Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Can I ever have one entirely good day? Apparently it is against the rules...
So...there was work drama today. And, since I got about two hours of sleep, I was not really equipped to deal with work drama. HOWEVER, I survived, and that is the important thing, right?
I also got to go to Barnes & Noble tonight...I read part of s/he by Minnie Bruce Pratt (amazing woman!), and part of Anything but Straight, which is about ex-gay ministries. Parts of it made me so mad I wanted to spit...particularly the bits about Paul Cameron, who single-handedly provided most of the misleading, hurtful (and entirely erroneous) statistics that anti-gay activists have been hurling at us for years. He helped perpetuate the ideas that AIDS is a judgement from God on gay people and that all gay people are child molesters and psychologically abnormal. The thing that really gets me is that people whose research he claimed to have used repeatedly wrote letters saying that they never produced the figures he was quoting...the APA kicked him out, he was discredited many times, yet many high-profile right-wing religious groups continued to use his false statistics and hate-filled pamphlets to kill gay-friendly legislation and raise money. For example...he said that gay men were several times more likely than straight men to have syphilis and crabs, and lesbians were more likely to have scabies and some other STD, but he based this solely on results from gay people who went to a VD clinic! Right! Cause that's not biased at all!
And people believe this shit. It's appalling the stuff people will fall for.
Also, Exodus? The huge network of ex-gay ministries? Its two male co-founders eventually realized that they were in love with each other and that they had been deluding themselves all along. They're currently a couple, and they're ex-ex-gay activists. But of course you don't hear anything about them on the Exodus website...oh no.
Pretty much the entire network of ex-gay ministries is based on lies...there are hardly any success stories from people who are not full-time professional heterosexuals...people who lead classes and therapy sessions, etc. And frequently even they end up being caught in gay bars or "slip back into the lifestyle." It's just so sad and pathetic...why must people fight so hard against who they are? Why do people force other people to do this? I don't understand it.
Sorry for the political rant, but I needed to get that off my chest...
I also got to go to Barnes & Noble tonight...I read part of s/he by Minnie Bruce Pratt (amazing woman!), and part of Anything but Straight, which is about ex-gay ministries. Parts of it made me so mad I wanted to spit...particularly the bits about Paul Cameron, who single-handedly provided most of the misleading, hurtful (and entirely erroneous) statistics that anti-gay activists have been hurling at us for years. He helped perpetuate the ideas that AIDS is a judgement from God on gay people and that all gay people are child molesters and psychologically abnormal. The thing that really gets me is that people whose research he claimed to have used repeatedly wrote letters saying that they never produced the figures he was quoting...the APA kicked him out, he was discredited many times, yet many high-profile right-wing religious groups continued to use his false statistics and hate-filled pamphlets to kill gay-friendly legislation and raise money. For example...he said that gay men were several times more likely than straight men to have syphilis and crabs, and lesbians were more likely to have scabies and some other STD, but he based this solely on results from gay people who went to a VD clinic! Right! Cause that's not biased at all!
And people believe this shit. It's appalling the stuff people will fall for.
Also, Exodus? The huge network of ex-gay ministries? Its two male co-founders eventually realized that they were in love with each other and that they had been deluding themselves all along. They're currently a couple, and they're ex-ex-gay activists. But of course you don't hear anything about them on the Exodus website...oh no.
Pretty much the entire network of ex-gay ministries is based on lies...there are hardly any success stories from people who are not full-time professional heterosexuals...people who lead classes and therapy sessions, etc. And frequently even they end up being caught in gay bars or "slip back into the lifestyle." It's just so sad and pathetic...why must people fight so hard against who they are? Why do people force other people to do this? I don't understand it.
Sorry for the political rant, but I needed to get that off my chest...
