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While no-one in either the FRC or AFA has advocated acts of violence against LGBTQ persons, the non-stop propaganda machine of these two groups has fostered a societal environment whereby their narrow interpretation of their evangelical religious beliefs becomes the message “received and understood” by its recipients.

According to the SPLC, it is this environment which has unquestionably contributed directly to the increase in anti-gay violence in recent years.

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Myth 1: Gay men molest children at far higher rates than heterosexuals.

According to the SPLC, depicting gay men as a threat to children may be the single most potent weapon for stoking public fears about homosexuality — and for winning elections and referendums. Discredited psychologist Paul Cameron, the most ubiquitous purveyor of anti-gay junk science, has been a major promoter of this myth. Despite having been debunked repeatedly and very publicly, by professional physiological and psychiatric associations, Cameron’s work is still widely relied upon by anti-gay organizations, although many no longer quote him by name.

But according to the American Psychological Association, “homosexual men are not more likely to sexually abuse children than heterosexual men are.” Gregory Herek, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who is one of the nation’s leading researchers on prejudice against sexual minorities, reviewed a series of studies and found no evidence that gay men molest children at higher rates than heterosexual men.

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Myth 2: Same-sex parents harm children.

Most hard-line anti-gay organizations are heavily invested, from both a religious and a political standpoint, in promoting the traditional nuclear family as the sole framework for the healthy upbringing of children.

However, no legitimate research has demonstrated that same-sex couples are any more or any less harmful to children than heterosexual couples. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics in a 2002 policy statement declared: “A growing body of scientific literature demonstrates that children who grow up with one or two gay and/or lesbian parents fare as well in emotional, cognitive, social, and sexual functioning as do children whose parents are heterosexual” and that the “psychological well-being of children is unrelated to parental sexual orientation.”

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Myth 3: People become gay because they were sexually abused as children or there was a deficiency in sex role modeling by their parents.

Many anti-gay rights proponents claim that homosexuality is a mental disorder caused by some psychological trauma or aberration in childhood. The argument is used to counter the common observation that no one, gay or straight, consciously chooses his or her sexual orientation.

Again, there has been no scientifically sound study has linked sexual orientation or identity with parental role-modeling or childhood sexual abuse. The American Psychiatric Association noted in a 2000 fact sheet on gay, lesbian and bisexual issues that “no specific psychosocial or family dynamic cause for homosexuality has been identified, including histories of childhood sexual abuse.”

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Myth 4: Gay men and lesbians don’t live nearly as long as heterosexuals.

Anti-gay organizations want to promote heterosexuality as the healthier “choice.” They assert that shorter life spans and poorer physical and mental health of gays and lesbians are often offered as reasons why they shouldn’t be allowed to adopt or foster children.

This falsehood can be traced directly to the discredited research of Cameron and his Family Research Institute, specifically a 1994 paper he co-wrote entitled, “The Lifespan of Homosexuals.” Using obituaries collected from gay newspapers, he and his two co-authors concluded that gay men died, on average, at 43, compared to an average life expectancy at the time of around 73 for all U.S. men.

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Myth 5: Gay men controlled the Nazi Party and helped to orchestrate the Holocaust.

This claim comes directly from a 1995 book titled The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, by Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams. Lively is the virulently anti-gay founder of Abiding Truth Ministries and Abrams is an organizer of a group called the International Committee for Holocaust Truth.

The Pink Swastika has been widely discredited by legitimate historians and scholars.

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Myth 6: Hate crime laws will lead to the jailing of pastors who criticize homosexuality and the legalization of practices like bestiality and necrophilia.

Anti-gay activists, who have long opposed adding LGBT people to those protected by hate crimes legislation, have repeatedly claimed that such laws would lead to the jailing of religious figures who preach against homosexuality — part of a bid to gain the backing of the broader religious community for their position.

The claim that hate crime laws could result in the imprisonment of those who “oppose the homosexual lifestyle” is false, says the SPLC. The Constitution provides robust protections of free speech, and case law makes it clear that even a preacher who suggested that gays and lesbians should be killed would be protected.

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Myth 7: Allowing gay people to serve openly will damage the armed forces.

Anti-gay groups have been adamantly opposed to allowing gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the armed forces, not only because of their purported fear that combat readiness will be undermined, but because the military has long been considered the purest meritocracy in America.

The fact is that gays and lesbians have long served in the U.S. armed forces, though under the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) policy that governed the military between 1993 and September 2011, they could not serve openly.

At the same time, gays and lesbians have served openly for years in the armed forces of 25 countries, including Britain, Israel, South Africa, Canada and Australia. And according to a report by the Palm Center, a policy think tank at the University of California at Santa Barbara, lifting bans against openly gay service personnel in these countries has “had no negative impact on morale, recruitment, retention, readiness or overall combat effectiveness.”

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Myth 8: Gay people are more prone to be mentally ill and to abuse drugs and alcohol.

Anti-gay groups want not only to depict sexual orientation as something that can be changed, but also to show that heterosexuality is the more desirable “choice” — even if religious arguments are set aside.

The fact is that all major professional mental health organizations are on record as stating that homosexuality is not a mental disorder.

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Myth 9: No one is born gay.

Anti-gay activists keenly oppose the granting of “special” civil rights protections to gay people similar to those afforded Black Americans and other minorities. Because, if people are born gay — in the same way people have no choice as to whether they are black or white — discrimination against gay men and lesbians would be vastly more difficult to justify.

Thus, anti-gay forces insist that sexual orientation is a behavior that can be changed, not an immutable characteristic.

The fact is that modern science cannot state conclusively what causes sexual orientation, but a great many studies suggest that it is the result of biological and environmental forces, not a personal “choice.”

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Myth 10: Gay people can choose to leave homosexuality.

If people are not born gay, as anti-gay activists claim, then it should be possible for individuals to abandon homosexuality. This view is buttressed among religiously motivated anti-gay activists by the idea that homosexual practice is a sin and humans have the free will needed to reject sinful urges.

A number of “ex-gay” religious ministries have sprung up in recent years with the aim of teaching gay people to become heterosexuals, and these have become prime purveyors of the claim that gays and lesbians, with the aid of mental therapy and Christian teachings, can “come out of homosexuality.”

But “reparative,” or sexual re-orientation therapy — the pseudo-scientific foundation of the ex-gay movement — has been rejected by all the established and reputable American medical, psychological, psychiatric, and professional counseling organizations.

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About Myth #6: I think that hate mongers should be thrown in jail for inciting violence against any group of people (race, sex orientation, or religion based). Freedom of speech doesn’t give anyone the right to lead people, through ignorance, to beat, exploit, or kill a group of people. Just saying… I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it if it were NOT a myth lol

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Thanks God!!I live in Canada…this kind of hate manifestation are strictly forbidden!!!

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In the UK they would be jailed for inciting racial hatred and abuse, harresment. Unbelievable they can get away with this!

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As a long-time supporter of the SPLC, I am glad they will be taking the likes of the Bachmann-type “reparative clinics” to court. Winning multi-million dollar lawsuits will do more to shut these morons up than anything else. The strategy has worked against right wing hate groups for years, taking the property of the Order, the KKK and others. I’m not gay, but I have always rejected any bigotry, and have always felt my friends in the LGBT community have suffered enough. These pseudo-christian jerks need to feel the sting of the legal sword.