Tank Carder

The National Football League has set a disappointing standard by refusing to implement its conduct policy when a player blatantly engages in public displays of homophobia. Cleveland Browns linebacker Tank Carder recently used Twitter to call a fan a “faggot” and further explain that, “I don’t agree with being gay or lesbian at all, but saying faggot doesn’t make me a homophobe.”

The Browns responded by saying they do not condone such comments and that they “have spoken with Tank and have made this very clear to him.”  In his “apology,” he explained that he is “sorry if you were offended.” He also tried to explain that he thought the person he called a faggot “was bashing team sports. big misunderstanding.” Carder has done nothing else to rectify his offensive remarks, and now the NFL is not doing anything about it either.

The NFL said it had “addressed it with the player” and “made clear to the player that it was unacceptable,” pointing out that he had apologized. But that’s it, in stark contrast to impressive steps that other professional sports organizations have taken in similar situation. Reporting on the Carder controversy, OutSports’ Cyd Zeigler Jr. pointed out the disparities:

• Last year, when Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant called a referee a “fucking fag,” the NBA fined him $100,000.
• In September, when Toronto Blue Jays shortstop Yunel Escobar wore the words “tu ere maricon” (“you are a faggot”) in his eye black, his team suspended him for three games and donated his salary from those games to GLAAD and the You Can Play Project for LGBT athletes.
• When Braves pitching coach Roger McDowell heckled fans with homophobic taunts last year, MLB suspended him for two weeks, levied an unspecified fine, and required him to undergo sensitivity training.
• When Seattle Sounder Marc Burch called an opponent a gay slur earlier this month, Major League Soccer suspended him for three games, levied an unspecified fine, and required him to undergo sensitivity training.
• MLS also recently ended its partnership with the Boy Scouts of America over the group’s anti-gay discriminatory policies.

The distinction is galling. Apparently, the NFL is only concerned about its public image when criminal charges are involved. As one of the most prominent sports in the country, the NFL should hold itself and its players to a higher standard. Punishments for such behavior send a message, and sensitivity training helps minimize the likelihood of future anti-gay outbursts.

In just over a week from today, same-sex couples will be able to legally marry in Washington. To prepare for this milestone, the state is preparing gender-neutral paperwork that no longer uses language like “husband,” “groom,” “wife,” or “bride.” This simple change to “Spouse A” and “Spouse B” will prevent same-sex couples from having to designate one partner into an identity that doesn’t match their gender. This should be a simple technicality, but Fox News legal analyst Peter Johnson, Jr. believes this “sea change” will ripple across society and have a “tremendous impact” on all marriages:

JOHNSON: This is a sea change. This is a big anthropological change. This will change society in Washington and other states forever… The issue becomes, in terms of gender neutrality, in terms of saying ‘I’m a spouse, I’m not a husband or wife, I’m not a bride or groom, I’m someone about to be married’ — where does it go? [...]

It’s not about gay marriage, it’s about what happens to heterosexual marriage and how those partners are defined, and how those relationships go forward in our society. It’s going to have a tremendous, tremendous impact… Watch this, see what happens. This is going to be a big, big, sea change in our society and how the smallest of our children understand relationships between parents, between husband and wife, between mother and father.

Watch it (via Mediaite):

Johnson’s bizarre overreaction to a basic government form does reveal some basic assumptions inherent among those who oppose marriage equality. At the root of all anti-gay views is bias toward gender norms and different roles for men and women. Same-sex couples willfully defy this archaic stereotype by proving that the construct of one male breadwinner and one female homemaker is not the only path to success for families. Society can and hopefully someday will function without such sexism, and if that means Johnson will lose some of his male privilege, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

The Family Research Council remains bitter that the Southern Poverty Law Center classifies it as a hate group. In yesterday’s “Washington Update,” FRC derided SPLC’s lawsuit against Jewish ex-gay group JONAH, defending the harmful therapy for bringing homosexuals “out of bondage” while trying to claim that the legal group is somehow manipulating the gay community for profit:

With its credibility drying up, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is determined to cement its status as the homosexual movement’s greatest ally. Desperate to regain its status in the civil rights debate, the group is following the money to the gay community, where it hopes the partnership will help SPLC regain some of the legitimacy it lost bullying mainstream conservatives. Their latest attempt to claw their way back into the spotlight is a lawsuit aimed at destroying the ex-gay movement. This week, SPLC announced that it is suing a Jewish organization called JONAH (Jews Offering New Alternatives of Healing) for consumer fraud. They allege that the therapy, which is designed to bring homosexuals out of bondage and into healthy behavior, failed. That’s as ridiculous as suing Weight Watchers because they promised you’d lose weight and you didn’t! The only people guilty of fraud are the ones who claim people with same-sex attractions can’t change. [...]

The bottom line is that SPLC doesn’t seem interested in helping people. Their actions and bank accounts show that the organization is more interested in profiting from them. If the Left truly had homosexuals’ best interest in mind, they would recognize that for many, these attractions are unwanted. For those who struggle, hope is not in limiting avenues for change–but encouraging them.

FRC prefers NARTH’s credibility on ex-gay therapy over the American Psychological Association and all other mainstream medical organizations. It is precisely because of descriptions of homosexuality as “bondage,” a “struggle,” and the antithesis of “healthy behavior” that SPLC categorizes FRC as a hate group. This lawsuit has incredible potential to save many people from shame and harm, while FRC would rather encourage family rejection and the many health consequences that come with it. Only in Tony Perkins’ mind has SPLC lost any credibility, but repeating such a lie doesn’t make it any truer.

A new worldwide study of gay men and men who have sex with men (MSM) finds that there are some severe consistent barriers to accessing HIV prevention and treatment services. According to the Global Forum on MSM & HIV (MSMGF), homophobia and stigma serve as barriers to accessing condoms, lubricants, HIV testing, and HIV treatment across the globe, while community engagement and comfort with medical providers facilitated greater access. In addition, the lower a country’s income, the less access MSM in that country have to these important resources:

The report concludes that efforts must be made to ensure gay men/MSN have access to the HIV services required to truly combat the epidemic, including new pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) prevention methods:

In summary, the study findings underscore the need to improve global efforts to ensure that gay men and other MSM have access to basic HIV prevention and treatment services. Structural, community/interpersonal, and individual barriers and facilitators to service access must be addressed at multiple levels; interventions must both disrupt the negative effects of barriers and support the protective effects of facilitators. When considering PrEP implementation, study findings indicate an urgent need for the dissemination of more and better information regarding HIV prevention strategies generally and PrEP in particular.

From the narratives of MSM who participated in this study, it is clear that local and global advocacy efforts are needed to create enabling sociopolitical environments that will increase access to HIV-related services and improve MSM health overall. Securing the human rights of MSM is essential to HIV prevention and treatment strategies, new and old.

The study’s focus groups from Africa noted that many providers proselytize against homosexuality instead of providing HIV prevention, diagnostic, or treatment services. This shaming demotivates MSM to access care in areas where HIV is most rampant. Previous studies have shown that abstinence-only programs (which typically demand celibacy of MSM) and anti-gay stigma and criminalization contribute to higher HIV rates.

NARTH's Dr. Julie Hamilton was introduced as an "expert."

Dr. Drew was not the only television doctor talking about ex-gay therapy on Wednesday. Dr. Oz dedicated his entire show to the “controversy,” providing ample time to those who profit from the harmful therapy to promote their quackery unchallenged. Representatives from NARTH and People Can Change were presented as “experts” who were offering one side of a debate that the medical community has already settled.

GLAAD, GLSEN, and PFLAG all condemned the episode, explaining how thoroughly the practice of ex-gay therapy had been debunked. GLSEN Executive Director Dr. Eliza Byard participated in the show, but explained that she and other LGBT advocates were not informed NARTH would be represented — let alone featured. During his final thought, Dr. Oz argued that he believed the sides needed to talk to each other, then followed up on his blog that only after the show did he have the epiphany that therapists should affirm gay identities:

Some guests argued that they have been changed thru these treatments, but I was overwhelmed by the pain of individuals hurt by the experience.  After listening to both sides of the issue and after reviewing the available medical data, I agree with the established medical consensus.  I have not found enough published data supporting positive results with gay reparative therapy and I have concerns about the potentially dangerous effects when the therapy fails, especially when minors are forced into treatments.

My biggest epiphany occurred after hearing where the opposing groups found some common ground. The guests who appeared on my show on either side of this debate agreed that entering into any therapy with guilt and self-hate is a major error. Trying to change who you are instead of loving who you are leads to broken spirits and broken hearts. Encouraging self-acceptance is the only way to help alleviate the shame experienced by those who are struggling with their sexuality – and help them reach a place where who they are matches who they want to be.

It should not require an open, unchallenged airing of harmful lies to agree with the established medical consensus. There is no way for self-acceptance and ex-gay therapy to coexist; NARTH and others rely upon shame. Their business depends upon clients having “unwanted sexual attractions” and believing the faulty promise that the attractions can be treated. Because of the visibility of his show and the expertise entrusted in him by his viewers, Dr. Oz performed a massive disservice by treating the issue of ex-gay therapy as an open question.

Clips of the entire episode, as well as post-show reflections from the guests, are available online.

Many are familiar with Ryan Kendall’s story because of his testimony during the Proposition 8 trial. When his parents found out he was gay, they sent the teen to shame-driven ex-gay therapy, constantly rejecting him by telling him he’d burn in hell, that he was disgusting, and that he was hated. The “therapy,” performed by NARTH founder Joseph Nicolosi, drove him “to the brink of suicide,” leading to a decade of struggles with depression, homelessness, and drug abuse after he declared independence from his unaccepting family.

Kendall has since become an outspoken advocate against ex-gay therapy. When he agreed to discuss the topic with Dr. Drew on his HLN show yesterday, it was on the condition that he not have to appear with David Pickup, a NARTH spokesperson who claims homosexuality is caused by sexual abuse and who is part of a suit to overturn California’s ban on ex-gay therapy for minors (SB 1172). Unfortunately, Dr. Drew put them on together anyway, and Kendall in turn held no punches in decrying Pickup’s harmful distortions of reality:

KENDALL: Mr. Pickup is clearly lying, right? I mean, I did an interview on CBC radio where Mr. Pickup followed me and he said that homosexuality is caused by an emotional trauma… He’s also saying, “I’m not saying you can cure this, I’m not saying that it’s a mental illness,” but he’s framing it in that language. Something else I should point out: by saying that, as Mr. Pickup does, that this bill, SB 1172, will prevent the victims of pedophiles like those of Jerry Sandusky — which is exactly the words you’ve used sir — from getting appropriate mental health treatment, that goes back to a long line of LGBT people as a threat to children that has its roots in Anita Bryant and the Briggs Initiative.

Watch the first part of the segment:

During the second segment, Pickup claimed there is “credible evidence” that people have successfully changed their orientation, but his only citation was an ex-gay website with testimonies, not research.

Dr. Drew’s segment is problematic in numerous ways. First, it was inappropriate to invite Kendall onto a segment under circumstances that were then betrayed. Second, there is no justifiable reason to provide Pickup with unfettered airtime when the entire medical community has disavowed his methods as ineffective, his beliefs as unscientific, and his intentions as harmful. If that weren’t enough, Dr. Drew then treated the issue of ex-gay therapy as if it is still controversial, describing it as “something that science does not yet substantiate,” implying there someday may be a way to change a person’s orientation. This is journalistic malpractice — particularly for a television personality who identifies as a doctor with expertise — on par with inviting practitioners of blood-letting to discuss health policy.

Kendall should be applauded for creating visibility for ex-gay survivors, even when forced into situations of “false balance” on a question that isn’t up for debate.

Pastor Rick Warren admitted on CNN on Thursday that Evangelical churches are at least partly responsible for some of the negative attitudes towards gay and lesbian people.

Appearing on Starting Point to promote an updated version of his book, A Purpose Driven Life, Warren reiterated his opposition to recognizing same-sex couples. But asked about the suicide of Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi — who committed suicide after his roommate broadcast a video of him with another man — the pastor said that Jesus teaches Christians not to “hate anybody” and admitted that some churches fall short of this responsibility:

JOHN BERMAN (HOST): [Tyler Clementi's] parents wrote that they left their Evangelical church recently because they felt the beliefs on homosexuality estranged them from their son, which meant he could not come to them. His mother said this, she said, ‘at this point, I think Jesus is more about reconciliation and love. He spoke more about divorce than homosexuality, but you can be divorced and join a church more than you can be gay and join churches.’

WARREN: Very good point. You know, Jesus taught, as a Christian, I am not allowed to hate anybody. I’m not allowed to do that. In fact, I am commanded by Jesus Christ to love everyone, to show respect to everyone. There’s a difference between acceptance and approval. God accepts me, accepts you unconditionally. He doesn’t approve of everything we do.

BERMAN: But pastor, don’t you think some of our churches are responsible for some of the attitudes towards gays in America, the negative attitudes?

WARREN: Probably, yeah. In fact, there are some people who are extremely violent or hateful. And hate is never of God, never.

Watch it:

On Wednesday, during an interview with HuffPost Live’s Marc Lamont Hill, Warren attempted to downplay his endorsement for Proposition 8, California’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, claiming that he intended to communicate his private support to church members and was not trying to take a “public” position on the issue. Warren expressed regret for ever backing the measure, though that hasn’t stopped him from dismissing gay and lesbian relationships.

Earlier this week, Warren said that acting on same-sex attractions is no different from “punching a guy in the nose” or consuming arsenic.