Family Research Council pushes another flawed study against gay couples

One of the biggest lies pushed by the Family Research Council and other like-minded groups is that gays and lesbians are too promiscuous to worry about settling down and getting married.

FRC in particular pushes this lie through inaccurate studies, such as the one the group cited today via an email:

"Rights and benefits" are exactly what homosexual activists are aggressively pursuing in the courts. In addition, empirical evidence shows that homosexuals are less likely to commit to a partner, remain sexually faithful, or remain committed for a lifetime than heterosexuals.

It used to be that when FRC talked about "empirical evidence"  and provided links to this evidence, alarms would sound off in my head.

Now, however, the alarms have been replaced with a type of mental salivation which comes with knowing that I am going to be able to produce another blog post which demonstrates yet again how FRC lies about the gay community.

Today is no different. You see the "empirical evidence" which FRC links to a proof of so-called gay promiscuity is a study it published a while back, Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples.

Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples is so bad, so flawed that one wonders just what was FRC thinking in citing it. For one, the study is irrelevant because at the time it was published, gay and lesbian couples could not marry in the United States.

And that's just one of the myriad of errors.

The others include:

- 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.

'O'Donnell calls out Family Research Council for hypocrisy' and other Tuesday midday news briefs

Lawrence O'Donnell of MSNBC, who once used an article I wrote in the Huffington Post to rip apart right-wing phony historian David Barton, is at it again as he absolutely destroys the Family Research Council for its hypocrisy in giving Rep. Joe Walsh a "pro-family" award even though he allegedly owes over $100,000 in child support:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

And in other news:

NOM Bullies Corporations Into Hiring And Protecting Anti-Gay Demonizers - I personally think NOM is full of it here but this story isn't dead yet.

Update - Discrimination Inc. takes stock of corporate practices; sells cheaply - Jeremy Hooper breaks it down rather nicely.

Minnesota Poll: Marriage amendment divide is deep - And we haven't even started having fun about the issue YET.

Golding/Mathis race gets even more homo-hostile - Cause it's all about the gay sex.

Judge: Prop. 8 donors have no right to anonymity - A written opinion to accompany last month's ruling and it ain't pretty for the pro-Prop 8 side.

Has NOM's leaders gone AWOL in the public arena?

Is it just me or have the spokespersons and leaders of the National Organization for Marriage decided to go into hiding?

NOM's president Brian Brown has gone AWOL when it comes to public speaking. Not that he was a good one in the first place. As seen on one of his last appearances - on Fox News believe it or not - talking points uttered in a robotic tone doesn't exactly endear you to the audience.

But it's not only Brown who has embraced silence. We have yet to hear the organization's new chairman, John Eastman, on any type of news program.

It's a far cry from when Maggie Gallagher was chairwoman. The gay community couldn't get past a day without seeing her or hearing her comments on various programs, reciting the same lies about "being falsely labeled as a bigot" and how "marriage is the joining of two halves."

But now that Gallagher is no longer chairwoman,  NOM seems to have taken a shadowy pose.

Granted, the organization is still a force, but its allowing its money to do the job by pumping obscene amounts into statewide campaigns.

But generally NOM seems to have abandoned the idea of even trying to maintain a public image.

And I think it's because the folks behind NOM figure that the organization has enough money and influence not to maintain the game played by other organizations such as the Family Research Council or the American Family Association.

Or it could be that the organization realized that very few are buying what it was selling. It's hard to maintain an image of a morality group when you constantly having to fight laws regarding the disclosure of your donors.

Also, let's face facts regarding Maggie Gallagher. She - and Brown for that matter - were not good spokespeople. While Brown seemed to be badly repeating dictated talking points, Gallagher was a slow but constant disaster.

She had an awful television presence in that she was combative and evasive. She did well in front of audiences who agreed with her opinions regarding marriage, but on televised debates when faced with someone from the Human Rights Campaign or any other lgbtq group, Gallagher came across as phony. She tended to talk over folks, shout a bit, and if all else failed, pretended to be personally offended when someone actually called her out on her lies.

NOM's success is all about the money. The gay community knows this and so does NOM's people.


But what the gay community already knows  - and what NOM's people will soon find out - is that money can only get you so far when you aren't playing truthfully.

A reminder - Why NOM keeps losing in the courts

Jennifer Roback Morse

From my online blogging buddy Jeremy Hooper comes the following comments by Jennifer Roback Morse of the National Organization for Marriage's Ruth Institute on why folks on her side of the spectrum win at the ballot box but lose in the court when it comes to marriage equality:

"If you look at elections, we're winning the war on marriage. No doubt about it. We're winning the war at the ballot box. Anytime marriage goes up on a straight up-or-down vote, it wins.

Where we keep losing is in the courts, and the reason has to do with the way the elites of our society view marriage. The people who go to the top law schools, who teach at the top universities, the advertising departments of many of the major corporations – those people have already decided that marriage has nothing particularly to do with children and is really just about how adults feel with one another … and if that's all that marriage is, well, then, of course two same-sex people should be allowed to get married.

Of course Ms. Morse is full of it. The reason why NOM wins at the ballot box is because, as Equality Matters puts it, an explosion of  inaccurate information backed by lots and lots of money:

 . . . these referendums very rarely end up actually reflecting the will of the voters.

Instead, they tend to be co-opted by well-financed special interest groups like NOM that flood voters with misleading and outright false information in order to inflate public opinion against minority groups (in this case, the LGBT community). As law professor Paula Abrams wrote in 2008:

One can readily conclude that lawmaking by initiative, the manifestation of unchecked majority will, carries a high risk of producing bad laws. The “bad law” risk posed by the initiative is not simply that of generic poor policy. The absence of the deliberative process can leave the voters with profoundly inaccurate information. False information may be an unintended byproduct of the public campaign, or it may be deliberately disseminated for political advantage. Deliberate dissemination of false information can be a particularly potent and harmful strategy to agitate the majority against minority groups. Immune from legislative or executive review, initiative campaigns may rely on appeals to voter prejudice. [Oregon Law Review, Vol. 87, 1025, emphasis added, 2008]

By false information, Abrams means things like the following:

Now the reason why NOM - and other groups like it - have lost in the courts has less to do with some garbage about elites, but rather a simple thing called truth, or as lawyer David Boies told Family Research Council head Tony Perkins in a now famous scolding on CBS's Face The Nation last year:

"In a court of law you've got to come in and you've got to support those opinions, you've got to stand up under oath and cross-examination," Boies said. "And what we saw at trial is that it's very easy for the people who want to deprive gay and lesbian citizens of the right to vote [sic] to make all sorts of statements and campaign literature, or in debates where they can't be cross-examined.

"But when they come into court and they have to support those opinions and they have to defend those opinions under oath and cross-examination, those opinions just melt away. And that's what happened here. There simply wasn't any evidence, there weren't any of those studies. There weren't any empirical studies. That's just made up. That's junk science. It's easy to say that on television. But a witness stand is a lonely place to lie. And when you come into court you can't do that.

"That's what we proved: We put fear and prejudice on trial, and fear and prejudice lost," Boies said. 

In other words, NOM and its allies keep losing in the courts because the facts simply aren't on their side. Truth isn't on their side.

And all of the money in the world or spin by folks like Morse can ever change that.

'More lies about gays, pedophilia, and AIDS' & other Monday midday news briefs

Flier In Virginia State Senate Race Accuses Gays Of Molesting Children, Spreading AIDS - The "good lies" never die.

FRC endorses Cindy Golding; Married gay Iowans brace for more dead Osama comparisons - Oh joy! Rapture!

Parker expected to win re-election in Houston - And I hear that some folks are all broken up about it. Good.

The unholy trio of anti-LGBT groups pushing NC marriage amendment - It gives new meaning to the term "axis of evil"

Activist - Lesbian couple, students to blame for threats to school

A lesbian couple wins homecoming king and queen at a high school and are subjected to nasty threats.

Who do you blame?

Why the students for electing the couple of course. That is if you are the American Family Association's phony news service One News Now and right-wing activist Barbara Decker:

When students at Patrick Henry High School selected a lesbian couple as the homecoming king and queen, it sparked an outpouring of e-mails and phone calls from the community. But San Diego Unified School District Superintendent Bob Kowba issued a statement to congratulate the two, and he criticizes those who argue the nomination of Rebecca Arellano and Haileigh Adams to the homecoming court, calling the concerned individuals "adult bullies" and saying they are demonstrating "a lack of tolerance and are presenting such a negative role model for children with their hateful comments."

"I'm stunned that the schools are even allowing this," says Barbara Decker of Eagle Forum San Diego. "If we don't set a benchmark of what is supposed to be a male and a female, what's going to happen to the family?"

She argues that school officials acted irresponsibly in allowing children to nominate a lesbian couple.

"If you let the children run the house, then the children aren't going to make the correct decisions," Decker contends. "They need to have the role model of the parents, and the firmness of the parents, and the guidelines of the parents and the schools."

It's fascinating that Decker did not say a word of condemnation about the emails and letters, even though some of those comments were threats - a fact which Becky Yeh (the person who wrote the One News Now article) also conveniently omitted.

Conveniently, but probably not accidentally.

The irony is that while this week One News Now runs articles attacking students' right to pick the homecoming candidate in a fair election, last week the phony news service ran an article defending a teacher (Viki Knox) who verbally attacked a pro-gay display at her school.

So apparently when you called homosexuality a "cancer" even when pertaining to your job, it's free speech and expression. But when students pick a homecoming candidate of their choice and that candidate happens to be a lesbian, it's time to "reign  in" free speech and expression.

Give One News Now credit for something - its homophobia is consistent.

Kim Kardashian is not the real enemy of marriage equality

A lot has been said about Kim Kardashian's 72 day wedding and how it refutes any notion that allowing gays to marry is a danger to the institution of marriage.

A lot does need to be said. But what doesn't need to happen is that folks mistake Kardashian for a real enemy of marriage equality.

She is merely a prop in this case - proof that if the institution of marriage is truly in danger, the danger certainly isn't coming from allowing two gays and lesbians to marry.

Let's not forget that Kardashian isn't the one who has been leading a misleading fight against marriage equality complete with lies, deception, and horror stories about gays "corrupting children."

That would be the National Organization for Marriage.

And Kardashian isn't the one who said that they would die while fighting marriage equality.

That would wannabe presidential nominee Rick Santorum.

So with apologies to BuzzFeed which recently came out with an excellent piece entitled 20 Couples That Put Kim Kardashian's Marriage To Shame, I want to re-title the piece 20 Couples Who The Right Claim Want To Destroy Marriage.

Here are just a few of these supposed marriage destroyers:

Chris Williams and Juan McCoy have been together for 13 years and are from Maryland. They met at work and still work together and their relationship is as strong as ever. Juan says of Chris, “He brings balance to my life. Whenever I'm agitated he always calms me down. I think I balance him out too.” Recalling Chris' recent birthday, Juan adds, “I love him beyond what I can actually express. We're whole separately, but we're something even better when we're together.”

Ed Watson is 78 years old and has Alzheimer's. He's worried that by the time the court finally rules on Prop 8, he won't be able to recognize Derence, his partner of over 40 years.

Erica and Tevonda have been together for over 4 years. They're raising their 3-month old son, Teverico, in North Plainfield, NJ and were forced to get a second-parent adoption to ensure legal protection of their son because of civil unions' unequal status.

Johanna Bender and Sherri Kokx of Seattle have been together for nine years and are the parents of five-year-old Zachary and one-year-old Quintin. Johanna is a middle school science teacher and Sherri is an attorney. 

Lee & Bert have been together for over 25 years. They live in Illinois. Recently, Bert had a heart attack and Lee and wasn't allowed in the emergency room because they weren't married. Lee had to tell the nurse his marital status was single even though he had been with his partner for 25 years.


So while we point out the irony behind Kardashian's marriage, let's not forget to devote more effort to pointing out and refuting the real enemies of marriage equality. If not for ourselves, but these couples who deserve the right to marry just like heterosexuals have.

Related post:

Marriage Equality - Simple answers to NOM's complicated lies