Conservatives like to claim that same sex marriage endangers marriage, despite all evidence to the contrary. But a new experiment finds that opponents of marriage equality don’t actually believe that gay couples will harm their unions.

A study led by Eastern Kentucky University psychologist Matthew Winslow examined 120 undergraduate students, asking them how threatened they felt by marriage equality. Winslow’s examination focused on the “third-person perception,” a psychological effect where people believe that others are more influenced by outside sources like the media than they themselves are. Surveying 120 college students, Winslow did find that many of his subjects believed they – and their relationships – were less affected by those kinds of outside pressures than others’ were. While the students Winslow surveyed who supported same-sex marriage did experience this effect, it was more pronounced among opponents:

The group most likely to see itself as impervious and others as vulnerable was composed of people with a personality trait called right-wing authoritarianism. People with this trait strongly value tradition and authority, and dislike people not in their own social group.

Right-wing authoritarians’ perceptions of themselves as strong and others as weak might help explain this group’s strong opposition to gay marriage, Winslow said. But the study, published April 10 in the journal Social Psychology, also highlights that everybody judges themselves as a little bit better than the next guy.

“If everyone believes that other people are more affected than they are, that’s just not logical,” said Winslow, who suggested that focusing on putting yourself in others’ shoes might help banish this bias.

Winslow has a simple solution for marriage equality opponents: “If you believe you are not going to be affected by [same-sex marriage], just recognize that probably other people believe the same way, so the good news is that probably people aren’t going to be affected by it that much.”

-Zachary Bernstein

Boston Police is investigating its officers’ response to rowdy duel protests at the Boston Common on Sunday, Tax Day, after a photo surfaced showing “a city officer with his hand around a protester’s neck.” As Daily Kos’ Scott Wooledge reports, the Tea Party-organized event was co-sponsored by the vehemently anti-gay MassResistance and featured Scott Lively, “professional worldwide hunter of homosexuals and top proponent of ‘gay cure’” and a proponent of Uganda’s infamous ‘kill gays’ legislation.

As counter-protesters — including Occupy Boston Queer and Trans Direct Action Working Group — expressed their opposition to Lively’s participation, one of the speakers said from the podium, broadcast across the loud speakers at the Commons, “We will not be silenced by faggots.” Read a first-hand account from the protester roughed up in the picture at Back2Stonewall. Pictures via Courtney Sacco:

The conservative group One Million Moms — a project of the American Family Association that has nowhere near a million moms — has found some more gay content that it wants to boycott. Having given up on their boycott of JC Penney over its use of Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson, the group is now outraged that the Urban Outfitters catalog features two women kissing:

Trash Your Teen’s New Urban Outfitters Catalog Today!

WARNING! The April 2012 catalog from Urban Outfitters has begun arriving in home mailboxes the last couple of days. On page two of this catalog is a picture of two women kissing in a face holding embrace! The ad and catalog are clearly geared toward teenagers.[...]

TAKE ACTION
Please send an email letter urging Urban Outfitters to discontinue this ad and immediately stop the circulation of the catalog with the two women kissing or you will make a conscious effort to shop elsewhere. Also, suggest they refrain from using this type of advertising in the future. An apology statement from the company for sending an offensive catalog to people’s homes would be appropriate and appreciated by customers and families as well.

One Million Moms didn’t seem to mind that the catalog also shows heterosexual couples being physically intimate. Obviously, teenagers kiss. In fact, the “first kiss” is a common narrative in almost every teenage drama ever written. The group’s shock is clearly targeting the kiss for being between two women, as if girls who even question their sexuality are not allowed to buy clothes and Urban Outfitters is not allowed to market to them.

Conservative boycotts over LGBT support have shown to be complete failures, often seeming to lead to improved sales at the very companies they are targeting. The National Organization for Marriage’s Starbucks boycott has corresponded with Starbucks stock hitting an all-time high. When One Million Moms called for a boycott of Toys ‘R’ Us for selling the same-sex wedding issue of Archie Comics, the comic sold out. The American Family Association has long boycotted Home Depot for its participation in LGBT pride parades, a concern the company’s board has easily brushed off.

Gay rights activists are planning to challenge the White House’s decision to delay an executive order prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in federal contracting and plan to launch a “We Can’t Wait” campaign to urge President Obama to reverse course and issue the directive ahead of the November elections. The effort, which co-opts one of the Obama campaign’s own slogans, will be funded by “Jonathan Lewis, son of billionaire Democratic benefactor Peter Lewis”:

[Lewis] said he would spend $100,000 to fund a “We Can’t Wait” campaign targeting Obama, a takeoff on the president’s own slogan for his efforts to use administrative actions as end runs around what he has termed an obstructionist Congress. The donor’s money will be used to fly victims of discrimination at federal contractors to Washington to confront Obama and his aides and gin up public attention. [...]

“[Obama] has not been able to provide a single valid reason for why he is now refusing to sign the executive order protecting LGBT workers,” the younger Lewis added, referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. “It has become increasingly clear that this decision is based on cowardice rather than principled leadership.”

The White House insists that it’s putting the executive order on hold in order to build legislative support for the Employment Nondiscrimination Act or ENDA, which would prohibit all employers from discriminating against gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees. But the measure stands little chance of passing in a Republican-controlled House of Representatives and some LGBT advocates were left with the impression that the administration punted on the order because it is “wary of imposing additional requirements on businesses ahead of the election.”

One activist who attended a meeting at the White House last week to discuss the matter told SiriusXM’s Michelangelo Signorile that the administration rational “was weak, it was shallow, it was unpersuasive,” Tico Almeida, president of Freedom to Work, said. “It floated back and forth between different reasons. It wasn’t even consistent. There were a few younger, junior staffers who made some arguments that were just laughable. Really embarrassing.”