Snarky Sermon on the Blog: Gay Persecution Based On Lies

Preachers of Truth, Justice, and Amway have cited falsified "academic studies" in order to vilify gays for decades.

I know. I know. Real shocker.

David Holthouse (at The Southern Poverty Law Center) has written the definitive debunker article on Paul Cameron-- the discredited, disgraced, and humiliated six ways to Sunday-- Granddaddy of falsified sociological studies in homosexual behavior.

It's about time. Governors, state and national legislators, and religious snake oil salesmen hoping to curry favor with voters and tithers have turned to Cameron for "facts" to use in their war on gays, and their constant repetition of his lies has caused irreparable harm to society-at-large.

Under the guise of chairman of the Family Research Institute, his statistical chop shop in Colorado Springs, Colo., Cameron has published dozens upon dozens of research studies that offer homophobes a supposedly scientific justification for their prejudices by invariably concluding that gays and lesbians are dangerous and diseased perverts.

"Homosexuality is an infectious appetite with personal and social consequences," is how Cameron describes the phenomenon he studies. "It is like the dog that gets a taste for blood after killing its first victim and desires to get more victims thereafter with a ravenous hunger."

$27.50 a Page
While he makes no attempt to disguise his personal bias, Cameron dresses up his studies with footnotes, bibliographies and charts, and then publishes them in bogus "academic" journals. His work is propaganda masquerading as science and has been repeatedly unmasked as such by many legitimate scientists. Cameron himself has been cast out of both the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association. The ASA declared that, "Dr. Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism."

But no matter how low his professional reputation sinks or how patently ludicrous his findings become (one recent Cameron study concluded that lesbians are 300 times more likely to die in car accidents than heterosexual women), the social impact of Cameron's so-called research far exceeds that of all but a few genuine research psychologists. Cameron's findings are repeated ad nauseam by lawmakers, radio talk show hosts, preachers and anti-gay activists across the country. In 2003, his research was cited by dissenting justices on the Massachusetts Supreme Court in the case that led to legalizing same-sex marriage in that state. In 2004, a majority decision by the Florida Supreme Court that upheld a law banning adoption by same-sex couples specifically cited Cameron's research as being "consonant with the notion that children raised by homosexuals disproportionately experience emotional disturbance and sexual victimization." --snip--

Not one of Cameron's anti-gay studies has been published in a respected scientific journal with rigorous content review standards. Instead, Cameron props up his façade of credibility by publishing his studies in Psychological Reports, a Montana-based vanity magazine that advertises itself as "The Scientific Manifestation of Free Speech" and will publish practically anything for $27.50 per page.

This election year won't be the year of anti-gay marriage; it will be the year of anti-gay adoption. Haven't you already started hearing the new & improved drum beat? If not, you will.

Read the entire Holthouse article and arm yourself for the civil rights v hatefest debate ahead of the November election. Now is the time for all good men and women to recognize the Cameron Lies when they hear them tossed about as "facts."

Thus Endeth Today's Sermon.

Go forth today, armed with facts instead of fears.

And know the Paul Camerons of this world for what they really are: Dangerous Liars.

I mean it, damn it!

So you think you know Delilah?
Judges 16:19-- And she made him sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head.