Well its about time! Mark Foley controversy part three

One good thing about this entire situation regarding former Congressman Mark Foley is how quickly we are defending ourselves against the claim that we gays are inclined to molest children.

The rhetoric from the anti-gay industry and their supporters is heating up:

" . . . studies show that homosexuals are disproportionately prone to pedophilia. The fact that Foley had contacted a male page for his photograph should have set warning bells ringing across Capitol Hill." - Ben Shapiro (http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=17367)

"Homosexuals reproduce sexually by molesting children. This creates a cycle of violence and disordered behavior that creates future generations of abusers and predators." - Jason Jones(http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/973281157.html)

And now Stephen Bennett has gotten in the act, offering his "expert" opinion on the so-called gay community. (http://www.standardnewswire.com/news/54318113.html)

For the record, Bennett is no expert in anything involving the gay community. He is just yet another "ex-gay for pay" that the anti-gay industry employs to make life harder for those of us who are content with our orientation.

But we have vigourous defenders who have gone on record disputing the notion that homosexuality and pedophilia is somehow connected.

Media Matters gave a sweet smackdown to Family Research Council head Tony Perkins (http://mediamatters.org/items/200610040014)

And now John Walsh of America's Most Wanted have come out in favor of the truth in this issue (http://thinkprogress.org/2006/10/04/walsh-foley/)

I feel safe in saying that very few are buying into the nonsense that Perkins, Shapiro and the rest are putting out. But that does not mean that they should be ignored. I am just willing to bet that when this blows over, we will have to deal with the controversy again. It may be a letter to the editor by supporters of the anti-gay industry or even a fundraising appeal, but we will have to deal with the Mark Foley situation again.

How we stand against the propaganda thrown against our community at this time will have definite repercussions in the future.

So that in mind, please inform yourselves and above all support sites like Ex-Gay Watch, Box Turtle Bulletin, Joe Brummer, and my humble self. Support us with monetary donations or hits.

And above all, educate yourselves so when people come at you with their lies, you can protect yourself both verbally and spiritually.

Mark Foley Part Deux: Headless Monster alert!!

As unbelievable as it seems, members of the anti-gay industry and others are determined to make the Mark Foley controversy into a case of "gays gone amok."

Yesterday, I talked about how our friend Peter LaBarbera (and former game show host Ben Stein) was trying to connect Foley’s misdeeds to the false claim that homosexuality and pedophilia are connected.

Today, wannabe moralists Gary Bauer and Linda Harvey weighed in on the controversy. It is incredible what comes out of the mouths of these supposedly Christian people. Harvey’s comments are especially vindictive:

"Apparently, Rep. Mark Foley is homosexual. And like many homosexual men, he likes young teen boys."

Luckily, my fellow blogging colleagues (i.e. Joe Brummer, Jim Burroway and Box Turtle Bulletin, and the folks at Ex-Gay Watch - all linked below) aren’t wasting this opportunity to showcase anti-gay bigotry at its finest.

But I want a little bit of this smackdown, so allow me to add my bit.

Earlier today, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council had this to say about the Foley controversy in the piece, Pro-Homosexual Political Correctness Sowed Seeds for Foley Scandal:

"While pro-homosexual activists like to claim that pedophilia is a completely distinct orientation from homosexuality, evidence shows a disproportionate overlap between the two. Although almost all child molesters are male and less than 3% of men are homosexual, about a third of all child sex abuse cases involve men molesting boys--and in one study, 86% of such men identified themselves as homosexual or bisexual."

It has been refuted time and time again (in fact several times on this blog) that a man molesting molesting a boy does not necessarily make the man gay. In many studies, the man has been identified as heterosexual.

But apparently members of the anti-gay industry seem to think if they ignore the truth, it will go away.

What I want to know is what study is Perkins referring to that allegedly showed 86 percent of child molesters are gay.

In short, I am calling Tony Perkins a damned liar.

Perkins, LaBarbera, Harvey and Bauer continue to push their headless monsters and I fully support them doing such because now, there is a group of us who are going to challenge their lies at every turn.


Book update

I have received many emails asking about the status of my book. It is still scheduled to be published next year. To tell the truth, I was tired looking at the damned thing until a friend in Los Angeles volunteered to give it a look over. Fresh eyes were exactly what I needed in order to continue the work. My friend brought many new ideas to the table and I intend to use them.

Also, I have to add information about the Foley controversy because, as seen by my example of Perkins above, the anti-gay industry are shooting themselves in the foot and I want to record every gasp of pain.

Lastly, for anyone who is interested, I do intend to post another small excerpt this weekend.

Mad props to Box Turtle Bulletin

First of all, I want to give a huge shout out to Jim Burroway and Box Turtle Bulletin (linked below) for their excellent parody, The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths (http://www.boxturtlebulletin.com/Articles/000,015.htm)

I invite everyone to download the piece and especially pay attention to the final part. It breaks down how exactly the anti-gay industry has been lying on us for the past decade.

Ben Stein is a big fat homophobe (my apologies to Al Franken)

It was bound to happen.

Members of the anti-gay industry and others are now attempting sneak in a condemnation of homosexuality into the Mark Foley controversy.

For the record, Foley’s misconduct is a case of a grown man taking advantage of a child and sexual orientation has nothing to do with it.

Not that it would do any good, but I wish someone would mention that little fact to our friend Peter LaBarbera. He is practically salivating for the chance to use the Foley controversy as another chance to demonize the gay community.

I wrote LaBarbera a letter calling attention to his hypocrisy, although I know he won’t answer it.

For him, a chance to attack the gay community is like manna from heaven.

However, I am very disappointed in who else has joined in. Former game show host and Nixon apologist Ben Stein has gotten into the act with his column, Hypocrisy, Democrat Style (http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=10434), in which he says:

"I hope it won't come as a surprise to anyone that a big part of male homosexual behavior is interest in young boys."

Please bear in mind that not only Stein does not give any proof of this but he also claims:

"I have many gay friends and they are great people."

Even when they are molesting children, Ben? I didn’t know you were so solicitous to pedophiles.

When I read Stein’s column, I can understand why some gay leaders have been silent about going on record regarding Mark Foley.

When Polly Klaas, Samantha Runion, or any other young girl was abducted, sexually abused, and murdered, no one said that the crimes committed against them were indicative of the nature of the heterosexual male.

But when that innocent young boy Jesse Dirkhising was sexually abused and murdered in 1999, LaBarbera and others like him attempted to crucify the entire gay community for the crime, instead of the young men involved.

Now it seems that Stein is in on the act.

For the record, there is no link between pedophilia and homosexuality.

The American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Academy of Child Psychiatrists and the Child Welfare League of America all attest to this fact.

Stein’s column adds up to homophobia, pure and simple. It is one thing to think that homosexuality is a sin but to use that belief to make the claim that homosexuality and pedophilia are connected is just wrong.

A wise man once said, "a racist is a man who eats with black people, knows black people, have black friends, but sees a black man taken away in handcuffs and swears that the criminal is indicative of the entire race."

Stein proves that this adage is also true about homophobes.

Hate crime or another lie?

Apparently a family in Colorado has been the victim of a hate crime. Allegedly, someone has been tampering and burning down signs they have been putting up in their yard.

These are not pro-gay signs so naturally the family is claiming that a "gay activist" is behind the crimes.

Focus on the Family is also making this claim as seen by the headline of their press release detailing the events in question - Gay Activist Starts Fire in Colorado Family's Front Yard (http://family.org/cforum/news/a0042120.cfm)

There are several questions that come up about the incident. The webpage http://www.goodasyou.org/ goes into detail about the questions, so I will just paraphrase.

For one thing - the family claims that a video camera clearly shows the face of the person committing the crime but there are no arrests.

For another thing, the article makes no mention of a police investigation.

Thirdly, as far as I have seen, no other news source has reported the crime.

Now if anyone having to do with gay activism is guilty of this crime, then they should prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. There is no excuse for arson and damaging someone's property.

However, if it turns out that this is not the case, then it would be no surprise to me. On more than one occasion, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women for America, etc. have distorted a current event to add fire to their claims about a so-called gay conspiracy.

This is clearly demonstrated by the tone of the article, which seems to milk the "gay want tolerance but can't show tolerance" angle that the anti-gay industry plays like a broken record.

The sad thing about the Colorado incident, no matter the outcome, is that the anti-gay industry will most likely use it in press releases and in front of legislative bodies as proof that we in the gay community do not deserve equal protection under the law.

The Depressing Distraction of Comparing Race and Sexual Orientation

Apparently some parents in Philadelphia are upset because school officials had the "audacity" to acknowledge the fact that gays are lesbians are positive contributors of society by declaring October as Gay and Lesbian History Month on the school calendar. (http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?ID=24065)

Inevitably it will probably lead to yet another outcry by some of my fellow African-Americans of the shame of comparing the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s to today's gay rights movement.

Meanwhile same gender loving people of color will yet again be left out in the cold; our needs and visibility will be ignored because of a silly jockeying of moral position.

For the record, I don't like the fact that I hardly ever see any gays or lesbians of color in the cover of the Advocate or that sometimes we get ugly resistance from our fellow gays and lesbians when we put on pride events focusing on our heritage and our needs.

But in all honesty, in the great scheme of things, the methods African-Americans were brutalized is irrelevant when one considers why the brutalization occurred in the first place.

Why indeed were African-Americans victimized in the United States? For that matter, why were over 12 million innocent people slaughtered by the Nazis? Why have Jewish people been the scapegoats throughout the ages.

It is the same reason why thousands of Russians were killed by their own leader Josef Stalin. Or the same reason James Byrd was dragged to death in Texas, the same reason why Billy Joe Gaither, a gay man, was murdered and then set afire, the same reason why Sakia Gunn, an African-American lesbian, was stabbed to death in New York.
It was because of hatred, fear, and the ideas of supremacy and entitlement.

These tainted characteristics are universal. African-Americans have not suffered more than gays, nor have Jews suffered more than African-Americans, et cetera, et cetera.

In short, passing legislation against the gay community because of propaganda that say gays have shorter life spans or that gays molest children at high rates is no different than passing laws based on the idea that African-Americans are inferior or more criminal-minded.

The extent of how one group has been victimized by the hatred of another should never be used as some type of barometer of prominence or status symbol.

Once we lose sight of this, we lose all of our moral integrity.

Being black and gay ain't easy

I see the anti-gay industry had another one of their lovefests in which they patted themselves on the back and criticized everyone else who dares have an opinion that is opposite of their own. (http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/26/anti-gay-summit/)

They call it a Values Voter Summit, but modesty precludes me from calling it what it really is.

But something happened there that really disturbs me.

A black minister, Wellington Boone, actually used a slur to demonize gay people and while it is nothing unusual, it had a deeper meaning for me.

An unfortunate side effect of the election of 2004 is the outreach the anti-gay industry made to black churches. So many of our so-called men of God wanted so much a piece of Bush's "faith based initiative" monies that they gladly attacked the gay community.

And not even with having the decent good taste of being subtle.

I have noticed that black ministers who have joined the anti-gay industry seem to revel in the image of being "attack dogs." Wellington Boone is just one of the new ones.

From DL Foster to Talbert Swann to Ken Hutcherson to Dwight McKissic, some black ministers nationwide are resorting to schoolyard name calling and posturing in order to get their names in press.

They are so wrapped up in their own egos that they don't even see how they are contributing to the problem.

A perfect example would be in my area of South Carolina. One Sunday in a local church (which shall remain nameless) an announcement was made that they had received a substantial monetary grant to educate congregants on HIV and AIDS.

Not less than 30 minutes later, a guest minister stood in the pulpit and inferred that gays are attempting to infiltrate public high schools.

In other words, just how in the hell can this church help stem the flow of HIV when it attacks the very people it should be helping.

For the record, I am a black gay man and I am cynical about the entire thing. A chapter about the hypocrisies of the black church was to be included in my book but I omitted it because I wasn't being fair. I attacked the black church but in all honesty that is only part of the problem.

As long as the mainstream gay community continue to play that diversionary game of "should we or should we not compare the civil rights movement and the gay rights movement" black gays and lesbians will be left out.

As long as we push visual heroes like Lance Bass, Ellen DeGeneres and Rosie O'Donnell without giving any acknowledgement to folks like Keith Boykin, Nadine Smith or Mandy Carter, we are only adding to the problem.

Black gays and lesbians should receive visibility and support but the black church ain't gonna give it to them.

The gay community needs to take up the slack.

Linda Harvey - Phony Expert

I see that Linda Harvey of Mission America is striking again (http://joebrummer.com/WordPress/?p=392)

For the luck of those who do not know, Linda Harvey considers herself a Christian and an expert of the gay community. God will decide on the first, but I will decide on the latter.

This woman has no idea what she is talking about. She spouts homophobia in the guise of expert opinion. She has a history of doing this:

"When people have views supporting homosexuality they should not be involved with youth in any way, period. Because they:
will provide inaccurate, misleading information to kids;
may limit a student’s opportunity to hear warnings about the behavior;
may advocate or model inappropriate behavior;
may be directly involved in the molestation of kids themselves; or
may be in a position to allow others to do so” - Linda Harvey, Fairy Tales Don’t Come True, February 13, 2006

Linda Harvey is a perfect example of an anti-gay industry propaganda technique; that of the phony expert. As far as I know, Harvey has no training or any degrees in assessing gay people. Her biggest attribute is her picture, which casts her as a wholesome mother figure in the guise of June Cleaver.

The anti-gay industry generally don’t recruit third, unbiased parties in their fact gathering. They create their own experts on the subject of homosexuality. And these phony experts, usually in-house employees or some with affiliations to religious conservative organizations, already have anti-gay biases.

Certainly everything they say and do will put homosexuality in a bad light, whether deserved or not, because that is what they are getting paid for. These so-called experts, like Timothy Dailey, Robert Knight, Peter LaBarbera, or Linda Harvey, have no training or background in what they claim to have expert opinions in. It seems that their titles are dependent on how well they look in the media, or how adept they can apply spin.

And then there are people like John R. Diggs.

The following excerpt about Diggs is from my upcoming book:

Some of the most dangerous spreaders of anti-gay propaganda are those masquerade their distortions under the guise of being an objective medical practitioner. While people such as Fred Phelps declare where they stand from the first instant, these “ministers of propaganda” seek to soothe their audience, taking the form of a concerned physician while they spread their biases and lies. It is this crowd that can potentially have more of a damaging effect on how America sees the gay community.

Dr. John R. Diggs is one of these false objective medical practitioners.

He published a study entitled The Health Risks of Gay Sex and it is featured on many so-called “pro-family” web sites as a thorough analysis of gay sex. While Diggs is an M.D., he is also co-chair of the Massachusetts Physician Resource Council, which is a part of the Massachusetts Family Institute, another so-called traditional values organization. Despite his credentials, Diggs’s real aim is to smear gays and lesbians.

The Health Risks of Gay Sex is a distortion-ridden research propaganda piece in the vein of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (the legendary piece of propaganda that claimed that Jewish people were attempting to take over the world) that seeks to exploit fears and stereotypes about gays and lesbians. Since he is taking the guise of a “concerned professional,” Diggs does not push forth any conspiracy theories, nor does he dehumanize homosexuals by calling them “radical” and the like.

However, the distortions in this study just do not hold up under close scrutiny:

Twice, he includes the study done by Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg in their book, Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women, as indicative of the entire gay population. In one passage, he even refers to it as “a far ranging study of homosexual men . . .” But Bell and Weinberg never said that their findings were indicative of all gay men. They actually said “. . . given the variety of circumstances which discourage homosexuals from participating in research studies, it is unlike that any investigator will ever be in a position to say that this or that is true of a given percentage of all homosexuals.”

Diggs cites a Canadian study twice in order to claim that gays have a shorter lifespan than heterosexuals. But his citation of the study is a mischaracterization. In 2001, the six original researchers (Robert S. Hogg, Stefan A. Strathdee, Kevin J.P. Craib, Michael V. O’Shaughnessy, Julion Montaner, and Martin T. Schechter) who conducted that study have gone on record saying that religious conservatives (like Diggs) were distorting their work.

In another section entitled Physical Health, Diggs claims that gays are victims of “gay bowel syndrome.” The term is an obsolete medical term. exist and even the CDC does not use it. In fact, if one was to look at the endnotes of Diggs’ study, he would find that two of the sources he quoted concerning “gay bowel syndrome” were from articles in published in 1976 and 1983, which is consistent with the years that the term existed. One last source was a letter to the editor printed in 1994 but Diggs does not make it clear as to what were the circumstances surrounding it.

Approaching 500 hits

As my hits approach 500, again I would like to thank everyone for having an interest in my work. I thought I would forgo my usual diatribe and go into more detail as to the creation of the book Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters.

My book is the culmination of a two year study of anti-gay industry studies and reports about our community.

In actuality, it is a book that's over ten years in the making for me.

I think that as some of us get older, we forget how it is to first come out and to try find correct information as to who we are and what our futures hold. I can remember how when in college I was attempting to find good information on the gay community, I kept getting saddled by the lies of Paul Cameron, etc. It depressed me to no end how housewives and others portrayed by the media as "ordinary American citizens" would repeat Cameron's information as fact. It was devastating to my sense of self esteem to have some housewife who did not know me portray me as the "other" or the "threat" to her family.

Luckily my first boyfriend was very well read and he provided me with material that told the truth about Cameron's lies and how the anti-gay industry spreads propaganda about us.

As the years went by, my depression gave way to anger. It was anger at how these so-called moral people would tell lies on me and mine and how those who have leadership positions in the gay community seemed to not be as aggressive as they should have been in calling out Cameron, Gary Bauer, Robert Knight, etc.

And that is where I am now. I do believe that our survival lies in not only telling the true story about our lives but pointing out (in an unapologetically aggressive manner) how people like Peter LaBarbera, DL Foster, Robert Knight, Lou Sheldon, etc. lie on an almost daily basis about who we are.

In short, I have said it once and I will say it again: the gay rights movement needs more Genghises than Gandhis. We need aggressive intelligent people who will challenge the anti-gay industry and the so-called "pro family" groups and make them explain things like why they continue to use Paul Cameron's work or why have at least 10 researchers have complained about how their work is being misused.

I hope my book will be one of the first steps of this endeavor. Seeing that it is my first book, I will be self publishing it myself via Cafe Press. I email the sources, ask permission for the usage of work, design the front cover and will handle all of the press for the book. I will also pay for the publication of the book.

To me, this is a strategic step not designed for profit but to shift the so-called cultural war to the point as to where it should be.

We should not have to explain our lives to people like Dobson, Sheldon, etc.

They should be explaining their desire to lie about the gay community not just to us but to the American public at large.