Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters

Monday, December 13, 2010

Family Research Council digging itself deeper in the hole in war against hate group label

If you want more proof of the Family Research Council's anti-gay bias, check out this exchange between organization members Tony Perkins and Peter Sprigg, courtesy of People for the American Way:

Perkins: So it's really an act of desperation. They've been on the defensive for slapping the label on the Family Research Council and there's some stuff coming out in the days ahead that is really going to push back and put them even more so on the defensive.

But let me zero in on some of the issues they bring up. As I stated earlier, it's all old stuff that's been out there for a long time, so it makes the timing of this very, very questionable. But one of the issues that seems to bother them the most, which I've had to debate now on a couple of TV programs, is the connection between - and this is what the social science, peer-reviewed data shows - a correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia. That seems to be a real problem for them.

Sprigg: Exactly. And yet it's important to spell out what we're saying and what we're not saying on that issue ...

Perkins: It's not what we're saying; it's what the social science professionals ... we take the date, we kind of break it down and communicate it to policy makers, but this is not research we've done.

Sprigg: Oh no, we've just surveyed the research that has been done. Although what's problematic is that a lot of time the researchers are unwilling to accept the logical conclusions of their own findings.

No doubt Sprigg is hinting on the complaints by researchers such as (Judith Stacey, John Horgan, Gary Remafedi, as well as many others) who have voiced objections on numerous occasions to the religious right groups - like FRC - distorting their work to push a phony notion that "homosexuality is a dangerous lifestyle."

The Family Research Council tries to declare war on the Southern Poverty Law Center

Rumor control has it that the Family Research Council is taking its war against the Southern Poverty Law Center to another level.

FRC is supposedly launching a Start Debating, Stop Hating campaign designed to make it seem that SPLC is unfairly targeting the organization and other religious right groups for their stances against gay marriage.

For the record, SPLC is not targeting FRC nor any other religious right groups for their stances against gay marriage, but for their continued pushing of anti-gay falsehoods and propaganda which has been refuted more times than many of us have fingers to count.

But leave it to the Family Research Council make an attempt to obscure the issue.

On its webpage, FRC has a statement announcing the campaign. The organization is also inviting folks to sign its petition.

FRC's statement was nice but I felt that it needed work, therefore I made a few minor additions that I think puts proper perspective not only on FRC but the other organizations which were either named as hate groups or profiled.

Parts of FRC's statement are in bold and my "tweaking" is below each statement:

The surest sign one is losing a debate is to resort to character assassination.

" . . . hatred for men, which is very typical of a lesbian experience" - Kristi Hamrick, October 16, 1996, Family Research Council web site.

"Homosexuals say they don't want the children, but boy they put a lot of energy into going after them." - Robert Knight of the Family Research Council writing in a Focus on the Family newsletter, quoted by People for the American Way, "Hostile Climate," 1997, p.15

"The homosexual rights movement has tried to distance itself from pedophilia, but only for public relations purposes." - "Homosexual Activists Work to Normalize Sex With Boys," FRC publication, July 1999

Peter LaBarbera's ramblings exposes the Family Research Council's deception

Leave it to Peter LaBarbera to unwittingly call the Family Research Council a liar.

LaBarbera is no doubt still smarting from his organization being called an anti-gay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Now one of the main reasons why SPLC named LaBarbera's organization, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, as a hate group (as well as several other religious right groups) is because they continue to push many falsehoods about the lgbt community. One in particular is the notion that homosexuality and pedophilia are related. The SPLC said this is not true:

According to the American Psychological Association, “homosexual men are not more likely to sexually abuse children than heterosexual men are.” Gregory Herek, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who is one of the nation’s leading researchers on prejudice against sexual minorities, reviewed a series of studies and found no evidence that gay men molest children at higher rates than heterosexual men.

Anti-gay activists who make that claim allege that all men who molest male children should be seen as homosexual. But research by A. Nicholas Groth, a pioneer in the field of sexual abuse of children, shows that is not so. Groth found that there are two types of child molesters: fixated and regressive. The fixated child molester — the stereotypical pedophile — cannot be considered homosexual or heterosexual because “he often finds adults of either sex repulsive” and often molests children of both sexes. Regressive child molesters are generally attracted to other adults, but may “regress” to focusing on children when confronted with stressful situations. Groth found that the majority of regressed offenders were heterosexual in their adult relationships.

The Child Molestation Research and Prevention Institute notes that 90% of child molesters target children in their network of family and friends. Most child molesters, therefore, are not gay people lingering outside schools waiting to snatch children from the playground, as much religious-right rhetoric suggests.

However, LaBarbera in advertising his recent appearance on a Concerned Women for America radio program said the following:

I challenge the SPLC’s “hate” criterion chastising any group that says homosexuals are disproportionately involved in child molestation. (I ask why there are so many boy victims of pedophilia if homosexual men comprise such a tiny percentage of society; I assume few boys are molested by women.)

I won't even begin to ponder where LaBarbera looked to find the photo of the pedophilia magazine he used on his webpage to illustrate his point.

But I will point out that LaBarbera, who has absolutely no training in the field of pediatrics, child welfare, or the prevention of child sex abuse, seems to think that he is more skilled to make a correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia than those who do have adequate training in these fields. I think that the statement by the Southern Poverty Law Center (using the statements of legitimate groups and researchers) is more than enough to refute his nonsense.

But here is the thing that's interesting about LaBarbera's need to bring up pedophilia and homosexuality - doesn't it contradict the recent whinings of the Family Research Council concerning SPLC's labeling of them and other religious right groups - LaBarbera's included - as hate groups?

FRC claims that SPLC is trying to "shut down the discussion" by labeling them simply because they stand the for the so-called "Judeo-Christian" definition of marriage:

The surest sign one is losing a debate is to resort to character assassination. The Southern Poverty Law Center, a liberal fundraising machine whose tactics have been condemned by observers across the political spectrum, is doing just that.

The group, which was once known for combating racial bigotry, is now attacking several groups that uphold Judeo-Christian moral views, including marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

I fail to see how the covert labeling of gay men as pedophiles aligns with "Judeo-Christian moral views." But if the inaccurate linking of homosexuality and pedophilia isn't a huge part of this controversy, then why did LaBarbera feel the need to bring it up?

The lgbt community owes LaBarbera a degree of thanks for his ignorant stridency. He has proved that FRC's claim is merely a talking point designed to obscure and deceive.

Make no mistake about it. SPLCs' designation has nothing to do with gay marriage and more to do with groups passing along propaganda and lies under the guise of Christianity. It's not about trying to shut down "Judeo-Christian" beliefs and more to do with exposing those who would exploit these beliefs to cage the lgbt community or make us pariahs to ourselves and the mainstream community at large.

This issue is about bearing false witness, an ugly sin but one which FRC and other religious right groups - LaBarbera's included - are committing with unrestrained glee.

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Do not censor religious right groups. Demand that they answer questions

I am in TOTAL disagreement with other lgbt activists (such as Dan Savage) who think that the news media shouldn't have religious right organizations on their shows on the grounds that their opinions are akin to those of the Ku Klux Klan.

It's not that I don't agree with the root part of this argument. Just like the Klan demonizes African-Americans based on ignorance, fear, and (in some extreme cases) religion, religious right groups do the same to the lgbt community.

But I think veteran newscaster Tom Brokaw put it best:

Asked how antigay views should be presented, he said, “You just say that they’ve got strong opinions. You treat like them like anyone else. You cross-examine and ask them the right questions.”

That's the thing which as been solely missing from this controversy regarding the religious right and the lgbt community. No one in the lgbt community has issued a clear plan of attack. It has been a morass of words thrown around, such as "bigots" and "haters, and tangents devoted to the issue of gay marriage or sidetracked to the larger issue of condemnation of the Christian religion.

And in the middle of this complicated muddle, religious right groups zero in on one issue, i.e. censorship, and begin to control the debate.

This issue is not about gay marriage per se, nor is it about condemnation of religion. It's about the intentional propagation of falsehoods and junk science in order to smear a group of people.

Therefore demanding that the news media keep people like Tony Perkins or groups like the Family Research Council off television is extremely counterproductive. It gives the inaccurate notion that somehow their ideas are so truthful that the lgbt community is fearful of letting them be heard.

Instead, we need to demand that certain questions be asked. For example:

"Mr Perkins, why did your organization freely and unapologetically cite the work Paul Cameron, a discredited researcher who thinks that gay men stuff gerbils up their rectums?"

"Why do religious right groups continue to cite a 1997 study to claim that gays have a short lifespan when in 2001, the researchers of the study complained that you all were distorting their work? To be more specific, why do religious right group ignore legitimate researchers who complain about how they distort their work?"

"Mr. Perkins, why did your organization remove several anti-gay studies from your web page on the grounds that they used outdated studies? And this being the case, why did you cite those supposed "outdated" studies in works that do appear on your pages?"

Or even better, demand that the news media interview some of us on their shows when they have people like Perkins on. The lgbt community is a bit more intelligent and sophisticated than we were in the past in terms of calling attention to how religious right groups lie. We should be chomping at the bit to confront them on national television and making them spell out in exact terms why their distortions and junk science are accurate.

But instead of relishing the thought of a public feud, we seem to be backtracking from it or trying to sidestep it.

The lgbt community should take note of the recent hell President Obama has been getting from progressives about his need to compromise with the GOP. Just like it seems that President Obama has been reluctant to get into a war with the bullies of the GOP, the lgbt community seems to be reluctant to get into a needed fight with our bullies, i.e. the religious right.

But whereas as Obama tries to compromise with the GOP, the lgbt community seem to view the media as our parents and we run to them crying that they keep the big, bad bullies of the religious right from picking on us.

The media is not the parents of the lgbt community and it's not their job to stop the religious right from picking on us via their lies. It's our job to call them out and not just with words like "bigots," but with demands that they either explain their propagation of lies (such as linking homosexuality to pedophilia or claiming that gays caused the Holocaust) or apologize for them.

But we can't do this adequately without calling them out.

Doesn't anyone think that it's time we started?

Friday, December 10, 2010

Know Your LGBT History - Dirty Laundry

Fox News try to help the Family Research Council dodge the truth and other Friday midday news briefs

The conservative movement covers for FRC at its own peril - Fox News trying to help the Family Research Council dodge its anti-gay hate group status. Isn't that like a werewolf helping a vampire to prick a neck?

Milk's friends aghast at HRC store plans - I'm sorry but I agree with HRC here. And they will be giving a portion of the proceeds away to pro-lgbt causes. What's wrong with that? Lastly, if folks are all up arms about it, then let them buy the property. Don't get me started on folks always wanting to complain about things but can never offer positive solutions.

3,000 Catholic Anti-Gay Marriage DVDs Returned to Archbishop - I can think of no better way of protesting an anti-gay dvd but to send it back to the source. Loud and heavy applause for those involved in this effort.

Let’s Spin This, and Let’s Spin it Right: Against Republicans - Zach Ford nails what the lgbt community needs to do after the failure to break the anti-DADT repeal filibuster yesterday. It's an excellent plan and VERY simple, that is if the community can get off of its bitching towels to get it done. In a war, every victory and every loss is an opportunity for a future victory. And if you don't think that getting lgbt equality hasn't been a war, then you have been asleep.

Aberdeen teen, ACLU file suit claiming years of bullying at school - Go ACLU!

Religious right doesn't want lgbt children to have parental support

A new study has come out saying that lgbt youth who receive support from their parents are less likely to engage in destructive behaviors such as suicide or substance abuse.

According to U.S. News and World Reports, the study which appears in Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing:

. . .also found that those adolescents with highly accepting families have much higher levels of self-esteem and social support when they're young adults.

The study included 245 white and Hispanic LGBT young adults, aged 21 to 25, in California who were open about their sexual orientation to at least one parent or caregiver during adolescence.

Examples of positive parental and caregiver support include supporting their gender expression or advocating for their children when they are mistreated because of their LGBT identity.

However, leave it to the folks at the American Family Association's One News Now to object to the study. And what makes the phony news publication's objection more shameful is that it doesn't even try to refute what the study says. Instead, it quotes Dr. Andre Van Mol, a private physician in California. Mol calls the study "indoctrination":

"This is ideology and indoctrination in high gear, and it carries with it the implicit [threat] 'or else your kid will kill themselves,' which is ridiculous," contends Dr. Andre Van Mol, a family physician in private practice in Redding, California.

. . . "Love is not the same as enablement and co-dependency," counters Van Mol. "A parent can fully love and accept their [LGBT] teen, give them a safe home where they know that they as a person are accepted, and still have it be known that their parents feel that acting out on that sexual orientation will be an inherently negative thing," he suggests. "I don't think that's contradictory."

The family physician goes on to tell OneNewsNow the study pushes the fruits of a strategy to take over the medical field with the ideology and indoctrination of homosexuality.

I think it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Mol doesn't know what he is talking about.

Apparently One News Now isn't alone in raising an objection about the study:

In a November commentary, Christopher Doyle of the support group Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX)calls efforts to scare parents into embracing their children’s sexual behavior for fear of suicide “minority stress” theory propagated by gay activists.

Even in gay-tolerant cultures, the occurrence of suicidal behavior is much higher among homosexuals than heterosexuals,” he explained.

Doyle, an ex-gay and PFOX board member, cited a 2006 study of homosexuals in the Netherlands, which was the first country to legalize same-sex marriage. Gay men were five times and lesbian women were 10 times more likely to contemplate suicide than heterosexuals. Another study found that a lower level of social hostility toward homosexuals in the Netherlands and Denmark compared with the U.S. was not associated with a lower level of psychiatric problems among homosexuals in these European countries.

Of course Doyle is inaccurate. The "studies" (actually there weren't two different studies. The article in the Christian Post is inaccurate. There was only one study) Doyle referred to was the work of Dr. Theo Sandfort. In an email written last year, Sandfort objected to how his work has been distorted.

On the whole, this entire needless controversy is a perfect example of how religious right groups operate. Was it really necessary for them to object? Common sense tells one that children who receive love and support from their family tend to have less problems with self-esteem. And we all know that unfortunately in some homes, lgbt children are robbed of that crucial support system because of the real fear that they will be rejected by their parents or even worse, kicked out on the streets.

The study just affirms this. But leave it to the religious right to object solely on grounds that the lgbt identity is involved. And according to them, the study has nothing to do with making sure that lgbt children are safe and sound, but some evil plan by "gay activists" to force acceptance of homosexuality.

Such an idea is devoid of not only common sense, but basic Christian decency and kindness.

The sad irony is that without parental support, lgbt children are more likely to engage in behaviors such as suicide and substance abuse, and thereby become a statistic eagerly cited by religious right figures such as Tony Perkins and Peter Sprigg regarding the so-called "dangers of homosexuality."

One can't help thinking that the only reason why the religious right objects to parents giving support to lgbt children is due to the cold fact that depressed, drug addicted lgbt youth are of more use to them than happy lgbt youth.

Related posts:

One News Now, Matt Barber dehumanizes recent suicide victims

Why can't the religious right stop denigrating gay suicide victims?

Phony Christians shedding crocodile tears over the bullying of lgbt teens

Monday, December 13, 2010

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Friday, December 10, 2010