Today is "Throwback Thursday," but rather than focus on a kooky, fun fact, I want to focus on something which I find to be sad and disturbing.
Over the years, I have pointed out at least 12 times in which physicians and researchers have pointed out how the religious right have distorted their work to fuel anti-gay propaganda. Allow me to recap:
Last year, Seton Hall professor Dr. Theodora Sirota complained that Rick Fitzgibbons of the NARTH (the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality)
misused her work to make the case that children
in same sex households are not raised better than children "in stable
homes with a mother and a father."
National Institute of Health director Francis Collins, who rebuked the right-wing
American College of Pediatricians for falsely claiming that he stated sexual orientation is not hardwired by DNA.
Six researchers
of a 1997 Canadian study (Robert S. Hogg, Stefan A. Strathdee,
Kevin J.P. Craib, Michael V. Shaughnessy, Julio Montaner, and Martin
T. Schehter), who complained in 2001 that religious right groups
were distorting their work to claim that gay men have a short life
span.
The
authors of the book
Unequal Opportunity: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States
(Professors Richard J. Wolitski, Ron Stall, and Ronald O.
Valdiserri), who complained that their work was being distorted by
Focus on the Family.
University College London professor Michael King, who complained that the American Family Association was distorting his work on depression and suicide in LGBT individuals
University of Utah professor Lisa Diamond,
who complained that NARTH (the National Association of Research and
Therapy of Homosexuality), a group which also share board members
with the American College of Pediatricians, distorted her research on
sexual orientation.