The Southern Poverty Law Center’s has an Intelligence Report written by David Holthouse that gives a synopsis of the career Paul Cameron has made out of distorting facts and printing obviously bogus statistics about gays.
Cameron is the source of such lies as:
The average lifespan of the homosexual is 43 years
Homosexuals are 20 times a likely to molest as heterosexuals
Homosexual sex is more dangerous than smoking
Holthouse gives a brief description of Cameron’s methodology and demonstrates how clearly illogical his “findings” are along with a bit of his history and how his statistics have become standard fodder in the war on gay people and their freedom and equality.
If you are unfamiliar with Cameron, this gives a good starting point and I recommend reading the article.
Dont forget the extensive critique by Dr. Herek on Paul Cameron. That’s pretty good stuff.
It just brings me back to my original question of ex-gays.
Why is it ok for a Christian to distort and lie about things to acheive a political goal?
Scott- based on my experience, many (hopefully not the majority, but many) seem to have this psychological disconnect cause byt ehir absolute certainty that their interpretation of the Bible is the only correct one. Since God tells them LGBTs are bad, then any claim which can put LGBTs in a bad light is fine, no matter where it comes from or if it has any factual basis.
The Museum of Tolerance, based in Los Angeles has already tagged many Christian identified grops that are pursuing political access and influence and what they say in their printed and broadcast media to distort the reality of gay people and their lives.
Especially because the exclusions of gay people isn’t based on criminal or unethical activity, but a matter of a personal characteristic.
And these exclusions allow for cruel acts to be committed on gay people regardless of what way every day duties are done.
This isn’t a matter of inconveniencing a gay person’s expression.
But violating them BECAUSE of their existence.
And those violations can be and have been extreme violence or threat of it.
Places like the SPLC are invested, because of their traditionally ethical practices, in taking up the reins of seeking equal protections and access in the law for gay people. As is the MOT.
And being religious, is in no way, anyone’s license to do HARM.
But first, they need to amass their evidence against the charlatans and profiteers on gay political and social isolation and exclusion from the most basic of protections clearly stated in the Bill of Rights, if not the Constitution.
Scott said:
Why is it ok for a Christian to distort and lie about things to acheive a political goal?
It isn’t. To be fair, I think your question could just as easily be expanded to anyone, not just Christians. And the answer in it’s simplest (and perhaps most accurate) form would probably be because they feel the ends justify the means.
David
I haven’t called myself a Christian in years. While I personally find telling lies abhorant, that’s because I generally have learned with experience that they catch up to you.
Christians, like Randy Thomas, Paul Cameron, DL Foster, etc. have no problem telling bald faced lies in public to advance their goals. When confronted, they run, dodge or parse things to make it look like they haven’t lied.
All the while, the Bible that they hold so dear expressly forbids “bearing false witness”.
Yes, it certainly is almost always unethical to lie. And the fundies do tell some whoppers.
But the main problem with Christianity is that its basis is not true, in my opinion. I don’t believe there is any God. Therefore I really don’t give a fig about God’s alleged will or what some holy book says.
Now most Christians are not lying since they sincerely believe in what they say, but a sincere belief doesn’t make you correct.
If someone really believes that some invisible thing in the sky told him that gays are evil—well, that’s hard to combat.
I’ve been working on an expose of Cameron’s methods by taking apart his pamphlet, “Medical Consequences of What Homosexuals Do”, reviewing the footnotes, and revealing what the source material actually says. The first part is up on the web at my new web site.