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By Evelyn Schlatter and Robert Steinback
Ever since born-again singer and orange juice pitchwoman Anita Bryant
helped kick off the contemporary anti-gay movement more than 30 years
ago, hard-line elements of the religious right have been searching for
ways to demonize homosexuals — or, at a minimum, to find arguments
that will prevent their normalization in society. For the former
Florida beauty queen and her Save Our Children group, it was the
alleged plans of gays and lesbians to "recruit" in schools that
provided the fodder for their crusade. But in addition to hawking that
myth, the legions of anti-gay activists who followed have added a
panoply of others, ranging from the extremely doubtful claim that
homosexuality is a choice, to unalloyed lies like the claims that gays
molest children far more than heterosexuals or that hate crime laws
will lead to the legalization of bestiality and necrophilia. These
fairy tales are important to the anti-gay right because they form the
basis of its claim that homosexuality is a social evil that must be
suppressed — an opinion rejected by virtually all relevant medical and
scientific authorities. They also almost certainly contribute to hate
crime violence directed at homosexuals, who are more targeted for such
attacks than any other minority in America. What follows are 10 key
myths propagated by the anti-gay movement, along with the truth behind
the propaganda.
MYTH # 1
Homosexuals molest children at far higher rates than heterosexuals.
THE ARGUMENT
Depicting gay men as a threat to children may be the single most
potent weapon for stoking public fears about homosexuality — and for
winning elections and referenda, as Anita Bryant found out during her
successful 1977 campaign to overturn a Dade County, Fla., ordinance
barring discrimination against gay people. Discredited psychologist
Paul Cameron, the most ubiquitous purveyor of anti-gay junk science,
has been a major promoter of this myth. Despite having been debunked
repeatedly and very publicly, Cameron's work is still widely relied
upon by anti-gay organizations, although many no longer quote him by
name.
THE FACTS
According to the American Psychological Association, "homosexual men
are not more likely to sexually abuse children than heterosexual men
are." Gregory Herek, a professor at the University of California,
Davis, who is one of the nation's leading researchers on prejudice
against sexual minorities, reviewed a series of studies and found no
evidence that gay men molest children at higher rates than
heterosexual men.
Anti-gay activists who make that claim allege that all men who molest
male children should be seen as homosexual. But research by A.
Nicholas Groth, a pioneer in the field of sexual abuse of children,
shows that is not so. Groth found that there are two types of child
molesters: fixated and regressive. The fixated child molester — the
stereotypical pedophile — cannot be considered homosexual or
heterosexual because "he often finds adults of either sex repulsive"
and often molests children of both sexes. Regressive child molesters
are generally attracted to other adults, but may "regress" to focusing
on children when confronted with stressful situations. Groth found
that the majority of regressed offenders were heterosexual in their
adult relationships.
The Child Molestation Research and Prevention Institute notes that 90%
of child molesters target children in their network of family and
friends. Most child molesters, therefore, are not gay people lingering
outside schools waiting to snatch children from the playground, as
much religious-right rhetoric suggests.
MYTH # 2
Same-sex parents harm children.
THE ARGUMENT
Most hard-line anti-gay organizations are heavily invested, from both
a religious and a political standpoint, in promoting the traditional
nuclear family as the sole framework for the healthy upbringing of
children. They maintain a reflexive belief that same-sex parenting
must be harmful to children — although the exact nature of that
supposed harm varies widely.
THE FACTS
No legitimate research has demonstrated that same-sex couples are any
more or any less harmful to children than heterosexual couples.
The American Academy of Pediatrics in a 2002 policy statement
declared: "A growing body of scientific literature demonstrates that
children who grow up with one or two gay and/or lesbian parents fare
as well in emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as do
children whose parents are heterosexual." That policy statement was
reaffirmed in 2009.
The American Psychological Association found that "same-sex couples
are remarkably similar to heterosexual couples, and that parenting
effectiveness and the adjustment, development and psychological
well-being of children is unrelated to parental sexual orientation."
Similarly, the Child Welfare League of America's official position
with regard to same-sex parents is that "lesbian, gay, and bisexual
parents are as well-suited to raise children as their heterosexual
counterparts."
MYTH # 3
People become homosexual because they were sexually abused as children
or there was a deficiency in sex-role modeling by their parents.
THE ARGUMENT
Many anti-gay rights proponents claim that homosexuality is a mental
disorder caused by some psychological trauma or aberration in
childhood. This argument is used to counter the common observation
that no one, gay or straight, consciously chooses his or her sexual
orientation. Joseph Nicolosi, a founder of the National Association
for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, said in 2009 that "if you
traumatize a child in a particular way, you will create a homosexual
condition." He also has repeatedly said, "Fathers, if you don't hug
your sons, some other man will." A side effect of this argument is the
demonization of parents of homosexuals, who are led to wonder if they
failed to protect a child against sexual abuse or failed as role
models in some important way. In October 2010, Kansas State University
family studies professor Walter Schumm said he was about to release a
related study arguing that homosexual couples are more likely than
heterosexuals to raise gay or lesbian children.
THE FACTS
No scientifically sound study has linked sexual orientation or
identity with parental role-modeling or childhood sexual abuse.
The American Psychiatric Association noted in a 2000 fact sheet on
gay, lesbian and bisexual issues that "no specific psychosocial or
family dynamic cause for homosexuality has been identified, including
histories of childhood sexual abuse." The fact sheet goes on to say
that sexual abuse does not appear to be any more prevalent among
children who grow up and identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual than in
children who grow up and identify as heterosexual.
Similarly, the National Organization on Male Sexual Victimization
notes on its website that "experts in the human sexuality field do not
believe that premature sexual experiences play a significant role in
late adolescent or adult sexual orientation" and added that it's
unlikely that someone can make another person a homosexual or
heterosexual.
With regard to Schumm's study, critics have already said that he
appears to have merely aggregated anecdotal data, a biased sample that
invalidates his findings.
MYTH # 4
Homosexuals don't live nearly as long as heterosexuals.
THE ARGUMENT
Anti-gay organizations want to promote heterosexuality as the
healthier "choice." Furthermore, the purportedly shorter life spans
and poorer physical and mental health of homosexuals are often offered
as reasons why gays and lesbians shouldn't be allowed to adopt or
foster children.
THE FACTS
This falsehood can be traced directly to the discredited research of
Paul Cameron and his Family Research Institute, specifically a 1994
paper he co-wrote entitled, "The Lifespan of Homosexuals." Using
obituaries collected from gay newspapers, he and his two co-authors
concluded that gay men died, on average, at 43, compared to an average
life expectancy at the time of around 73 for all U.S. men. On the
basis of the same obituaries, Cameron also claimed that gay men are 18
times more likely to die in car accidents than heterosexuals, 22 times
more likely to die of heart attacks than whites, and 11 times more
likely than blacks to die of the same cause. He also concluded that
lesbians are 487 times more likely to die of murder, suicide, or
accidents than straight women.
Remarkably, these claims have become staples of the anti-gay right and
have frequently made their way into far more mainstream venues. For
example, William Bennett, education secretary under President Reagan,
used Cameron's statistics in a 1997 interview he gave to ABC News'
"This Week."
However, like virtually all of his "research," Cameron's methodology
is egregiously flawed — most obviously because the sample he selected
(the data from the obits) was not remotely statistically
representative of the homosexual population as a whole. Even Nicholas
Eberstadt, a demographer at the conservative American Enterprise
Institute, has called Cameron's methods "just ridiculous."
MYTH # 5
Homosexuals controlled the Nazi Party and helped to orchestrate the Holocaust.
THE ARGUMENT
This claim comes directly from a 1995 book titled The Pink Swastika:
Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams.
Lively is the virulently anti-gay founder of Abiding Truth Ministries
and Abrams is an organizer of a group called the International
Committee for Holocaust Truth, which came together in 1994 and
included Lively as a member.
The primary argument Lively and Abrams make is that gay people were
not victimized by the Holocaust. Rather, Hitler deliberately sought
gay men for his inner circle because their "unusual brutality" would
help him run the party and mastermind the Holocaust. In fact, "the
Nazi party was entirely controlled by militaristic male homosexuals
throughout its short history," the book claims. "While we cannot say
that homosexuals caused the Holocaust, we must not ignore their
central role in Nazism," Lively and Abrams add. "To the myth of the
'pink triangle' — the notion that all homosexuals in Nazi Germany were
persecuted — we must respond with the reality of the 'pink swastika.'"
These claims have been picked up by a number of anti-gay groups and
individuals, including Bryan Fischer of the American Family
Association, as proof that homosexuals are violent and sick. The book
has also attracted an audience among anti-gay church leaders in
Eastern Europe and among Russian-speaking anti-gay activists in
America.
THE FACTS
The Pink Swastika has been roundly discredited by legitimate
historians and other scholars. Christine Mueller, professor of history
at Reed College, did a line-by-line refutation of an earlier (1994)
Abrams article on the topic and of the broader claim that the Nazi
Party was "entirely controlled" by gay men. Historian Jon David
Wynecken at Grove City College also refuted the book, pointing out
that Lively and Abrams did no primary research of their own, instead
using out-of-context citations of some legitimate sources while
ignoring information from those same sources that ran counter to their
thesis.
The myth that the Nazis condoned homosexuality sprang up in the 1930s,
started by socialist opponents of the Nazis as a slander against Nazi
leaders. Credible historians believe that only one of the half-dozen
leaders in Hitler's inner circle, Ernst Röhm, was gay. (Röhm was
murdered on Hitler's orders in 1934.) The Nazis considered
homosexuality one aspect of the "degeneracy" they were trying to
eradicate.
When the National Socialist Party came to power in 1933, it quickly
strengthened Germany's existing penalties against homosexuality.
Heinrich Himmler, Hitler's security chief, announced that
homosexuality was to be "eliminated" in Germany, along with
miscegenation among the races. Historians estimate that between 50,000
and 100,000 men were arrested for homosexuality (or suspicion of it)
under the Nazi regime. These men were routinely sent to concentration
camps and many thousands died there.
In 1942, the Nazis instituted the death penalty for homosexuals.
Offenders in the German military were routinely shot. Himmler put it
like this: "We must exterminate these people root and branch. … We
can't permit such danger to the country; the homosexual must be
completely eliminated."
MYTH # 6
Hate crime laws will lead to the jailing of pastors who criticize
homosexuality and the legalization of practices like bestiality and
necrophilia.
THE ARGUMENT
Anti-gay activists, who have long opposed adding LGBT people to those
protected by hate crime legislation, have repeatedly claimed that such
laws would lead to the jailing of religious figures who preach against
homosexuality — part of a bid to gain the backing of the broader
religious community for their position. Janet Porter of Faith2Action
was one of many who asserted that the federal Matthew Shepard Hate
Crimes Prevention Act — signed into law by President Obama in October
2009 — would "jail pastors" because it "criminalizes speech against
the homosexual agenda."
In a related assertion, anti-gay activists claimed the law would lead
to the legalization of psychosexual disorders (paraphilias) like
bestiality and pedophilia. Bob Unruh, a conservative Christian
journalist who left The Associated Press in 2006 for the right-wing,
conspiracist news site WorldNetDaily, said shortly before the federal
law was passed that it would legalize "all 547 forms of sexual
deviancy or 'paraphilias' listed by the American Psychiatric
Association." This claim was repeated by many anti-gay organizations,
including the Illinois Family Institute.
THE FACTS
The claim that hate crime laws could result in the imprisonment of
those who "oppose the homosexual lifestyle" is false. The Constitution
provides robust protections of free speech, and case law makes it
clear that even a preacher who suggested that homosexuals should be
killed would be protected.
Neither do hate crime laws — which provide for enhanced penalties when
persons are victimized because of their "sexual orientation" (among
other factors) — "protect pedophiles," as Janet Porter and many others
have claimed. According to the American Psychological Association,
sexual orientation refers to heterosexuality, homosexuality and
bisexuality — not paraphilias such as pedophilia. Paraphilias, as
defined by the American Psychiatric Assocation, are disorders
characterized by sexual urges or behaviors directed at nonhuman
objects or non-consenting persons like children, or that involve the
suffering or humiliation of one's partner.
Even if pedophiles, for example, were protected under a hate crime law
— and such a law has not been suggested or contemplated anywhere —
that would not legalize or "protect" pedophilia. Pedophilia is illegal
sexual activity, and a law that more severely punished people who
attacked pedophiles would not change that.
MYTH # 7
Allowing homosexuals to serve openly would damage the armed forces.
THE ARGUMENT
Anti-gay groups are adamantly opposed to allowing gay men and lesbians
to serve openly in the armed forces, not only because of their
purported fear that combat readiness will be undermined, but because
the military has long been considered the purest meritocracy in
America (the armed forces were successfully racially integrated long
before American civilian society, for example). If gays can serve
honorably and effectively in this meritocracy, that would suggest that
there is no rational basis for discriminating against them in any way.
THE FACTS
Homosexuals now serve in the U.S. armed forces, though under the
"Don't Ask, Don't Tell" (DADT) policy instituted in 1993, they cannot
serve openly. At the same time, gays and lesbians serve openly in the
armed forces of 25 countries, including Britain, Israel, South Africa,
Canada and Australia, according to a report released by the Palm
Center, a policy think tank at the University of California at Santa
Barbara. The Palm Center report concluded that lifting bans against
openly gay service personnel in these countries "ha[s] had no negative
impact on morale, recruitment, retention, readiness or overall combat
effectiveness." Successful transitions to new policies were attributed
to clear signals of leadership support and a focus on a uniform code
of behavior without regard to sexual orientation.
A 2008 Military Times poll of active-duty military personnel, often
cited by anti-gay activists, found that 10% of respondents said they
would not re-enlist if the DADT policy were repealed. That would mean
some 228,000 people might leave the military in that instance. But a
2009 review of that poll by the Palm Center suggested a wide disparity
between what soldiers said they would do and their actual actions. It
noted, for example, that far more than 10% of West Point officers in
the 1970s said they would leave the service if women were admitted to
the academy. "But when the integration became a reality," the report
said, "there was no mass exodus; the opinions turned out to be just
opinions." Similarly, a 1985 survey of 6,500 male Canadian service
members and a 1996 survey of 13,500 British service members each
revealed that nearly two-thirds expressed strong reservations about
serving with gays. Yet when those countries lifted bans on gays
serving openly, virtually no one left the service for that reason.
"None of the dire predictions of doom came true," the Palm Center
report said.
MYTH # 8
Homosexuals are more prone to be mentally ill and to abuse drugs and alcohol.
THE ARGUMENT
Anti-gay groups want not only to depict sexual orientation as
something that can be changed but also to show that heterosexuality is
the most desirable "choice" — even if religious arguments are set
aside. The most frequently used secular argument made by anti-gay
groups in that regard is that homosexuality is inherently unhealthy,
both mentally and physically. As a result, most anti-gay rights groups
reject the 1973 decision by the American Psychiatric Association (APA)
to remove homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses. Some of
these groups, including the particularly hard-line Traditional Values
Coalition, claim that "homosexual activists" managed to infiltrate the
APA in order to sway its decision.
THE FACTS
All major professional mental health organizations are on record as
stating that homosexuality is not a mental disorder.
It is true that LGBT people suffer higher rates of anxiety,
depression, and depression-related illnesses and behaviors like
alcohol and drug abuse than the general population. But studies done
during the past 15 years have determined that it is the stress of
being a member of a minority group in an often-hostile society — and
not LGBT identity itself — that accounts for the higher levels of
mental illness and drug use.
Richard J. Wolitski, an expert on minority status and public health
issues at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, put it like
this in 2008: "Economic disadvantage, stigma, and discrimination …
increase stress and diminish the ability of individuals [in minority
groups] to cope with stress, which in turn contribute to poor physical
and mental health."
MYTH # 9
No one is born a homosexual.
THE ARGUMENT
Anti-gay activists keenly oppose the granting of "special" civil
rights protections to homosexuals similar to those afforded black
Americans and other minorities. But if people are born gay — in the
same way people have no choice as to whether they are black or white —
discrimination against homosexuals would be vastly more difficult to
justify. Thus, anti-gay forces insist that sexual orientation is a
behavior that can be changed, not an immutable characteristic.
THE FACTS
Modern science cannot state conclusively what causes sexual
orientation, but a great many studies suggest that it is the result of
biological and environmental forces, not a personal "choice." One of
the more recent is a 2008 Swedish study of twins (the world's largest
twin study) that appeared in The Archives of Sexual Behavior and
concluded that "[h]omosexual behaviour is largely shaped by genetics
and random environmental factors." Dr. Qazi Rahman, study co-author
and a leading scientist on human sexual orientation, said: "This study
puts cold water on any concerns that we are looking for a single 'gay
gene' or a single environmental variable which could be used to
'select out' homosexuality — the factors which influence sexual
orientation are complex. And we are not simply talking about
homosexuality here — heterosexual behaviour is also influenced by a
mixture of genetic and environmental factors."
The American Psychological Association (APA) acknowledges that despite
much research into the possible genetic, hormonal, social and cultural
influences on sexual orientation, no evidence has emerged that would
allow scientists to pinpoint the precise causes of sexual orientation.
Still, the APA concludes that "most people experience little or no
sense of choice about their sexual orientation."
In October 2010, Kansas State University family studies professor
Walter Schumm said he was about to release a study showing that gay
parents produced far more gay children than heterosexual parents. He
told a reporter that he was "trying to prove [homosexuality is] not
100% genetic." But critics suggested that his data did not prove that,
and, in any event, virtually no scientists have suggested that
homosexuality is caused only by genes.
MYTH # 10
Gay people can choose to leave homosexuality.
THE ARGUMENT
If people are not born gay, as anti-gay activists claim, then it
should be possible for individuals to abandon homosexuality. This view
is buttressed among religiously motivated anti-gay activists by the
idea that homosexual practice is a sin and humans have the free will
needed to reject sinful urges.
A number of "ex-gay" religious ministries have sprung up in recent
years with the aim of teaching homosexuals to become heterosexuals,
and these have become prime purveyors of the claim that gays and
lesbians, with the aid of mental therapy and Christian teachings, can
"come out of homosexuality." Exodus International, the largest of
these ministries, plainly states, "You don't have to be gay!" Another,
the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality,
describes itself as "a professional, scientific organization that
offers hope to those who struggle with unwanted homosexuality."
THE FACTS
"Reparative" or sexual reorientation therapy — the pseudo-scientific
foundation of the ex-gay movement — has been rejected by all the
established and reputable American medical, psychological,
psychiatric, and professional counseling organizations. In 2009, for
instance, the American Psychological Association adopted a resolution,
accompanied by a 138-page report, that repudiated ex-gay therapy. The
report concluded that compelling evidence suggested that cases of
individuals going from gay to straight were "rare" and that "many
individuals continued to experience same-sex sexual attractions" after
reparative therapy. The APA resolution added that "there is
insufficient evidence to support the use of psychological
interventions to change sexual orientation" and asked "mental health
professionals to avoid misrepresenting the efficacy of sexual
orientation change efforts by promoting or promising change in sexual
orientation." The resolution also affirmed that same-sex sexual and
romantic feelings are normal.
Some of the most striking, if anecdotal, evidence of the
ineffectiveness of sexual reorientation therapy has been the numerous
failures of some of its most ardent advocates. For example, the
founder of Exodus International, Michael Bussee, left the organization
in 1979 with a fellow male ex-gay counselor because the two had fallen
in love. Alan Chambers, current president of Exodus, said in 2007 that
with years of therapy, he's mostly conquered his attraction to men,
but then admitted, "By no means would we ever say that change can be
sudden or complete."
More:
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2010/winter/10-myths
--
Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy
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