A followup on two XGW messages on AIDS earlier this week.
Focus on the Family asserted on Tuesday that homosexuals should fight HIV/AIDS through abstinence alone. Focus frowns on the use of condoms as a fallback when abstinence fails.
In “Gay Group Admits AIDS Culpability: Homosexual community grapples with consequences of lifestyle,” Focus on the Family misidentifies the Seattle task force as a “gay group” (it isn’t) and misquotes the lead researcher, paraphrasing Quinten Welch as saying AIDS is the result of “the dangers of the [homosexual] lifestyle.”
Focus on the Family avoids telling its readers where to find the actual report, so XGW looked for it; it’s here. It blames specific behaviors and mindsets, not a homosexual lifestyle.
While I’m on the subject of AIDS: Exodus spokesman Randy Thomas offers personal reflections on World AIDS Day.
You know what I find funny about this bit. Lesbians enjoy the lowest HIV/AIDS rates of all people. I wonder why Focus on the Family isn’t promoting celibacy for heterosexuals who do not want children regardless of marriage and the lesbian life style for women who are unable to live in celibacy.
Reading your remark, I am reminded of a Concerned Women for America (CWFA)handout of talking points against homosexuality. It actually had the temerity to suggest that lesbians had a higher incidence of STDs than heterosexual women. I laughed. That “factoid” totally discredited the pamphlet in my opinion, regardless of whatever numerous other falsehoods it contained.
The statement by Focus on the Family that “Homosexual community grapples with consequences of lifestyle” is sadly all too typical of the untruths and fraudulent behavior that are a hallmark of Focus on the Famiy’s disinformation and slander campaign against gays.
First, I am so tired of James Dobson (who in my opinion is one of the biggest liars in the USA), et al, constantly using the disingenuous term “gay lifestyle.” As I recently asked a college religion class on Christian Morality where I was a guest speaker, what is the “straight lifesyle?” Heterosexuals range from promiscuous unmarrieds and cheating married men who have serial sex regularly, to drug abusers, to married couples that probably have never had sex with anyone but their spouse. Which of these is the “straight lifestyle?” Not surprisingly, the consensus of the class was that there is no one “straight lifestyle.” Gays are no different in that we cover a diverse cross section of personal and family lifstyles. Moreover, Dobson and those of his bigoted mindset know this full well – they merely are demagogues who seek to mislead the ignorant and uninformed, dishonestly pretending to be Christian as they do so.
Second, Focus on the Family continues to advertise its fraudulent “Love Won Out Program” on its web site daily, never making mention of the fact that all reputable medical and mental health care experts condemn “conversion theray” and “reparitive therapy” programs. Contrary to Warren Throckmorton’s claim, the APA is not tolerant of such programs and takes the position that it is unethical to encourage individuals to enroll in such programs without full disclosure of the dim view that legitimate experts have of such prorams, not to mention their exremely high failure rate.
Not only is Focus on the Family’s ommission of such material information unethical, but in most other legal contexts such a flagrant misrepresentation of material facts would lead to fines, significant lawsuits for damages by those harmed by the misrepresentation, and/or potential prison time. Only Focus on the Family’s pretense that it is a religious ministry shields it from potential consumer fraud allegations and regulation in the area of its ex-gay program.
An anlogy that puts the level of Focus on the Family’s dishonesty in context is the dislosure requirements of the federal securities laws. A stock offering official statement or mandated financial reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission for a public corporation that ommitted material facts of a corresponding magnitude to Focus of the Family’s non-disclosures would in all likelihood result in (i) fines against the corporation, (ii) fines and/or jail time for the officers and directors responsible for the nondisclosure, and (iii) shareholder lawsuits against the corporation and its officers and directors for securities fraud. In short, if James Dobson was as dishonest in the securities law context as he is in the untruths disseminated by Focs on the Family, he would likely be in prison at this moment.
I continue to wonder when the mainstram media is going to wake up to the fraud being worked on the public and its donors by Focus on the Family and similar “Christian” organizations. They are little better than a bunch of con artists.