What’s wrong wh beg “gay”? Here’s what they don’t tell you.

Contents:

• WHY WE NEED TO GET TO KNOW THE “BAD GAYS” OF HISTORY
• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• WHAT’S WRONG WH BEG “GAY”? HERE’S WHAT THEY DON’T TELL YOU -- AND ’S REALLY DISTURBG.
• GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN'S HEALTH ISSU
• WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?
• PHYSIL, BEHAVRAL, AND PSYCHOLOGIL TRAS OF GAY MEN INTIFYG AS BEARS

WHY WE NEED TO GET TO KNOW THE “BAD GAYS” OF HISTORY

However, the ntued existence of homophobia—spe the obv downsis—rais qutns about s basic nature: Do psychologil theori like those above really expla why gayns, specifilly, evok such fear, the kd that n sometim even lead to vlent speech and actn? We don’t hear about gay men disverg an tert women later life, and we rarely believe men when they say they are bisexual—the mon, if erroneo, wisdom is that any man who says he is bi is really jt gay and hasn’t admted yet. ) And Kate McKnon, playg a so-lled Weird Barbie who experienced an extreme haircut and makeover at the hands of an experimental child, never actually answers the qutn anybody would have upon seeg her gay-ass haircut and knowg the actor’s sexualy.

Listeners also hear about a very different si of Andrew Sullivan, the ntemporary wrer who helped popularize the nservative se for gay marriage and ntu to argue agast perceived radilism the LGBTQ muny. An actual spy stggl wh layers of ncealed inty, and the season ends wh a fixture of the McCarthy era and Donald Tmp mentor, Roy Cohn, who aids a wch hunt agast imaged gay spi the US ernment. For , the tert is not to perpetuate the ia of the good and bad role mols, but to e the ia of the “bad gay” to talk about thgs that jt focg on activist hero or thors or artists might not allow you accs to.

I thk on the qutn of your stereotypil “good gay” — I mean, one of the people that we profile, Andrew Sullivan, is someone whose entire kd of public reer has been about embodyg and promotg the good gay as a liftyle. In that particular se, the kd of “born this way” le about gay people is first ed a big splashy public settg not as an activist plea but as a kd of exce for murr, the ntext of this very strange trial.

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

There seems to be some bate among historians about how we should treat the language ed the private letters and other rrponnce om the era, about how we might perceive “rrectly” or “rrectly” gay inty historil documents.

One of the most tertg arguments I thk you make on the show is that Andrew Sullivan sort of vented gay marriage and that the nservative se he ma for was actually a vastatg setback for LGBTQ rights. [Miller and Lemmey see Sullivan’s work the ia that gay marriage — and makg queer people’s liv look more like those of rich whe straight people — is the end goal of the LGBTQ rights movement. And terms like gay marriage and ias of relatnship regnn have been a part of a lot of different kds of activism, about which people might have a lot of different kds of feelgs sce well before Sullivan.

In the US, the cisn is wrten by Anthony Kennedy, who’s a right-wg Catholic nservative, and the UK the gay marriage bill is brought forward by David Cameron, who is a que right-wg Conservative Party prime mister. Those who are sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, men who subm to homosexual acts, men who practice homosexualy, thiev, greedy people, dnkards, revilers, and extortners will not her God’s Kgdom. 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.

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

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.

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.

GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN'S HEALTH ISSU

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.

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. 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].

WHY ARE PEOPLE GAY? GAY BY CHOICE OR IS BEG GAY GEIC?

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.

PHYSIL, BEHAVRAL, AND PSYCHOLOGIL TRAS OF GAY MEN INTIFYG AS BEARS

" 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.

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. 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.