A message emailed to the Traditional Values Coalition

Dear Traditional Values Coalition,

I have noticed that on your webpage "Homosexual Urban Legends," you have a study, Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse by Timothy Dailey of the Family Research Council.

I should inform you that this study has been removed from the Family Research Council's webpage due to the fact that it contained "outdated" sources.

A quick check with them would confirm this. It would be in the best interest of your organization's integrity that you remove this study from your webpage also.

Thank you for your time,

Alvin McEwen
http://holybulliesandheadlessmonsters.blogspot.com/2009/01/family-research-council-still-using.html

I'm now taking bets on whether or not TVC will remove this material.

The Friday before the inauguration . . . and my birthday

As Bush leaves the White House and Obama gets ready to take over, the past eight years is presently rushing through my brain and I am left with one thought:

I bet the new Dixie Chicks album will go quadruple platinum.

Seriously though, it's not all fun and games as these links attest:

Investigation reveals Mormon church severely underreported its contributions in support of Prop 8 - a huuuge "no shit, Sherlock" moment here. Cue the religious right to pull the "Mormons are being persecuted because of their religion" card.

File This Under Knowing Your Concerned Women Enemies - Autumn Sandeen is on point here. One of the main reasons why this so-called cultural war has gone on so long is because of our inability to really study and analyze religious right organizations and not paint every Christian conservative as anti-gay. The problem here is the exploitation of fear and personal beliefs.

Warren praises Obama for inviting homosexual bishop - Based on the comments under this article, the religious right seems to be turning on Warren. Say what you will about Obama's choices, they do make for very enjoyable theater.

Lawsuits Filed Over Rule That Lets Health Workers Deny Care - Bush's goodbye kiss to America. This rule NEEDS to be stopped before it causes everyone some real harm.

Robinson's Participation in Inauguration Might Cause God to Destroy Washington DC - God didn't destroy America after the making of Soul Plane. We don't have a thing to worry about.

On Sunday, I turn a young and vibrant 38. Feel free to email me so I can give you the address where you can send the gifts of money and loose men.

Seriously, this is going to be a working weekend for me. I am hoping to have more posts on bad "research papers" of the religious right. I have several leads that I am hoping pan out.

Tune in here for more details.

Just a few news briefs before inauguration fever sets in . . .

Groups criticize survey supporting gay military ban - It turns out that a recent poll from Army Times magazine that supports a gay military ban is faulty. No kidding. Of course this revelation means nothing to our friends Elaine Donnelly, Peter LaBarbera, or the folks at One News Now.

Hate Crimes Legislation Induces Right Wing Paranoia - There they go again.

Short gain = more spousal benefits for same-sex couples - This piece typifies just how nasty and coldhearted some members of the religious right can be. They don't even want lgbts to have the right to leave spousal benefits to our partners on the event of death. I said some members because of the comments section. The nastiness of FRC's Peter Sprigg in this article causes the commentators to call him out. It's unbelievable.

Fact: Porter Gets Fringier By the Day - This is an old post, but it deserves more attention. Barack Obama is literally driving Janet Folger Porter bonkers. It's like a 21st century remake of The Story of Adele H.

And now - the worst commercials in the history of commercials - Look for gay themes in this if you want. Why am I including it? Because I want you to suffer through it like I did when I was a child.

The Family Research Council continues to use 'outdated' work

In December of last year, I emailed the Family Research Council inquiring about the quiet removal of several studies from its webpage. These studies were designed to prove the alleged "dangers of homosexuality."

They were:

"Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse"

"The Negative Health Effects of Homosexuality,"

"Homosexual Parenting: Placing Children at Risk"

Tuesday night, I received an answer via email:

Dear Alvin,

Thank you for contacting Family Research Council.

The papers that you inquired about have been removed from our website indefinitely due to the fact that they have outdated sources. However, we have other resources on our website that contain similar information, such as the following:

Getting It Straight
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=BK04A01

What's wrong with letting same-sex couples legally "marry?"
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IF03H01

Why Marriage Should Be Privileged in Public Policy
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS03D1

Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IS04C02

Ten Arguments From Social Science Against Same-Sex 'Marriage'
http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=IF04G01

You think that would be the end of the story.

Hardly.

The Family Research Council seems to have taken the studies it claims to contain "outdated sources," polished them up, and are now pushing them as credible, up-to-date work.

However, many of these "new" resources contain the same information as the "outdated" studies, sometimes verbatim, including the same endnote citations.

Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples (still on the webpage) and the Negative Effects of Homosexuality (removed from the webpage) is a perfect example of this. Among other things, both contain the following:

- 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.”


This is important because even if one were to ignore the obvious misusage of these books, their published dates (1978 and 1984 respectively) leads one to ask what exactly does the Family Research Council consider to be an "outdated source?"

And that isn't all I found.

As I said before, some of the studies now present on the Family Research Council's webpage (and thus considered to be accurate) contain some of the same information and citations present in the "outdated" studies.

Some of this information has gotten the Family Research Council in trouble a number of years ago.

Look at the study, Getting It Straight for example.

In chapter 4 - Is Homosexuality a Health Risk, there is this passage (pg. 88):

A study of 3,365 high school students published in Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine found: “Gay, lesbian, bisexual, or not sure male students were 6.50 times more likely to report a suicide attempt than heterosexual male students. Gay, lesbian, bisexual, or not sure female students were 2.02 times more likely to report a suicide attempt than their heterosexual female peers.”

Robert Garofalo, et al, “Sexual Orientation and Risk of Suicide Attempts among a Representative Sample of Youth,” Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine 153 (May 1999): 490.


In 1998, Garofalo complained that FRC and several other religious right groups was distorting his research. According to him, the groups omitted a crucial part of his findings (i.e. gay teens engage in negative behavior - suicide attempts - when faced with abuse from a homophobic society). Interestingly enough, when Garofalo complained, then FRC staff member Robert Knight questioned his credibility. (Boston doctor says ads distorted his work on gays, The Boston Globe, August 4, 1998 )

Then there is this passage in the same chapter on pg. 89:

A study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology on the mortality rates of homosexuals concluded that they have a significantly reduced life expectancy:

• “In a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age twenty for gay and bisexual men is eight to twenty years less than for all men. If the same pattern of mortality were to continue, we estimate that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged twenty years will not reach their sixty-fifth birthday. Under even the most liberal assumptions, gay and bisexual men in this urban centre are now experiencing a life expectancy similar to that experienced by all men in Canada in the year 1871.”

In 2001, the researchers of this study complained that their work was being distorted by organizations like FRC.

Now wouldn't complaints by a study's author render it unusuable or a possible "outdated source?"

Apparently not to the Family Research Council.

Also:

Chapter 5 of Getting it Straight, Do Homosexual Parents Pose a Risk to Children, is interesting in that except for a few alterations (i.e. rearranging of text) it is identical to Homosexual Parenting: Placing Children at Risk - one of the studies FRC removed from its webpage claiming that it contained "outdated sources."

By that same token, chapter 6 of Getting It Straight, Is There a Link Between Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse? is a total rehash of Homosexuality and Child Abuse, yet another study that FRC removed from its page for having "outdated sources."

What's interesting about Homosexuality and Child Abuse is that a researcher cited in it, Nicholas Groth, sent a letter to FRC in 2002 complaining about how his work was being distorted to prove that gays molest children at a higher number that heterosexuals - something that his work found not to be true.

However, despite his complaint over five years ago, Groth's work is cited in Getting It Straight (pg. 123):

Another study found that “some authors now believe that boys may be sexually abused as commonly as girls (Groth, 1978; O’Brien, 1980).”

These are just a few of the things that I found. There so many other inaccuracies in these supposed credible studies. All of it makes one wonder just exactly is FRC's definition of an "outdated source."

And if I can take the question further - just what exactly is FRC's definition of truth and Christian principles?

It is ironic that while FRC head Tony Perkins pleads innocent ennui and criticizes lgbts for our supposed intolerance, his group engages in tactics that justify our position of anger.

Regardless of one's personal beliefs about homosexuality, no one should approve of FRC's deceptive tactics.

Hat tip to Emproph for sending me a link to FRC's "outdated" studies.

Glenn T. Stanton is no expert

Focus on the Family staff member Glen Stanton was on Dr. Phil today on a program about transgender children. At one point, Stanton was billed as an "expert."

Now in Dr. Phil's defense, he pretty much allowed Stanton and the other guest, Joseph Nicolosi to cut their own throats. They had no idea what they were talking about and it showed. Also Dr. Phil gave the legitimate medical professional the final word in a one-on-one conversation; something that was very appropriate.

So all in all, I thought the show went well.

But I think in terms of religious right spokespeople, the word "expert" is used too much.

I looked into Stanton's background and found the following:

Glenn T. Stanton is the research fellow for global family formation at Focus on the Family in Colorado Springs. He is also directing a major research project on international family formation trends at the Institute of Marriage and Family in Ottawa. He debates and lectures extensively on the issues of gender, sexuality, marriage and parenting at universities and churches around the country. He recently served the Bush administration as a consultant on increasing fatherhood involvement in the Head Start program.

. . . A graduate of the University of West Florida, Glenn earned a master’s degree in interdisciplinary humanities with an emphasis in philosophy, history and religion. He has also taught in each of these disciplines.

All impressive but there is nothing that constitutes him to speak expertly on the issue of homosexuality.

That bothers me.

Other things bother me about Stanton.

According to Box Turtle Bulletin, last year, Stanton claimed that there’s a “clear consensus” among anthropologists that “A family is a unit that draws from the two types of humanity, male and female.”

The University of California at Irvine’s Anthropology Chair Bill Maurer and Associate Professor Tom Boellstorff as well as the American Anthropological Association all vehemently disagreed with this claim.

I have no idea how Stanton felt he was credentialed to speak for the anthropological community. Whatever the case, the rebuke put Stanton in the company of so many other religious right spokespeople who have been called to the carpet because of their distortion of legitimate studies, including his boss James Dobson.

And then I am bothered by a piece Stanton wrote called Why Homosexuality Falls Short of the Ideal. This passage especially gave me pause:

HIV is the most notable infection associated with homosexual sex and other promiscuous behaviors, but it is important to realize that this is only part of the problem. Professor Thomas Schmidt, in his excellent study of homosexuality, Straight & Narrow?, explains, "Doctors who work with homosexual men are now trained to look regularly for at least 15 common afflictions apart from HIV/AIDS and we could double or triple the number by taking into account less common problems."

The problem with this is that Thomas Schmidt, who is not a medical physician or researcher but a theologian, freely used the work of discredited researcher Paul Cameron in the book Stanton cited - Straight and Narrow? Compassion and clarity in the homosexual debate.

Proof of that is here:

6. About 80% of homosexual men engage in anal intercourse, and consequently suffer from a condition known to doctors as 'Gay Bowel syndrome'. This is a cocktail of physical trauma and a long list of infectious diseases. (Schmidt, p.108,109; F.R.I. report, "Medical Consequences...")

8. In the homosexual community as a whole, evidence of life-long faithful relationships is almost non-existent. One study showed 1%. (Schmidt, p.105-108; F.R.I. report "Same Sex Marriage")

22. While only a minority of homosexuals are paedophiles, male homosexual paedophilia is intensely active. Consequently approx. 80% of paedophilic victims are boys who are molested by adult males. (Schmidt, p.114; F.R.I. report. "Child Molestation and Homosexuality")

Editor's note - F.R.I. stands for Family Research Institute, the organization created and run by Paul Cameron.

What Stanton did is a clever trick propagated by religious right "experts" who are well aware of the flaws in Cameron's work - not citing Cameron directly but citing another person who originally cites Cameron.

Last year on this blog, I talked about how the Family Research Council has covertly removed the "studies" of its homosexuality expert Timothy Dailey from its webpage.

It seems that the same bit of chicanery may be going on with Focus on the Family and Glenn T. Stanton.

I first found Stanton's homosexuality paper on the webpage of the Palmetto Family Council. It said clearly that he was the author of the study.

However, on the Palmetto Family Council's new webpage, the study remains but Stanton's byline is gone.

In addition, I could not find the piece on the Focus on the Family webpage.

It just goes to show that one unfortunate aspects of this so-called cultural war is how anyone with a religious testimony and/or a phony organization with an official sounding name can suddenly be considered to know more about homosexuality than us who are lgbt.

From Linda Harvey to Janet Folger Porter to Timothy Dailey to Matt Barber to Peter LaBarbera to Glenn T. Stanton - the list goes on and on. and they are all phonies.

Let me clarify one fact. I don't have a problem with these folks entering the conversation on lgbts, gender identity or the like. I have a problem with their audacity and their lack of honesty. Often times, these individuals have no desire to be objective. They already have a preconceived religious beliefs which they manipulate science, facts, and common sense to adhere to.

They are not experts and they don't need to be called such.

The problem is that talk shows like Dr. Phil won't vet these people. They just book them on the show as "experts," which gives them undeserved credibility. And all under the guise of "seeing both sides of the issue."

In the long run, it's up to the lgbt community to make the noise and expose these charlatans.

We need to put a serious kibosh their lies by challenging their credentials, or lack of credentials, and their shoddy workmanship at every turn.

Ken Blackwell cures this brotha's Monday blaahs

Lord, it's so hard to keep up with all of the mess emanating from the religious right.

For the benefit of those who don't know, in addition to updating my two blogs, I have an 8:30 a.m. - 5 p.m. job. So sometimes I can't keep up with the news like so many other lgbt blogs. Subsequently when I post, I try to make it a doozy - i.e. either show something new and different or throw out a different dimension to exposing religious right lies.

Today, I was a little under the weather

I turn 38 this upcoming Sunday and I'm not looking forward to it. You can chalk it up to wondering if I have done something relevant with my life so far. I've had this notion many times before.

When I turned 30 and felt that I had not hit the nadir of relevance, I calmed my hysteria by noting that legendary actor Burt Lancaster didn't really start cooking until he reached 32 and that Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison didn't start writing until she was 35.

These days as I approach 40, I tell myself that Jerry Seinfeld didn't really hit it big until he was in his 40s.

I guess if I haven't done anything of relevance by the time I reach 50, I will be pulling Grandma Moses out of my hat.

Right now, I am trying to get together a serious column regarding ENDA, gays, African-Americans and the "privilege of oppression."

Sounds good, don't it?

But leave it to possible GOP National Committee Chairman Ken Blackwell to wake me up.

'Change' Ken Blackwell can believe in

The GOP may select Ken Blackwell to be the first African-American chairman of their National Committee. Something that we can blame on Obama no doubt.

Now I suppose we are going to be inundated with cross conversations between the lgbt community and the heterosexual African-American community on just what is a "civil right." This interview looks to be the possible first salvo.

Personally speaking, the entire conversation drives this black gay man to distraction. Every time lgbts and African-Americans get into this discussion, I feel like a child caught in the middle of a nasty custody battle. (Eat your heart out, Gloria Vanderbilt)

Now while I feel that the lgbt community in general can do more to help black gays and lesbians be more visible, I can't shake the notion that the entire argument puts my heterosexual black brothers and sisters in some of the most unlikely of positions.

Not only does the subject of homosexuality make the black community seem hypocritical (i.e. citing religious belief against homosexuality as a defense when some forms of popular African-American music embrace sexualized images of women and fornication - which you hardly ever hear Harry Jackson or Ken Hutcherson talk about) but it also causes the black community to forget its own history.

Take the notion pushed by some of my heterosexual black brothers and sisters that "gays have it easy because they can hide who they are."

Those who say that tend to forget a sad bit of African-American history.

It's not talked about much now but a while ago, there were some African-Americans who took advantage of their lighter skin tone in order to "pass" for white. They did this to escape the potential dead end life that racism subjected black America to.

Needless to say, those who could not pass weren't exactly happy with the actions of their lighter-skinned brothers and sister.

It was a controversial thing. Books were written about "passing," and vigorous conversations were had about the practice in meeting places such as barbershops and churches.

Hollywood even did several movies on the subject. The most famous had to be Imitation of Life, in which a light-skinned black woman ran away from home in order to pass for white.

Her mother gets so distraught that she dies of a broken heart, And this leads to the climactic, tear jerking ending in which the daughter interrupts the funeral, flings open the hearse and collapses on her mother's coffin in surfeit of hysterical tears.

You can see the scene here.

This leads to me to ask if passing caused so much trouble for African-Americans back then, then why in the hell would it be a good idea for the lgbt community right now?

Trying to be something you aren't isn't good for anyone, be they black, gay or black and gay. It's a practice that must never been encouraged.


News briefs:

Family advocacy group announces Pepsi boycott - brought to you by those who define boycotts by the lgbt community as acts of terror.

Right Wing Leftovers - Mike Huckabee says he is not "pro-sodomy." THANK YOU JESUS!!! I mean we don't just accept anybody.

DADT WITHOUT THE DA - In 1993, those who opposed gays in the military had Colin Powell, Congressman Sam Nunn, the phony studies of Paul Cameron, a host of public officials, and the full force of religious conservatives on their side. Now in 2008, all they have is a phony expert who gets destroyed every time she opens her mouth. I love America.

Always With The Bathroom; Always With The Misrepresentations - There are situations that can only be described as earring-yanking, wig snatching-off moments. What's happening now in Florida is at least 10 of them.

Violence is fine, just as long as no one gets naked

This isn't necessarily a gay issue but it illustrates the mindset of those who think that lgbts are the ruination of America:

The Chicago Shakespeare Theater's production of Macbeth left one audience member outraged over some surprising content.

Laurie Higgins, the director of the division of school advocacy at the Illinois Family Institute (IFI), is a fan of Shakespeare and the Chicago Shakespeare Theater. But while attending a recent production of Macbeth, she was shocked when the actress portraying Lady Macbeth performed scenes topless.

. . . The play also included simulated sex scenes -- with one of the actors fondling Lady Macbeth's bare breasts -- and one scene was set in a strip bar with scantily clad actresses in leather thongs.

Higgins is the "activist" who helped give Deerfield High School in Illinois so much uncalled for attention last year. She helped create a moral panic because the lgbt play Angels in America was being read in a senior honors English class.

Higgins and those who agreed with her point of view (including our friend Peter LaBarbera) incorrectly said that children were being "indoctrinated into homosexuality" and were "forced" to read the play.

LaBarbera even posted some of the more questionable play dialogue on his webpage in an attempt to induce further outrage.

Of course Higgins, LaBarbera, and others who tried to say that Deerfield was "under siege" by the lgbt community convienently omitted that Angels in America was not required reading (students had a choice between the play and The Plague by Albert Camus). They also failed to mention that students were required to get their parents' permission in order to read Angels in America.

So much for that moral panic. What makes this one interesting is the play itself.

Those who are familiar with Shakespeare know that Macbeth tells the tale of a loyal soldier whose ambition leads him to become king of Scotland through violent means.

The play is filled with images of witchcraft, violence, blood, and murder. One scene even has a child being killed in front of his mother.

But Higgins makes no mention of Macbeth's violence in the article.

Maybe she thinks that Macbeth's violence is fine, just as long as we don't get to see Lady Macbeth's breasts.

Perhaps Higgins would be placated if Lady Macbeth was given a sharp left hook instead.