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crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters
Once religious right groups find an item which can be used to demonize the lgbt community, they repeat this item ad naseum, even if they have to omit some crucial facts which could change the flow of what they are trying to push.
For example this quote by AIDS researcher Ronald Stall:
One of the nation’s leading AIDS researchers, Ronald Stall, has declared, “It may be a fallacy to say that HIV is the dominant, most dangerous and most damaging epidemic among gay men in the United States today. There are at least four other epidemics occurring among gay men that are intertwining and making each other worse. This is called a syndemic.” The “four other epidemics” are “substance abuse, partner violence, depression and childhood sexual abuse.”
That is how the Family Research Council spun the quote while using it to make the case against a repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
FRC also manipulated it to use against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) (item 7 with Peter Sprigg).
But like so many other things they use, the Family Research Council distorts the meaning of Stall's words.
The organization is omitting the rest of his quote:
“It may be a fallacy to say that HIV is the dominant, most dangerous and most damaging epidemic among gay men in the United States today,” Stall said. “There are at least four other epidemics occurring among gay men that are intertwining and making each other worse. This is called a syndemic.”
Stall cited the population-based Urban Men’s Health Study, which demonstrated that at least four other epidemics – substance abuse, partner violence, depression and childhood sexual abuse – may be affecting this patient population.
“What do these other factors have to do with HIV infection?” Stall said. “The analysis further demonstrated that men who were most affected by this syndemic were also more likely to have recently engaged in high-risk sex and/or be HIV positive. Therefore, we now have these co-occurring psychosocial conditions that are intertwined and are making each other worse driving an infectious disease epidemic.”
Stall added that other marginalized populations – including ethnic minorities and the urban poor – may also be suffering from a similar syndemic; this may be further exacerbating the HIV/AIDS epidemic in these patient populations as well.
In other words, Stall isn't implying that it is the lgbt orientation causing these problems but the marginalization of lgbts.
How FRC manipulates Stall's words is similar to how the organization manipulated medical information in its pamphlet The Top Ten Myths About Homosexuality.
In the pamphlet, FRC cited information that listed the medical problems facing the lgbt community (i.e. depression, drug abuse) but omitted the part of the data calling homophobia the cause of these problems.
It's a cagey thing to do. Not very Christian or moral, but highly cagey.
And one more thing, Box Turtle Bulletin says the following which throws another monkey wrench in FRC's claims:
According to our estimates, the prevalence of HIV is probably below 10% of the total LGBT population. (Those estimates however are fought with unknowable variables, so caution is advised whenever anyone attempts to estimate HIV prevelance in the LGBT population.) All people entering the military are tested for HIV, and all military personnel are retested at periodic intervals.
Related posts:
Family Research Council using fraudulent pamphlet in anti-gay ad
Top Ten Myths About Homosexuality' Is a Huge Homophobic Fraud
9 Comments
I’m always puzzled by the fact that these jerksare such compulsive, willful liars. Why do they feel the need? If their base claim is at all accurate, that they possess the inerrant word of God, why do they feel the need for anything more? Is it possible that even they don’t believe that their crap is in fact holy? That the alleged “self-evident truth of Scripture” is really nothing of the sort? Why else would they want to beef it up with their harebrained fabrications?
Lies to hurt peopleThat seems ‘holy’ enough for them: if you think about it, here they are trying to turn evidence that the homophobia hurts everyone …into more homophobia.
What’s their word for that kind of thing? ‘Evil?’
I suppose in their minds they need to believe the harder that there’s something righteous about it, because otherwise they’d have to face the atrocity of what they demand.
Two comments1. Isn’t this the same method Dimfart used to get Shirley Sherrod? They take a positive quote that supports the ‘good’ side of the argument and then selectively edit it so that it appears to say something totally different, and damning?
2. @Qscribe-I forget where I saw it, but I did come across a Mormon concept of “Lying for the Lord” (http://www.mormonwiki.org/Lying_for_the_Lord). In other words, if lying will bring about a ‘righteous’ end, then it is moral. I wonder if some of that is going on here as well?
I’m a little confused, thoughYou write, “Stall isn’t implying that it is the lgbt orientation causing these problems but the marginalization of lgbts.” But the way I read the longer quote, it could just be that Staff is reporting statistical information. I didn’t see any evidence that Stall was implying anything. Your interpretation of the implications might be correct, but is it possible that you are reading too much into Stall’s statement to support YOUR interpretation? (I should be clear, I don’t disagree with YOUR interpretation, I just don’t see Stall necessarily implied that).
a little explanationthe Family Research Council is using Stall’s quote to imply that the lgbt orientation is indicative of poor health circumstances. But in Stall’s entire quote, we see that this is not the case. Stall may be reporting statistical information but there is no logical way that anyone reading his exact quote can come to the conclusion as the Family Research Council did.
I agree with you there.I find it frustrating when distortions like this happen but a lot of people never bother to look deeper into the full story… so the false information persists.
The FRC positionis in total alignment with their religion. The philosophical basis for taking a phrase or idea out of context and spinning it into whatever they want is the basis of their faith. The “holy” book(s) they claim as their scripture are treated the same way. Why are do we feel that this twisting of the study is remarkable?
Bottom line – the principles of context and rational thinking are completely rejected by these bigots. The Talibangelicals do this because it is entirely consistent with their philosophy of life.
They are liars to the core.
Easy explanation!It’s easy to explain, Q!
The religious reicht has this fanatical obsession with regaining the fanatical, patriarchal, totalitarian hold of both social and political power they once held.
In order to regain their power, they will do anything and say anything to demonize and dehumanize anyone and everyone who stands in their way in their insane lust for power.
The religious reicht demonized abolitionists fighting the evils of slavery, then justified a civil war using the bible, then demonized women during feminism’s First Wave, fighting for the right to vote, again using the bible as justification; then during the Civil Rights Era, justifying both Jim Crow segregation and the ban on interracial marriages; then again during feminism’s Second Wave, claiming the bible only gives women the right to be mothers and wives; then during the first wave of Gay Liberation, decrying the elimination of sodomy laws, and now during the Second Wave of Gay Liberation, justifying the bible in denying same-sex couples the right to marry.
The religious reicht has a long and sordid history of lies, deceit, violence, and murder.
The blood of millions of their victims are on the hands of the reicht, and only through non-violent means should their lust for power be stopped!
how they collect dataI’ve been through this pamphlet before – it’s been their shining star for decades and what they use to justify their ignorance.
Say this group of people (GLBT’s) represents a bushel of apples. Everyone who’s been out looking for the scene knows that there are tactful, casual places to go – and then there are those really nasty hole-in-the-wall places that you wouldn’t dare to…depending on your preference or lifestyle.
They find the dirtiest, rotten hole that they can and start polling people (not sure how legitimately they poll them). They then instantly transpose that unscientific, minor extreme location to the ENTIRE GLBT population.
If I remember correctly there is a “truth or myth” section that claims that the majority of gays have over 1,000 unique sexual partners in their life.
They find ONE bad apple and call the whole bushel bad. And they hunt for that bad apple too. Since person y has a so-called “degree” then it’s instant scientific indisputable proof that the ENTIRE professional community has rejected and even rebuttaled. So the only people who think that crap science is true is them. They are completely delusional. They spread that misinformation around to all denominations of churches to “back up God’s word” and out into the sheeple.
This tactic is used again and again in their references and their footnotes. Of course they work “for God” and any other source of information is “manipulation by the devil”.