HRC Press Release: Disgraced homophobic extremist Paul Cameron, formerly of University of Nebraska, now leveraging hate in Moldova

From WikiPedia: Paul Cameron used to be an associate professor of Marriage and Family at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln.
     In 1982, when the Lincoln city council asked residents to vote on a proposal to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, Cameron led the opposition as chairman of the Committee to Oppose Special Rights for Homosexuals.
     During the campaign in Lincoln, Cameron delivered a speech at the University of Nebraska Lutheran chapel. This drew much attention after he stated that a four-year-old boy had suffered a brutal homosexual assault in a local mall.
     Police were unable to confirm the incident, and Cameron acknowledged that he had heard the story only as a rumor. On May 11, Lincoln voters rejected the proposed measure by a 4–1 margin.
     After that he established the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality, now known as the Family Research Institute (FRI). As FRI's chairman, Cameron has written papers associating homosexuality with perpetration of child sexual abuse and reduced life expectancy.
     In 1983, the American Psychological Association expelled Cameron for non-cooperation with an ethics investigation, although by his own account he had resigned from the organization the previous year.
     Position statements issued by the American Sociological Association and Canadian Psychological Association have accused Cameron of misrepresenting social science research.



HRC's Press Release:

Washington – The Human Rights Campaign – the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights organization – today condemned remarks made by anti-gay extremist and disgraced psychologist Paul Cameron in Moldova, where he is speaking out against proposed non-discrimination legislation that would include sexual orientation.

During a press event in Moldova today, Cameron repeated some of his most vicious and false remarks about gay people, including likening homosexuality to pedophilia. Cameron said: “While no one can say precisely how dangerous a homosexual teacher is; no one can say exactly how dangerous a homosexual priest is; it is clear that they are many, many more times dangerous to their charges – to the children they oversee … whoever is pushing this thing [non-discrimination legislation] wants to sprinkle homosexuals throughout your society.” Watch Cameron’s remarks [Above].

“Paul Cameron’s remarks aren’t only false and offensive, they’re also incredibly dangerous,” said HRC President Joe Solmonese. “We saw in Uganda the dangerous impact that Lou Engle’s anti-LGBT rhetoric had on citizens there, and Cameron’s incendiary and blatantly untrue lies put gay Moldovans at the same risk. Cameron has been roundly disgraced by his colleagues here at home – but when he takes his hate abroad, government officials are often unaware that his purported science is a sham.”

The American Psychological Association expelled Cameron in 1983 for grossly misrepresenting research. And both the American Sociological Association (ASA) and the Canadian Psychological Association say Cameron misuses research to fit his rhetoric. In a 1985 resolution, the ASA said of Cameron: "Dr. Paul Cameron has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism…Dr. Paul Cameron has repeatedly campaigned for the abrogation of the civil rights of lesbians and gay men, substantiating his call on the basis of his distorted interpretation of this research."

Cameron founded the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality – later renamed the Family Research Institute – and used the organization as a platform to publish his propaganda by buying space in publications. In addition to linking homosexuality to pedophilia, Cameron has called AIDS a “godsend,” advocating for placing those who are HIV positive or living with AIDS in “detention centers,” and has called being gay a “crime against humanity.”

The Human Rights Campaign is America’s largest civil rights organization working to achieve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality. By inspiring and engaging all Americans, HRC strives to end discrimination against LGBT citizens and realize a nation that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all.

Minnesota Family Council again caught purging vicious, discredited antigay propaganda from its website; now you see it, now you don't

Image of Joseph Stalin with water commissar Nikolai Yezhov

Image of Stalin after he had Yezhov shot on 2/4/1940

Yesterday, the Minnesota Independent noted G.A.Y.'s observance that The Minnesota Family Council, lead proponent of a ballot initiative that would add a ban on same-sex marriage to the Minnesota Constitution, removed documents contained in its "Legislative Manual" from its website.
     The documents in the manual contained crackpot "research" by authors like Paul Cameron, claiming gays and lesbians are prone to engage in scatology, pedophilia and bestiality.
     Today, G.A.Y. discovered that the Minnesota Family Council, which is working with the National Organization for Marriage, has quietly deleted another document, which described homosexuality as "sexual confusion," and stated as fact the following bundle of preposterous assumptions:

Open-ended questions regarding sexual behavior are designed to influence the moral concepts of the students — easily leading them to the conclusion that homosexuality is normal and natural. This is psychological tampering that violates the trust of parents and renders teens incapable of recognizing harmful behavior.

Vander Plaats Organization, Iowa Family Leader, continues to exploit AIDS to attack gay marriage

Linda Waddington, of the Iowa Independent, reported Wednesday that Bob Vander Plaats, during a joint appearance in Iowa City, asserted that he wasn't "aware" of seminar series' propaganda posted on the website of the Iowa Family Leader, an organization that denies ties to the Mormon-led national organization with an identical name. When pressed, Vander Plaats, revealed he was aware of a posting on a gay blog which revealed links on the Family Leader website to the series' disinformation, partially based on studies by discredited former University of Nebraska psychologist Paul Cameron, whose junk statistics are apparently quite believable to Iowa state representative Dwayne Alons (R-Hull). (See video at end of this post.)

Web page of The Family Leader's website was captured and published by Igor Volsky
of Think Progress. It clearly shows The Family Leader advocating on behalf of the seminar series
that discussed same-sex marriage and homosexuality "second-hand effects."

     ...the organization’s website continues to advertise the seminars, and the leadership of its subsidiaries have repeatedly said homosexuality is as dangerous as second-hand smoke...
     During a back-and-forth with the reporter, who represented Iowa Public Radio, Vander Plaats asked if the question was result of a posting on the “Good As You” blog, and then noted that he and The Family Leader were not responsible for what may have appeared on that website.
     “The Family Leader has not been a part of that [seminar series],” Vander Plaats said. “The Family Leader — as a matter of fact, I’m the president and CEO of it — started in November 2010.
     ...The Family Leader is an umbrella organization that includes IFPC and the formerly federally funded counseling program Marriage Matters.
     “We have not held seminars on that,” Vander Plaats told The Iowa Independent during the follow-up interview. “My guess would be that maybe it was something done earlier… you know, ‘The Other Effects’ — I don’t know how they (the IFPC) phrased it. I was not aware of it.”
     ...When asked by The Iowa Independent how a blogger posted a screen shot of The Family Leader’s website with information about the seminar series, Vander Plaats pledged to look into it.
     Chuck Hurley, who leads the Iowa Family Policy Center, made the charge in March 2010 that gay marriage was more dangerous than smoking...
     Days later the IFPC published information in its blog entitled: “What’s Worse — Smoking or Sodomy?"
     A website promoting the seminar series indicates that sessions have been held in at least 11 Iowa cities, but no dates are provided. Downloads available on the “Second-Hand Effects” website make several public health claims about homosexuality. The first such claim — that being a homosexual reduces an individual’s life span — was used by conservative radio host Jan Mickelson in February 2010 as he introducing former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Vander Plaats at an event in Des Moines... 

Why the Family Research Council was classified as a hate group by the SPLC (along with NOM and 16 other organizations)

Richard Cohen, SPLC

Tony Perkins, FRC

In the next few days well-funded right wing hate groups named by the SLPC will try to convince America that the SPLC has truly stepped off the curb.

It hasn't.

Its reports, as always, are impeccably researched and reasoned. I've provided links and urge anyone to click them for information straight from the horse's mouth, not through the filter of press release attacks by FRC, NOM, AFC, etc.

In its report "18 Anti-Gay Groups and Their Propaganda," the Southern Poverty Law Center listed specific reasons for its action, specifically noting "Viewing homosexuality as unbiblical does not qualify organizations for listing as hate groups."

It further explained that "Generally, the SPLC’s listings of these groups is based on their propagation of known falsehoods — claims about LGBT people that have been thoroughly discredited by scientific authorities — and repeated, groundless name-calling."

Example: the Family Research Council frequently cites the flawed research of Dr. Paul Cameron,  who wrote this, in 2008:

“We can no longer rely — as almost all pro-family organizations do today — on gleaning scientific ‘bits’ from those in liberal academia… . [W]e must subvert the academy by doing original, honest research ourselves and use this to advance the historic Christian faith.”

There’s just one trouble with this approach. Almost all the “facts” trotted out by the religious right about gays turn out to be false or misleading. And no one does more to create these myths than Cameron, whose work has been repudiated by three scholarly associations. (Others who are commonly cited as “researchers” by the anti-gay right include Joe Dallas, John R. Diggs, Joseph Nicolosi and the late Charles Socarides.) In addition, many scholars who do serious work in the area of sexuality say their work is misused by anti-gay groups. In fact, at least 11 legitimate scientists have recorded video statements saying their work was being mischaracterized by the religious right.

The SPLC added, in its Winter Report, Gays Remain Minority Most Targeted By Hate Crimes:

"...In all likelihood ...violence, hatred and bullying of those perceived as homosexual will continue into the foreseeable future. Although leaders of the hard core of the religious right deny it, it seems clear that their demonizing propaganda plays a role in fomenting that violence — a proposition that has sparked a number of Christian leaders to speak out in the wake of the latest series of tragedies."

FRC's bombastic and misleading press release, issued after it learned it had been classified as a hate group by the SPLC:

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins released the following statement in response to slanderous attacks made by the Southern Poverty Law Center:

"Family Research Council has, for nearly 30 years, advanced faith, family, and freedom in public discourse. We do so with civility and compassion. We hold to the indisputable fact that the family - a Dad, a Mom, and children - is the best building block of a good society, which is why we oppose efforts to transform it based on personal sexual preference.

"The Southern Poverty Law Center is a massively funded liberal organization that operates under a veneer of public justice when, in fact, they seem more interested in fundraising ploys than fighting wrongdoing.

"This is a deliberately timed smear campaign by the SPLC. The Left is losing the debate over ideas and the direction of public policy so all that is left for them is character assassination. It's a sad day in America when we can not, with integrity, have a legitimate discussion over policy issues that are being considered by Congress, legislatures, and the courts without resorting to juvenile tactics of name calling.

"The Left's smear campaigns of conservatives is also being driven by the clear evidence that the American public is losing patience with their radical policy agenda as seen in the recent election and in the fact that every state, currently more than thirty, that has had the opportunity to defend the natural definition of marriage has done so. Earlier this month, voters in Iowa sent a powerful message when they removed three Supreme Court justices who imposed same-sex marriage on the state. Would the SPLC also smear the good people of Iowa?

"Family Research Council will continue to champion marriage and family as the foundation of our society and will not acquiesce to those seeking to silence the Judeo-Christian views held by millions of Americans.  We call on the Southern Poverty Law Center to apologize for this slanderous attack and attempted character assassination."

In its report, "18 Anti-Gay Groups and their Propaganda," the SPLC delved into Tony Perkins' "Unusual History:"

In 1996, while managing the U.S. Senate campaign of Republican State Rep. Louis “Woody” Jenkins of Louisiana, Perkins paid $82,500 to use the mailing list of former Klan chieftain David Duke. The campaign was fined $3,000 (reduced from $82,500) after Perkins and Jenkins filed false disclosure forms in a bid to hide the link to Duke. Five years later, on May 17, 2001, Perkins gave a speech to the Louisiana chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist group that has described black people as a “retrograde species of humanity.” Perkins claimed not to know the group’s ideology at the time, but it had been widely publicized in Louisiana and the nation. In 1999, in fact, GOP chairman Jim Nicholson urged Republicans to quit the group over its “racist views.” A short time later, after an Intelligence Report exposé but before Perkins’ 2001 speech, Republican House Speaker Trent Lott was embroiled in a national scandal over his ties to the group.

Former University of Nebraska professor, defrocked by APA, insists Prop 8 trial was lost due to failure to cite his work (No, really. And this headline wasn't stolen from The Onion.)

Crackpot Paul Cameron's newest bombast is dissected by Alvin McEwan over at Pam's House Blend. Cameron was kicked out of the American Psychological Association in December of 1983 for failing to cooperate with its investigation of him. Cameron claims he resigned in March of 1982.

Not until 1984 did the Nebraska Psychological Association disassociate itself from his work.

Undoubtedly the Nebraska Psychological Association could have reacted sooner, but was probably distracted by the tribulations of the University of Nebraska's most celebrated psychologist, Dr. Tom Osborne, whose statistical success in 1984 was overcome by Oklahoma via four painful turnovers as Oklahoma ended Nebraska's 27-game conference win streak and 21-game win streak in Lincoln.

Although the run-oriented Huskers outpassed the Sooners 236-58, two key second-half stops by the Sooners shut down Nebraska's hopes for a shot at the National Championship.