10 Anti-Gay Myths Debunked | Southern Poverty Law Center

Contents:

• FALSELY CLAIMG SOMEONE IS GAY IS NO LONGER FAMATN PER SE, N.Y. URT L
• LABEL OF GAY IS NO LONGER DEFAMATORY, COURT RUL
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• GAY RIGHTS ACTIVISTS ANGRY AS URT L LLG A PERSON GAY IS NOT SLANR, LEAVG THEM OPEN TO 'LYNCHG MOB'
• FUNNY DARK GAY JOK YOU’VE NEVER HEARD BEFORE
• HOW MACHISMO CULTURE IMPACTS GAY LATOS
• KORLL STEWART SU TO COLLECT HIS $3M JUDGMENT OVER ANDREW ‘DELIVERT’ CALDWELL’S GAY SLANR

FALSELY CLAIMG SOMEONE IS GAY IS NO LONGER FAMATN PER SE, N.Y. URT L

"Eric Lh, LGBT Bar Associatn of New YorkIn late December, however, the Supreme Court of the State of New York’s Send Department — one urt below the New York Court of Appeals, the state’s hight urt — overturned that s-old precent when led that a false claim of homosexualy is no longer famatn per se.

Mrice, began 2017, when Jean Renald Mrice, a pastor at the Gethsemane Seventh Day Adventist Church Brooklyn, publicly claimed at a church meetg of 300 people that a church elr, Pierre Delor Laguerre, “was a homosexual” and that he “disrpected the church by viewg gay pornography on the church’s puter, ” acrdg to the urt opn. Mlla, a 2012 lg by the Supreme Court’s Third Department that found that prev cisns labelg false claims of homosexualy as famatn per se were "nsistent wh current public policy and should no longer be followed.

LABEL OF GAY IS NO LONGER DEFAMATORY, COURT RUL

" That cisn also led that “ nnot be said that current public opn supports a le that would equate statements imputg homosexualy wh accatns of ser crimal nduct or suatns that an dividual has a loathsome disease. When given the opportuny, Lh said they will likely le the same way the Send and Third Departments the Uned Stat, whether false claims of homosexualy are nsired famatory per se is pennt on the state and, often, on the urt.

Defamatn lawsus rultg om false accatns of beg LGBTQ — like the one brought before New York’s Send Department — are ls mon than they once were due to creasg acceptance of lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer people, acrdg to Brad Sears, executive director of the Williams Instute at UCLA School of Law.

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

And numero policy chang at the lol, state, and feral levels, there has been a dramatic crease the number of famatn s pertag to claims of homosexualy but paratively few answers provid by urts as to why.

GAY RIGHTS ACTIVISTS ANGRY AS URT L LLG A PERSON GAY IS NOT SLANR, LEAVG THEM OPEN TO 'LYNCHG MOB'

Among the s analyzed, one portn of which clud fendants’ verbal and/or wrten accatns of platiffs’ prumed or affirmed sexual orientatn, behavr, or inti, claims of homosexualy as famatory failed 38 out of 42 s bee judg granted summary judgment for the fendants, dismissed the s altogether, or nclud that statements were not pable of beg famatory. When judg or state legislatur choose not to addrs whether imputatns of homosexualy are famatory, all are left wh an plete picture of the issue, which may turn rult both a higher number of famatn s and more nfn the ongog equaly battle. In the Uned Stat today, gays and lbians do not share equal rights wh heterosexuals, yet signifint advancements have been ma the last , such as repeals of the ary’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy and the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), 12 stat offerg marriage to all rints, and Print Obama signg the Matthew Shepard and Jam Byrd, Jr.

The policy chang, bed wh the fact that famatn law reli on social mor, renrs the issue of homosexualy as famatory a relevant, ever-changg topic for vtigatn for dividuals ncerned wh equaly any pacy. Yet, as the ntradictory lgs of two New York judg recently illtrated, public opn alone do not always lead to non-famatory lgs wh the same geographic lole, nor do the existence of same-sex relatnship regnn and other laws affordg gays and lbians equal rights. Defamatn lgs feed to public opn, as cizens look to the law to tablish social norms, creatg a proverbial chicken-or-the-egg bate wh the likelihood of stuntg policy change and possibly further ntributg to the bullyg-related youth suicis among dividuals who intify as or are perceived to be lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, or queer (LGBTQ).

FUNNY DARK GAY JOK YOU’VE NEVER HEARD BEFORE

For example, public opn rearch suggts that homosexualy ntu to be a polarizg issue Amerin polics, and judg at all levels may be allowg their own attus towards homosexualy to terfere, as appeared to be the se wh Chief Jtice Warren Burger the Lawrence v. The implitns of the cisns, particularly those mandated by the Supreme Court, are likely to fluence how lower urts le famatn s spe famatn law beg mon law – pecially when homosexualy as famatory s are currently unrway natnwi wh ltle precent for urts to rely on for cisn makg. Many untri around the world have their own versn of queer slang, om Brish gay slang rived om the rhymg slang Polari to beki – the Philipp’ queer language that borrows om a slew of sourc, cludg pop culture, Japane, Spanish, and the untry’s lol languag.

But the Onle Slang Dictnary c 1960s gay male culture as the earlit known source, particularly rtoonist Joe Johnson’s characters “Miss Thg” and “Big Dick”, which appeared early issu of The Advote. New York|Label of Gay Is No Longer Defamatory, Court Rul ADVERTISEMENTLabel of Gay Is No Longer Defamatory, Court RulMay 31, 2012ALBANY (AP) — A midlevel appeals urt said Thursday that was no longer slanr New York to falsely say that someone is gay. Jay Blotcher, a longtime gay rights activist om the Hudson Valley, said that while he saw pockets of tolerance urban areas, the revelatn that someone is gay uld get you “somethg ak to a lynchg mob” other parts of the untry.

Exampl of slanr clu:Claimg a person is gay, lbian, or bisexual, when is unte, an attempt to harm his or her reputatnTellg someone that a certa person cheated on his tax, or mted tax dSayg that a certa person had an affair wh a supervisor or manager orr to receive a promotn (this may be nsired slanr agast two people)Tellg -workers a ma-up, or unverified story about a certa person stealg om petty shClaimg that a certa person has a sexually transmted diseaseStatements that are not SlanrMakg statements of fact, or which the speaker tly believ to be tthful, is not nsired to be slanr. Ntie – bear – benr – bottom – bum band – bum chum – bumr – bummer – butch – butt hugger – rpet muncher – tcher – chaser – chickenhawk – chicken hawk – cub – drag kg – dyke – fag – faggot – Fairy – femme – flamer – u – fudge packer – gay – gaylord – girliend – GLBT – hasbian – homo – homo thug – the closet – jobby jabber – lemon – lez – lipstick lbian – mge muncher – mo – nellie – nelly – Peter Puffer – pole smoker – poof – Poofter – power top – puff – queer – shirt lifter – sister – versatile – wasbian. Legal experts and gay rights activists say judg other parts of the untry have ma siar lgs over the past several years, but trackg them is difficult bee there are relatively few slanr or famatn lawsus brought and laws vary om state to state.

HOW MACHISMO CULTURE IMPACTS GAY LATOS

” This suggts, as both the article and Turley note, that whether or not ‘gay’ (or any other rogatory word monly ed to refer to gays or lbians) is slanro pends largely upon the type muny which the act tak plac, which uld mean the state the parti live or even jt the lol, profsnal, or social muny to whom the allegedly slanro statement was broadst.

For example, Tom Cise uld argue that his earng potential as an actor would be harmed by false allegatns of homosexualy, even though there is basilly no stigma agast beg gay the Hollywood muny that he is a member of. Ever sce born-aga sger and orange juice pchwoman Ana Bryant helped kick off the ntemporary anti-gay movement some 40 years ago, hard-le elements of the relig right have been searchg for ways to monize gay people — or, at a mimum, to fd arguments that will prevent their normalizatn society. But addn to hawkg that myth, the legns of anti-gay activists who followed have add a panoply of others, rangg om the extremely doubtful claim that sexual orientatn is a choice, to unalloyed li like the claims that gay men molt children far more than heterosexuals or that hate crime laws will lead to the legalizatn of btialy and necrophilia.

KORLL STEWART SU TO COLLECT HIS $3M JUDGMENT OVER ANDREW ‘DELIVERT’ CALDWELL’S GAY SLANR

The fairy tal are important to the anti-gay right bee they form the basis of s claim that homosexualy is a social evil that mt be supprsed — an opn rejected by virtually all relevant medil and scientific thori.

Depictg gay men as a threat to children may be the sgle most potent weapon for stokg public fears about homosexualy — and for wng electns and referenda, as Ana Bryant found out durg her succsful 1977 mpaign to overturn a Da County, Fla., ordance barrg discrimatn agast gay people. Others have ced a group lled the Amerin College of Pediatricians (ACPeds) to claim, as Tony Perks of the Fay Rearch Council did November 2010, that "the rearch is overwhelmg that homosexualy pos a [moltatn] danger to children. Gregory Herek, a profsor at the Universy of California, Davis, who is one of the natn's leadg rearchers on prejudice agast sexual mori, reviewed a seri of studi and found no evince that gay men molt children at higher rat than heterosexual men.

The Amerin Amy of Child & Adolcent Psychiatry affirmed 2013 that “[c]urrent rearch shows that children wh gay and lbian parents do not differ om children wh heterosexual parents their emotnal velopment or their relatnships wh peers and adults” and they are “not more likely than children of heterosexual parents to velop emotnal or behavral problems. The Amerin Amy of Pediatrics (AAP) a 2002 policy statement clared: "A growg body of scientific lerature monstrat that children who grow up wh one or two gay and/or lbian parents fare as well emotnal, gnive, social, and sexual functng as do children whose parents are heterosexual. Siarly, the Child Welfare League of Ameri's official posn wh regard to same-sex parents is that "lbian, gay, and bisexual parents are as well-sued to raise children as their heterosexual unterparts.