Professional Anti-Gays Insult Our Collective Intelligence

It's been circling around the internets for more than week now that professional anti-gay organizations have been lying about the pending federal Hate Crimes bill ("The Matthew Shepard Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention" Act). As but one egregious example, in a sensational headline, the American Family Association recently declared the Senate to be "poised to give special protection status to pedophiles." The AFA insisted that:

"The Senate refused to define what is meant by sexual orientation in S. 909, the 'Hate Crimes' bill. This means that the 30 different sexual orientations will be federally protected classes."

I honestly don't know whether the AFA and other professional anti-gays are being disingenuous, blatantly dishonest, or just sincerely ignorant here, but their reasoning is as follows: The Hate Crimes statute does not define "sexual orientation." The American Psychiatric Association lists 30 "sexual orientations." Therefore, the Hate Crimes statute will protect all 30 of these "sexual orientations."

While it is true that the Hate Crimes act does not define "sexual orientation," it's clear that anti-gays have no understanding as to what constitutes a "sexual orientation." For instance, let's take a look at some of these other "orientations" that the American Family Association equates with homosexuality: coprophilia (sexual arousal from feces), necrophilia (sex with a corpse), and apotemnophilia (sexual arousal from the stumps of an amputee). Interesting, isn't it? See, those of us living in the reality-based world will notice that the cited American Psychiatric Association's DSM-IV list is actually a list of "paraphilias" and not "sexual orientations." The DSM-IV really defines only 4 "sexual orientations" and they're all based on whether a person is attracted to men, women, both, or neither. Further, unlike "sexual orientation," paraphilias:

"all have in common distressing and repetitive sexual fantasies, urges, or behaviors. These fantasies, urges, or behaviors must occur for a significant period of time and must interfere with either satisfactory sexual relations or everyday functioning if the diagnosis is to be made. There is also a sense of distress within these individuals."

Those who are involved in the mental health field, as opposed to those involved in the art of dishonest propaganda, know that homosexuality (or any sexual orientation) is not a paraphilia. To put it simply, paraphilias are mental disorders and sexual orientations are not. It is, in fact, demonstrative of a great deal of ignorance (or willful dishonesty) to equate paraphilias with sexual orientations. It is profoundly insulting to the the collective intelligence of Americans to suggest that having sex with corpses is an "orientation" anything like heterosexuality, bisexuality, or homosexuality. Who do these anti-gays think they're fooling?

I know that many anti-gay bloggers echo such statements, but I often wonder if they truly believe, in their heart of hearts, what they're saying. Fucking amputated stumps is a "sexual orientation"? That is the direction we want a serious conversation about individual rights and crime prevention to take? You know, a man such as Focus on the Family's James Dobson, who holds a PhD in psychology, should know better than this and he should give his followers a little more credit. I have to wonder if professional anti-gays are incompetent, or if they're just okay with being bald-faced liars.

Because this latest lie is one of the lowest of the low, I also wonder if it is "something else in disguise." That "something else," of course, being hatred. Despite their self-righteous rhetoric of Christ and love, what justifies the professional anti-gay movement's continual dishonesty and/or continual ignorant public statements? Do they not have editors? Do they not have professionals, such as lawyers or psychologists, who are competent? Is it because these people really, truly, genuinely believe that gay people are exactly like people who have any sort of sexual deviancy no matter how malignant that any means justifies the end? I'm seriously trying to understand how so-called religious people can lie so publicly and so shamelessly.

For, perhaps because the anti-gay circuit is a ginormous echo chamber, the Traditional Values Coalition, Liberty Counsel, the Concerned Women for American, and the Digital Network Army have all repeated this lie in the form of statements, email blasts, and news articles to their members.

I think it's time for these folks to justify their actions and start answering questions.