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
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• DEMOCRATS ASK IF GEE SANTOS IS REALLY GAY AFTER REPORT HE MARRIED WOMAN
• WHEN GAY MEN (MIS)MARRY STRAIGHT WOMEN: BONNIE KAYE'S STORY
• WHAT’S WRONG WH BEG “GAY”? HERE’S WHAT THEY DON’T TELL YOU -- AND ’S REALLY DISTURBG.
• STRAIGHT, GAY OR LYG? BISEXUALY REVISED
• GAY MAN LIED ABOUT BEG SET ON FIRE
• 'I WILL NEVER LIE ABOUT BEG GAY AGA': LGBT ACTIVIST REMEMBERS SOURCE OF PRI
• CAN I LIE TO MY FATHER ABOUT BEG GAY SO HE WILL PAY FOR MY COLLEGE EDUTN?
• FACT CHECK: EMAILS SHOW ONE OF DESANTIS’ STORI BACKG THE RATNALE FOR SO-LLED ‘DON’T SAY GAY’ LAW DIDN’T HAPPEN AS THE ERNOR SAYS
• 20 BT SONGS ABOUT BEG GAY

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.

" 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.

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

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. 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. 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.

DEMOCRATS ASK IF GEE SANTOS IS REALLY GAY AFTER REPORT HE MARRIED WOMAN

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 fixated child molter — the stereotypil pedophile — nnot be nsired homosexual or heterosexual bee "he often fds adults of eher sex repulsive" and often molts children of both sex.

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. ” The next year, 2005, the APA published a summary of rearch fdgs on lbian and gay parents and reerated that mon negative stereotyp about LGBT parentg are not supported by the data.

WHEN GAY MEN (MIS)MARRY STRAIGHT WOMEN: BONNIE KAYE'S STORY

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. A 2013 prelimary study Atralia found that the children of lbian and gay parents are not only thrivg, but may actually have better overall health and higher rat of fay hn than heterosexual fai.

Joseph Nilosi, a founr of the Natnal Associatn for Rearch and Therapy of Homosexualy, said 2009 that "if you trmatize a child a particular way, you will create a homosexual ndn. A si effect of this argument is the monizatn of parents of gay men and lbians, who are led to wonr if they failed to protect a child agast sexual abe or failed as role mols some important way. ” 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.

WHAT’S WRONG WH BEG “GAY”? HERE’S WHAT THEY DON’T TELL YOU -- AND ’S REALLY DISTURBG.

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. Warren Throckmorton, a psychologist at the Christian Grove Cy College, noted an analysis that “the rearch on sexual abe among GLBT populatns is often mised to make ferenc about atn [of homosexualy].

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.

STRAIGHT, GAY OR LYG? BISEXUALY REVISED

" Usg obuari llected om newspapers servg the gay muny, he and his two -thors nclud that gay men died, on average, at 43, pared to an average life expectancy at the time of around 73 for all U.

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.

GAY MAN LIED ABOUT BEG SET ON FIRE

Lively is the vilently anti-gay founr of Abidg Tth Mistri and Abrams is an anizer of a group lled the Internatnal Commtee for Holot Tth, which me together 1994 and clud Lively as a member.

'I WILL NEVER LIE ABOUT BEG GAY AGA': LGBT ACTIVIST REMEMBERS SOURCE OF PRI

The claims have been picked up by a number of anti-gay groups and dividuals, cludg Bryan Fischer of the Amerin Fay Associatn, as proof that gay men and lbians are vlent and sick.

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. Anti-gay groups have been adamantly opposed to allowg gay men and lbians to serve openly the armed forc, not only bee of their purported fear that bat reads will be unrmed, but bee the ary has long been nsired the purt merocracy Ameri (the armed forc were succsfully racially tegrated long before Amerin civil society, for example).

CAN I LIE TO MY FATHER ABOUT BEG GAY SO HE WILL PAY FOR MY COLLEGE EDUTN?

At the same time, gays and lbians have served openly for years the armed forc of 25 untri (as of 2010), cludg Bra, Israel, South Ai, Canada and Atralia, acrdg to a report released by the Palm Center, a policy thk tank at the Universy of California at Santa Barbara. The Palm Center report nclud that liftg bans agast openly gay service personnel the untri "ha[s] had no negative impact on morale, recment, retentn, reads or overall bat effectivens.

FACT CHECK: EMAILS SHOW ONE OF DESANTIS’ STORI BACKG THE RATNALE FOR SO-LLED ‘DON’T SAY GAY’ LAW DIDN’T HAPPEN AS THE ERNOR SAYS

A 2008 Milary Tim poll of active-duty ary personnel, often ced by anti-gay activists, found that 10% of rponnts said they would nsir leavg the ary if the DADT policy were repealed.

" Siarly, a 1985 survey of 6, 500 male Canadian service members and a 1996 survey of 13, 500 Brish service members each revealed that nearly two-thirds exprsed strong rervatns about servg wh gays. Dpe the fact that gay men and lbians have been servg openly the ary sce September 2011, anti-LGBT groups ntue to claim that openly gay personnel are g problems the ary, cludg claims of sexual abe by gay and lbian soldiers of straight soldiers. The Amerin Psychiatric Associatn stat that (PDF; may not open all browsers) homosexualy is not a mental disorr and that all major profsnal health anizatns are on rerd as nfirmg that.

20 BT SONGS ABOUT BEG GAY

The anizatn removed homosexualy om s official diagnostic manual 1973 after extensive review of the scientific lerature and nsultatn wh experts, who nclud that homosexualy is not a mental illns. Though is te that LGBT people tend to suffer higher rat of anxiety, prsn, and prsn-related illns and behavrs like alhol and dg abe than the general populatn, that is due to the historil social stigmatizatn of homosexualy and vlence directed at LGBT people, not bee of homosexualy self.

A report prented by the Council on Scientific Affairs to the AMA Hoe of Delegat Interim Meetg wh regard to reparative (“ex-gay”) therapy noted that most of the emotnal disturbance gay men and lbians experience around their sexual inty is not based on physlogil , but rather on “a sense of alienatn an unacceptg environment.