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Bryan Fischer’s Faked Research about Gays and Lesbians

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Last updated on January 10th, 2013 at 11:25 pm

Bryan Fischer – Inventing his own research

Bryan Fischer just seems bound and determined to dominate the rankings when it comes to listing miserable failings as human beings. I have named him a nithing before and I am going to name him a nithing again. If goodness in a person is judged as a matter of how well a person performs the functions required and expected of a human being, Fischer fails – epically.

I don’t know any other way to say this: the man is human excrement. Since we can’t flush him, we’ll just have to continue flushing his vile, hate-filled, lying invective.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which identifies hate groups in this country (you should visit their site one day and see who you are neighbors with – it’s enlightening) recently named the AFA – the American Family Association – a hate group. And Fischer, of course their “director of issue analysis for government and public policy.” I know, you’re surprised, right?

The SPLC recently exposed the Ten Myths conservative hate-mongers love to repeat about the LGBT community:

MYTH # 1 Homosexuals molest children at far higher rates than heterosexuals.
MYTH # 2 Same-sex parents harm children.
MYTH # 3 People become homosexual because they were sexually abused as children or there was a deficiency in sex-role modeling by their parents.
MYTH # 4 Homosexuals don’t live nearly as long as heterosexuals.
MYTH # 5 Homosexuals controlled the Nazi Party and helped to orchestrate the Holocaust.
MYTH # 6 Hate crime laws will lead to the jailing of pastors who criticize homosexuality and the legalization of practices like bestiality and necrophilia.
MYTH # 7 Allowing homosexuals to serve openly would damage the armed forces.
MYTH # 8 Homosexuals are more prone to be mentally ill and to abuse drugs and alcohol.
MYTH # 9 No one is born a homosexual.

What does Fischer do in response? He republishes the list as a list of 10 Truths, backed up by “research.” Remember yesterday when I talked about Republicans manufacturing history to bolster their ideological positions? Well, they like to manufacture research for the same reason. Fischer as an avatar of deceit could give Beck a run for his money. Maybe they can share the prize.

Republican hate-mongers misuse research in the same way their climate deniers misuse research, making legitimate research say something it never said. This way they can point to legitimate research studies and say, “See! They agree with me!”

But they don’t. They never said that. Not at all.

The blog Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters reports on the problem and lists researchers who have already complained about having their work hijacked:

National Institute of Health director Francis Collins, who rebuked the American College of Pediatricians for falsely claiming that he stated sexual orientation is not hardwired by DNA.

Six researchers of a 1997 Canadian study (Robert S. Hogg, Stefan A. Strathdee, Kevin J.P. Craib, Michael V. Shaughnessy, Julio Montaner, and Martin T. Schehter), who complained in 2001 that religious right groups were distorting their work to claim that gay men have a short life span.

The authors of the book Unequal Opportunity: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States (Professors Richard J. Wolitski, Ron Stall, and Ronald O. Valdiserri), who complained that their work was being distorted by Focus on the Family.

University College London professor Michael King, who complained that the American Family Association was distorting his work on depression and suicide in LGBT individuals

University of Utah professor Lisa Diamond, who complained that NARTH (the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality), a group that also shares board members with the ACPED, distorted her research on sexual orientation.

Dr. Carol Gilligan, Professor of Education and Law at New York University, who complained that former Focus on the Family head James Dobson misrepresented her research to attack LGBT families.

Dr. Kyle Pruett, Ph.D., a professor of child psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, who has also complained that Focus on the Family distorted his work.

Dr. Robert Spitzer, Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, who has consistently complained that religious right groups distorted his study to claim that the LGBT orientation is easily changeable.

Judith Stacey, Professor of Sociology at New York University, who has had to, on more than one occasion, cry foul over how religious right groups distorted her work on LGBT families.

Greg Remafedi, Professor at the University of Minnesota, who has complained several times about how religious right groups such as the American College of Pediatricians and PFOX have distorted his work, all to no avail. The American College of Pediatricians refused his request to remove his work from their site.

Another researcher was added to this list back in August: John Horgan, “a science journalist and Director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ,” who published an article in Scientific American, saying,

Christian homophobes have misused my writings on the biology of homosexuality, particularly “Gay Genes, Revisited,” published in Scientific American in November 1995. In it I reported on weaknesses in the claims of scientists—and particularly the geneticist Dean Hamer, “discoverer” of the “gay gene”—that homosexuality has a genetic basis.

As Horgan points out, he was not making a case against LGBT equality but that human sexuality was more fluid than simplistic straight/gay comparisons allow.

As the SPLC asks,

Fischer must know that the very material he cites to support his claims, doesn’t. He also has to know how scholarly researchers have denounced the misrepresentation of their work. So why does he continue to assert otherwise?

Their conclusion is the same as mine: that “truth” is little more than Play-Doh to be molded and stretched to fit one’s preferred ideology.”

Rather odd, isn’t it, that a group that endorses the ideal of absolute truth has such a flexible understanding of it?

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Hrafnkell Haraldsson

Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen's Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.

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