In 1993, Paul Cameron, of the Family Research Institute, began touting a paper he said he presented at the Eastern Psychological Association entitled, “The lifespan of homosexuals.” In this study, he drew on obituaries placed in gay newspapers around the country to claim that the average lifespan for gay men was a mere 42 years. For lesbians, the average was 44. While that study was roundly criticized for its ridiculous methodology, those statistics have persisted among some anti-gay activists.
Well, Cameron’s at it again. Returning to the scene of the original crime, he’s hijacked the Eastern Psychological Association’s reputation once again, this time to claim that gays and lesbians in registered partnerships in Denmark and Norway experience a lifespan up to 24 years shorter than their heterosexual counterparts. His latest claims are already being picked up by anti-gay activists, conservative news organizations, blogs, and pundits.
Cameron’s paper, “Federal Distortion of Homosexual Footprint,” is filled with all the strange and bogus statistics we’ve come to expect from him. I examined his methods and in my latest report, “Paul Cameron’s Footprint,” I show you why the claims he makes based on data from Denmark and Norway are completely worthless. My conclusions:
Yes, Cameron is up to his same old tricks again. You can bet that this won’t be the last time we hear from him. And no matter how ridiculous his methodologies may be, he will continue to provide statistical fodder for the anti-gay lobby. But with his latest paper on the “Homosexual Footprint,” he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. This time, as always, his “footprint” is planted firmly in his mouth.
You can read the whole report at Box Turtle Bulletin.
When I was an undergrad at a state college in Oklahoma in the 1960s, I was majoring in Spanish and Education. Darrell, who was my roomie for 2 years, was a Business Adminstration major. When Darrell took the required “Statistics” course, one of the books used was called “How to Lie with Statistics.”
Jim, I read your “Box Turtle Bulletin.”
Folks like Paul Cameron knows how to lie with statistics to make people believe what the write is true.
I am in a group on MySpace where a guy proof-texts quotes from other sources, or he gives links to other sources which have proof-texted stuff on the webpages. His latest is from the Congressional Record where a homophobic Congressman quoted “The Gay Agenda” but, the Congressman omitted the preface statement which was in the original satirical piece.” The homophobic MySpace guy claims to be a “Fundamentalist Christian” (there’s no Biblical support for that at all).
One added note here: I have given my pastor, Jeff, the URL to this Blog. He knows that I am gay and accepts me as Believer in Jesus Christ, too. The church actually meets in a Coffeehouse’s meeting room in Tulsa and is a part of a large Pentecostal denomination. But, the purpose of the church is to reach those who have been turned off by organized religion or abused in the name of Christianity.
Thanks Joe. You know, I’ve seen that silly “gay agenda” piece all over the place, and almost always in a serious context. That anyone would take that seriously belies the level of ignorance and hate in their hearts. People like Cameron depend on that desire to believe anything bad about gay people no matter how bizarre.
In absolute fairness, the link to Mr. Thomas’s blog you used doesn’t mention Cameron, in fact he’s merely quoting Armstrong Williams (infamous for being paid by the Bush administration to write columns supporting their agenda on marriage). It’s clearly Williams that is using the bad data from the questionable source.
Although I don’t trust Mr. Thomas’s intentions entirely given his history in this case he seemed to be relatively cautious not to endorse the figures and has claimed he will “look into” the accuracy of them. I’d say that instead of holding Mr. Thomas up as supporting the figures it’d be more objective to cite Mr. William’s site and monitor whether or not Mr. Thomas chooses to disavow the data.
Kendall, I think you’ve essentially made the point. Cameron’s junk science spreads in just that way. And Randy’s intro being “I’m not saying it, Armstrong Williams is” tends to remove any benefit of the doubt I might have given him. He’s the vice president of Exodus for Pete’s sake, he has to be held to a higher standard than the average blogger, particularly in an area directly related to both his life and career.
We don’t know for sure if he realized those figures came from Cameron, but I think we can be very sure that he should have found out before posting. Certainly he must know that Williams is not a researcher and so had to be quoting something.
I understand your wanting us to be fair, and in the strictest sense Randy was not quoting Cameron directly. But given how many of the anti-gay lies claimed as fact that can be traced back to multiple levels of anonymous quotes of Cameron’s work, I think we need to insist on accountability.
Oh, I totally agree with that. The viral tactics ex-gay and anti-gay groups tend to use with Cameron’s data (or have used in the past), citing it through innuendo and implication so that it becomes somehow “truer” because “everyone” believes it made me hesitant to point out the obvious for just that reason.
I think its fairly obvious that anti-gay groups and individuals are going to cite it sourced or not because it fits their ideological perceptions (and later can be casually implied in editorials for the same purpose). So I do agree that we need to insist on accountability. It’d be nice if someone emailed Thomas to ask if he’s done any further examination of the data (since I just noticed his posting on the subject is 12 days old).
I guess my only point was why not quote Williams in the first place since he was the original source and file away the fact that Thomas reported the same bad data?
A commenter to Thomas’s site seems to have figured out that the data came from Cameron. Instead of disavowing the Armstrong Williams article or his own prior repetition of its falsehoods, Thomas suggested that the commenter talk to Williams — Thomas wasn’t going to budge from his parroting of information that he had every reason to know was false.
guess my only point was why not quote Williams in the first place since he was the original source and file away the fact that Thomas reported the same bad data?
Good point. When I wrote the piece, I had originally intended to put a hyperlink to Williams’ comment around the word “pundit.” But I guess in the rush I didn’t finish the job. The post is now fixed with the appropriate link.
Randy Thomas does deserve to be called on this anti-gay discriminatory rhetoric. I have been following his blog of late, and have noticed an increase in the level of attack on gay people. This might relate to his promotin to VP of Exodus, but in any case, he knows exactly what he is doing.
This fits with Focus on the Family’s attack on gay adoption. Since they are finding that this doesn’t have the same traction as gay marriage, they are looking for arguements other than just appealing to bigotry to deny gay people the right to adopt children. The idea that gay adopting parents would not be around for the kids is their latest try. Interestingly, when I read Randy’s post, I was wondering if he would use the same logic to deny African Americans’ the right to adopt since African Americans currently have a lower life expectacy than white Americans. I am guessing not, because that might come accross as sounding racist. But it seems okay if the target of discrimination is gay.
Randy knew that this was all bunk. He posted it the way that he did so that he could just get it out there and say “Oh my!” I would be absolutely shocked if he ever revisited and criticized this “study.” He couldn’t do that without running afoul of Focus on the Family, and I am not aware of any examples of Exodus lately openly taking a position different from Focus on the Family.
About the ‘gay’ obituary part:
“*Pietrzyk rails about our utilizing obituaries from gay journals and calls it “a methodology that would not pass an undergraduate statistics course.”
Response: Our methodology was good enough for the Eastern Psychological Assn convention in 1993. Dr. Charles Smith of SUNY at Buffalo, chair of the session, publicly commended our novel approach and said he was going to warn the gays at his institution about the hazards of their ways. Further, it was good enough for the refereed scientific journal Omega in 1994, a journal specifically devoted to studies of death and dying.
The U. Chicago study provides grist for FRI’s mill as well. Note p. 305:
age % men gay % women lesbian
18-29 2.9 1.6
30-39 4.2 1.8
40-49 2.2 1.3
50-59 0.5 0.4
These results should have given the authors a clear warning that homosexuals were much less apt to be old, yet they chose not to comment. Our lifespan study offers a plausible reason for the paucity of older homosexuals in the U. Chicago study: they die young. Other explanations for these findings require much more convoluted logic. For example, note that the proportions of homosexuals do not top out in the youngest age group. Therefore, it would be difficult to attribute the distribution of findings solely to the growth of the gay movement. Another plausible explanation would be that older homosexuals simply drop out of the lifestyle (if they don’t die first). However, if proved true, this would simultaneously argue that gays can and do change, as well as suggest that the gay lifestyle offers scant long-term satisfaction.”
“…they die young. Other explanations for these findings require much more convoluted logic.”
It’s funny to me that “dying young” is what you consider to be the simplest of explanations; I think your Occam’s razor needs sharpening.
Dying young does not explain itself or offer any sort of mechanism for why a sexual orientation in and of itself has anything to do with lifespan. Dying young also does not explain why homosexual actions, in and of themselves, are likewise inexorably tied to lifespan or health.
Are you prepared to convincingly explain to me why either my homosexual attractions or my decisions to date other men places me at higher risk for harm than if I were heterosexual and dating other women? I mean really explain it to me, don’t just wave your hand, refer to your study and say it must be so; that’s not how things are done.
Using your theory of gay people dying young to explain smaller numbers of people past the age of 50 identifying as gay is as convincing, in my opinion, as the theory of epicycles was in explaining the phenomena of retrograde motion.
This is assuming of course that you have *good* data, which I have to be honest with you, does not become true simply because your paper was accepted at a conference.
Mr. Cameron, err, “Phillips”, err…. whoever.
I don’t know Dr. Smith’s reputation in the field, but I do know that the peer-reviewed journal Omega which published your obituary study had an impact factor of 0.153 in 1994, ranking 83 of 97 general psychological journals that year. It even managed to rank below the pay-to-publish Psychological Reports, your favorite outlet. With hundreds of psychological, sociological and other professional journals having to put out an issue each month, bi-month or quarter, there are some that will publish just about anything.
As for Dr. Smith, he may have been impressed, but it doesn’t mean his esteem for your methodology is any more warranted than the nearly bottom-ranked Omega’s. His public commendations are far outweighed by statisticians from the CDC and the American Enterprise Institute. I believe the word “nuts” was used to describe your method. Meanwhile, you have not addressed any of the identified weaknesses of your survey.
My critique of the Canadian Study applies to the Chicago study as well. I don’t dispute the fall-off of the numbers as age increases; I dispute your reasons. You only offer three: an “early demise,” and two others which, as far as I know, are not supported by the research. No doubt, you are well aware of that as well, which puzzles me as to why you would even bring them up. Perhaps it’s to deflect attention from the fact that you continue to ignore the easiest, most plausible, and much observed explanation: societal pressures for older gays and lesbians to conceal their sexuality. It’s a well documented phenomenon. Just look at the research.
Isn’t it amazing just how far into the garbage pit the religious right – our American Christian Taliban, will burrow to find new ways to denigrate and deny justice to our gay citizens.
If Jesus came back to earth today, he would be horrified at how the religion carrying his name has become a fountain of hatred against our gay citizens, just as it was against our black citizens, whose slavery was justified by the bible, according to the believers.
Maybe this is why Bush, who prayed before starting the Iraq war, has found his prayers answered – for Bin Laden, with tens of thousands of new Jihadists, a total catastrophe in Iraq, with the madman of Iran becoming the big winner, and Afghanistan is sinking back into a morass of the taliban as well. Even Musharaff in Pakistan could lose his hold on power.
Don’t people realize that God is trying to America something – that Bush and his whole gang of lockstep republicans represent the real anti-Christ, and we need to come back to Jesus real teachings of love and compassion, that Jesus said nothing against gays, that we should not using his name to start wars based on lies and arrogance, and at the same time having our ‘President’ denigrating our gay citizens.
Wake up America, before it is too late.
SteveMD2,
Welcome and thanks for participating. XGW isn’t generally a place for polarizing political discussions, especially those which involve controversial military operations and policy abroad. There certainly are blogs which invite such debate as part of their scope, but I hope you can understand how doing so here could quickly drown out our main focus.
Likewise labels such as “our American Taliban” are just not very constructive here. Please keep these things in mind for future posts and we look forward to hearing more from you.
Cameron’s “research” needs further comment??? Nope. Not with Jim around.
What needs further comment is Randy’s immature response (paraphrased):
Well… we’ve all, I hope, encountered the time a child blamed their dolly for crayon on the wall or a large snip in the curtains…
It’s dear old “I didn’t do it, dolly did” Chad all over again. Chad didn’t claim it: he only quoted Paul Cameron. As if that is ever an excuse.
Seriously, but does this exgay” thing” actually allow gay-but-not-want-to-be people to behave like adults at some point? Randy honestly seems stuck in a cycle of perpetual immaturity — and that is no way to find/be/keep a mature adult partner… and you certainly don’t want a partner with all that immature weirdness either.
(hint Randy… don’t look for someone “perfect in public”, find someone perfect for you.)
Urgh, what are we doing — offering relationship advice. Broke our cardinal rule.
Randy, do what you want. Just don’t demand sympathy. Or expect belief.
Has there been any feedback on Dobson’s distortions in TIME magazine?
Or any word in other journals on his treatment of the researchers he misquoted and misrepresented?
I think it’s pretty bad that other people haven’t picked up on it and called up Dobson or said something.
The doctor who tried to contact Dobson directly was treated with disdain and dismissal by Dobson.
And yet the press always looks to Dobson for an opinion on the Presidential candidates.
If Dobson LIED about one of THEM, the press would be all over it.
But LIE about research regarding gay parenting and Mary Cheney….nothing.
That seriously REEKS!
psh, it’s not my work, I just copied that whole thing from his website.
if you don’t believe his research, then just look at gay obituaries, average out the median age of death, and compare it to the result you’ll find in normal papers. You’ll find only about 20-30% make it into old age, as opposed to around 80% in normal newspapers. That’s all from me for here, too many people think I’m actually Paul Cameron, which I find cute.
Au Revoir
In other words, Phillips suggests that we ignore legitimate science and pay attention to his own fixation around gay newspapers. However, even that tactic fails:
1. Very few gay people have ever arranged to put their obits in gay newspapers. Putting one’s obit in a gay newspaper nowadays would be like a straight man putting his death notice in Maxim or a straight woman putting her obit in Cosmopolitan.
2. Not many gay newspapers print obits or death notices anymore. That sort of classified advertising isn’t very profitable — though apparently there’s a steady interest in advertising for wedding, commitment, and holy-union services.
3. Many of the old people in the obits of “normal newspapers” are gay.
Phillips,
You may, of course, choose to believe anything you like. You may even decide that you like Cameron’s “results” so well that you will accept them as fact.
You will be pretty much alone in that (well, you have the slavery defenders at NARTH on your side). Even some very anti-gay folks like Bill Bennett and Alan Chambers have distanced themselves from Cameron. Not because they are “politically correct” but because he’s a fraud.
Personally, I support your right to believe anything you like.
Some folks believe in aliens, some believe the world is flat, some believe in the Illuminati, some believe in some secret nefarious gay agenda, some believe in good luck charms, some believe in crystals, some believe the holocause didn’t happen, some believe that their race is superior to other races, some believe God speaks to them out of the television, and some will clap because they believe in fairies.
You believe in Cameron. It’s not much worse.
The University of Chicago survey was performed in 1992 and so the group of individuals aged 50 to 59 were presumably born beween 1933 and 1942.
They were born either during the great depression or the war years. When the Stonewall Riots birthed the modern gay political movement, these people were in their mid-30’s and 40’s. They had experienced the strife of the civil rights battles and remembered clearly the murder of Dr. King. They would currently be between their mid-70’s to mid 80’s.
We know this generation.
Cameron is not unaware of all of this. And he’s no fool. He’s just a liar and a bigot.