Bryan Fischer, voice of the AFA.

Bryan Fischer is the American Family Association’s no-holds-barred spokesperson, who finds new ways to attack the LGBT community (and plenty of other groups) on a weekly — if not daily — basis. In his latest column, Fischer purports that an effort to ban the portrayal of “barebacking” or any unsafe sex in pornography is actually the gay community trying to criminalize its own sexual practices, which Fischer endorses:

Do not miss the significance of this. A homosexual activist group is leading the charge to re-criminalize gay sex. Gay sex should be contrary to public policy, and it looks like the first steps in that direction are being taken by gay activists themselves. Who could have seen that coming? Perhaps the best thing the pro-family community can do is just get out their way. [...]

We have been saying for years that homosexual behavior ought to be contrary to public policy because it is a menace to public health. We ought to care too much for our citizens to promote behavior that we know is linked to a disease which can destroy human health and shorten life spans. It is callous and indifferent to endorse behavior that we know can be lethal to people we are supposed to love and care for. [...]

So the next logical step is obvious: for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation to propose an ordinance that proposes a fine for any act of unprotected gay sex, whether money changes hands or not, and proposes criminal penalties for repeat offenders. If they care about the health of all homosexuals, not just the ones who do it for money, they can do no less.

The petition in question will expand a Los Angeles law requiring porn actors to wear condoms to 85 other cities in L.A. county (excluding Pasadena, Long Beach, and Vernon, which have their own public health departments). It has important consequences for both the safety of the actors, as well as the cultural impact of the films.

Fischer easily ignores the impact on heterosexual porn, leaping at the opportunity to condemn gay sex as the direct cause — not form of transmission, but cause — of HIV. His motives are clear: criminalize homosexuality itself. Conservatives like Fischer refuse to promote safe sex because they believe in abstinence until opposite-sex marriage, and anything outside of that paradigm is morally wrong. But as offensive as his extreme (and self-plagiarizing) conclusions are, what is perhaps even more offensive is his insensitivity to the history and ongoing threat of HIV infection.

As Mark S. King noted today, the term “barebacking” first appeared as a rebranding for unsafe sex in the mid-1990′s when new medications became available that prevented AIDS from causing near-instant death. According to King, “gay male culture responded with a vengeance,” seeking to erase the ugliness and fear associated with the spread of HIV in favor of a condom-free sexual revolution. New porn companies celebrated and profited off the carnal, using “collegiate jock” types whose “health and vitality” could erase “all evidence of HIV.” But the end result has been to reinforce the invisibility of the HIV/AIDS menace, and the continued high rates of infection among men who have sex with men — not to mention society’s widespread ignorance about the virus — are the disastrous consequences.

What Fischer unsurprisingly doesn’t appreciate is that promoting safe sex among gay men is good for the health of the gay community. He instead offers a false dichotomy of two anti-gay solutions: let gay people suffer AIDS as God’s punishment for having sex or punish gay sex as “domestic terrorism“ under the law. Fortunately, reality offers solutions that actually affirm the lives of gay people and their well-being.

A protest of Exodus International in 2009 at its annual convention Wheaton College.

The media continues to be excited by the fact that Exodus International — the world’s largest umbrella organization of ex-gay therapy ministries — is no longer going to practice conversion therapy. The group’s head, Alan Chambers, conceded that gay people can’t actually change their sexual orientations and that they should stop trying. Both the New York Times and NPR picked up on the story on Friday, describing a “rift” in the ex-gay movement as the evangelical community takes a “more open view of homosexuality”:

NYT: [Chambers] said Exodus could no longer condone reparative therapy, which blames homosexuality on emotional scars in childhood and claims to reshape the psyche. And in a theological departure that has caused the sharpest reaction from conservative pastors, Mr. Chambers said he believed that those who persist in homosexual behavior could still be saved by Christ and go to heaven.

NPR: But Chambers at Exodus International says conversion therapy does not help. Rather, it damages, because it makes people feel sinful for their natural inclinations. Worse, he says, the church can make people feel like outcasts. “I believe we’ve been hypocritical,” he says. “I believe that we have looked at the issue of same-sex attraction differently than we look at anything else.”

But both of these stories, like others before them, bury the crucial question: If Exodus is no longer going to offer reparative therapy, what is it going to offer? At the bottom of the NYT piece, Chambers says that “many Christians with homosexual urges may have to strive for lives of celibacy.” NPR admits toward the end of its story that “Chambers compares same-sex attraction to adultery or pride,” believes that “homosexual acts are a sin because the Bible calls for heterosexual marriage,” and says that “gay Christians must either be celibate, or if they want to marry, it must be with someone of the opposite sex.”

Sin, celibacy, and fake marriages do not constitute progress from ex-gay therapy. The difference between “don’t be gay” and “don’t act gay” is merely semantic, negligible in practice and unsupported by any scientific research. Exodus-affiliated groups are still working to instill internalized anti-gay stigma while erasing the existence of any kind of sexual orientation diversity. Their desire to not do harm is admirable — and with this change, they may in fact do less harm — but that doesn’t change the fact that anything short of sexual orientation affirmation is still harmful.

Box Turtle Bulletin’s Jim Burroway attended the Exodus International national conference last week and believes that “there really are significant changes afoot at Exodus.” But when ex-gay groups first formed in the 1970′s after homosexuality was declassified as a mental illness, they targeted people with “unwanted same-sex attractions” with a goal of encouraging the “unwanted” and discouraging the “same-sex attractions.” It’s unclear if Exodus can exist without those priorities, which calls to question whether any change that isn’t the end of the organization itself could truly warrant praise.

Phil Burress

A California bill (AB-1856) that would require LGBT training for foster parents and caregivers has conservatives up in arms. Focus on the Family said last week that it believes the policy would “drive Christian couples away” and hurt kids who are already “seriously damaged” because of sexual abuse. Today, the American Family Association ran its own story on the bill, inexplicably inviting Phil Burress of Citizens for Community Values — an Ohio-based anti-gay group — to describe his concern that the training will somehow be used to recruit people to be gay by “confusing children”:

BURRESS: It’s going to continue to confuse children. This is the way the homosexual activists continue to build their numbers — is to get people confused about their gender identity and start acting out… Obviously, people who care about children — Christian couples — they will probably go ahead and go through the training if they’re required to. When they start raising them, they’re just going to have to raise them as Christians.

Burress is yet another reminder that conservative beliefs about homosexuality have not changed over the decades. Just as hate groups like AFA are concerned about “indoctrinating students into homosexual behavior” by teaching them about same-sex families, they believe that something as simple as family acceptance is actually some kind of gay recruitment tool. Worse yet, they now seem to be encouraging conservative parents to pretend to be accepting so that they can instead force anti-gay and anti-trans self-hatred upon these young people.

Sexual orientation and gender identity are not necessarily intertwined. Both, however, present naturally and any identity along either spectrum cannot be separated from a person’s mental health. Research shows that family rejection can impact depression, substance abuse, risk of HIV and STI contraction, and suicide, while family acceptance minimizes those risks. By scaring families into ignoring the importance of supporting LGBT young people, these “family” groups are promoting their very destruction. Confusion is cured with understanding, not condemnation.

Thomas Saenz speaking at 2010's Creating Change, The National Conference on LGBT Equality.

A coalition of 21 Hispanic organizations announced yesterday that they are launching a public-education campaign called Familia es Familia aimed at building support for LGBT equality within the Latino community. According to the press release announcing the campaign’s launch:

Familia es Familia will be a bilingual campaign providing resources and information that are culturally appropriate to empower voices within and from Latino families and communities. In addition, the campaign will provide training, technical assistance, and support to the 21 Hispanic organizations and will spearhead a national effort to educate the public through a range of viral components including: an interactive bilingual website rich with videos, resources, and publications; social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube; promoting stories and voices in the media; and an organizing campaign to engage the community through their mobile devices.

Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational Fund (MALDEF), described the impetus for the effort:

SAENZ: The polling shows that many in the Latino community already understand that there is one struggle for equality, a struggle that benefits from appreciating common mission. Familia es Familia is a campaign that will help to deepen the understanding that a discriminatory deprivation of rights on any basis is a cause of concern for all. Together, we can overcome all of the irrational biases that adversely affect any member of the Latino community.

An NCLR poll in April found that 54 percent of Latinos support marriage equality, and a Pew survey in May found that 59 percent of Latinos believe homosexuality should be accepted by society. Among the groups supporting the initiative are the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), both of which recently passed resolutions supporting marriage equality.

Meanwhile, the U.S. embassies in many Central American countries have been joining in Pride celebrations, further emphasizing the intersections between the LGBT and Latino communities.

When Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) assumed power in 2009, she quickly advanced a law that would have stripped same-sex couples of their state domestic partner benefits. Lambda Legal fought back in a case now known as Diaz v. Brewer and won in both federal district court and in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that the law discriminated against same-sex couples who could not otherwise obtain the benefits through marriage.

Now, Brewer is asking the Supreme Court to step in and reverse the Ninth Circuit’s decision. Tara Borelli of Lambda Legal is confident that the injunction against the law taking effect will stand:

BORELLI: We are confident that the lower courts’ decisions upholding domestic partner coverage for lesbian and gay employees will continue to carry the day. Arizona’s arguments have been turned down again and again by the federal courts, and we expect it will be no different here.

The argument against Brewer’s law strongly parallels the case against California’s Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage, which the Supreme Court will also have an opportunity to hear this coming year. In both cases, the law in question attempted to strip away a right that was already in effect for same-sex couples. The Court could, however, rule that both are unconstitutional for that reason without mandating that either Arizona’s benefits or California’s marriages are fundamental rights that gays and lesbians deserve access to.