10 Anti-Gay Myths Debunked | Southern Poverty Law Center

Contents:

• HOW SAFE IS GAY MARRIAGE? ADVOT FEAR CREASGLY NSERVATIVE URT
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS ULD REMOVE NEXT YEAR
• GAY RIGHTS VS. FREE SPEECHSUPREME COURT BACKS WEB DIGNER OPPOSED TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
• WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT A SEEMGLY FAKE DOCUMENT A GAY RIGHTS CASE

HOW SAFE IS GAY MARRIAGE? ADVOT FEAR CREASGLY NSERVATIVE URT

”John Arthur, an ALS patient, and Jim Obergefell, partners for more than 20 years, are married on a medil plane Maryland Hartong / Ccnati Enquirer via AP fileAdvocy groups were quick to h back at the two nservative jtic, wh the Human Rights Campaign, the untry’s largt gay rights group, sayg a statement that Thomas and Alo had “renewed their war on LGBTQ rights and marriage equaly, as the urt hangs the balance. ”“She says she will not impose her personal beliefs on the law, and she will le for the law as is wrten, and I believe her bee she has a track rerd of dog that, as do many of the nservative jtic, ” he safe is gay marriage? When Gallup first polled Amerins on the topic of gay marriage, 1996, only 27 percent said they were favor of also noted there was an crease support for workplace protectns for LGBTQ people, which the urt recently led favor of June’s Bostock cisn, termg that Tle VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects agast workplace discrimatn based on sexual orientatn and genr were surprised when Gorsuch, a Tmp appotee, voted favor of those protectns, and fact wrote the argued that many “misread Gorsuch, ” whom he lled “not your tradnal social nservative” but rather a “libertarian nservative, ” hence his cisn on that se g through a “pla readg of a statute rather than a large nstutnal exercise.

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

The nservative legal group, which has a long track rerd of opposg gay and transgenr rights, has been emed an anti-LGBTQ “hate group” by the Southern Policy Law Center, though the anizatn ntts that characterizatn.

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. 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.

CALIFORNIA STILL HAS AN ANTI-GAY MARRIAGE LAW ON THE BOOKS. VOTERS ULD REMOVE NEXT YEAR

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.

GAY RIGHTS VS. FREE SPEECHSUPREME COURT BACKS WEB DIGNER OPPOSED TO SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

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.

” Schumm, who has also argued that lbian relatnships are unstable, has ti to discreded psychologist and anti-LGBT fabulist Pl Cameron, the thor of numero pletely basels “studi” about the alleged evils of homosexualy. The Amerin Psychiatric Associatn noted a 2000 fact sheet available on the Associatn of Gay and Lbian Psychiatrists, that alg wh gay, lbian and bisexual issu, that sexual abe do not appear to be any more prevalent among children who grow up and intify as gay, lbian or bisexual than children who grow up and intify as heterosexual.

Siarly, the Natnal Organizatn on Male Sexual Victimizatn not on s webse that "experts the human sexualy field do not believe that premature sexual experienc play a signifint role late adolcent or adult sexual orientatn" and add that 's unlikely that anyone n make another person gay or heterosexual. Anti-LGBT anizatns, seekg to promote heterosexualy as the healthier "choice, " often offer up the purportedly shorter life spans and poorer physil and mental health of gays and lbians as reasons why they shouldn't be allowed to adopt or foster children.

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT A SEEMGLY FAKE DOCUMENT A GAY RIGHTS CASE

On the basis of the same obuari, Cameron also claimed that gay men are 18 tim more likely to die r accints than heterosexuals, 22 tim more likely to die of heart attacks than wh, and 11 tim more likely than blacks to die of the same e. Anti-LGBT anizatns have also tried to support this claim by distortg the work of legimate scholars, like a 1997 study nducted by a Canadian team of rearchers that alt wh gay and bisexual men livg Vanuver the late 1980s and early 1990s. Christe Mueller, profsor of history at Reed College, did a 1994 le-by-le refutatn of an earlier Abrams article on the topic and of the broar claim that the Nazi Party was "entirely ntrolled" by gay men.

Anti-gay activists, who have long opposed addg LGBT people to those protected by hate crime legislatn, have repeatedly claimed that such laws would lead to the jailg of relig figur who preach agast homosexualy — part of a bid to ga the backg of the broar relig muny for their posn.