Response to Anonymous Bigot

Yesterday I wrote a response to Eugene Delgaudio's lie-filled e-mail.  An anonymous user responded with a different pack of lies.  There are enough lies that I am responding in a new post.

Anonymous13 July, 2012 16:20

All he is saying and informing others is that the gay movement is very strong and lethal. 

Very strong and lethal?  Neither.

First, gay movement implies that one chooses to be gay.  Sorry.  If that were true, most of the gays of my generation would be straight.  They are not.  We'll look at some of the science of this a little later in this post.

The strength of the LGBTQ Community is that we are second class citizens who are begging for equality.  If we were "strong" we would already be equal.  We are not.  If we were so strong, it would not be legal to fire a person for being gay, as is the case in most states.  As noted in the graphic, below, it is legal to fire someone based solely on their sexuality in twenty-nine states (thanks to GLAAD).  This is why ENDA (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act) is so important.

What is lethal about being gay is the environment that bullies and liars create.  Most gays and lesbians who are not confronted with unnecessary challenges would live normal lives.  The myth of short lifespans was published as a now discredited set of studies by Paul Cameron.  There was also a Canadian study exploring lifestyles in Vancouver thirty years ago which has its authors asking that it not be used to spread homophobia.

Bottom line, is that the LGBTQ Community exists in a struggle for political and legal equality, not strength.  Our lifestyles are varied, but not inherently lethal.

It has, in many states, inforced homosexual lifestyle education to be taught as an alternate way of life "and should be tried and experienced by everyone to truely see if this is something that could be a way of life for you or not". They teach this from grade 1 and up. Are you kidding me. We don't teach normal sexual activity between male and female until jr high and you want to get to the kids at a younger age to twist and confuse their thinking. 

Not at all true.  First, the goal of the LGBTQ Community is acceptance, not coercion.  Even if we wanted to sway people to a different sexual orientation, it is unlikely that we would often succeed.  This is not hyperbole.  This is the belief of our major medical and psychological organization.

On Tuesday of this week the American Psychological Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the National Association of Social Workers, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychoanalytical Association, and several of the California chapters filed an Amicus Curiae Brief with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

II.  Homosexuality Is A Normal Expression of Human Sexuality, Is
Generally Not Chosen, And Is Highly Resistant To Change.

That is the title from a section that starts on page 17 of the pdf.  A little more from that section:

Current scientific and professional understanding is that the core feelings that form the basis for adult sexual orientation typically emerge between middle childhood and early adolescence, without any necessary prior sexual experience.

The Brief goes on to refute claims of reparative therapy.

Wake up. Homosexual activity is as sick and twisted and pedophillia. 

I am wide awake.  Unlike pedophilia, homosexuality is about sex between consenting adults.  Children cannot give legal consent.  Even if children appear to be consensual, one cannot assume that they understand sexuality and its benefits and consequences.  Sex with children is wrong.  Correlating adult homosexuals with pedophiles is wrong.

The most famous pedophile so far this year is Jerry Sandusky, with all of the information not yet in.  Please note that Mr. Sandusky appeared to be a heterosexual.  In fact, buried in the FBI statistics, most pedophiles are male and most of their victims are female (not that any sexual abuse of a child should be seen as heterosexual or homosexual, it is child abuse period.)

IT'S A WAY OF LIFE THAT HAS BEEN CHOSEN AND ACCEPTED BY THOSE THAT LIVE IT TO BE NORMAL and ACCEPTABLE. 

No.  Making this all caps does not make it more true, only more annoying.  Our sexuality is inherent.  Yelling that it is chosen does not change the medical and psychological facts.

I am not condeming those into those live styles, it's like a drunk.... a person who needs help. 

In fact, you are condemning me and all other gays.  What I need is not help but to be left alone to live my life without your harassment.

Dont' tell me it's natural if all the gay lobbiest do is to force it down the publics throats and try to make it legal to be force and taught to school children of all ages. 

No one is teaching children to be homosexual or heterosexual in our schools.  That is among the big lies of those who have been challenging California's SB-48 legislation, the The Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act.  What is being taught is that we should tolerate and accept each other, both in what we have in common and in how we differ.

I will be damned if I would let my 4 boys be taught life and told that, that is an alternative way of life. If you want to live that lifestyle keep it to yourself. 

I don't know what you mean by "taught life".  Schools are expected to teach children to become adults and handle the variety of situations that life will throw at them.  To prepare students, we teach them about math and language, physical exercise and sports, and the complexities of society.  We don't teach children how to be sexual.  We teach life skills, not life styles.

I can only assume that you want schools to ignore parts of society that you don't like.  So, you want your sons to be taught lies.  Homosexuality is real and there are homosexuals in every culture and have been for all of recorded history.  Pretending otherwise is a lie.

There is no single "homosexual lifestyle".  Just as for heterosexuals, some attend more parties than others; some do more community service and give to charity more than others; some work to save the world while others waste the resources we have.  Stereotyping of either homosexuals or heterosexuals is not useful.

Don't pay off government officials to pass and enforce all kinds of laws that will force the 97% of the public that want nothing to do with this lifestyle for themselves or their families to be a manditory taught practice in school.

We agree that bribery is awful.  It is awful no matter who is doing so.  When the National Organization for Marriage is offering two million dollars to New York State Senators that is wrong.

Using phrases like "this lifestyle" and "a manditory taught practice in school" is lying.  Not useful for any meaningful dialogue.

Rather than continue the hyperbole, let's look at the real information about LGBTQ people and their relationships.  The following is from section III of the Amicus Brief we talked about previously.

III. Sexual Orientation and Relationships.

Like heterosexuals, gay and lesbian people want to form stable, long-lasting relationships, and many of them do: numerous studies of gay and lesbian people show that the vast majority of participants have been in a committed relationship at some point in their lives, that large proportions are currently in such a relationship (40-70% of gay men and 45-80% of lesbian women), and that many of those couples have been together 10 or more years. Recent surveys based on probability samples support these findings. Data from the 2010 US Census shows that same-sex couples headed more than 600,000 US households and more than 90,000 in California, including more than 18,000 married couples in California and more than 130,000 married couples in the United States.

Empirical research demonstrates that the psychological and social aspects of committed relationships between same-sex partners closely resemble those of heterosexual partnerships. Like heterosexual couples, same-sex couples form deep emotional attachments and commitments. Heterosexual and same-sex couples alike face similar issues concerning intimacy, love, equity, loyalty, and stability, and they go through similar processes to address those issues. Empirical research also shows that gay and lesbian couples have levels of relationship satisfaction similar to or higher than those of heterosexual couples.

Perhaps I should have simply deleted the hate and lies of "Anonymous".  I was tempted to do so.  But, it is sometimes important to respond to lies with truth instead of ignoring the hate and just moving on.

Repudiation: Matt Barber on Hate Crimes

One News Now of the American Family Association reports that Matt Barber of Liberty Council is upset because the media focuses more on hate crimes against gays and lesbians than hate crimes against people for religious reasons.

After analyzing the numbers in the FBI's Hate Crime Statistics report for 2010, Matt Barber, vice president of Liberty Counsel Action, concludes that there is a clear bias against religion.

"There were fewer hate crimes committed against people based on an animus toward their sexual behavior than there were committed toward people based on religion," he reports. "So that is to say there were more hate crimes committed against people because of anti-religious bias than there [were] for anti-homosexual bias."

Since Mr. Barber includes links, I decided to dig into this just a little and see what is going on with the detailed numbers.

At the top level, religion and sexual orientation are nearly tied in numbers as reasons for bias in hate crimes.  Race accounts for more than the sum of these.  If one groups ethnicity/national origin with race, then there is a clear majority that is neither religion nor sexual orientation.

The FBI provides some more detailed figures.

Racial bias

Among the single-bias hate crime incidents in 2010, there were 3,949 victims of racially motivated hate crime.  A closer examination of these victim data showed that:

• 70.0 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-black bias.
• 17.7 percent were victims of an anti-white bias.
• 5.1 percent were victims of an anti-Asian/Pacific Islander bias.
• 1.2 percent were victims of an anti-American Indian/Alaskan Native bias.
• 6.0 percent were victims of a bias against a group of individuals in which more than one race was represented (anti-multiple races, group).

Religious bias

Of the 1,552 victims of an anti-religion hate crime:

• 67.0 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-Jewish bias.
• 12.7 percent were victims of an anti-Islamic bias.
• 4.2 percent were victims of an anti-Catholic bias.
• 3.0 percent were victims of an anti-Protestant bias.
• 0.5 percent were victims of an anti-Atheist/Agnostic bias. 
• 9.1 percent were victims of a bias against other religions (anti-other religion).
• 3.5 percent were victims of a bias against groups of individuals of varying religions (anti-multiple religions, group).

Sexual-orientation bias

Of the 1,528 victims targeted due to an offender’s sexual-orientation bias:

• 57.3 percent were victims of an offender’s anti-male homosexual bias.
• 27.5 percent were victims of an anti-homosexual bias.
• 11.8 percent were victims of an anti-female homosexual bias.
• 1.4 percent were victims of an anti-heterosexual bias. 
• 1.9 percent were victims of an anti-bisexual bias.

Ethnicity/national origin bias

Hate crimes motivated by the offender’s bias toward a particular ethnicity/national origin were directed at 1,122 victims.  Of these victims:

• 66.6 percent were targeted because of an anti-Hispanic bias.
• 33.4 percent were victimized because of a bias against other ethnicities/national origins. 

Disability bias

Of the 48 victims of a hate crime due to the offender’s bias against a disability:

• 24 were victims of an anti-mental disability bias.
• 24 were victims of an anti-physical disability bias. 

Liberty Counsel is known for its Christian and anti-gay focus, a hard-line anti-gay group according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.  So, it is interesting that Mr. Barber is focused on religious bias when those hate crimes against Christians (both Catholic and Protestant) add up to only 7.2% of the 20% of hate crimes that are religious in nature.  Most hate crimes are of an anti-black bias.  Most religious hate crimes are of an anti-Jewish bias, with second place being anti-Muslim.  The numbers provide the real story.

Barber adds that the leading basis for hate crimes was race, followed by religion. Even so, "It seems the only thing we hear the media talking about are alleged hate crimes against people because they are considered gay or lesbian."

Perhaps the problem is that Mr. Barber is so focused on homosexuality that he misses the media coverage of other hate crimes.  Perhaps there is a bigger story of why we still have more than eight thousand documented victims of hate crimes in 2010.  Perhaps a part of that story is the responsibility of hate groups like Mr. Barber's Liberty Counsel who continue to deride minority groups and depict them as second class citizens, not worthy of the same respect as white Christians.