10 Anti-Gay Myths Debunked | Southern Poverty Law Center

Contents:

• 10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED
• MEN WH OLR BROTHERS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY, STUDY SUGGTS
• BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF GAYS AND LBIANS

10 ANTI-GAY MYTHS DEBUNKED

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.

For the former Florida bety queen and her Save Our Children group, was the alleged plans of gay men and lbians to "rec" schools that provid the fodr for their csa. 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. Dpe havg been bunked repeatedly and very publicly, Cameron's work is still wily relied upon by anti-gay anizatns, although many no longer quote him by name.

MEN WH OLR BROTHERS ARE MORE LIKELY TO BE GAY, STUDY SUGGTS

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. Most child molters, therefore, are not gay people lgerg outsi schools wag to snatch children om the playground, as much relig-right rhetoric suggts.

BROTHERS AND SISTERS OF GAYS AND LBIANS

In spe of all this, the anti-LGBT right ntu to peddle this harmful and basels myth, which is probably the leadg famatory charge leveled agast gay people. Most hard-le anti-gay anizatns are heavily vted, om both a relig and a polil standpot, promotg the tradnal nuclear fay as the sole amework for the healthy upbrgg of children.

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.

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.