

So I am glad to say that my book is right on schedule to be completed in February and back from the publisher between the months of May-June.

I would like to thank everyone who has been reading my blog for the success I have been having so far in getting the information out.

And stay tuned.

I haven't even started to raise hell.

Paul Cameron crawls out of his hole

Mary Cheney has dominated the news and I didn't want to talk about her pregnancy any more, but something happened today that is just too good to go unnoticed.

Paul Cameron gave his opinion about Mary Cheney.

Now if you think he said, "I think this is positive and I wish her and her partner all the luck in the world, " you will also believe that Paris Hilton is a misuderstood genius.

Cameron had nothing positive to say about Cheney's pregnancy:

"Her pregnancy is further evidence that participation in homosexual activity distorts value systems, inducing practitioners to harm the commonweal. Our society already has too many children born without the benefits of marriage; Cheney's action is not only a bad example, but poor treatment of an innocent child."

Cameron's dubious history makes it so damned easy for me to rip his comments to pieces, that I am almost ashamed of my desire to do so. But it is important not to laugh Cameron off because he is a very dangerous man.

It was Cameron who provided the scientific (albeit through bad studies and distortions) framework that the anti-gay industry uses against us. Cameron's influence on anti-gay industry studies is so thorough that I devoted an entire chapter of my upcoming book solely on him.

Let's recap his history, shall we?

Paul Cameron is the author of a wide variety of studies about the gay community and all of them portray us as evil, child molesting, feces-eating, gerbil-stuffing monsters.

He has also gotten into trouble because of his questionable tactics in compiling his data:

On December 2, 1983, the American Psychological Association sent Paul Cameron a letter informing him that he had been dropped from membership. Early in 1984, all members of the American Psychological Association received official written notice that "Paul Cameron (Nebraska) was dropped from membership for a violation of the Preamble to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists" by the APA Board of Directors. Cameron has posted an elaborate argument about his expulsion from APA on his website, claiming that he resigned from APA before he was dropped from membership. Like most organizations, however, APA does not allow a member to resign when they are being investigated. And even if Cameron's claims were accepted as true, it would be remarkable that the largest professional organization of psychologists in the United States (and other professional associations, as noted below) went to such lengths to disassociate itself from one individual.

At its membership meeting on October 19, 1984, the Nebraska Psychological Association adopted a resolution stating that it "formally disassociates itself from the representations and interpretations of scientific literature offered by Dr. Paul Cameron in his writings and public statements on sexuality."

In 1985, the American Sociological Association (ASA) adopted a resolution which asserted that "Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism" and noted that "Dr. Paul Cameron has repeatedly campaigned for the abrogation of the civil rights of lesbians and gay men, substantiating his call on the basis of his distorted interpretation of this research."7 The resolution formally charged an ASA committee with the task of "critically evaluating and publicly responding to the work of Dr. Paul Cameron."

At its August, 1986 meeting, the ASA officially accepted the committee's report and passed the following resolution:
The American Sociological Association officially and publicly states that Paul Cameron is not a sociologist, and condemns his consistent misrepresentation of sociological research. Information on this action and a copy of the report by the Committee on the Status of Homosexuals in Sociology, "The Paul Cameron Case," is to be published in Footnotes, and be sent to the officers of all regional and state sociological associations and to the Canadian Sociological Association with a request that they alert their members to Cameron's frequent lecture and media appearances."

Cameron's credibility was also questioned outside of academia. In his written opinion in Baker v. Wade (1985), Judge Buchmeyer of the U.S. District Court of Dallas referred to "Cameron's sworn statement that 'homosexuals abuse children at a proportionately greater incident than do heterosexuals,'" and concluded that "Dr. Paul Cameron...has himself made misrepresentations to this Court" and that "There has been no fraud or misrepresentations except by Dr. Cameron" (p.536).

If that is not enough for you all, then check out various Cameron quotes via this link including:

"At the 1985 Conservative Political Action Conference, Cameron announced to the attendees, 'Unless we get medically lucky, in three or four years, one of the options discussed will be the extermination of homosexuals.' According to an interview with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, Cameron was recommending the extermination option as early as 1983." - Mark E. Pietrzyk, News-Telegraph, March 10, 1995

"I think that actually AIDS is a guardian. That is I think it was sent, if you would, about forty years ago, to destroy Western civilization unless we change our sexual ways. So it's really a Godsend." - Cameron quoted by Mark E. Pietrzyk, News-Telegraph, March 10, 1995

"Homosexuals are sexually troubled people engaging in dangerous activities"-Paul Cameron quoted at http://www.biblebelievers.com/Cameron2.html

Now despite all of these things, Cameron is still looked at as a credible source regarding the gay community by people like Peter LaBarbera, Lou Sheldon, and Robert Knight.

Groups who dare call themselves pro-family (i. e. The American Family Association, the Family Research Council, the Concerned Women for America, and a plethora of statewide organizations) continue to use his work.

And many of them know of his controversial history.

Gotta love those conservative Christians.

Mary Cheney's Baby: The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Distraction

Unless you live in a cave with your fingers in your ears, you know that Vice President Dick Cheney's lesbian daughter, Mary, is pregnant.

Needless to say, the anti-gay industry is not happy about it, as seen in this link.

And they are all up in arms in Freeperland over it.

So what exactly is the problem here? Mary Cheney chose to become pregnant because she has a maternal instinct to raise and care for a child, just like the vast majority of women worldwide.

And for that, I applaud her. A child raised by gay parents can thrive and be successful and loved. All studies point to this fact.

Also, the birth of a child is a blessing from God, so I wish all the best for the entire Cheney family as they welcome two new additions (Vice President Cheney's other daughter is also expecting) to their circle.

I just hope that my fellow gays and lesbians don't get distracted.

I enjoy seeing the anti-gay industry show its true hateful colors just as much as the next gay man, but there is still work to do. Mary Cheney's pregnancy does not eliminate the fact that there is still a war going on. Mary Cheney's pregnancy does not eliminate the fact that the anti-gay industry continues to spread lies about our community in order to shape public policy.

Yesterday, I wrote about Linda Harvey and Mission America's phony risk audit plan. This plan is yet another attempt by the anti-gay industry to censor American gay students from establishing support networks. In my zeal to point out the errors in her plan, I excluded something very crucial; something that underscores Harvey and the rest of the anti-gay industry's knowledge that what they are feeding to people are lies.

One of Harvey's sources for her "risk audit" trash is a study by Timothy Dailey from the Family Research Council entitled The Negative Effects of Homosexuality.

Check out this link and read what is on the top of the page.

Just in case the Family Research Council tries to change it, this is what it says:

Please note: this article is an archived item on Family Research Council's website; the information contained therein may be outdated.

What you are reading is what is known as a "cover your ass" disclaimer. I have one question for the Family Research Council and their leader, Mr. Tony Perkins.

If you have problems with the truthfulness of Mr. Dailey's piece, then why is it on your web page for anyone to use in order to demonize the gay community?

I am happy for Mary Cheney and her family, but I am also concerned about the lesbian teenager who will have problems receiving support because of Linda Harvey's "Risk Audit Plan," a plan that cites Mr. Dailey's piece, excluding the disclaimer.

I am concerned for the people who will go to the myriad of sites that have The Negative Effects of Homosexuality on them (excluding the disclaimer) and actually believe the study to be gospel truth.

These people are going to form groups and committees, write letters to the editor, stand up in front of legislative bodies and school boards and repeat what they have read.

And that means more hell for us, especially our lgbt children.

For that reason, we cannot allow the controversy over Mary Cheney's baby to distract us.

She has the monetary and social support to make life better for her child.

Let's concentrate on making life better for those lgbts who don't have those trappings.