Analyzing and refuting the inaccuracies lodged against the lgbt community by religious conservative organizations. Lies in the name of God are still lies.
The religious right have been very measured about Spirit Day. Other than the following stupid comment from Brian Raum of the Alliance Defense Fund, they have been silent:
"We should not turn a blind eye to the physical and mental harms that people engaged in homosexual conduct bring upon themselves by chalking those harms up to 'stigma, discrimination, and victimization'—demanding more health studies and changes to the medical system—rather than dare ask people to reconsider the path they are traveling down. Instead, we tell them 'it gets better' when, in fact, it does not."
If you visit Facebook today, or Twitter, or Tumblr, there's a good chance you'll be seeing purple.
October 20th is Spirit Day -- a celebration begun one year ago by a teenager named Brittany McMillan to honor the memory of young people who have taken their lives after being bullied.
It has become a day when people all over the world wear purple to show support for LGBT people and speak out against the bullying of LGBT teens.
In 2010, millions participated.
This year, the White House is going purple on Facebook, as well. You can also join the celebration by making your social networking icon purple, or just adding a statement of support.
And October 20th is also a day to remember that it does get better.
And of course, the page contains a message from President Obama, Vice President Biden, and the White House staff. It's an old message but VERY appropriate:
Fox News, Keith Ablow Misinform About Transgender Child - It's like I've been saying. Sooner or later Fox News will turn its guns of misinformation fully on the gay community. Can you picture a future where the network conducts a one-sided interview with Peter Sprig on his junk science studies or pushing the phony idea that Paul Cameron is a "victim" of the gay community? This is merely cocktail canape right now.
PFOX caught in yet another spinjob; also, grass still green - When I first saw this, I was about to go into ORBIT! Thank you Jeremy Hooper for showing PFOX's claim to be a lie. Giving FRC's Peter Sprigg "special thanks" for serving on a school board is like giving a wolf an award for quickly killing a lamb before eating it.
I've come to the conclusion that the "former ad executive who found Jesus" Linda Harvey is the homophobic version of the Designing Women character Suzanne Sugarbaker, but light on the charm and extra heavy on the crazy.
How do you feel about open homosexuals tending to your child in a health care setting? Do you think these folks provide good role modeling at a time when your child is very vulnerable? I was thinking about this recently when I heard that Children’s Hospital in Columbus has a homosexual employees group called NCHARGE, which stands for Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s Advocates Representing Gay Employees. The meeting minutes of this groups reveal that they participated in last June’s gay pride parade, that they participated in a health expo on adolescent health this summer and that they’re concerned about same-sex partner benefits. They’re also planning to be identified with rainbow lapel pins.
But let’s say your eleven year-old has broken her leg rather badly and needs to be in the hospital a few days, which would you prefer: a nurse who’s proud of her lesbianism, who has rainbow identifiers on her work clothing, or a nurse who does not?
I would like to suggest that parents think long and hard about this. If you want your children to admire people who proclaim a homosexual lifestyle, they’re involvement with your child during a hospital stay is sure to be an influence. And let me be clear that folks involved in these behaviors can be certainly competent workers but they are tacking on to their workplace identity one that is highly offensive to many people and can be erroneously influential to children who won’t, or shouldn’t, see the whole picture of how this behavior really manifests itself.
Here’s what parents can do: select your pediatrician very carefully, first of all. There are a few homosexual doctors treating kids, there are far more nurses, LPNs, technicians and other health care workers in these lifestyles so you may want to consider writing a letter that you file with your pediatrician that should your child ever be hospitalized, you do not want your child to be treated or cared for by one of these members of the Children’s Hospital gay employees group except in the case of an emergency situation. But for routine in-hospital care where contact with your child would be required, your values should be respected.
Harvey confuses the hell out of me. A while back, she claimed that gay people don't exist. So if there are no gay people, then there can be no gay doctors. And if there are no gay doctors, then parents are "worrying" needlessly, aren't they?
I know you all want to say rude things about Harvey, but don't. As for me, I've long stopped getting upset at Harvey's comments.
I now look at her as our friend. Nay, she is one of our best ally in fighting the religious right.
You see, there are people like Tony Perkins, Brian Brown, Maggie Gallagher, and Peter Sprigg who formulate the deceptive idea gays are aggressive bullies and that we aren't the targets of some folks attempting to push us back in the closet.
They come with junk science, half-baked anecdotes, and carefully phrased talking points designed to obscure the truth.
But Harvey lets her homophobic "freak flag fly." Forget the talking points, Harvey just flat don't like us and is not afraid to say it.
She is the true face of the religious right and thus the face we need to remind people of when they come with their phony stories of "bullying gays" or "religious persecution."
Harvey voices what a lot of them actually think. As more Americans see and hear of people like Harvey, they will get a correct indication of what the gay community has to deal with day after day after day.
So at least try to suppress your desires to call Harvey every name in the book. Try not to get too angry at her nonsensical claims.
Rep. Mike Honda (D-CA), the ranking member on the House Legislative Branch Appropriations Subcommittee, is requesting a hearing on House Speaker’s John Boehner’s (R-OH) “irresponsible, backdoor use of taxpayer money to pay the private law firm Bancroft PLLC to represent the House in support of the constitutionally-questionable Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA),” he announced in a press release. The legal team that Boehner and the Republicans hired has come under harsh criticism for arguing that homosexuality is a choice, misrepresenting research, and relying on such experts as ex-gay advocate George Rekers and the National Organization for Marriage’s Maggie Gallagher. House Democrats are also calling on Boehner to hold a a briefing on his efforts, which are have cost taxpayers more than a million dollars.
The continued defense of DOMA is slow-moving train wreck which continues to pick up speed.
From a favorite site of mine, Box Turtle Bulletin, comes news that an old adversary of the gay community is taking a trip to Moldavia:
Scott Long, former director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, has learned that American anti-gay extremist Paul Cameron is headed to Moldova to oppose proposed anti-discrimination legislation which would include sexual orientation. Long writes:
Moldova is a splinter of a country between Romania and Ukraine, a point of contention between Russians, Turks, and others for centuries, and one of the poorest states in Europe. An anti-discrimination bill that prohibits unequal treatment on grounds including sexual orientation is before its Parliament, due for debate at month’s end.
In the days before the debate starts, Paul Cameron is coming to town. An e-mail from the Alianţa pentru Salvarea Familiilor din Moldova (Alliance to Save the Family in Moldova) announces that the “U.S. sociologist, founder and president of Family Research Institute” will stay from October 24-29, and “will share the U.S. experience in implementing anti-discrimination legislation.” There will be a roundtable with “representatives of various parliamentary committees, ministries and other institutions of the state,” plenty of lobby meetings with lawmakers — and, of course, media will be saturated with Cameron’s fake statistics.
For the younger folks in the gay community and for the rest of the folks who may not be aware of Paul Cameron, allow me to introduce you to a little bit of sordid anti-gay history. Every lie, every piece of distorted of junk science about the gay community, even some ways in which religious right groups distort actual science to demonize the gay community were either formulated or "improved upon" by Paul Cameron.
He is the man is responsible for pushing the following myths about the gay community:
Lesbians are more likely to die in car wrecks,
Gay men molest children at a high rate and are more likely to be serial killers,
Gay men stuff gerbils up their rectums,
Gays and lesbians in the military are more likely to rape their heterosexual counterparts.
Basically, it was Cameron who in the 80s came up with the idea of aggressively using science to prove that homosexuality is a "dangerous lifestyle." The problem is to do this, Cameron attained a reputation for either distorting legitimate science or distorting his own work to gain the conclusions he wanted from his "studies." He has also been discredited and censured by many group and individuals on the left, the right, and in the middle due to his bad research techniques. Several of his studies have been criticized for such errors as having small sample sizes, showing an anti-gay bias in interviews, and not having enough responses to establish a suitable analysis.
