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crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters
Expose religious right’s history of anti-gay junk science is a facebook group that I am helping to start.
When we talk about lgbt rights, we sometimes forget to emphasize the fact that for over 30 years, religious right groups have either relied on junk science or distorted legitimate research to weave an inaccurate anti-lgbt narrative.
We don't emphasize, among other things, their continued reliance on the studies of discredited researcher Paul Cameron nor do we mention the large number of physicians and researchers who have in the past complained about the distortion of their work by these groups.
Subsequently, these groups (i.e. the National Organization for Marriage, the Traditional Values Coalition, the American Family Association, etc.) and their spokespeople are not questioned or called to the carpet for their lies as much as they should be.
A lot of us know that these groups are phony but we aren't doing enough to emphasize the point.
It is because of our lack of attention that religious right groups are either able to push the phony notion that they are somehow upholding “traditional values” while distorting science or push tacit approval of vile homophobic images, such as the above Concerned Women for America endorsed comic book (of which several pages are present on the facebook group).
This group is meant to be a call to action. It's a call for the lgbt community to start changing the narrative in the fight for our equality.
Seems to me if organizations are either deliberately relying on junk science or truncating legitimate science, they should be the ones whose credibility should be questioned rather than the people who are the victims of their inaccurate invectives.
As we have seen with last Monday's silly sideshow rally against hate crimes legislation, we are dealing with organizations who will push a point even after said point has been continuously proven wrong and refuted.
And while we laugh this time at religious right groups falling on their faces in public embarrassment, let's not forget the times when their tenacity to push inaccuracies have harmed the lgbt community.
The point of this so-called culture war is not lgbts having to explain why we are deserving of basic rights. The point should be why are these so-called moral groups lying to deny lgbts our basic rights.
Click here to join.
8 Comments
Hopefully…you’re including the non-science of the J. Michael Bailey / Ray Blanchard / Alice Dreger / Ken Zucker transsexual-exterminationist axis.
Now this is a better use of our timebetween now and, let’s say, 2012 as opposed to having yet another ballot fight in California in 2010.
Obviously, from the experience in Maine we have absymally failed in undermining, for example, “they will teach gay marriage in schools meme” As you state Alvin, we think this stuff is silly and it is.
But LGBT are not the target audience of this type of junk science. These people are reaching their target audiences, say what we might.
Big time, as a former vice president would say.
Let’s not forgetLet’s not forget those lovely little booklets from Chick Publications! All those lies, untruths, and slander spewed by those little bigots!
http:/www.chick.com
Be prepared and have a bucket, because this is some of the most vile stuff spewed by the reicht. When I come across one every once in awhile, I’m tempted not to recycle it, for fear of contaminating the rest of the papers.
grrrhttp://www.chick.com
ReligionWhen I was growing up I went to “Sunday School” at the local Congregationalist Church which is now a part of the United Church of Christ. We were taught to be a good Christian we were told not to lie or mistreat others. These morons have the nads to make comments about the churches like the Congregationalst who support gay marriage and call them “phony churches”. The biggest damn phonies are those idiots that use their church as cover to hide their bigotry and lies. There I said it now I’ll calm down….
reinventing the wheeli am not sure how creating a facebook page will change minds. you will create this page but the people that need to be convinced aren’t going to come read something that doesn’t confirm what they already believe. you are creating a page to show how right you are and how wrong they are. how is that going to help? i don’t wanna be so negative but you will only be talking to people that already believe what you do. should a religious person read your page will they be convinced that the church is wrong? no. belief isn’t logical to begin with. what about a page devoted to all the religions that do not do this. are there any religions that support your views? why not focus on them and what they say? so many people already do what you suggest. check out the center for inquiry that does just this [centerforinquiry.net]. it just seems like you are reinventing the wheel and the ‘good’ religous folks could use your help getting their word out. it is human nature to ‘right fight’ but no listening happens and no minds are changed. wouldn’t it feel better to work with allies than against emotionally immature people? maybe i’m just old and tired of noise. i’ve started to turn off the news.
you got it all wrong, swabbyThe facebook page is about educating our own about this situation (because a lot of us aren’t) and putting the information out there in the public.
The facebook page has nothing to do with religion beliefs. it talks about bad science and distortive tactics used to exploit religious beliefs.
that is the problem we have had to deal with from day one. when anita bryant came out with her lies, she juxtaposed her religious beliefs with lies about gay men being pedophiles. And that is what we are dealing with today – organizations juxtaposing religious beliefs with blatant inaccuracies. Instead of giving someone a pass based “their beliefs,” we need to be more aggressive in calling out the junk science and the distortion of credible science. I’m not to change hearts and minds. I want to expose liars and cheats.
If someone feels that homosexuality is a sin, more power to them because they have a right to be inaccurate in that respect. But if that same person is being fooled by junk science or intentionally distorting legitimate studies, we would do ourselves and the community in general a huge favor by not letting them get away with it.
the center for inquirytheir mission is: “To oppose and supplant the mythological narratives of the past, and the dogmas of the present, the world needs an institution devoted to promoting science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values. The Center for Inquiry is that institution.
At the Center for Inquiry, we believe that evidence-based reasoning, in which humans work together to address common concerns, is critical for modern world civilization. Moreover, unlike many other institutions, we maintain that scientific methods and reasoning should be utilized in examining the claims of both pseudoscience and religion. We reject mysticism and blind faith. No topic should be placed off limits to scrutiny-certainly not fringe science and religion, which have an enormous influence on beliefs and conduct.”
if you are looking for material to ‘educate our own’ about the false science/interpretations used against us then you will find reams of material here to use. this think tank even has a gay podcaster. more importantly i have found the interviewees on the podcast [christopher hitchens, paul kurtz, etc] articulate the reason why the junk science is junk, which i find helpful. this is what i meant by reinventing the wheel. i hear the junk science being called junk; i hear bigots being called on the sources of the stupidity. what you propose is being done for our community. it isn’t a bad idea; i’m not poo pooing that. it is useful. i’m guess i am suggesting you take a different angle such as teach our ‘own’ how to use critical thinking to not blindly accept information doled out by someone on tv. i would like to see ‘us’ working on calling out the pundits that continually have these people on their shows as if they are credible experts with valid information. i want ‘us’ to work with msnbc to ban using people like pat robertson or liz cheney or sarah palin as credible people with ideas worth listening to. you are fighting an emotional war with logic and ethics. has that ever worked?
the eastern folks believe what you resist, persists. the more we debate with ‘them’ then the more ‘energy’ is given to the negative nonsense. i would suggest we would be better served by not responding to ‘their’ blather with nothing more than pity for their obvious poor mental health and reasoning skills and emotional immaturity. it gives them no energy to feed off of. when the kkk throws a rally and no one attends, there is no attention given to them but indifference, they just can’t have the emotional impact that they feed off of. i wish logic worked and i wish you great success and i hope i’m wrong. i’ll be glad to be. i’ll certainly read what you have to say. best to you. [i know i didn't stay on junk science in my examples but i think the lines blur when fighting misinformation.]