Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Let’s not forget about the imps

Paul Cameron has yet another study out. This time, he claims that there has been a conspiracy to suppress studies that puts the gay community in an bad light.

But let’s move past him for a second. We need to keep focus on just how dangerous Cameron’s lies actually are.

No matter how many times he has been debunked, Cameron has an audience willing to believe his lies and pass them along. And those in that camp are also willing to repeat Cameron’s lies in front of school boards and legislative bodies.

Some of these folks are absolutely deluded; convinced that the only reason why Cameron has been rebuked is because his data is correct and the so-called Gay Mafia will do anything to suppress it They believe this despite the fact that there has been and continues to be a mountain of evidence against Cameron.

And then there are others who are very aware of Cameron’s history and the lack of credibility his data contains.

But they use it anyway because of a Machiavellian mindset. They seem to think that in the long run, defaming homosexuality and lgbts by use of bad studies (i.e. lies) are not necessarily a bad thing because the lies are being done for a good or Christian purpose.

A part of me feels sorry for those with the former notion. Those who have the latter notion (and there are many) are the ones we should focus our efforts on.

Indeed Paul Cameron had a belief that homosexuality is sick in a physical and mental sense even before he began defaming the community. For this reason, he manipulated and distorted legitimate data and statistics to quantify this theory.

While those in the anti-gay industry present a danger when they cite his work, they present more of a danger when they have the mindsets that led Cameron to do what he did to our community.

This leads them to find other works to distort.

My book covers many of these examples, so let me give out a few. I have not linked these examples to a site because

A. I have to give you some degree of curiousity so that you will buy my book and

B. Many of these examples are things that I personally researched and discovered.

But trust me when I say that these examples and more are covered with detail and proof in my book:

Gay men have a short life span due to disease and reckless living - When not citing Cameron’s studies to quanitfy this lie, the anti-gay industry will distort the findings of a 1997 Oxford study. However, they always omit the fact that in 2001, the original authors of the study said that their work was being distorted. They said the original study was speaking of a purely hypothetical outcome that is no longer applicable.

Gay men molest children at a higher rate than heterosexuals - When not citing Cameron’s studies, the anti-gay industry will repeat his theory that if a man molests a young boy, then that man is gay. Legitimate studies have all said this is not the case.

Lesbians engage in reckless behavior like drug addiction and alcoholism - When not citing Cameron’s studies, the anti-gay industry will cite convenience sample studies, or studies not indicative of the entire community. One such study was by Dr. Joanne Hall. Despite the fact that Dr. Hall’s study looked at only 35 lesbians and that she had written letters complaining about the distortion of her work, the Family Research Council and other groups still use it.

Gay men are promiscuous - When not citing Cameron’s studies, the anti-gay industry will use out-of-date books that only looks a part of the gay population. One book they cite is Homosexualities by Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg. Homosexualities looked at the gay community in San Francisco in the early 1970s. The authors even say that their book cannot be thought of to represent the entire gay community. A point of fact about Homosexualities is that it was produced by the Kinsey Institute, the organization that many in the anti-gay industry claims uses bad methodology. Apparently the Kinsey Institute can’t be so bad to them if they use its work to defame lgbts.

As I said before, I go into more detail about these examples in my book.

But my main point is that while exposing Cameron for his bad research, let’s not forget that the anti-gay industry has copied his shoddy tactics. We need to call them out on that.

Cameron shouldn’t get all the blame.