What are the top religious right lies about the gay community?

In less than three years, this blog has reached over 100,000 hits. Not bad for a part time blog, huh? Seriously though, I would like to thank all of my readers and supporters for their patronage, support, and links.

As you all know, this is a part-time blog that stemmed from my 2007 book Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters: Exposing the Lies of the Anti-Gay Industry. As such, I'm not able to come down fast and hard with up-to-minute news or details like other blogs. And I am not necessarily as well-known, but I like to think that I serve a function in refuting religious right lies.

With that in mind, I want to reiterate six distortion techniques of the religious right as well as list the top 17 lies they tell about the lgbt community. I have talked in detail about all of these in the past. And I will continue to do so. If you have any questions, please do not hesiate to ask:

Top six religious right distortion techniques used to defame the lgbt community

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 Using nonrepresentative or out-of-date studies to make generalizations, or distorting legitimate studies to give misleading conclusions

Example 1 - Religious right talking point: According to the book Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women, 43 percent of white male homosexuals had sex with 500 or more partners, with 28 percent having 1,000 or more sexual partners. Therefore gays have no concept of mongamy and certainly can't be trusted to raise children.

Truth - Homosexualities was a book written in 1978 that only looked a certain portion of the lgbt population (gay men in the city of San Francisco). It also did not look at same-sex households. In addition, the authors of Homosexualities (Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg) said that their book should not be used to generalize about all gays in general.

Example 2 - Religious right talking point: Same sex marriage and gay adoption are bad ideas because research shows that the best places to raise children are in homes with a mother and a father.

The truth - The research only looked at heterosexual two-parent households as opposed to single parent heterosexual households. Same-sex households were never included.

Point of fact - The following researchers, physicians, and Ph.D.s have complained about how the anti-gay industry has misused their work: A. Nicholas Groth, the six researchers of a Canadian study (Robert S. Hogg, Stefan A. Strathdee, Kevin J.P. Craib, Michael V. Shaughnessy, Julio Montaner, and Martin T. Schehter), Dr. Robert Garofalo (see Gays as Diseased)
Lisa Waldner, Patrick Letellier, Dr. Kyle Pruett, Dr. Joanne Hall, Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc, Carol Gilligan, Dr. Robert Spitzer, Dr. Francis Collins, Gary Remafedi, Professor Michael King, Professor Lisa Diamond, Judith Stacey, Angela Phillips, and the authors of the book Unequal Opportunity: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States (Professors Richard J. Wolitski, Ron Stall, and Ronald O. Valdiserri).

2. Repetition - Despite the fact that several physicians and researchers complain about the distortion of their work, corrections are usually not made. In fact, you can still find the work of the six Canadian researchers, Judith Stacey, Joanne Hall, Patrick Letellier, as well as many others being distorted on various religious right webpages.

3. Conspiracy Theory - Claiming that gays and lesbians are consistently plotting to "erode traditional values"

Example - “The agenda of homosexual activists is basically to change America from what they perceive as looking down on homosexual behavior, to the affirmation of and societal acceptance of homosexual behavior. It is an agenda that they basically set in the late 1980s, in a book called After the Ball, where they laid out a six-point plan for how they could transform the beliefs of ordinary Americans with regard to homosexual behavior—in a decade-long time frame." - Craig Osten, Q&A: The Homosexual Agenda, Focus on the Family, July 25, 2003

4. Dire Consequences - Claiming that a pro-gay law or ordinance will lead to negative consequences without proof that the consequences will take place.

Example 1 - “Imagine, if you will, a 280 lb linebacker who likes to wear a dress and high heels and lipstick, you know comes to church wanting a job at the front desk as a receptionist and they turn him away because they don’t feel that that represents their values or the image that they’re trying to hold at that church, under ENDA they could be held accountable for
discrimination against that individual.” - Matt Barber, Concerned Women for America, 2007

Example 2 - “H.R. 254 elevates one group of Americans above others, creating a special class of victims. All things being equal, it means that if a 5-foot-2-inch grandmother is violently attacked on the street, she is less worthy of justice than the 6-foot-4-inch homosexual man who is attacked by the same assailant.” - Matt Barber, Concerned Women for America, 2007

5. Phony Experts - Creating their own "experts" on the lgbt community. One such "expert" is Linda Harvey of Mission America. According to her bio, she is a former ad executive who became a born again Christian. Another phony expert is Glenn T. Stanton of Focus on the Family. He is considered an "expert" on the subject of homosexuality but has a master’s degree in interdisciplinary humanities with an emphasis in philosophy, history and religion.

6. Dehumanizing Semantics - Consistently using language (i.e. demonstrative verbs and adjectives) in their talking points, sound bites, and press releases to make gays and lesbians seem like impersonal, threatening outsiders

Example 1 - “But unfortunately, the evangelist observes, many Christians have been bullied into submission on the aggressive homosexual agenda in public schools.”—Evangelist Proposes to Combat Homosexual Agenda in Public Education, Agape Press, May 11, 2005

Example 2 - “Elsewhere in the battle against the homosexual agenda, the Broward County School Board in Florida has voted to allow a pro- homosexual group to indoctrinate its teachers on tolerance.”— Children Adopted by Homosexuals Suffer, Family Advocate Says, Agape Press, April 25, 2002

Example 3 - “The ACLU continues to use a law license to bully school districts and harass parents in order to brainwash their kids abut the ‘normalcy’ of homosexuality.”—Jan LaRue, ACLU Seeks Mandatory Homosexual Sensitivity Training, Concerned Women for America press release, July 14, 2005


Top lies told about the lgbt community - See how many of these you recognize

1. Homosexuality is a lifestyle more harmful than cigarette smoking.

2. Gay men have a short life span.

3. The gay and lesbian community have a high rate of domestic violence.

4. Unhealthy behaviors (i.e. substance abuse, promiscuous sexual behavior) is indicative of the gay or lesbian orientation.

5. Gay men molest children at a high rate.

6. Gays and lesbians want to silence Christians.

7. Gays and lesbians recruit people, particularly children, to their "lifestyle."

8. Gays and lesbians are following a six-point plan to take over America.

9. Any judge who rules in favor of the gay and lesbian community in a case is an "activist judge."

10. Anal sex is "homosexual behavior."

11. Robert Spitzer’s study confirms that gays and lesbians can change their orientation.

12. Gays and lesbians want to force acceptance.

13. Gay bowel syndrome is a legitimate medical term.

14. A man who molests a boy or a woman who molests a girl is automatically homosexual.

15. A convenience sample or out-of-date study can be used to generalize about an entire community.

16. The average gay man has many sexual partners.

17. Laws created to protect transgenders from discrimination will make it easier for sexual predators to come into womens' bathrooms and locker rooms.

All of these notions are lies. And I have enjoyed refuting them. I look forward to continuing to refute them in the future. Hopefully I will continue to have your support.

Hate Crimes Legislation, Sotomayor, Sally Kern, and other Tuesday midday news briefs

Leahy to Introduce Hate-Crimes Amendment - Batten down the hatches cause the religious right is going to freak over this. Is going to? Hell they are already up in arms. Keep your fingers crossed though. It could pass!

GM pitches Camaro to gay men in online ad, homobigots erupt - Cause you know gay folks don't drive cars.

Sotomayor Day II: Let The Antics Begin - Everything that freaks the religious right out has to do with us. Even this Supreme Court justice hearing.

ACLU Investigates Rep. Sally Kern - Part of me is interested, while another part of me says "just leave that crazy woman alone."

Random thoughts of a crazy gay black man walking

I have finally flipped, gone insane, reached my last straw, am now at the point of no return.

In short, I am pissed off to the highest levels of pissivity.

And it's all Terrell Carter's fault.

Terrell Carter is an actor who has appeared in several of Tyler Perry's Madea plays. And he has been outed by an angry ex-boyfriend.

With all of the other stuff going on in the world, one would ask why does this thing bother me so much?

Because it is the last straw that has caused my mind to snap.

In the predominantly white gay community, Terrell Carter really doesn't represent anything. If Carter was white, someone like Perez Hilton would be all over this situation.

But in the black community, it means more whispering, more clandestine talking behind closed doors, and more hypocrisy.

I've had my fill of heterosexual black folks who will complain about the supposed gay lifestyle being pushed in their faces while at the same time engaging in gossip about "friends" whom they know are lgbt.

Come to think of it, I've had my fill of it all. I'm tired.

I'm tired of the stupid explanations that some heterosexual black folks have for ignoring the needs of their own family members who happen to be lgbt. This idea that gays and blacks are two separate entities is a lie. Everyone in the black community has a "cousin Pookie." Hell, I'm cousin Pookie and I still got seven other "cousin Pookies." You think we don't have relationships and families that need protecting? The world don't revolve around you and your "baby mama" or "baby daddy."

I'm tired of people like bottom feeding anti-gay pastor Harry Jackson getting valuable to face time on television and in columns to rail against gay folks while lgbts of color don't get any attention.

That is unless they decide to become a puppet in the gays vs. blacks nonsense that sprung up after the Proposition 8 vote like a certain lesbian columnist (Jasmyne Cannick - whose writings I adored and agreed with to a point until the strings pulling her arms became unbearably visible).

I'm tired of the black gospel music community. That's right, I said it and I'm not taking it back. Let's be honest about the black gospel music community. It's the African-American version of San Francisco with much more clothing and less openness.

If you want to know where the majority of lgbts of color populate, check the black gospel music community. And to the African-Americans who are reading this, don't act shocked. You know this as well as me.

And I am tired of the black church, period. I'm tired of seeing the black church, once the bastion of the oppressed, become changed by money and status. I'm tired of seeing the black church rail against lgbts via the same Bible that was used to oppress it not that long ago.

And most of all, I'm tired of ministers who will wear $300 suits, diamond rings, have their hair magnificently coiffed and stand in front of megachurches of 25,000 equally expensive dressed members and whine about "how the world hates them because they are servants of Christ." Meanwhile lgbt children are being kicked out of their homes on a daily basis into the cold streets to fend for themselves by their supposed sanctified mothers and fathers.

It certainly confuses me about the definition of hate.

And I have a question. Am I the only lgbt of color who feels this way? Sometimes I feel like I am. Am I the only one who gets angry at the intentional ignorance regarding how lgbts of color have shaped America? The intentional omission of us in all aspects of the black community by our black leaders? The pushing aside of our needs as members of the black community?

But hey, it doesn't matter. Let's talk about those Terrell Carter pictures for a while.

Free Republic attacks President Obama's daughter Malia. Why should we be shocked? They've been attacking lgbts for years

My original post for today got held up because of a story coming down the pike about the ugly denizens of the rightwing site Free Republic.

It seems that these lovely leeches have turned their claws on President Obama's children, particularly his oldest daughter Malia:

A typical street whore." "A bunch of ghetto thugs." "Ghetto street trash." "Wonder when she will get her first abortion."

These are a small selection of some of the racially-charged comments posted to the conservative 'Free Republic' blog Thursday, aimed at U.S. President Barack Obama's 11-year-old daughter Malia after she was photographed wearing a t-shirt with a peace sign on the front.

The thread was accompanied by a photo of Michelle Obama speaking to Malia that featured the caption, "To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds."

Though this may sound like the sort of thing one might read on an Aryan Nation or white power website, they actually appeared on what is commonly considered one of the prime online locations for U.S. Conservative grassroots political discussion and organizing - and for a short time, the comments seemed to have the okay of site administrators.

Moderators of the blog left the comments - and commenters - in place until a complaint was lodged by a writer doing research on the conservative movement, almost a full day later.

"Could you imagine what world leaders must be thinking seeing this kind of street trash and that we paid for this kind of street ghetto trash to go over there?" wrote one commenter.

"They make me sick .... The whole family... mammy, pappy, the free loadin' mammy-in-law, the misguided chillin', and especially 'lil cuz... This is not the America I want representin' my peeps," wrote another.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the grassroots conservative movement. These aren't individuals out of the conservative mainstream. These are same folks who plan tea parties and give "tips" to conservative sites, like that recent bullcrap about "President Obama allegedly checking out a young lady's behind (which was refuted by of all places, Fox News. Not that it mattered though because the lie still got traction.)

Of course if this story gets big, expect to see the usual cast of characters at Town Hall, One News Now and other sites plead ennui and whine about how the "Bush girls" got worse.

As if that makes the comments about Malia appropriate.

Why should I be surprised about the outright vindictiveness of the folks at Free Republic. This is the same site that has a section labeled "Homosexual Agenda," where any and all outrageous lies about lgbts are commented on in the affirmative.

The comments about Malia is a walk in the park compared to these lovely gems:

I can think of a 100 reason for arresting the filthy disease ridden queers for kissing in public!!

The homosexuals will squeal about this being discrimination. What they don’t understand is most normal people who witness homosexuals kissing are utterly repulsed by this deviancy.

A little off topic here, but I note that for some reason, despite their support for homo marriage, the government controlled media never print kissing fag photos.

I think I've read more about gay sex on Free Republic than on Peter LaBarbera's site. There was a point when I actually considered taking notes on positions I should try.

Because Mormons have strong familyperspectives, the degenerates who serve the evil one are targeting Mormons because they are an anathema to the filthy disease ridden sexual degenerates. We should ALL stand with the Mormons to oppose the filthy democrat constituency seeking to ‘normalize sexual degeneracy.’ This little staged incident will be multiplied many fold. Eventually, someone is going to do exactly what the filth desire, take a few out into a desert and leave them to dry up and blow away. The democrat party is now directed by the Cloard-Piven/ Saul Alinsky methodology, so it is no surprise when their degerate filth constituencies use the tactics the affiramtive action figure feraud-in-chief taught to ACORN organizers.

I think it would have been OK to shoot them, as long as its safe, rare & legal.

To say that the folks at Free Republic are twisted would be stating the obvious. They would be funny if they weren't serious.

Pray for em cause they truly need Jesus.


Daily Kos is all over this story with an excellent breakdown.

Hate crimes, banning 'Bruno,' marriage 'war bonds,' and other Monday midday news briefs

Hate Crimes Deja Vu - Hate crimes legislation will most likely be voted on by the Senate this week. It's a good chance that it could pass. But the religious right aren't going down without a fight.

If rejecting 'ex-gay' therapy is pro-gay activism, then no wonder Pinnocchio never comes to our rallies - Focus on the Family continues to spin the inaccurate NARTH study via an email blast.

Ban Brüno! MOVIEGUIDE® Asks Authorities to Stop Screenings of 'Pornographic' ‘Brüno' Movie - A rightwing group wants the movie Bruno banned. This group masquerades as a legitimate movie review site but don't be fooled. Check out this piece I wrote about it the day after the Oscars.

"Marriage War Bond" - 100 Dollar Bond - OMG! This is so ridiculous. Tell me again how the religious right aren't trying to profit from opposing marriage equality. And the reasonings behind it are equally inane. "Because every child deserves a mother and a father"? Every child deserves a loving home and that doesn't necessarily encompass having a mother and father in the home.

And now because everyone needs a little fiber in their diets, a phony piece courtesy of One News Now:

FedEx delivers the goods for transgendered - One guesses that One News Now isn't exactly happy over this development.

Using children to play the black and gay communities against one another

There has been yet another nasty attempt to set the black and gay communities against one another via the Frank Lombard case.

Frank Lombard is an official at Duke University who was arrested for molesting his five-year-old adopted son.

Lombard is a gay white man and his son is African-American.

This unfortunate component of an increasily unfortunate situation has been like gold at Sutter's Mill for the religious right as certain figures have stepped up to milk it for all it's worth.

The lastest person exploiting this situation is Meeke Addison, an African-American "on-air personality" with American Family Radio. American Family Radio is owned by the American Family Association, the religious right organization which also owns One News Now, the place where her column is featured.

How very convenient.

Addison, for reasons that are solely predatory, tries to spin this situation as a case of the American black leadership missing the boat:

While Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton were competing for the most on-camera interviews and vying for preeminence at Michael Jackson's memorial service on the West Coast, Frank Lombard -- a white, homosexual Duke University employee -- was being arrested on the East Coast for allegedly molesting his five-year-old black adopted son.

No planes were chartered, no press conferences were held to condemn Lombard's alleged behavior. No marches stopped traffic, no black shirts or berets were donned, and no fists were held high. Not that I necessarily approve of this behavior -- but my point is, you have a white homosexual male who admitted online that he was "into incest" and had adopted two black children (males) because they were easier to get than their white counterparts. This man was arrested for repeatedly abusing these children, he posted the attacks online because he's sick, and his alleged victims happened to be black -- but the crickets are chirping.

Mainstream media will not even report that the man is a homosexual or, in some instances, even that the children are black. They won't report that Frank Lombard had a live-in partner in a community that includes other homosexual couples with black adopted children.

First of all, maybe the media didn't report on these things because they are irrelevant to the situation.

Secondly, I find Addison's column disgusting. Her attempt to blame the black leadership for missing out on this situation is disingenuous at best.

And she makes absolutely no case against gay adoption. In that regard, her column reminds me of a racist leaflet I used in my book, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters.

The leaflet, created by a white supremacist group, featured pictures of three heterosexual black men who had infected their partners with HIV.

The leaflet went on to say:

These black sexual predators lied about being HIV positive and had sex with dozens of white women . . . Don't be the next victim.

It's ironic that earlier in her column, Addison hints that the lgbt community is unfairly "piggybacking" on the civil rights movement being that she demonstrates that the desire to stigmatize an innocent group of people knows neither the lines of racial make up nor sexual orientation.

The sad thing is that Addison dances around a good point - are there so many African-American children waiting to be adopted that they are susceptible to being taken by in those who have less than honorable intentions in mind. Were there warning signs in the Frank Lombard case that were ignored?

The fact that he is gay is not a warning sign, no matter how the situation is spun by the religious right. There are too many lgbt parents who are taking care of their children to the best of their ability.

Too bad Addison was so damned determined to beat up on the black leadership and the lgbt community (two favorite targets of the religious right) that she didn't expound on that point.

So if Addison wants to find a someone who failed our black children, she needs to take a look in the mirror.

Other HB/HM posts on the Frank Lombard situation:

Should white women be teaching children?

Michelle Malkin, Mike Adams, and One News Now exploit a molested child

Repost: Dissecting a One News Now article (smacking down religious right lies on gay adoption)

This is one of my favorite posts. In Marh of this year, I was able to dissect the words of Liberty Counsel's Matt Barber and show that neither him nor anyone else in religious right groups have a clue when it comes to gay adoption and gay parenting in general.

When put up against the experts in the field of childcare, their silly hysterical arguments fizzle:

Liberty Counsel's Matt Barber is angry that Florida State Senator Nan Rich has filed a bill repealing the 1977 law banning gay adoption in the state. Rich filed a a second bill to give judges the authority to determine adoptions based exclusively on the best interest of the child.

One News Now gives Barber room to vent without the courtesy of presenting the other side. So I thought I would add the other side from another article which took a more objective view of children raised by gay parents:

Matt Barber:

"The actions here by Senator Nan Rich are clearly without merit, and she has the audacity to say that she is considering what is in the best interest of children. Well that defies logic, reason, and science."

Post-Gazette article:

A number of professional medical organizations -- including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association -- have issued statements claiming that a parent's sexual orientation is irrelevant to his or her ability to raise a child.

For the most part, the organizations are relying on a relatively small but conclusive body of research -- approximately 67 studies -- looking at children of gay parents and compiled by the American Psychological Association. In study after study, children in same-sex parent families turned out the same, for better or for worse, as children in heterosexual families.

Moreover, a 2001 meta-analysis of those studies found that the sexual orientation of a parent is irrelevant to the development of a child's mental health and social development and to the quality of a parent-child relationship.

Matt Barber:

"Frankly the studies have shown clearly that it is in the best interest of children to have a mother and a father."

Post-Gazette article:

The problem with the research cited . . . is that it compares children of heterosexual couples only with those of single parents and not with children of same-sex parent families, said Gary Gates, a senior research fellow at the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law and an expert on census data involving gay and lesbian households.

"There are virtually no studies that make a direct comparison with same-sex parents," he said, noting census data show one in four same-sex couples are raising a child under the age of 18.

Editor's note - Gates was speaking about research cited by James Dobson. However, Dobson was making the same claims as Barber - "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."

The lesson here is clear - Barber doesn't know what the hell he is talking about. But that's business as usual with him.

Irony alert - Organization co-founded by black gay man threatens member for supporting gay rights

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is seeking to remove the president of its Los Angeles chapter, Rev. Eric P. Lee, for helping to organize opposition to Proposition 8, the anti-gay marriage amendment that was passed in California last year.

From The New York Times:

In April, Mr. Lee attended a board meeting of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Kansas City, Mo., and found himself once again in the minority position among his colleagues on the issue of same-sex marriage, but he was told, he said, by the group’s interim president, Byron Clay, that the organization publicly had a neutral position on the issue.

So a month later, Mr. Lee said, he was surprised to receive a call from the National Board of Directors summoning him immediately to Atlanta to explain why he had taken a position on same-sex marriage without the authority of the national board.

Explaining that he was unable to come to Atlanta on such short notice, Mr. Lee then received two letters from the organization’s lawyer, Dexter M. Wimbish, threatening him with suspension or removal as president of the Los Angeles chapter if he did not come soon to explain himself.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was the organization led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the 1950-60s civil rights movement. It sprung from the success of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and was on the forefront of the majority of racial battles during that time.

Since King's death, however the organization has fallen into anonymity and controversy (including an ugly battle between it and King's son, Martin Luther King, III).

Many media sources are playing up the fact that this was the organization led by King during the civil rights movement, but a lot of them are forgetting a crucial element of the story.

One of the co-founders of SCLC was Bayard Rustin, an aide of King, chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, and an openly gay black man.

A constant mantra amongst African-Americans is that "we never forget where we came from."

Well in this case apparently SCLC has forgotten where it came from.

Know your lgbt history - The Choirboys

No words here. Just watch the monstrosity of these two clips from the 1970s movie The Choirboys. The clips aren't exactly of good visual quality but that's an improvement based on the subject matter.

If you think Bruno is bad, then you obviously don't know what bad is. Compared to this movie, Bruno is a David Lean classic.





By the way, there is one more gay character in this movie; a young man caught cruising in a public park. In an ugly scene, he is so weepy at the police station that the officer lets him go.

Then later, he returns to the public park where he is killed by an officer having a Vietnam flashback.

Thanks for the sour persimmons, Choirboys.

It just goes to show that no matter how bad we may think things are regarding lgbt representation in movies, it's much better than what it used to be.

Past Know Your LGBT History postings:

Know your lgbt history - Eddie Murphy

Know your lgbt history - The Killing of Sister George

Know your lgbt history - Hanna-Barbera cartoons pushes the 'gay agenda'

Know your lgbt history - Cruising

Know your lgbt history - Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones

Know your lgbt history - I Got Da Hook Up

Know your lgbt history - Fright Night

Know your lgbt history - Flowers of Evil

The Jeffersons and the transgender community

Friday midday news briefs

Congress Urged to Take Action Against Bullying in Schools - Keep your fingers crossed.

There was this mother whose son killed himself or something. But anyway, back to what I was saying about the evil gay agenda... - And hold your nose when you get a load of what Andrea Lafferty says about the bill. Lafferty runs the Traditional Values Coalition with her father Abraham Simpson . . . I mean Lou Sheldon.

Two men kissing kicked out of East Side Chico's Tacos - Cause you know when we kiss (even if it's a quick peck), we are really plotting the take over of the world.

Jackson Lee, NBJC, NAACP, Cong. Black Caucus Demand Investigation into Murder of August Provost - Damn right. This needs a HUGE investigation. It's good to see some of the African-American leadership on this.

Sign a 'gay marriage' bill, lose some luster - And now courtesy of One News Now is a lesson on how the religious right spin machine works. In Wednesdays' news briefs, I included a link showing Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council misleading poll on the popularity of New Hampshire Governor John Lynch. Now today, One News Now continues to push that inaccurate spin via a phony news article.

The Guardians Of Marriage - This is an excellent piece on Sens. John Ensign and Tom Coburn.

Traditional Values Coalition attacks Kevin Jennings and . . . Tom Cruise?

I'm not trying to be overconfident about the Kevin Jennings situation, but I can't help but to feel a little less worried about Jennings being able to keep his job as Assistant Deputy Secretary, Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools at the Department of Education when the opposition pulls nonsense like the picture on the right.

The picture, by the way, is courtesy of the Traditional Values Coalition (TVC), the religious right group in California run by one Lou Sheldon. A perfect description of Sheldon would be termed as "Abraham Simpson on speed."

This lovely insult to Jennings, Tom Cruise (oh come on, was his last movie really that bad), and all taste and decency is accompanied by the reasonings as to why Jennings should be dismissed from his job.

The reasonings are the same batch of lies; Jennings is anti-religion, Jennings teaches children how to have sex, Jennings hides instances when children are molested.

The entire TVC report is an excercise in shrill lunacy such as the following:

Jennnings Wants Kindergarten Kids!

At a GLSEN conference in 1998, Kevin Jennings told his fellow gays that his dream is to promote homosexuality in public schools – even to kindergarten children.

That picture linking Jennings to the German Nazi Party via Tom Cruise's movie Valkyrie is merely the piece de resistance in a surfeit of silliness.

So much for the "hate the sin but love the sinner" Christian attitude.

It's been said that sometimes an enemy can be your best friend. Former President Bill Clinton can attest to this fact because it was the constant accusations of his enemies that served to desensitize the country and ruin the impact when they did finally get something dirty on him.

For us, it's folks like TVC. The lgbt community can always count on the group to go overboard with it's anti-gay hostility.

But do they have to make such ugly pictures? Tom Cruise looks terrible in purple.

He should sue.

Other HB/HM posts on Kevin Jennings and the religious right:

Support Sean's Last Wish and Kevin Jennings

The religious right thinks that character assasination is a Christian virtue

The war against Kevin Jennings - now it's getting pathetic

Attacks on Kevin Jennings sleazy, un-Christian

More right wing lunacy on Kevin Jennings courtesy of Kevin McCullough

More attacks on GLSEN'S Kevin Jennings - Now the Family Research Council gets in the act'''

'Fistgate' and President Obama - religious right pushes a pitiful attempt of guilt by association

Stance against hate crimes legislation reveals lack of honesty, integrity

According to my favorite phony publication, One News Now, religious right groups today urged their supporters to call, email, or write their Senators and urge them to vote against adding new categories to national hate crimes legislation:

The American Family Association, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, and other conservative activist groups are urging their supporters to call, e-mail, fax, or visit their senators today to express their disapproval of S. 909, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act (Senate Bill 909). The bill would authorize the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute certain bias-motivated crimes based on the victim's actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, or disability.

Bishop Harry Jackson, Jr., a member of the conservative coalition known as the Arlington Group, says the measure would have a chilling effect on the religious liberty of pastors.

"Back in 2006, [Democratic Representative] Artur Davis from Alabama, who will be running for governor by the way in that great state, made a statement to [Representative] Louie Gohmert [R-Texas] in a [House] subcommittee meeting that a pastor could be held liable or [as] a co-conspirator of sorts in a hate crime if we found out that his preaching and teaching incited -- according to their thinking -- someone to commit a violent act against someone that is gay," Jackson explains.

This entire push against adding sexual orientation (because that's what is getting the religious right up in arms) to existing hate crimes legislation reveals the abject dishonesty of religious right groups.

They have careened from one argument to another in their attempts to kill this bill. From inaccurately saying that it will protect nasty sexual behavior to claiming that it will keep pedophiles who molest children from going to jail, this entire controversy has been a window into the mindsets of some so-called Christians, revealing just how low they will stoop in the name of God.

While they claim that adding sexual orientation to hate crimes legislation will cause mere speech to be punished, not one of them from Harry Jackson to Tony Perkins to James Dobson has said a word about eliminating existing hate crimes legislation altogether; especially the statue that punishes crimes committed on the basis of religion.

And they refuse to acknowledge that heterosexuals are also protected under the sexual orientation addition.

But what's more interesting is that statement by Jackson:

"Back in 2006, [Democratic Representative] Artur Davis from Alabama, who will be running for governor by the way in that great state, made a statement to [Representative] Louie Gohmert [R-Texas] in a [House] subcommittee meeting that a pastor could be held liable or [as] a co-conspirator of sorts in a hate crime if we found out that his preaching and teaching incited -- according to their thinking -- someone to commit a violent act against someone that is gay,"

First of all to be exact, Jackson is inaccurate about the year in which the exchange took place. It was in 2007.

And what is wrong with a pastor being charged if his preaching and teaching incited someone to violence? The devil, as they say, is in the details.

Seems to me if a pastor actually tells someone to go out and harm an lgbt or anyone else via teaching or preaching, then the pastor should be charged with a crime.

And that pastor would be charged with a crime even if hate crimes legislation did not exist.

But a good question would be what if the pastor merely said that homosexuality is a sin and someone took that as a statement telling him to harm an lgbt?

That would be a problem except for an action committed by Rep. Davis during the hearing; an action that Jackson omitted bringing up. According to the webpage, Religious Tolerance:

Artur Davis (D-AL), a co-sponsor of the bill, offered a change that clarified that the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech would not be affected by the bill. That is, pastors and other Christians who denigrate homosexuals (or women or the disabled, etc) need not fear being charged with conspiracy if a someone is motivated by the speech to commit a violent act. The amendment reads:

"Sec. 8: Rule of Construction:
Nothing in this Act, or the amendments made by this Act, shall be construed to prohibit any expressive conduct protected from legal prohibition by, or any activities protected by the free speech or free exercise clauses of, the First Amendment to the Constitution."

Which means the concern about a minister getting arrested for merely preaching that homosexuality is a sin is a smokescreen. It was a smokescreen in 2007 and it is one now.

Or in other words, a cynical lie thought up by a group determined to destroy a bill.

I never knew that Jesus told us to tell lies. Jackson and company must have a new translation of the Bible. I knew they would flip after they discovered that the King James version was offered by a gay man.

Other posts on hate crimes legislation:

Hate crimes legislation makes Doug Giles lose his mind

SC gay groups organizing response to DeMint letter

Tell Senator DeMint to stop lying about hate crimes legislation

Snappy comebacks to stupid religious right talking points and Thursday midday news briefs

Just because I feel like it, I will now introduce an every-now-and-then new feature on this blog:

Snappy comebacks to stupid religious right talking points

Don't you just hate it when the religious right tries to condense the complexities of sexual orientation to stupid talking points that totally mischaracterize the entire argument?

For example:

Religious right talking point - "You can't compare being black to being gay because there are no ex-African-Americans but there are plenty of ex-gays."

Try this answer:

Answer - "Just as some blacks have tried to pass for white in the past due to their light skin tone, some gays try to pass for heterosexual. And history has shown us that neither attempt to hide who you are is, in the long run, successful."

Now on to news briefs:

"Madea" Actor/Singer Terrell Carter Outed by Ex-Boyfriend - Speaking of which . . .

Gay couple 'backed out of foster plans after negative media coverage' - On one hand, this isn't good because I'm sure they would have made a very good home for the child. But on the other, so much for the stupid notion of gays pursuing adoption for selfish reasons. They obviously thought of the child's needs first.

NARTH: Rubbish in the Guise of Research - More details about that fradulent NARTH study.

Video: If credibility began and ended at FOF's front door, then vids like this might help - Perfect example of the religious right echo chamber. NARTH creates a fradulent study and Focus on the Family pushes it as legitimate.

Researchers complain about religious right distortion of their work

While we are grousing about marriage equality rights, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and hate crimes legislation, a story has been slipping through our fingers.

Well to be honest, it's not necessarily a story that has sprung up suddenly but rather quietly crept on us through the years.

There has been a steady number of complaints from researchers and medical professionals as to how their work is distorted by the religious right.

The lastest complaint comes via Truth Wins Out from three researchers who have complained as to how Focus on the Family misused their work to claim that there is a link between child sexual abuse and homosexuality:

In the article, “Childhood Sexual Abuse and Male Homosexuality”, (Focus on the Family's Jeff)Johnston wrote, “Many pro-gay researchers, activists and theorists deny that there could be a connection between child sexual abuse and adult homosexuality.” As proof of a supposed connection, he cited a 2008 book, “Unequal Opportunity: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States”, edited by Professors Richard J. Wolitski, Ron Stall, and Ronald O. Valdiserri.

When approached by Truth Wins Out, the researchers were surprised by the manipulation of their data and agreed to respond.

“We want to respond to a recent Focus on the Family characterization of scientific findings reported in our book, ‘Unequal Opportunity: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States’ that misrepresented findings in the book to suggest that childhood sexual abuse causes male homosexuality,” Stall and Valdiseri wrote in their letter. “The Focus on the Family description of the findings reported in Unequal Opportunity is inaccurate and, in our opinion, a distortion of the scientific literature.”

According to Truth Wins Out, this complaint is the 10th one in two years. Others include:

Dr. Lisa Diamond - University of Utah, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology

Dr. Carol Gilligan - Professor of education and law at New York University and author of In a Different Voice

Angela Phillips - Professor, Goldsmiths College in London, and Author of “The Trouble With Boys”

Dr. Kyle Pruett - Professor of child psychiatry, the Yale University School of Medicine, and author of Fatherneed: Why Father Care Is as Essential as Mother Care for Your Child.

Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc - Associate professor, school of nursing, University of British Columbia

Dr. Robert Spitzer - Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University

Dr. Judith Stacy - Professor of sociology, New York University

And it goes farther back than that:

A. Nicholas Groth - Groth complained twice (1984, 2002) about how his work was unfairly used by first Paul Cameron and then the Family Research Council to make a connection between pedophilia and homosexuality. (Editor's note - one of the links - the 2002 letter courtesy of HRC - isn't working. But I have a printed copy of the original webpage).

Robert Garofalo - The Massachusetts pediatrician who 1998 complained that Concerned Women for America and other religious right groups were distorting his work to claim that the lgbt orientation is indicative of unhealthy behaviors. (Boston doctor says ads distorted his work on gays, The Boston Globe, August 4, 1998).

Joanne Hall, Ph.D. - University of Tennessee’s College of Nursing Professor who complained how the religious right distorted a Nursing Research article she wrote to claim that all lesbians have a serious problem with drug abuse.

And last but least, my favorite (because I've referenced it so many times):

Robert S. Hogg, Stefan A. Strathdee, Kevin J.P. Craib, Michael V. Shaughnessy, Julio Montaner, and Martin T. Schehter - Six Canadian researchers behind a 1997 study consistently misused by the religious right to claim that "homosexual behavior takes 20 years off of your life."

In 2001 the researchers said that their work was being distorted and yet the 1997 study continues to consistently be misused.

So counting Truth Wins Out's 10 and the four I have dug up, that's 14 complaints of misusage of scientific research by the religious right.

How many more are needed before some serious snooping is done in this situation?

Maybe if Perez Hilton put it on his page, then perhaps The Advocate would devote a cover story to the subject.

Who knows?

Repost - Should white women be teaching children?

Since the religious right continues to exploit the unfortunate Frank Lombard situation, I thought that this would be an appropriate repost. It's a piece I wrote last weekend:

Because of the recent Frank Lombard controversy, the case of the gay Duke University official who is accused of raping his adopted 5-year-old son, the religious right and conservative pundits in general have been accusing the media of playing down Lombard's homosexuality due to political correctness.

World Net Daily has even accused CNN, the Associated Press,and ABC News of not even mentioning the fact that Lombard is gay.

Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage says that we must ask questions about these things (i.e. how much did Lombard's orientation lead to him being allowed to adopt the child) and not let homophobia dissuade us.

I say they have a point and this why:

Ranee Sue Proper, a 42-year-old former music teacher, was arrested for allegedly having sex with two students in a classroom. She was sentenced June 3 to nine months in jail and years probation after pleading guilty to one count of criminal sexual conduct.

Melissa Weber, a 27-year-old New York City social studies teacher is accused of having sex in her classroom with a 14-year-old male student. She was arrested May 28.

Jennifer Rice, a 33-year-old former Tacoma, Wash., elementary school teacher was found guilty on April 20 of having sex with a 10-year-old student and his 15-year-old brother.

Kelsey Peterson, a former Nebraska middle school math teacher, was sentenced on April 23 to eight to 10 years in prison for first-degree sexual assault of a minor. Peterson fled to Mexico with a 13-year-old student in October 2007.

Wendie Schweikert, a 37-year-old former South Carolina elementary school teacher, pleaded guilty to having sex with an 11-year-old student. In June 2007, she was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Debra Lafave, a former Florida middle school teacher, was sentenced to house arrest and probation in 2005 after pleading guilty to charges that she had sex with a 14-year-old student.

That's six recent cases of teachers having sex with minors. And what's the similarities between all six cases? These teachers were white women.

So why is the media downplaying this? There does seem to be a problem with white women not being able to keep their hands to themselves in teaching environments. If one case of a gay man molesting a child should warrant an outcry, then six cases of white women molesting children should warrant at least a 20/20 investigation.

And we shouldn't let political correctness keep us from asking crucial questions that may protect our children.

Questions like:

Aren't white women potentially susceptible to outrageous sexual behavior? There could be a point in this. How many black or Latino women do you see on those "Girls Gone Wild" commercials?

Aren't there more white female porn stars than any other ethnic group?

Look at Paris Hilton. She is a white woman. Would you want her teaching your child?

You know what . . . stop.

If you are still reading and are somehow angry at what I have just written, then you need to understand sarcasm.

The fact of the matter is that white women are not susceptible to outrageous sexual behavior and should not be judged as a whole on the behavior of those who have gotten into trouble.

And what Frank Lombard possibly did (he has not been tried yet) was wrong. It was vile and nasty. But any attempt to judge all gay men on him is equally vile and nasty.

No matter how it is spun, that is what the religious right and other pundits are trying to do. They don't see this case as a child being victimized.

They see it as an opportunity to get their agenda across. They see it as an opportunity to get some face time on places like Fox News or get some money sent in by naive folks who read and believe their drivel.

For every one Frank Lombard, there are thousands of adopted lgbt parents who love, protect, and nurture their children to the utmost of their ability.

I happen to know a few.

In the long run, it doesn't matter what sexual orientation, gender, or ethnic identity Lombard is.

A child has been potentially hurt; scarred for life.

His well-being is the only thing that truly matters in this case.

Anything, and I mean anything that distracts from that should be dismissed.

Wednesday midday news briefs

The religious right is making our black men crazy!



Okay, I am stealing this one from Pams House Blend, but it's one of those videos that's just too damned funny to keep solely on one site. This is Minister Leroy Swailes testifying in DC before the Board of Elections and Ethics regarding the District's law that recognizes out of state marriages

This is a part of his testimony:

"A beast has four legs and one gender. If you put two men together, you have four legs and two penises...that's one gender -- that's a form of bestiality."

Lord hammercy! No wonder we won that one. I wonder if Swailes is too busy to testify in front of Congress regarding gays in the military, ENDA, and hate crimes legislation.

And while you are laughing at his testimony, read what his shirt says. It ain't THAT funny.

Also, a big hat tip to People for the American Way and HRC.

D.C. may revoke Rev. Jackson’s voter registration - Speaking of D.C., anti-gay pastor Harry Jackson may have been deceiving folks regarding his residency. Stay on the story, Washington Blade!

Focus on the deliberate poll misreads - Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council deliberately misreads a poll. It must be a week day.

State party votes to censure Mark Sanford - The South Carolina Republican Party to Mark Sanford - you have been a naughty, naughty boy. Don't ever do that again. I say it's a boon for us "radical gay activists" in South Carolina the next time they try to bring up one of those dreary Focus on the Family processed anti-gay laws.

Massachusetts State Senator Comes Out on Independence Day - My "gay ray" keeps missing Philip Seymour Hoffman. Oh well, welcome to the conspiracy, Stan Rosenberg. I take it that you have already been briefed on plans to take over America. Mass Resistance is going to go batshit over this one.

Hate crimes legislation makes Doug Giles lose his mind

Doug Giles, a columnist with the conservative Townhall has just proven that the idea of adding sexual orientation to the hate crimes legislation is driving him and other conservatives crazy via a strange column.

His opening sentence should give you a clue that he is heading to looneyland with this piece:

If you’re a twisted adult who gets pleasure from having sex with 5-year-old boys (like Duke University’s Frank Lombard), or you like to shop for dates at the Metro Zoo, or enjoy smearing your body with feces and/or dabbin’ a little urine on your earlobes as you prep for sexy time with the corpse you dressed up like Bette Davis in your basement, then more than likely you are thanking Dionysus and your unclean demon that Liberals are running DC.

Yep, with the Liberals in the house your deviant behavior—along with over 500 additional unmentionables—could potentially be legitimized and federally protected against anyone who says you’re a crazy bastard who should undergo chemical castration and have your frontal lobe scraped for your aberrant bents.

Religious right and conservative attacks on hate crimes legislation are getting stranger and more pathetic. On the risk of beating a dead horse (I don't think I can match beating a dead horse the way Giles and company does, however), hate crimes legislation deal with violent action, not words.

And those things that Giles described are paraphalias, which are described as:

. . . fantasies, behaviors, or sexual urges focusing on unusual objects, activities, or situations . .

Paraphilias have nothing to do with sexual orientation.

Sexual orientation would be a category of protection under hate crimes legislation. Paraphalias would not be.

Not that this sort of thing matters to Giles and those who believe his words. As vile as his piece is, let there be some comfort his jump from logic to jugular grabbing shock is proof that he knows his side is losing this argument.

Editor's note - If you liked my piece on the phony organization, the American College of Pediatricians (ACP), be on the lookout for another piece I am working on about the Christian Medical and Dental Associations. This group is worse than the ACP.

Peter LaBarbera is getting BORING

(If you can't see the video on this blog, then go here.)

I can't believe I am saying that but it's true.

Peter LaBarbera has become boring.

When a one note performer continues to act in the same manner, he becomes routine and ordinary.

And this fits our friend Peter LaBarbera to a tee.

His second foray in youtube is probably worst than his first in that it gives huge spotlight on his drawbacks as a suitable spokesperson for the religious right.

Peter likes to go for shock even to the point of creating faux shock out of ridiculous situations.

One tip, Peter - if you are trying to turn heterosexual men against gay pride parades than don't show cute women allegedly showing their boobs. I say allegedly because the "shocking footage" is blotted out.

Also, if you are going to interpose pictures of children next to "offensive events," at least make it look less fake.

By the way, LaBarbera has left the ratings and comments up. Feel free to take advantage.

BUT BE NICE!!

Tuesday midday news briefs

Ignoring Perez from this point forward: Who's in? - I'm in! I've been in that camp for a while. And it is just goes to show how out of it The Advocate is for putting that child on the cover. First "Is Gay the New Black," now this mess. No wonder the lgbt community is having a hard time getting what we need when those we trust as our news gatherers are concerned with trifling bullshit like Pereze Hilton. Does The Advocate have a clue?

From the Editor: Why Perez? - If you are as pissed as I am by what The Advocate did, check out the video from its editor and register your opinion. Blah, blah, blah about the first amendment. The Advocate has a responsibility to move the lgbt forward and give us the tools we need for survival. Focusing on a immature, ignorant, bottom-feeding gossip columnist does nothing for the lgbt community.

NARTH Publishes Fake “Study” In A Fake “Journal” - Meanwhile those who are doing serious work for the lgbt community are steadily working behind the scenes to debunk the lies of the religious right.

Time article mulls connection between slain sailor's murder to queasiness over repealing DADT - Another more important cover story that The Advocate will probably miss.

End for HIV Travel Ban - Well at least this story is touched on in The Advocate.

An African-American Christian mother pens book on accepting her gay son

This story is a perfect example of just what we are missing when we make assumptions about the acceptance or lack of acceptance of lgbts in the black community. Deon Davis, a Christian woman in Florida has written and self-published a book chronicling how her child came out and how she grew to accept him as he is:

"I learned that our children have feelings, that the parent is not always right. I learned that the hard way," she says. "I'm learning all this through the blessing of Rashad being gay."

Now Davis is on a mission. She spent $1,300 to self-publish "I'll Find a Way: A Mother's Journey of Love and Acceptance for Her Gay Son" and is working tirelessly to promote it.

A sad but interesting part of the article tells about how lgbt children like Rashad are not accepted by their own families. Davis talks about several incidents where these children have been thrown out of their homes. Rashad talks about what his father refusing to accept him being gay:

Rashad's friends have spent many hours at Davis' home and she's often appalled by how their parents treat them. One father beat his gay son so badly, the boy was covered with bruises.

Another of Rashad's friends stayed with Davis for a week after his father threw him out. "He got kicked out because he was gay," she says. "This child was the smartest thing ever!"

A third friend "was living on the streets and selling his body," Davis says. "A 4.0 grade point average and he just got kicked out."

Rashad, who recently graduated from Piper High School in Sunrise, Fla., says his own father won't accept that he's gay.

"At my graduation, he told me he'd give me $1,000 if I'd get a girl pregnant," Rashad says. "He said he'd rather me go to prison for 20 years for drugs than be gay."

This is an excellent article about a mother who is not only accepting her gay son, but also educating folks on lgbt youth.

I wish Ms. Davis all of the success in the world.

The entire article is here.

Big hat tip to Box Turtle Bulletin for bringing the article to my attention.

The American College of Pediatricians and the Laundering of Junk Science

Two weekends ago, I was embroiled in an intense discussion about gay parenting on the webpage Truthwinsout.org

Comments had gone back and forth, spurred by someone who spouted what he thought was credible information proving that gay marriage was not a good idea.

The subject drifted to gay parenting. Naturally the person did not agree with the idea and he cited information by a group called the American College of Pediatricians (ACP) that supposedly proved his point.

I took a look at this group's webpage and from what I saw, it looked like a group masquerading as a legtimate medical organization while spouting religious right dogma about the lgbt community.

Mike Airhart, a writer employed by Truth Wins Out and a very good friend of mine, broke it down like this:

The “American College of Pediatricians” screens its membership according to a pro-life philosophy spelled out on its “Core Values” page and an anti-gay philosophy spelled out here. The organization’s Bible Belt charter members are listed here.

According to Concerned Women for America, ACP formed in retaliation against the American Academy of Pediatrics after AAP released scientific studies finding no significant harm to children in same-sex parenting. ACP accuses the AAP of “bad science” but does not say how AAP’s studies were flawed.

The ACP’s family resources page links primarily to religious-right organizations. In contrast to the scientific approach of the AAP, ACP employs what it considers a predetermined “moral” filter to pediatrics.

Translation: The American College of Pediatricians is a group masquerading as a legtimate medical organization while spouting religious right dogma about the lgbt community.

I pretty much said the same thing already, but didn't Mike say it much better than me?

Seriously though, I took a look at the work ACP put out about the lgbt community, particularly a piece called Homosexual Parenting: Is it Time for Change?

What I found was a hot mess of the usual lies put out by the religious right. I'm sure those who keep up with this blog have heard these before but I'm a stickler for consistency when it comes to religious right distortions, so bear with me.

The distortions of the ACP piece can be broken down in three brackets:

1. Outdated data

The paper says:

Homosexual partnerships are significantly more prone to dissolution than heterosexual marriages with the average homosexual relationship lasting only two to three years

As proof of this, the ACP paper cites sources from over 15 years ago:

David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison, The male couple: how relationships develop (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1984), pp. 252-253.

M. Saghir and E. Robins, Male and female homosexuality (Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins, 1973), p. 225; L.A. Peplau and H. Amaro, "Understanding lesbian relationships," in homosexuality: social, psychological, and biological issues, ed. J. Weinrich and W. Paul (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1982).

M. Pollak, "Male homosexuality," in western sexuality: practice and precept in past and present times, ed. P. Aries and A. Bejin, translated by Anthony Forster (New York, NY: B. Blackwell, 1985), pp. 40-61, cited by Joseph Nicolosi in Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 1991), pp. 124, 125.

To make matters worse, the ACP is inaccurately using the data to generalize about all lgbt couples.

The authors of The Male Couple said their book could not be used to generalize about the lgbt community:

“We always have been very careful to explain that the very nature of our research sample, its size (156 couples), its narrow geographic location, and the natural selectiveness of the participants prevents the findings from being applicable and generalizable to the entire gay male community.”

Another outdated source the ACP piece uses is:

A. P. Bell and M. S. Weinberg, Homosexualities: a study of diversity among men and women (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), pp. 308, 309

Homosexualities was published in 1978. And with it, the APC paper continues to inaccurately generalize about lgbt couples.

A passage in Homosexualities clearly says:

“. . . 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.”

Generally speaking, if you looked at all of the sources in the ACP paper, you see that the majority of them are over 10 years old. And many of the ones that can be construed as current are misused.

But that is the next section.

2. Misusage of studies

Many of the studies the ACP uses to claim that children will suffer adverse effects in lgbt households in fact did not have anything to do with looking at children in lgbt homes at all. They include:

A. Marie Xiridoui, et al., "The contribution of steady and casual partnerships to the incidence of HIV infection among homosexual men in Amsterdam," AIDS 17 (2003): 1029-1038. [Note: one of the findings of this recent study is that those classified as being in "steady relationships" reported an average of 8 casual partners a year in addition to their partner (p. 1032)]

As pointed out in a post two weeks ago , this study only looked at casual relationships between gay men. It had nothing to do with the lesbian population and certainly nothing to do with children in lgbt households. The ironic thing is that this study has been used to also claim that lgbts have no concept of monogamy in marriage even though the data was compiled before marriage was even legalized in the Netherlands.

B. Joanne Hall, "Lesbians recovering from alcoholic problems: an ethnographic study of health care expectations," Nursing Research 43 (1994): 238-244.

In my 2007 book, Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, I talk about how this article in Nursing Research was distorted. The author of the article, Joanne Hall, Ph.D. of the University of Tennessee’s College of Nursing, wrote me a letter outlining how it was being misused. She said that not only did the study have nothing to do with gay parenting but also:

“My study was an investigation of experiences of lesbians who ALREADY have self-identified as having ‘had an alcohol problem.’

They were not recruited as ‘alcoholics,’ ‘addicts’ or such terms, because I realized people have different understandings and preferences about ‘labels.’ These women were not necessarily under treatment at all, but living in the community. I did not ‘verify’ either their sexual orientation (that was also self-identification), nor a ‘diagnosis’ of substance abuse. They responded to a flyer. They all lived in the Bay Area. There were 35 women in the study. ONLY 35. They do not REPRESENT a population. My point was to try to get a handle on what they were experiencing—to UNDERSTAND their patterns . . . . "

C. Gwat Yong Lie and Sabrina Gentlewarrier, "Intimate violence in lesbian relationships: discussion of survey findings and practice implications," Journal of Social Service Research 15 (1991): 41-59.

Again a study having nothing to do with children in same sex households. The original study was conducted in 1985 at a Michigan Women’s Music Festival. It included only 1099 participants and all were lesbian.

According to a reviewer of the study, Suzana Rose, Ph.D., of the 1099 lesbians participants, most were white and between the ages of 20-45. - Intimate Violence in Lesbian Relationships: Discussion of Survey Findings and Practice Implications, Journal of Social Science Research, 1991

D. "Sex survey results," Genre (October 1996), quoted in "Survey finds 40 percent of gay men have had more than 40 sex partners," Lambda Report, January 1998, p. 20.

Not only did this Genre article have nothing to do with children in same sex households but check out the entire citation. The Lambda Report was an anti-gay publication put out by an old friend of ours - Peter LaBarbera - before he began Americans for Truth.

So in all honesty, it can be said that the ACP paper does not misuse Genre article because it does not cite the article at all, but what LaBarbera (a man with an anti-gay bias) claims the Genre article says.

3. Researcher complaints

A consistent factor of religious right studies is how they inaccurately use studies even after complaints by the work's original author. There are two in the ACP paper:

A. It cites the infamous 1997 study Canadian study as proof that lgbts have a short life span even though the study's authors complained in 2001 of its misusage by the religious right. (This is getting to be a favorite citation of mine. In almost every religious right paper I've talked about on this site, the distortion of the Canadian study is included.)

B. Judith Stacey and Timothy J. Biblarz, "(How) Does the sexual orientation of parents matter," American Sociological Review 66 (2001): 174, 179.

Judith Stacey has said repeatedly that nothing in her work says that same sex parenting is a bad idea.

Finally, the most interesting thing about the ACP paper is that it is not original. Some of the citations and passages in the paper are identical to a Family Research Council paper, The Negative Effects of Homosexuality.

This is the same paper is considered "outdated" by the Family Research Council.

So basically, the American College of Pediatricians is a puppet organization that can do damage if no one researches its background.

The folks who founded this organization are clearly sacrificing the integrity of their profession by laundering religious right propaganda as credible medical research.

And it makes one wonder as to how many other "groups" like ACP are out there. And also what can we do to bring attention to these groups.

Monday midday news briefs

For those interested, I have updated the timeline on my Anti-Gay Lies and Liars webpage to include events happening in 1986, 2000, 2007, and 2009. Chief among them - Dick Hafer's hateful anti-gay comics, The "Fistgate" nonsense, the James Holsinger controversy, and various things happening this year including Carrie Prejean and NOM, Jim DeMint's lying letter, and various attacks on Kevin Jennings. Pan down to the timeline to see the new entries.

Her name is Candi, but her agenda couldn't be less sweet - Ugh. Another anti-gay spokesperson. The lgbt community seem to collect them like roaches. I don't have the strength so Jeremy, she is all yours.

Washington's Bishops: Repealing Domestic Partnerships is "Justified Discrimination" - Justified discrimination? Are they serious? Who gets to decide that sort of thing?

Sports Figure Latest Victim Of Ugandan Anti-Gay Offensive - Kudos to Box Turtle Bulletin for keeping this issue in the forefront.

FACT CHECK: The Right-Wing Smear Campaign Against Kevin Jennings - ThinkProgress to the rescue and not a moment too soon either.

Gay folks and the black church - shake your booty for Jesus

Sometimes I don't understand the perceived hell that the black church supposedly gives to gay folks.

Goodness knows there are so many of us in the church.

Now far be it from me to throw out innuendoes but the following clip sets off my gaydar as well as my eardrums (particularly a certain individual on stage and a certain individual in the audience. When you see it, you'll know.)

Talk about contradiction city: