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Love Won Out media director Gary Schneeberger said today's ex-gay event in Palm Springs was not aimed at influencing political decisions on gay marriage, domestic partner benefits or gay adoption. But in at least one of the conference sessions the speaker highlighted gay marriage ballot initiatives and told the audience arguments they could use against gay marriage advocates.
"National same-sex marriage could also mean a very real threat to our religious freedom," Bill Maier, a Focus on the Family vice president, told the group.
The ease at which these phonies lie is utterly astounding. Has their ever been a more pathologically dishonest organization in the history of America than Focus on the Family?
34 Comments:
Maybe one of those organizations that tried to convince people that ten percent of Americans were homosexuals would qualify?
posted by Anonymous, at
9/23/2006 9:31 PM
The 10% figure was the best information at one time. 3-5% seems likely at this point. Then again we used to mistakenly think homosexuality was caused by an overbearing mother and a weak or absent father, but we learned better as time went on. Still waiting for some to catch up on that one.
posted by Anonymous, at
9/23/2006 9:59 PM
Okay - number one Anonymous asshole. Show me one major gay organization that still is pushing 10%. Not HRC, Truth Wins Out, NGLTF or GLAAD have used that. Who then? Show us the money or shut the fuck up.
Sadly, you are a slezeball liar and pulled that "spin" out of your lying, filthy, unwiped ass.
The differece between gay groups and ex-gay groups it that the gay groups only use modern research.
The pieces of human trash in the right wing and ex-gay groups will quote old, disgraced science. This is becasue they are scum.
posted by Anonymous, at
9/23/2006 10:17 PM
Well according to an article I read nearly 10 percent of New York men who say they're straight are having sex with other men. Perhaps 10% is that magic number. I would definitely blame the media director for not knowing the agenda of the event. On their website it does include "How will gay marriage affect our society"?
posted by Anonymous, at
9/23/2006 10:43 PM
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
posted by Anonymous, at
9/24/2006 3:31 AM
So exactly what point are you trying to make? The possibility that FOTF's VP agrees with a writer from a conserative periodical is not surprising.
posted by jekelhyde, at
9/24/2006 3:37 PM
They should not make religion a political statement.
posted by Anonymous, at
9/24/2006 4:34 PM
10% was never the best information. The figure was derived from misinterpretation of Alfred Kinsey's findings. Kinsey found that '10 per cent of the males are more or less exclusively homosexual (i.e., rate 5 or 6) for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55. This is one male in ten in the white male population' (Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, p. 651). This does not mean that 10% of the population is homosexual at any given moment, but that was the claim it was distorted into.
To the person insulting me, I suggest that you need to calm down a bit. Insults of that sort are juvenile and really don't come across well.
Regarding the NGLTF, although they do not themselves claim that the 10% figure is correct, they published a report (Youth in the crosshairs, which you can download from http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/crosshairs.pdf) claiming that Kinsey made this claim, in order to rebut charges from conservatives that the 10% figure was a lie invented by gay activists. Yet anyone who reads Kinsey will see that he never claimed this.
posted by Anonymous, at
9/24/2006 6:18 PM
Kinsey results were sooooo skewed by his research subjects. Check where he gets his populations from.
posted by Anonymous, at
9/25/2006 1:11 AM
"The ease at which these phonies lie is utterly astounding. Has their ever been a more pathologically dishonest organization in the history of America than Focus on the Family?" The Bush Administration?
posted by Anonymous, at
9/25/2006 10:44 AM
If these groups are sooo interested in protecting the family - why don't they look inside their own homes and check out divorce??
posted by Anonymous, at
9/25/2006 12:37 PM
To those who wish to use the strawman argument about 10%:
Although organizations and individuals have used this number in the past, it was never deliberately used to deceive. Never. 10% was used because that was what was believed based on the tiny amount of information available. And with better information, the estimates were revised.
But phrased differently, it actually seems that it might be accurate to say that 10% are "queer" if that word is used to include bisexuals and other non-heterosexuals. The CDC study last year indicated that only 90% identify as "heterosexual" or "straight" with about 2.3% as gay, 1.8% as bisexual, and the rest as "other", unsure, or refuse to answer.
This isn't all that inconsistent with Kensey. And incidentally, for whoever criticized Kensey's reseach samples, his work has been re-analyzed to remove any bias built in by sample selection (ie limiting it to the sample that was taken from the population at large) and it turns out that the results were consistent.
Clearly, before you accuse any gay people of being deceptive, you need to do better research and not simply parrot anti-gay propagandists.
Gay groups tend to try and follow whatever research is out there. Frankly, it doesn't really matter to us if the LGBT community is 4% or 10%. The only ones obsessing on the number are anti-gay activists.
Your insistance that gay organizations are being untruthful about the percentage of the population that is LGBT does identify one dishonest person in the debate: you.
posted by Timothy Kincaid, at
9/25/2006 1:19 PM
10%--You're kidding, right??? In my experience, it's more like 20%--at least, if by homosexual, you mean men who enjoy having sex with other men. Don't believe me? Just go to Craigslist or Manhunt or any other gay dating site. They are filled with married, supposedly "heterosexual men, who love to indulge in the joys of man to man sex. They would never, ever, in a million years, admit to being gay, but what they like sure seems like gay to me...
posted by Anonymous, at
9/25/2006 3:58 PM
For Timothy Kincaid's benefit, it's clear that the 10% figure was indeed never the best information. His post simply does not address the point, and is only an attempt at changing the question. Kinsey's alleged 10% figure was never intended to mean the proportion of the population that was 'non-heterosexual.' It was supposed to be the proportion that were homosexuals, defined narrowly. It was and remains clear that this was a misrepresentation of Kinsey's actual claim.
posted by Anonymous, at
9/25/2006 5:30 PM
Oh, and as for the idea that it's only anti-gay groups who claim that the 10% figure was a lie, I should point out that some gay writers, Chandler Burr being one of them, have admitted as much: 'The "10 percent gay" figure has always been merely a statistical concoction of the gay rights movement.'
http://members.aol.com/gaygene/pages/standard.htm
I believe the 10% figure was Harry Hay's invention.
posted by Anonymous, at
9/25/2006 5:40 PM
The anti-abortion groups are equally prone to lying, particularly those involved in "crisis pregnancy centers".
Well naturally, anonymous, you can believe anything you like. And hiding as anonymous means you can't be called on it.
But nonetheless you are wrong - and I suspect it isn't accidental. You seem quite familiar with gay essoterica (while Burr is bright and I read his book some years ago, he's not the first source I'd think of as "some gay writers" unless I had a quote ready for use). I have to assume that you are an activist, and not a pro-gay one.
Oh, and by the way, a "statistical concoction" is not the same as a lie or a deception. It's another way of saying "backed into the numbers so don't put too much reliance on them."
Perhaps there existed someone somewhere who thought that inflating a number to a larger percentage would be politically advantageous. But "one of those organizations that tried to convince people that ten percent of Americans were homosexuals" is a completely disingenueous statement. (And as for "changing the subject"... that was your original post and the comment that I addressed).
You were completely unable to name a single organization that claims 10%. Why? Because there aren't any significant reputable gay organizations that make this claim.
But railing against said fictitous organiations gives you an easy target. One that can't fight back. Because it doesn't exist.
So go ahead and "benefit" me all you like. You can claim that unidentified people "misrepresented" whatever you like. You can dance and spin and even quote Ann Coulter if you like.
But you claimed that "organizations that tried to convince people that ten percent of Americans were homosexual" were more pathologically dishonest than Focus on the Family. And you couldn't back up your claim. At all. With anything.
To the anonymous at 3:58. Being gay is more than the gender of the person or people you have sex with. It's desire. It's attraction. When my sister and I are at the beach together, we are both looking at the same gender walking down the sand. Anyone can have sex with anyone. Some of us certainly wouldn't want to but if I were having sex with women, it would not make me straight. And if you think that who you get your rocks off with is what makes you gay, you must be in agreement with exodus and fotf.
posted by jekelhyde, at
9/25/2006 8:20 PM
If the issue is whether gay organisations are dishonest: NGTLF claimed that Kinsey claimed that 10% of Americans were homosexual. Since Kinsey didn't claim that, it is dishonest to say he did.
posted by Anonymous, at
9/25/2006 9:28 PM
well, anonymous, wrong again.
Here's what Kinsey said:
37% of males had at least one same-sex experience to orgasm
10% of males were predominantly homosexual between the ages of 16 and 55
8% of males were exclusively homosexual for at least three years between 16 and 55
4% of white males had been exclusively homosexual since adolescence
If Kinsey said that 10% were predominantly homosexual, then I guess it wouldn't be "pathologically dishonest" to claim that he said it.
So, anonymous, are you ready to apologize? Or are you going to change the subject and come up with some other excuse why you think that those who repeated Kinsey were bigger liars than the Focus folk.
Or now maybe you'll change the subject to say why Kinsey's wrong. Or to claim that some unnamed lesbian once said that the numbers were too high. Or that some secret cabal of sodomites wrote some manifesto.
Go ahead. Continue to prove your anonymous dishonesty. It really makes me want to support your agenda.
posted by Timothy Kincaid, at
9/25/2006 10:28 PM
'If Kinsey said that 10% were predominantly homosexual, then I guess it wouldn't be "pathologically dishonest" to claim that he said it.'
In choosing to ignore the distinction between saying that 10% of Americans are predominantly homosexual for at least three years (you missed that part out) between the ages of 16 and 55 and saying that 10% of Americans are homosexual at any given moment, you are simply continuing the distortion of Kinsey's claim.
10% of Americans being predominantly homosexual for at least three years between the ages of 16 and 55 (and note that this means that a homosexual orientation can change) is perfectly compatible with the per centage of homosexuals in the population being much less than 10% at any given moment. I grant that to a few people the distinction may seem over subtle, but it should be perfectly clear to most people.
posted by Anonymous, at
9/25/2006 10:50 PM
Shit! Who cares if it is 10% or 20% or 4%!!! There was a time in gay culture where we all thought it was 10%. New research, new evaluation of old research shows a different number. Do you honestly think it is a static number anyhow??? And how do you define gay - do you define it for each person you interview??? I think not. Stop the nonsense.
posted by Anonymous, at
9/26/2006 12:49 AM
Unless I am mistaken, Kinsey included in the study individuals who were incarcerated. Being that the average jail time is 3 to 5 years, that would account for the numbers when discussing homosexuality as only action rather than emotion. When straight men emerge from prison, they continue with their normal straight lives. So your presumption that the results show that orientation can change isn't quite true.
posted by jekelhyde, at
9/26/2006 9:59 AM
"In choosing to ignore the distinction between blah blah blah". Ah, yes, Anonymous did as predicted. He changed the subject.
It is very clear that early claims of 10% were based on what little info was available, Kinsey's numbers. No intentional deceipt, no deliberate false claims. Just inadequate research or perhaps a misunderstanding of what Kinsey was saying (wacky FOTF website arguments notwithstanding).
Don't feed the troll. Anonymous is a Coultergeist.
Back to the discussion. Focus is a Lying Organization, that has morphed from one that actually attempted to help families into one that actively seeks to destroy them. -SharonB
posted by Anonymous, at
9/27/2006 4:07 PM
Yes - there IS a more lying organization out there, it's called the Bush Administration. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. This all just goes to prove the theory that those who scream the loudest (in this case over morals and such), have the most to hide (in this case are big fat LIARS - and how moral is that)?
posted by J. David Zacko-Smith, at
9/27/2006 7:09 PM
I guess morality is in the eyes of the beholder. And bush is beholden himself as a saint. I find it ironic that when clinton was caught with his pants down, the nation was in a uproar, but kill thousands of american soldiers and...noting. Shows what our nation has become.
The video game "Grand Theft Auto" got no attention until it was found that there was a sex scene in the game. Then everyone hit the roof. The fact that violence is the name of the game distressed no one.
'"In choosing to ignore the distinction between blah blah blah". Ah, yes, Anonymous did as predicted. He changed the subject. '
What I said was perfectly to the point, although I can see that you're never going to admit as much. That 'blah blah' business suggests that you may be incapable of understanding the distinction I referred to, a possibility that honestly had not occured to me.
Then again, perhaps the fact that you mention that gay organizations might have misunderstood Kinsey shows that you know you're mistaken? There would be no point in raising that possibility if you thought that Kinsey really had claimed that 10% of Americans were homosexual.
posted by Anonymous, at
9/27/2006 9:54 PM
FoF is a political orgnaization that takes and use individuals for their own power and financial gain. they are not truly focused on the family - as you would see their activites center around redusing divorce in the church if that were so. Divorce is the largest sin taking place in the church - the biggest contributer to broken families. FoF is a front for making money.
posted by Anonymous, at
9/30/2006 1:39 PM
