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.

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

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. 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.