Good times over at Focus today. Four, count em, four of today’s six FNIF stories mention gay issues. That’s quite a preoccupation Bob Ditmer has with our families.
As you know HRC recently took issue with a Health and Human Services website, 4Parents.gov. Well HHS revised the site this week and Bill Maier of Focus is all up in a huff. Real Audio / Windows Media
Kim Trobee: on the site the term alternative lifestyle was changed to say lesbian, gay bisexual and transgender
Bill Maier: I think a variety of different terms could have been used there but the term alternative lifestyle accurately describes a very tiny minority of the population who engage in behaviors that are not normative. [emphasis added]
Focus continues to ignore the right of a minority group to self-determine it’s own terminology. Were we gays not clear enough about this for Focus? I mean the air is kinda thin up there in Colorado Springs. [joke] Years ago Evangelicals indicated they preferred not to be called “fundamentalists” and we were happy to oblige. Too bad Focus won’t reciprocate.
I’ll ignore how Maier pretended the rights of gay people don’t matter because they are such “a very tiny minority of the population” in his words. One could apply that reasoning to “ex-gays” whom unarguably make up an even smaller minority and thus should be written-off too. Maier’s logic here is almost as torturously bad as Focus’ response to Soulforce last week. (once again, I blame the high altitude) Maier continues:
It appears the Human Rights Campaign is concerned that parents might take a child struggling with same sex attraction to a therapist that will give them accurate information about homosexuality and provide them with the type of therapy that could really help their child
“Accurate information about homosexuality” they say? You mean like the norm established by the American Psychological Association and American Medical Association? Yes, I imagine HRC is concerned that children receive “accurate information about homosexuality” which Maier is mostly certainly not in the business of providing. Isn’t it cute when Focus glosses over just how out of the norm their viewpoints on gay people are? Funny how just a minute ago Maier was so concerned with my life being not normative before going on to whine the federal government won’t peddle his snake oil.
Unrelated but still amusing: The Daily Show reports on recent gay news events. GLAAD has posted the full segment here (QuickTime).
I feel like there’s still some amount of bias on this website aside from the ‘abstinence only’ curriculum. I would replace the word ‘lifestyles’ with issues and change the definintion of homosexual, to one that defines it as the attraction to the same-sex rather than ‘preference’ on that site. Just my $0.2.
Just thought you’d like to know: the possessive of “it” needs no apostrophe, so it should be “its own terminology”.
Pardon my apparent ignorance, but it struck me that apparently this Bill Maier fellow is not the comedian on HBO. Who is he? I’ve never heard of him.
haha no. poke around the Focus site and I’m sure there’s a bio page.
From the home page of the Focus on the Family political roadshow, “Love Won Out”:
Oh. So Maier is a Dr. Probably a PhD.
A wag might remind us that PhD stands for “Piled Higher and Deeper.” But I’m not a wag. (That was mentioned to me 30 years ago.)
I hate to tell you, but the fact appears to be that American universities throw doctorates “hin und her” (here and there) as though they were water. They even give honorary doctorates to any politician that they can get to address their graduation ceremonies. At some point, it becomes–shall I say it?–silly.
Yo. Just to let you know. This is the 1 year anniversary of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts. We live in Massachusetts. I and my same sex partner were married back in June
I just looked out the window. I do have to admit that it’s a bit cloudy. But the sky does appear to be still up there.