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crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters
“If you isolate sexuality as something solely for one’s own personal amusement, and all you want is the most satisfying orgasm you can get—and that is what homosexuality seems to be—then homosexuality seems too powerful to resist. The evidence is that men do a better job on men, and women on women if all you are looking for is an orgasm . . . Marital sex tends toward the boring end. Generally, it doesn’t deliver the kind of sheer sexual pleasure that homosexual sex does.” – Paul Cameron, Rolling Stone, March, 18, 1999
Not many people in the lgbt community or the world know who Paul Cameron is.
But we all should.
Paul Cameron is the grandfather of all anti-gay junk science.
When the religious right compares us to pedophiles, when they claim that we have a short life span, when they talk about how “how homosexuality has dangerous physical and medical consequences,” it's his discredited “data” that they are inferring.
Paul Cameron is probably singlehandedly responsible for every lie, every distortion, every bastardization of science that has plagued the lgbt community since the onset of the AIDS crisis.
His bad research techniques and tactics has led him to be dismissed from major scientific groups, as well as censured by conservatives and liberals alike.
Unfortunately these techniques and tactics also gave the religious right a “scientific component” to attack the lgbt community. If there was no Paul Cameron, there would be no Peter LaBarbera, no Matt Barber, no Linda Harvey, etc., etc.
The following clips are of Paul Cameron in Poland this year, where he was barred from speaking at a university after his dubious history was made known.
I think you can see the ugly homophobia that has tainted his research from the beginning, especially with his fascination with anal sex in the gay community (of course he omits how heterosexuals also participate in this activity), and his claim that he has been the victim of a conspiracy of “ad hominem” attacks.
The “real fun” starts at 2:45 in the following clip when he begins talking about how gays have a supposedly high rate of molesting children.
Now in second this clip, he goes into full detail about anal sex, making sure to imply that it is solely “gay behavior.” He also talks about how the attacks against him have been unfair because all he is doing is presenting data that the gay community also presents. He also tells a huge bold-faced lie (as if his entire presentation isn't a lie) when he says that gays aren't showing any evidence that his work is inaccurate.
Of course Cameron omits several things. There is a reason why he has to go to foreign countries to present his “studies.” He is a laughing stock in the United States. While religious right groups fully exploit the so-called results behind his studies, they are careful not to call him by name. There is a reason for that.
Let's take a quick look at his history:
“Right now, here in Lincoln, there is a 4-year-old boy who has had his genitals almost severed from his body at Gateway in the rest room with a homosexual act… It’s really awkward. I could see where Gateway would want to suppress this. I could see where the parents would want to suppress it. It could be just a rumor. But enough things have happened recently so that such a thing doesn’t have to be invented.” – Paul Cameron told this story to a group in 1982 in Lincoln, NB in an attempt to kill a human rights ordinance. The police discovered the story to be false but the ordinance was defeated.
And let's not forget the condemnations rained down on him by the medical community:
“(Cameron) misrepresents my findings and distorts them to advance his homophobic views. I make a very clear distinction in my writing between pedophilia and homosexuality, noting that adult males who sexually victimize young boys are either pedophilic or heterosexual, and that in my research I have not found homosexual men turning away from adult partners to children . . . I consider this totally unprofessional behavior on the part of Dr. Cameron and I want to bring this to your attention. He disgraces his profession.” – Dr. A. Nicholas Groth in 1984 after discovering that Cameron distorted his work.
“Paul Cameron (Nebraska) was dropped from membership for a violation of the Preamble to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists – American Psychological Association, 1983
The science and profession of psychology in Nebraska as represented by the Nebraska Psychological Association, formally dissociates itself from the representations and interpretations of scientific literature offered by Dr. Paul Cameron in his writings and public statements on sexuality. Further, the Nebraska Psychological Association would like it known that Dr. Cameron is not a member of the Association. Dr. Cameron was recently dropped from membership in the American Psychological Association for a violation of the Preamble to the Ethical Principles of Psychologists – Nebraska Psychological Association, 1984
Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism” – American Sociological Association, 1985
The Canadian Psychological Association takes the position that Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism and thus, it formally disassociates itself from the representation and interpretations of scientific literature in his writings and public statements on sexuality. – Canadian Psychological Association, 1996
And while we are at it, let's not forget those on the right who dismiss Cameron's work:
“Given what I now know, I believe there are flaws with Paul Cameron's study. One cannot extrapolate from his methodology and say that the average male homosexual life span is 43 years.” – former Ronald Regan Cabinet member William Bennett criticizing Cameron's “gay lifespan study.” – New Republic (1998, Februa
ry 23, page 4)
This article has been removed due to the inaccuracies surrounding the research of Paul Cameron. – A posting on the webpage of Ex-gay group Exodus International
Paul Cameron has been censured and attacked not because his “research” is controversial, but because it is wrong. He ranks right up there with folks who think that the Earth is flat. His organization, the Family Research Institute, has been declared an official hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
And not because it embraces the belief that homosexuality is a sin. According to Mark Potok, the director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, Cameron's group has that designation because Cameron consciously lies about the lgbt community.
The sad fact that Cameron has credibility anywhere (not matter where it is) is testament to people's need to believe that their beliefs are somehow superior to others' beliefs.
This unfortunate need to feel superior has plagued mankind from the beginning of time. And, as in the beginning of time, there will always be people like Paul Cameron to exploit it.
More about Paul Cameron's lies here and here.
And despite all that has been said about Cameron's lies, this link shows that he still has a degree of credibility with some people, including Peter LaBarbera, Concerned Women for America, and the Family Research Council.
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I only speak a few words of PolishBut I would be curious to see what the the introductory commentary said. Is a translation available?
Marital sex tends toward the boring end. Generally, it doesn’t deliver the kind of sheer sexual pleasure that homosexual sex does.” – Paul Cameron, Rolling Stone, March, 18, 1999Gee, is there any real question where Paul’s true desires lie?
Closet CaseI know it’s something of a cliche to accuse obsessed homophobes of being repressed closet cases, but no genuinely heterosexual man in my experience would ever say anything like that quote from Rolling Stone. I wonder sometimes if repressed homosexuals and bisexuals, rather than actual heterosexuals, aren’t our worst enemies. Maybe these people are so insistent that being gay is a choice because they themselves have in fact made a choice not to live honestly in accordance with their sexuality. Maybe the fear they often implicitly express that homosexuality will run rampant if given half a chance is really an expression of their own constant homosexual temptation, that they recognize from their own efforts can never be conquered, and a projection of it onto everyone else.
Cameron Makes Satan Look Like Mary Frackin’ Poppins…Cameron has called for those infected with HIV to be tattoed, on the face. He has also suggested that they be shipped off to an island with no food or source of fresh water. Jesus, could he come up with a more cruel death sentence? I mean, compared to that, a bullet in the brain would be a kindness.
At one point, and this is confirmed by a former surgeon general of the US, Paul Cameron stated that it may be necessary to EXTERMINATE ALL homosexuals…
At the 1985 Conservative Political Action Conference, Cameron announced to the attendees, “Unless we get medically lucky, in three or four years, one of the options discussed will be the extermination of homosexuals.” According to an interview with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, Cameron was recommending the extermination option as early as 1983.
http://www.boxturtlebulletin.c…
The man is a true Nazi in every sense, and no it does not violate Godwin’s Rule when it is true.
Mutually Assured SatisfactionI love it when anti-gay campaigners treat gay sex like it’s too awesome to fall into the hands of mere mortals. I love being the sexual equivalent of the nuclear option.
With respect, Alvin, you’re mistaken
Cameron is unquestionably a monster who has done enormous, lasting damage to the movement for both LGBT rights and understanding. But he is no more “the grandfather of all anti-gay junk science” than Barack Obama is the grandfather of all African-American candidates for President. He’s not even the “father.”
He certainly planted new, extremely toxic ideas, but it was into soil that had been previously plowed and made fertile for such fresh quackery by others that Peter LaBarbera, Matt Barber, et al., also use to “authenticate” their hatred. With respect, to assert that they wouldn’t exist without him is “junk” of another type.
As documented in Simon Levay’s Queer Science: The Use and Abuse of Research into Homosexuality [1996], and numerous other histories, antigay activists built the foundation of their industry on three other men who were being published and interviewed long before Cameron came upon the public scene in 1982.
“The real psychoanalytic attack on homosexuality was initiated by Freud’s followers, particularly by those working in the United States. Three names-Lionel Ovesey, Irving Bieber, and Charles Socarides-are especially prominent in this field.” – LeVay.
Socarides, as some know, was, ironically, the father of Richard Socarides, a gay member of the Clinton administration.
As expressed in their major works below, all three essentially shared the same belief that homosexuality was a mental illness, particularly the result of a “smothering mother” and absent or hostile father, and that it could be cured. They were rabidly opposed to the American Psychiatric Association’s removal of homosexuality from its list of “mental illnesses.”
Bieber was publicly quoted saying in response, “a homosexual is a person whose heterosexual function is crippled, like the legs of a polio victim.”
Ovesey was also influential in developing anti-trans theories, including the idea that MTFs are simply trying to replicate their mothers in themselves through surgery.
BIEBER:
Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals, 1962.
It remained the leading “authority” until the 1973 APA declassification. But its damage to popular fears has persisted ever since a LIFE magazine article in 1964 on gay males and smothering mothers-Homosexuality in America, A secret world grows open and bolder, Society is forced to look at it – and try to understand it-further convinced millions of parents that something was wrong with their sons, giving rise to the “My mother made me a homosexual” meme. Much of it is echoed today in antigay industry propaganda.
LIFE:
“ever since the 1962 publication of a famous study headed by Dr. Irving Bieber, modern analysts have put the blame less on heredity than on childhood experiences. In Dr. Bieber’s view, of course, homosexuals are psychologically sick: the emotionally disturbed offspring of emotionally disturbed parents. He believes strongly that the homosexual society is ‘neither “health” nor happy’,” and that indeed the very term “gay world” is only a flippant and rather pathetic attempt to cover up deep and chronic feelings of pathological depression. Most analysts, psychiatrists and psychologists tend to agree. ….
Do the homosexuals like the Communists, intend to bury us? Yes, indeed, suggested a startling front-page story in the New York Times and other newspapers last month. A committee of highly respected New York Academy of Medicine had come to the conclusion that American homosexuals want far more than to be merely tolerated and even more than to be ungrudgingly accepted.”
Cognitive Psychoanalysis: Cognitive Processes in Psychopathology, 1980
SOCARIDES:
The Overt Homosexual, 1968
The World of Emotions: Clinical Studies of Affects and Their Expression, 1977
Homosexuality: Psychoanalytic Therapy, 1989
OVESEY:
Homosexuality and Pseudohomosexuality, 1969
The transsexual syndrome in males, 1974