When a black gay man is brutally murdered . . .

Marco McMillian

I hate stories like this:

Marco McMillian was poised to make history as the first openly gay man to run for public office in Mississippi. Instead, supporters are coping with his shocking death. 

 McMillian was brutally murdered and it has been confirmed that it was because of his sexual orientation. Naturally his murderer is claiming the "gay panic defense," but is also taking it much further. He is claiming that McMillian tried to rape him. Where have we heard this before (I will give you a hint - David Kato, Billy Joe Gaither, Matthew Shepard) in which someone who viciously murders a gay man claims that he panicked because the gay man was "hitting on him." My God, this is going to get ugly.

 I just can't talk about it further.

Two good friends of mine, Viktor Kerney and Rod McCullom, have covered this story for Ebony magazine and their blogs. Check out their work and enter the world of what black gay men have to deal with in American society:

 MURDER IN THE MISSISSIPPI DELTA - An excellent overview of the entire ugly thing and how it reverberates throughout the entire community.

 No Mention of Marco McMillian's life as a Gay Man at Funeral - Truly sad.  

Does the Black Community Care When Its Gay Members are Killed? - No comment.

 REPORT: Suspect Claims Marco McMillian Tried to "Rape" Him - That's what the murderer's family is saying. It sounds fishy. Sorry but it does.

'Controversy over Regnerus study heats up BIG TIME' and other Monday midday news briefs

Controversy over new allegations about the Regnerus anti-gay parenting study and how much its funders had to do with its results continue to grow. Check out the following just revealed this morning:

 Mark Regenerus and Witherspoon collaboration - For those interested, here is a document dump of information regarding the Regenrus study and how it contradicts with the original story Regnerus told about the involvement of his funders. Page 11 shows something very interesting. On Aug. 22 of 2011 (Editor's note - this post originally had the inaccurate date of Aug. 22 2012), Mark Regnerus and a few other researchers met to discuss a public relations/media plan for the study. One of the researchers was Glenn T. Stanton from Focus on the Family. Stanton is not necessarily a pro-gay advocate. To the contrary, he is on record saying many untrue things about the gay community, including calling marriage equality a "lie of Satan."

‘More managerial than intellectual’: How right-wing Christian money brought us the Regnerus study - Philip Cohen of Family Inequality gives a good summary of entire mess.

Meanwhile, Tom Reller, the company spokesman for Elsevier, the company which published Regnerus' study, has a very spirited exchange with writer Scott Wooledge. Reller calls the Huffington Post article "nonsense":

In other news:

Harvey: Church Must Fight Against Homosexuality Like Slavery - Linda Harvey is ALWAYS good for a laugh.  

New York Times Puff Piece About Focus On The Family Ignores Its Regular Anti-LGBT Rhetoric - More news which should raise eyebrows as to why Regnerus was collaborating with FOF's Stanton to promote his study.

LGBT community needs to get angry over Regnerus study manipulations

Since the news broke last night about how the funders of the Regnerus anti-gay parenting study had more influence on its findings than originally claimed, the reaction from lgbt community has been interesting.

While some have been justifiably angry, there is that annoying set of folks who have acted either jaded or blase about these new discoveries.

Several have made comments like "The right-wing manipulates another study? Nothing to see here folks" or "So, just how does that prove the study is flawed."

First to answer that last question, the fact that the study is flawed was determined a long time ago. And it was accentuated by the recent brief to the Supreme Court by the American Sociological Association.

This new information proves just why the study was flawed and it brings up further questions. Why wasn't Regenrus truthful about how much influence the study's right-wing funders had on its results?  Why did they expected the study to be a negative against the lgbt community before it was even put to paper?

And while some have made a good point by pointing out that in the long run, this study's claim (regarding same-sex households being inferior than heterosexual households when it comes to the raising of children) may not matter in the DOMA and Prop 8 cases before the Supreme Court, the reality is that the shady facts behind the study yet again points out how the religious right manipulates and cherry-picks science for its own purposes.

And that's an issue which needs more attention instead of folks yawning and turning their backs.

I've said before that an asset to the religious right is the jaded "we have seen it all so you really have to reach to get our attention" attitude of some members of the lgbt community. What's sad is that some of these same individuals  get angry when they see FRC's  Tony Perkins or some other religious right spokesperson touted as "experts" on news programs or when they see flawed work such as the Regnerus study being pushed as legitimate.

My friends, if you demonstrate that you really don't care about phony religious experts and the flawed work they tout (such as the Regnerus study) then why expect anyone else to care?

So my advice? Pull your heads out of your asses, stop acting like a snobby patron in a high-price restaurant, and pay attention to the big picture and the long game for a change.

BREAKING!!! Anti-gay parenting study a false manipulation from the start

Mark Regnerus

This is huge.

According to the American Independent, via The Huffington Post, the Regnerus study - which cause a huge controversy because it said that children raised by same-sex families encounter problems - was created specifically to sway Supreme Court decisions on marriage equality. And the funders of the study knew what the study would "prove" before the work on it began:

The conservative funders who bankrolled a flawed and widely cited academic study that's critical of gay marriage choreographed its release in time to influence “major decisions of the Supreme Court,” documents show.

The documents, recently obtained through public-records requests by The American Independent and published in collaboration with The Huffington Post, show that the Witherspoon Institute recruited a professor from a major university to carry out a study that was designed to manipulate public policy. In communicating with donors about the research project, Witherspoon’s president clearly expected results unfavorable to the gay-marriage movement.

The think tank’s efforts paid off. The New Family Structures Study came out just in time for opponents of gay marriage to cite it in multiple federal cases involving marriage equality – including two cases soon to be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

James Wright, editor of Social Science Research, which published the study’s findings last summer, said he was not aware of the funders’ intentions to use his academic journal to sway the Supreme Court.

“So far as the Supreme Court is concerned, I consider marriage and adoption rights for GLBT people to be a matter of civil rights, i.e., a legal question, not something to be ‘resolved’ by empirical research, and I resent having social science data and research drawn into such debates,” Wright, a University of Central Florida sociology professor, said in an email.

In a study slammed for its methodology, funding, and academic integrity, University of Texas associate sociology professor Mark Regnerus found that children who grew up in households where one parent had a same-sex relationship (regardless of whether the children lived with that parent or that parent’s supposed same-sex partner) were more likely to experience negative social, psychological, and economic outcomes than children raised by a married heterosexual couple

Records show that an academic consultant hired by UT to conduct data analysis for the project was a longtime fellow of the Witherspoon Institute, which shelled out about $700,000 for the research. Documentation about University of Virginia associate sociology professor W. Bradford Wilcox’s dual roles contradict Regnerus’ assertions that the think tank wasn’t involved with how the study was designed or carried out. 

To put a long story short, before this study was even put to paper, those funding it had already decided what it would "prove" and how they would "use" it. Many of us lgbtq bloggers and activists (i.e. myself, Scott Rose, Jeremy Hooper, Wayne Besen, Rob Tisinai, and a vast number of others) knew something was phony about the Regnerus study at the time in which it was publicized. And now the Huffington Post and the American Independent confirms it:

 . . .when Regnerus first published his New Family Structures Study in the July 2012 issue of Social Science Research, he made a point of saying that his conservative funders had not played a role in designing the research or analyzing the data.

“The NFSS was supported in part by grants from the Witherspoon Institute and the Bradley Foundation,” he wrote. “While both of these are commonly known for their support of conservative causes — just as other private foundations are known for supporting more liberal causes — the funding sources played no role at all in the design or conduct of the study, the analyses, the interpretations of the data, or in the preparation of this manuscript.”

He reiterated this statement in his follow-up analysis of the study, again writing that “[n]o funding agency representatives were consulted about research design, survey contents, analysis, or conclusions.”

Regnerus’ assertions come into question in light of revelations last year that Wilcox had been hired on contract by UT to assist Regnerus with the data analysis of the study. During part of that time, Wilcox was also the director of Witherspoon’s Program on Family, Marriage, and Democracy, out of which the study was conceptualized and Regnerus was recruited. Wilcox had been a fellow with Witherspoon from 2004 to 2011, and he has said that he worked as a paid consultant on the study from October 2010 to April 2012. 

The excerpts above only scratch the surfaces. Go to this link, read the article, and prepare to be PISSED!

Know Your LGBT History - Outing

Outing is the controversial practice of revealing someone's sexual orientation without their permission. It's usually done to celebrities and politicians. It's controversial because some feel that it is an invasion of privacy while others feel that it is necessary to bring more visibility to the problems of lgbts forced in the closet or combat the hypocrisy of secretly gay lawmakers who publicly and actively campaign against lgbt equality. After watching these videos, tell me what you think:



 

 

Past Know Your LGBT History posts:

'Homophobe claims not to know how gays 'consummate' marriage' and other Friday midday news briefs

Love this! Had to post it! The photo is from an anti-gay marriage equality rally yesterday in Minnesota

In other news briefs:


LaBarbera: 'How Do Two Guys Consummate Their Marriage? Yuck.' - When I read this, I just HAD to put it in the briefs. As much gay porn that 'Porno' Pete LaBarbera is rumored to have as "research," I think he knows the answer to his question.  

Ernie Banks, other Chicago sports legends back marriage equality - Not bad. Not bad at all.  

Insurance Agency Reverses, Agrees To Cover Transgender Student’s Treatment - Kudos and special thanks to the young man's fraternity who at the time was raising money to cover his part of his gender transition surgery when he was initially denied by the insurance company. Say what you will, this story destroys almost every negative stereotypes out there about fraternities.

 Tebow at Liberty University; Fox says facts are 'bullies' - Awwww! Fox News gets angry at lgbts when we bring facts out about anti-gay organizations and universities. I guess they miss the scared lgbts. 

 FRC’s Tony Perkins Lies His Ass Off About ENDA In Fundraising Appeal - A point-by-point take down of anti-ENDA lies. Although between u and me, the words "Tony Perkins" and "ass" in the same sentence makes me nauseous.  

Family Research Council clearly lying about scientific evidence and gay parenting - Speaking of Perkins' group, the Family Research Council, I am including a post I wrote last night because it's just unbelievable to me that these folks thought they could lie about the scientific evidence of gay parenting and not get called out about it. I mean just BRAZEN!

Black university proves arguments against marriage equality, interracial marriage are similar

Those who complain about how the lgbt community is unfairly comparing itself to the African-American community in terms of the struggle for equality are probably not going to be happy to hear this news, so I want to tell it as soon as possible.

Howard University - a historically black college - made a very interesting comparison between the laws against interracial marriage and those against marriage equality. The university said arguments used to justify laws against interracial marriage (which were struck down by Loving vs. Virginia) and arguments used to justify laws against marriage equality are "strikingly similar."

Lawyers for the university made the connection in a recently submitted brief to the Supreme Court for the upcoming Prop 8 trial. According to Think Progress:

The brief goes on to highlight five distinct arguments that transcend the debates between marriage equality for interracial couples and marriage equality for same-sex couples:

• SOCIAL ORDER: Marriage equality is a threat to the social order and would “introduce a form of pollution to marriage.” 

• SEXUALIZATION: The people who want to get married have relationships that are purely sexual, promiscuous, and “deviant.” 

• PSEUDOSCIENCE: Researchers have distorted research to raise fears about supposed consequences of marriage equality. 

• JUDEO-CHRISTIAN VALUES: The Bible forbids recognizing these relationships. 

• CHILDREN: These relationships will cause physical and psychological damage to the children they raise.

Think Progress continues with an excellent summation of the Howard University brief.

No doubt the National Organization for Marriage and others who want to exploit the alleged black vs. gay divide will most likely ignore this briefs and the facts put out in it.

I say we don't let them.