Analysis of Surgeon General Nominee's Paper Reveals Flagrant Misrepresentations of Research

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Monday June 11, 2007 · 11:26 AM PDT

2007/06/11 · 11:26

There's been a lot of chatter lately over a 1991 paper by John Holsinger, Bush's nominee for US Surgeon General, titled "Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality." I decided to look do a detailed analysis of the scientific merits of that paper, so last weekend I spent a few hours at our local University library looking up Holsinger's reference material. The results are far worse than I thought.

You can find the detailed analysis in "A Closer Look at Dr. John Holsinger's 'Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality'." It's rather lengthy, but in it, I go over each of Dr. Holsinger's claims with a fine tooth comb, and show how he misuses each of the references that he cites. It's a pretty sad outcome for a man who aspires to be the nation's chief medical advocate for all Americans.

Jim Burroway

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Wednesday February 28, 2007 · 9:17 AM PST

2007/02/28 · 09:17

From Box Turtle Bulletin: Andrew Anthos, the 72 year old gay man who was beaten after getting off a bus Feb. 13 in Detroit, will be laid to rest this afternoon. State Senator Hansen Clarke (D-Detroit) will do what he can to see that Anthos did not die in vain:

Clarke said Tuesday he will introduce the hate crime legislation in the next couple of weeks. He also will talk to Capitol officials to make sure that Anthos’ desire to get the Capitol dome lit will come true.

When I attended the Love Won Out conference in Phoenix on February 10, the question of hate crimes legislation came up in a Q&A session. Alan Chambers, President of Exodus International, and Mike Haley, of Focus on the Family both stated their opposition to hate crime enhancements for violent crimes like this one, characterizing it as an attack on freedom of speech. This, of course, is nonsense. But I was pleased to hear Mike Haley close that discussion on what I believed to be a somewhat positive note:

Jim Burroway

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Monday February 05, 2007 · 8:05 AM PST

2007/02/05 · 08:05

This post originally appeared on Box Turtle Bulletin. Please read it and express your outrage to the station managers.

I’ve gotten used to seeing a lot of hit pieces put out by Focus in the Family, the Family "Research" Council, Peter LaBarbara, Lou Shelton, and of course, Fred Phelps. When you go into those websites or read their publications, you pretty much know what to expect. But when you turn on the local evening news, you don’t expect the see the same thing you find coming from the most homophobic organizations this fine country has to offer. Unless, of course, you happen to turn on the Channel 9 news, Tucson’s languishing third-place newscast here in Tucson.

Thursday evening, our local ABC affiliate aired a lurid segment as part of its "KGUN-9 On Your Side" series, in which reporter Jennifer Waddell portrayed gay men as being on the prowl for sex in our parks. (You can see the video here.) In this report, Waddell and KGUN pull out all of the dangerous stereotypes of gay men in order to create fear and panic in the community — as well as to increase advertising rates for their shareholders.

Jim Burroway

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Thursday December 28, 2006 · 7:39 AM PST

2006/12/28 · 07:39

The full version of this entry can be found at Box Turtle Bulletin.

You must remember this

A kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh.

The fundamental things apply

As time goes by.

It all began exactly forty years ago this New Year’s Eve, on Sunset Blvd., in the Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles, in a small bar called the Black Cat. There were some sixty or seventy patrons gathered during those final moments of 1966, counting down the last few seconds to midnight. Couples gathered and stood next to each other, and as the countdown approached zero, they leaned into one other, and, amid the shouts of “Happy New Year!” and the opening strands of Auld Lang Syne, they did something all couples do all around the world.

Jim Burroway

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Thursday December 14, 2006 · 8:33 AM PST

2006/12/14 · 08:33

This article first appeared in Box Turtle Bulletin.

Wayne Besen, of Truth Wins Out, is reporting that James Dobson distorted research in an op-ed that appeared in this week's Time magazine. In his op-ed, Dobson comments on Mary Cheney's pregnancy with a child she will raise with her partner Heather Poe. He claims that children do best in heterosexually-married families, citing Dr. Carol Gilligan's research as "proof":

According to educational psychologist Carol Gilligan, mothers tend to stress sympathy, grace and care to their children, while fathers accent justice, fairness and duty. Moms give a child a sense of hopefulness; dads provide a sense of right and wrong and its consequences.

Jim Burroway

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Saturday December 09, 2006 · 12:56 PM PST

2006/12/09 · 12:56

Paul Cameron has just made an appearance on MSNBC&'s News Live today (Saturday, Dec 9) at about 3:40 pm EST. Saying that Mary Cheney is being "cruel to children" it looks like he memorized his press release from yesterday. The weekend host apparently didn't know about his problem with professional ethics, which mean that his credentials as an "expert" went unchallenged. A very simple Google Search should have clued them in.

Matt Foreman, of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, was also there to offer his perspective on Mary Cheney and Heather Poe. While he did a good job in defending their decision to have a child, he did little to shine light on Paul Cameron's junk science.

I examined each of the charges that Paul Cameron made in his press release about Mary Cheney and Heather Poe's decision to have a baby. That analysis can be found here.

FRC and the Maryland Gay Marriage Case

Jim Burroway

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Monday December 04, 2006 · 3:05 PM PST

2006/12/04 · 15:05

I wish I had found it earlier, but just yesterday I ran across an Amicus Brief that the Family Research Council submitted to the Maryland Court of Appeals for Conaway v. Deane. This case will decide whether marriage equality for gays and lesbians will be granted in that state.

I looked into the brief to see what it said. Most of it consists of legal arguments citing case law, court precidents, and so forth. But one portion of the brief claims that gays and lesbians don’t deserve the right to marry because of what social science says about them. I looked into these claims, and it turns out that the FRC has a problem with the truth when it comes to citing social science. You can read about it in my latest report, The FRC's Briefs Are Showing.

So, my questions are these: What exactly are the legal obligations of a friend-of-the-court to present their arguments truthfully? And what weight, if any, do courts give to amicus briefs when deciding cases? And what does it say about their arguments when a "values" group throws away the values of truth to become a false witness? Somehow, I don’t recall reading "the ends justify the means" in Proverbs, or anywhere else in Scriptures for that matter.

AIDS -- Fifty Years Later

Jim Burroway

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Friday December 01, 2006 · 11:03 AM PST

2006/12/01 · 11:03

That’s right. Fifty years — and that estimate is on the low end. And here you thought AIDS was "only" twenty-five years old.

In 1986, Dr. A.J. Nahmias, writing in the journal Lancet, reported on testing that had been done on blood samples taken during a 1959 malaria study in Kinshasa, in what was then the Belgian Congo. When those preserved samples were tested in 1986, one sample tested positive for the HIV virus. Other stored blood samples from Central Africans taken in 1960’s and 1970’s tested positive as well.

I have more thoughts on World AIDS Day my post AIDS, Fifty Years Later. And you can read more about how AIDS has impacted the gay communities in America in Opportunistic Infections. There is a lot of misinformation about where AIDS came from -- misinformation that is all too often used against the gay community. I hope these articles can clear some of that up.

The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths

Jim Burroway

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Tuesday November 14, 2006 · 5:18 PM PST

2006/11/14 · 17:18

At last, the truth can now be told. In our latest report, The Heterosexual Agenda: Exposing The Myths, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality.