Peter LaBarbera fails to ruin the party for Illinois marriage equality bill signing

There are times when you must admit that you have lost and fade away with a smidgen of dignity.

Apparently no one told this to "Porno" Pete LaBarbera.

Even as we speak, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn has just signed the state's marriage equality bill, thus making Illinois the 16th marriage equality state.










Meanwhile, poor LaBarbera is outside of the party looking like the world's most pathetic wallflower:

Photo courtesy of Waymon Hudson

'Bayard Rustin, Sally Ride receive Medal of Freedom' and other Wednesday midday news briefs

Bayard Rustin (left), Sally Ride (right)

From Chris Geidner of Buzzfeed - Walter Naegle, Bayard Rustin's partner, & Tam O'Shaughnessy, Sally Ride's partner, sat together at today's ceremony

Obama Awards Medal of Freedom to 16 Americans - Including the late Sally Ride and my personal hero, Bayard Rustin. Two lgbts who made history with their achievements.

Illinois governor expected to sign gay marriage into law - Number 16 with a thunderbolt! 

Oklahoma Drops National Guard Benefits For All Couples To Avoid Serving Same-Sex Couples - This here is some repugnant #@$%!

 Despite Klingenschmitt's Efforts, Our YouTube Account Has Been Restored - Nice try, "Pastor Chaps," but Right-Wing Watch will still be able to show your homophobic rants.  

Truth Wins Out Calls On Air Force Academy To Terminate ‘Ex-Gay’ Charlatan Hired As Cadet Counseling Chief - Now watch how Fox News's Todd Starnes and the rest of that bunch whine about "religious liberty." Sorry but they have no case here.

Top picture courtesy of The New Civil Rights Movement.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance 2013

From GLAAD:

The Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) was started by transgender advocate Gwendolyn Ann Smith as a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was killed in 1998. The vigil commemorated all the transgender people lost to violence that year and began an important memorial that has become the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance.

"The Transgender Day of Remembrance seeks to highlight the losses we face due to anti-transgender bigotry and violence. I am no stranger to the need to fight for our rights, and the right to simply exist is first and foremost. With so many seeking to erase transgender people -- sometimes in the most brutal ways possible -- it is vitally important that those we lose are remembered, and that we continue to fight for justice."
- Transgender Day of Remembrance founder Gwendolyn Ann Smith

Let us all, lgbt and heterosexual alike, strive for the time where we are able to celebrate the lives and contributions of our transgender brothers and sisters instead of their deaths through ignorance and hate.

New website calls out, nails deceptive anti-gay parenting study

Yesterday, I posted about how a judge in Florida had ordered Central Florida University to give up all of the documents with regards to the discredited Regnerus study.

Unfortunately, according to blogger Joe Jervis, the university is fighting tooth-and-nail to keep the information hidden even to the point of being in contempt of court.

In the meantime, however, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation - the organization which filed the lawsuit on behalf of writer, blogger, and activist John Becker -  has developed a website (The Regnerus Fallout) which not only calls out Regnerus's deceptive study but also nails all of the parties involved.

Check it out!!!

Hat tip to Joe.My.God.

'Anti-gay activist tries to compliment me. Big mistake' and other Tuesday midday news briefs

Austin Ruse

This morning, I got a very interesting message from Austin Ruse. Ruse is a columnist for that vile propagandist piece of trash Breitbart.com as well as president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Instiute (C-FAM).

C-FAM was recently embroiled in controversy over its support of Russia's anti-gay laws as well as other anti-gay laws worldwide. I recently published a post detailing a past one-on-one online conversation I had with Ruse in which he regurgitated some of the most vile anti-gay talking points. Apparently, he must have loved my post because he sent me the following:

The thing I like about you, is you give me a full hearing. We may disagree and you may call me names, regrettably, but you quote me in full. Much appreciated... 

Naturally, I responded in the manner which I have become accustomed to - brief, to the point, but not giving up an inch:

All the better for people to see you as a homophobic charlatan, Mr. Ruse. I'm merely providing the rope.

Allow me to include some further points that I failed to make to Mr. Ruse in my initial response:

Don't  try to sugarcoat your homophobia to me in the guise of polite conversation and congenial comments. I know where you stand with regards to how you feel about lgbts and I won't pretend to be nice as to where I stand. I won't be rude to you, but life is too short to bullshit our way through phony platitudes of politeness. I don't like you, Mr. Ruse. I find you extremely fake and even more vile. Your organization perverts the word "family," making it into a caste system where me and mine are not allowed. In addition, you rationalize the persecution of my lgbt brothers and sisters on a worldwide scale. So spare me any kind words because I have a feeling that what's in your mind regarding me isn't exactly as equally kind. There is nothing good about you, Mr. Ruse  It's as simple as that. 

In other news:  

NRO Trots Out Discredited Researcher To Defend Junk Same-Sex Parenting Study - How interesting. Using a discredited racist to defend homophobic junk science.

 Mary Cheney Finds Her Voice - I may be in the minority here but I feel sorry for Mary Cheney. She sacrificed for family and now the family is stabbing her in the ribs. That's just wrong.  

Methodist Church Convicts Pastor For Officiating His Son’s Same-Sex Wedding - Oh give me a break!  

'Ask Amy' Advice Columnist Tells Mother Pressuring Gay Son To Change Sexuality Is Wrong - Awesome advice!

Lesbians falsely accused of child molestation soon to be set free

Editor's note - I wasn't going to post this morning but when I saw the following, I just had to put the word out. After reading this, check out my post from last night as to how the Family Research Council is using a flawed, out-of-date study to demonize lgbt couples:

In 1994, Elizabeth Ramirez, then 20, was arrested in San Antonio, Texas, for allegedly molesting her two young nieces, aged 7 and 9.

In two bizarre trials, she and three other women, Cassandra Rivera, Kristie Mayhugh and Anna Vasquez, all lesbians, were accused of repeatedly assaulting the girls during a nightmarish week-long orgy in 1994. A medical expert and the prosecutor hinted that the women had been performing a Satanic ritual, and pointed to what they claimed was scientific evidence of their guilt. A judge sent the women to prison -- 35 years for Ramirez, 15 for each of the others.

For more than a decade, the women sought the attention of advocates for prisoners and of the press, insisting that they had been falsely accused, but their calls for help went unanswered. And then, in 2006, a Canadian college instructor named Darrell Otto began researching the case. Otto became convinced that the women were innocent and reached out to the National Center for Reason and Justice, a New York-based organization that pushes for the release of those believed to be wrongly accused of crimes against children. He set in motion an effort to free the women that has finally culminated in victory.

 On Monday, a judge acknowledged that the witness testimony used to convict Ramirez, Mayhugh and Rivera was faulty and agreed to release them under bond. The fourth woman, Vasquez, is already out on parole. Reached by phone, she told The Huffington Post the news was "exciting and overwhelming."

Check out the rest of the story in The Huffington Post.

Family Research Council relying on an outdated, flawed study to smear lgbt couples

Tony Perkins of FRC

It's bizarre how certain things happen.

I was just looking on the Family Research Council webpage and I found the following statement:

Trending

Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples

"Married and Gay Couples Not All that Different," ... (more)

 

So apparently on the FRC webpage, this study seems to be popular and that's not necessarily a good thing because it is flawed on so many levels. The headline should give you an indication of one flaw, i.e. the comparison of  homosexual couples to married heterosexual couples.The study ignores the simple fact that lgbts can now marry in 15 states.   

 

Another flaw is that the study is highly out-of-date. Its author, Timothy Dailey, hasn't been employed by FRC for a number of years now. As a matter of fact, I pointed out several flaws in Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples as far back as 2009.

Allow me to do a recap. Amongst the errors, Comparing the Lifestyles of Homosexual Couples to Married Couples contains:

- 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 published 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.”

In addition to outdated work, the study also distorts the work of researchers Timothy Biblarz and Judith Stacey to make the case against children being raised in lgbt homes.

Claims regarding the numbers of children being raised in homosexual and lesbian households vary widely and are often unsubstantiated. According to a study on homosexual parenting in the American Sociological Review, researchers have given figures "of uncertain origin, depicting a range of...6 to 14 million children of gay or lesbian parents in the United States." According to the study's authors, Judith Stacey and Timothy J. Biblarz, the higher estimates are based upon "classifying as a lesbigay [sic] parent anyone who reports that even the idea of homoerotic sex is appealing." Instead, the authors favor a figure of about one million, which "derives from the narrower...definition of a lesbigay parent as one who self-identifies as such."

However, FRC and Dailey conveniently fails to mention that Stacey and Biblarz's study found:

. . . that lesbian and gay parents were as competent as heterosexual parents. The article did note some differences between families with gay and lesbian parents and those with heterosexual parents, but was careful to emphasize that these were differences, not deficits. Many of those opposing parenting rights for lesbian and gay people seized on these differences, using them to assert that gay and lesbian parents were not as effective as heterosexual parents.

Furthermore, during an interview with the organization Soulforce, Stacey complained about the distortion of her work:

"Significant, reliable social scientific evidence indicates that lesbian and gay parents are as fit, effective, and successful as heterosexual parents. The research also shows that children of same-sex couples are as emotionally healthy and socially adjusted and at least as educationally and socially successful as children raised by heterosexual parents." Later in the interview she commented: "There is not a single, respectable social scientist conducting and publishing research in this area today who claims that gay and lesbian parents harm children." She explained that the research does find some differences between families with gay and lesbian parents and those with heterosexual parents, but emphasized that they are differences, not deficits. For example, daughters of lesbian moms tend to be somewhat more career-oriented than other daughters. That anti-gay activists had cited these differences as evidence supporting their efforts to deny partnership and parenting rights to lesbians and gays was for Stacey "a serious misreading and abuse of our work."