Huge plans for Memorial Day weekend

Is it just me or does my blog look screwy? For some reason, the side links are on the bottom of the posts.

I'm probably overworked. That's why (barring something really good courtesy of the religious right), I won't post anymore today.

I will start posting again tomorrow morning. And don't forget that I will also be posting another segment of "Know Your LGBT History" tomorrow afternoon.

Speaking of which, the Memorial Day holiday is this weekend and I have huge plans for my blogs including a massive amounts of updates on Antigay Lies and Liars and something I like to call "The Top Ten Most Anti-Gay Statements."

Also, I am chasing down a very interesting situation that ocurred a while back involving our favorite discredited researcher Paul Cameron and a foreign tour he tried to undertake.

Meanwhile, bear with me while I try to figure out this thing with my blog.

Thursday midday news briefs

Hey opposition: Stop. Dumbing. Everything. Down! - Like harpies, the religious right swoop down to New Hampshire to spread lies.

The White House "answers" The Advocate's question about DOMA - Get with it, President Obama. I'm a pragmatic person but even I have limits.

Heath's bar: Examining the verbal diarrhea of Maine's head anti-gay - Losing the so-called culture war is making the opposition crazy.

One gay discharge cost military $25 million - If folks can understand fairness, maybe they can understand the loss of money.

Question ready for foes of gay marriage - I don't like the question. It sounds loaded.

Sick leave act would aid gay families - Good news for a blah day.

No white flags: protect pastors, not pedophiles - Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition lies about hate crimes legislation again.

Crazy person is glad that Adam Lambert lost American Idol

I'm rarely speechless when talking about some people's behavior in this so-called culture war. This is one of those times.

When watching this video, keep repeating to yourself "it's not a parody . . . it's not a parody"



And this is not the first anti-gay video made by this person.

When my online buddy Jeremy from Goodasyou posted one of these videos yesterday, I told him that I was going to steal it for my post. The reason being that this video was just too crazy NOT to spread around

It make the "Gathering Storm" commercial look like Lawrence of Arabia.



My guess is that the next video will target Bugs Bunny for his cross dressing as well as criticize that special sadomaschistic relationship between Popeye and Bluto.

Another flawed piece of work courtesy of the Family Research Council

Via People for the American Way comes the news that the Family Research Council is selling its study Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples for a mere two dollars.

The "study" takes the semblance of credible research but its aim, like all things coming from FRC, is to stigmatize lgbts and our relationships.

For one thing, the study is irrelevant because lgbts can now marry in five states. This fact emphasizes the point that the study is comparing apples and oranges (i.e. unmarried lgbt couples and married heterosexual couples) .

Even if this fact was ignored, the study, authored by phony gay "expert" Timothy Dailey, is very flawed because it takes a lot of research out of context.

I've talked about the flaws of Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples a few times.

The most recent time was in a January post which showed that the study was using outdated work, including:

- A citation of the book Homosexualities: A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women by Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg as a correct generalization of lgbt sexual habits despite the fact that it was written in 1978 and was not meant by the authors to be a correct assessment of the lgbt community in general.

A passage from 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.”

- A citation of the book The Male Couple: How Relationships Develop by David P. McWhirter and Andrew M. Mattison despite the fact that the book was written 1984 and was not meant to be a correct assessment of the lgbt community in general.

A passage from The Male Couple says:

“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.”

In addition to outdated work, the study also distorts the work of researchers Timothy Biblarz and Judith Stacey to make the case against children being raised in lgbt homes.

Claims regarding the numbers of children being raised in homosexual and lesbian households vary widely and are often unsubstantiated. According to a study on homosexual parenting in the American Sociological Review, researchers have given figures "of uncertain origin, depicting a range of...6 to 14 million children of gay or lesbian parents in the United States."

According to the study's authors, Judith Stacey and Timothy J. Biblarz, the higher estimates are based upon "classifying as a lesbigay [sic] parent anyone who reports that even the idea of homoerotic sex is appealing." Instead, the authors favor a figure of about one million, which "derives from the narrower...definition of a lesbigay parent as one who self-identifies as such."

However, FRC and Dailey conveniently fails to mention that Stacey and Biblarz's study found:

. . . that lesbian and gay parents were as competent as heterosexual parents. The article did note some differences between families with gay and lesbian parents and those with heterosexual parents, but was careful to emphasize that these were differences, not deficits. Many of those opposing parenting rights for lesbian and gay people seized on these differences, using them to assert that gay and lesbian parents were not as effective as heterosexual parents.

Furthermore, during an interview with the organization Soulforce, Stacey complained about the distortion of her work:

"Significant, reliable social scientific evidence indicates that lesbian and gay parents are as fit, effective, and successful as heterosexual parents. The research also shows that children of same-sex couples are as emotionally healthy and socially adjusted and at least as educationally and socially successful as children raised by heterosexual parents."

Later in the interview she commented: "There is not a single, respectable social scientist conducting and publishing research in this area today who claims that gay and lesbian parents harm children." She explained that the research does find some differences between families with gay and lesbian parents and those with heterosexual parents, but emphasized that they are differences, not deficits. For example, daughters of lesbian moms tend to be somewhat more career-oriented than other daughters. That antigay activists had cited these differences as evidence supporting their efforts to deny partnership and parenting rights to lesbians and gays was for Stacey "a serious misreading and abuse of our work."

To give an exact impression of badly Dailey manipulates credible research in the study, I am taking the examples he lists showing the so-called promiscuity of lgbt relationships as opposed to heterosexual marriages and comparing them side by side.

Wednesday midday news briefs

Word on the Street: Thursday May Be Prop 8 Decision Day! - I am dreading this day for a number of reasons and I've been in heavy prayer because of it. I am hoping that the ruling falls in our favor but if it doesn't, here's hoping the counterproductive actions by members of our community is kept to a minimum. When Proposition 8 was passed, the religious right had a field day because many of us vented with as much fury as we should have used to keep the law from passing.

What's with the component of our community who will not plan or strategize but will be first in line to act the fool when things don't go as they want it. Someone was remarking on another site about how should the ruling go against us, folks should act wild because history isn't made by well-behaved people. While this last saying may be true, he forgot to mention that history is determined by winners. Let's get in the winning mode here.

The idea of Maggie Gallagher and company salivating on how they spin our behavior should the ruling fall against us leaves me cold.

Gay Marriage Slow to Draw an Opposition in N.Y. - speaking of winning, let's remember that it's not all about California

Equality for All Now: The Dallas Principles... join us - Speaking of strategizing, this is what I am talking about

First Women's Media Center Awards taps Amanpour, Maddow...and your blogmistress - Congratulations to my online buddy Pam Spaulding for a much deserved honor.

ACLU Sues To Stop Censoring Of Gay Web Sites - Go ACLU!!

RNC’s Michael Steele makes “weird” reference to Barney Frank - Oh no he didn't!! Where's my razor!!! (Editor's note - THAT was a joke)

Vallejo schools to pay $25,000 to lesbian teen, modify policies - See what happens when you hurt our children. Gotta get up off of the money!

GLSEN basking in spotlight, a la Mrs. Biden - And because we all need fiber in our diets, a pitiful attack on GLSEN courtesy of One News Now and our friend Peter LaBarbera.

NOM makes it three failures in a row

Check out this new video from the National Organization for Marriage. Apparently after the Gathering Storm and Carrie Prejean debacle, the group is now punch drunk.

That's the only way I can describe the idiocy behind this commercial.



Maybe NOM is really a sleeper organization created to destroy the anti-marriage equality movement from the inside.

But since reality tells us that the most logical assumption is always the correct one - NOM is simply an organization full of folks who don't know their heads from their asses.

Press conference justifies my faith in South Carolina

While lgbts around the country are tussling over issues like marriage equality and Don't Ask, Don't Tell, South Carolina's lgbt community took a stand against a bill with an added amendment designed to exclude us.

Last week, a bill was pushed through the SC House of Representatives that required schools to create teen dating violence prevention policies.

The bill was a good idea, but it got tainted when a state representative, Greg Delleney, pushed an amendment through requiring the bill to pertain to only heterosexual relationships.

Delleney said he did this because he was afraid that without this requirement, schools would have to teach children about same-sex relationships.

That's why a group 0f us along with two other state representatives, Ken Kennedy and Gilda Cobb-Hunter, held a press conference today.

There were so many things I liked about the press conference: we had a good crowd, good media participation, and it is playing well on television.

Also, the comments section on our local news page's webpage is buzzing and it looks like folks understand our point of view.

So all in all, the press conference was a success in garnering positive attention.

But for me as a gay black South Carolinian, there were more successes today.

Both legislators who spoke at our press conference were African-American and they both personalized the issues.

Their acknowledgements weren't the usual "we stand with gays in the spirit of the civil rights movement" statement that the lgbt community sometimes receives from black allies.

Kennedy said that he has lgbt relatives in his family and the issue affects them.

Cobb-Hunter's speech was also excellent but she did something that I will never forget. Before the press conference started, she turned to us and said "thank you for standing up and showing everyone that this is your house too."

I'm ashamed to admit (it's my pride - sue me already) that when she said this, I was very close to tears.

It feels damn good to be respected for who you are instead of having to fight the petty stereotypes that people have of you.

So I guess I went away from the press conference feeling good about South Carolina. This state gets a lot of flack when it comes to gay rights.

While a lot is justified, I hate it when people say things like "South Carolina is so homophobic" and "Gays need to move away."

I've never had any use for people who say things like this; those folks who, when faced with a huge wall of ignorance or intolerance, will either throw up their hands in defeated resignation or wrap themselves up in the shroud of indifference and apathy.

I love this state and intend to fight for my place in it despite the fact that it may seem like a lost cause.

Sometimes lost causes are the best things to fight for because they aren't lost at all but only misplaced.

I learned that lesson today.

So what happens now?

My guess is that the bill will be taken up again tomorrow by the state Senate but won't pass. Apparently our beloved Governor Sanford vetoed the entire state budget so all attention will be focused on that.

Who would've thought that Governor No would be good for something?

It's just a day of miracles.

Editor's Note - The South Carolina Progressive Network, South Carolina Equality, SC Pride Movement, and the Columbia chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays deserve huge kudos for pulling the press conference together. Harriet Hancock of PFLAG also deserve big kudos for speaking at the press conference.