Repulsive, repugnant and throughly discredited anti-gay “researcher” (and batshit crazy homophobe), “Dr.” Paul Cameron gave an incredibly distasteful, yet almost (I said almost) laughable interview to the Colorado Springs Gazette recently. Cameron—who once spread the lie that a small child had been castrated by a gay man in a public bathroom and who says DADT repeal would lead to gay rapes in the military—said the fact that his antigay organization, The Family Research Institute, was recently classified as a hate group by Southern Poverty Law Center was merely a “left-wing” smear.
Here’s what the SPLC report had to say about Cameron and his non-profit, donation-supported “institute” which consists of four employees and is run out of his home in Colorado Springs on a budget of $85,000 per year (Wait a minute, who would send this fool money?):
Started in 1987 by psychologist Paul Cameron, the Family Research Institute (FRI) has become the anti-gay movement’s main source for what Cameron claims is “cutting-edge research” — but is, in fact, completely discredited junk science pushed out by a man who has been condemned by three professional organizations.
Over nearly three decades, Cameron has published “research studies” (though almost never in peer-reviewed journals) that suggest that homosexuals are predatory and diseased perverts who victimize children. Among his more recent defamations was an FRI pamphlet asserting the primary activity of the gay rights movement is “seeking to legitimize child-adult homosexual sex.” In another, he claimed that with “the rise of the gay rights movement, homosexual rape of men appears to have increased.” In yet another, he wrote, “Homosexuals were three times more likely to admit to having made an obscene phone call” and “a third more apt to report a traffic ticket or traffic accident in the past 5 years.”
Some of Cameron’s more infamous claims include the idea that homosexuals molest children at far higher rates than heterosexuals and that homosexuals have extremely short lives. Last February, he wrote on FRI’s website that “If homosexuals are allowed to serve in the military, they will be recruiting in showers, having sex in the barracks… . Before long, the U.S. may be defended by the sex-obsessed and those who can tolerate kowtowing to them.” After all, writes Cameron — a man who proposes that parents promote teen heterosexual activity to keep kids straight — “homosexual sex overwhelms rationality [and] overwhelms the desire to serve.”
Cameron’s colleagues have condemned him repeatedly. In 1983, he was thrown out of the American Psychological Association for ethical violations. In 1984, the Nebraska Psychological Association disassociated itself from Cameron’s statements about sexuality. In 1985, the American Sociological Association adopted a resolution saying Cameron “has consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented sociological research on sexuality” and “repeatedly campaigned for the abrogation of the civil rights of lesbians and gay men”; the following year, the same group formally condemned Cameron for that misrepresentation of research.
Despite all this — and the fact that Cameron’s propaganda is widely known to be false or misleading — many groups have continued to use his claims, though often without citing their source. They include the American Family Association, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, Concerned Women for America, Coral Ridge Ministries, the Family Research Council and, until recently, the Illinois Family Institute/ (Note: all six were also included in the report)
Yes, that’s right, the VERY SAME assholes you see on Fox News each and every time DADT, hate crime legislation and gay marriage is brought up are quoting this fool’s “research”! People like Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. Facts? Who cares about the facts when Perkins can just quote a statement from a “think tank” consisting of an old crackpot and a handful of his cronies? A guy who has been ostracized and rebuked by several of the most prestigious professional medical organizations in the country and who publishes his “research” in the official sounding “Psychological Reports,” a journal which will publish pretty much any old thing for the cost of $27.50 per page? Yep, that’s the guy, Paul Cameron. He’s the UR-source for nearly all this stuff when such “fact” and “studies” are cited, even if you’ve never heard of him.
And I’ll say it again, this “research” is what you hear parroted by rightwing Christians on Fox News and talk radio all day long. Paul Cameron is too crazy to be mentioned by name—even anti-gay marriage Christian activists are wary of an association with him—but his ludicrous “research,” as if it were worth anything more than $27.50 per page, has formed the pseudo-science basis of their reality tunnels. If they weren’t hateful assholes, I could feel sorry for them.
Here are a couple of nuggets from the interview:
God’s 11th Commandment is “Thou shalt not corrupt boys,” Cameron told me. He celebrated the Ugandan anti-gay bill, in which the penalty for gay activity could be death. “Whatever they decide, I’m OK with,” he said.
Cameron believes homosexuality should be criminalized in America. He proposes heavily taxing single American adults and homosexuals because of their failure to procreate. He would also like to see gays undergo a “public shaming,” though he offered no specifics.
During our 90-minute talk, Cameron expressed his ideas in a calm, professorial manner. He said the SPLC Hate Group list is a “left-wing deal” and he’s unconcerned about the FRI being on it. He said gays “want to shut down Christianity.”
The gay lifestyle, which he says is chosen, will lead to the destruction of the West. “Liberal minds are attracted to societal destructive things like moth to a light,” he told me. “No society can long endure that does such a thing.”
“If God has changed his mind (about homosexuality being an abomination, as written in the Bible), he must want the West to die.”
Cameron has been at this game for thirty years now. Thirty years of his fucking life on earth spent making up shit about gay people because the Bible told him this was a good thing to do! Clearly he’s a lunatic. The older he gets, the crazier he gets.
The next time you hear this kind of nonsense—only slightly watered down—being promoted on or talk radio or television by the likes of Tony Perkins (Note to CNN: STOP inviting this fucking guy on your airwaves, okay?) or oh, I dunno, say, Governor Rick Perry of Texas, remember that the “scientific” root of their belief system (or “BS” as Robert Anton Wilson liked to say) comes from this idiot, “Dr.” Paul Cameron, a man whose ideas deserve contempt and mockery.
The Fabulist: Anti-gay researcher Paul Cameron’s falsehoods are well known. The incredible thing is the people who still cite them (SPLC)
The Holy War on Gays: The Christian Right is on a new mission: To drive homosexuality back into the closet. Inside the war rooms of evangelical intolerance (Rolling Stone)
Springs nonprofit leader wants homosexuality criminalized (Colorado Springs Gazette)
Debunked & Disgraced Professional Anti-Gay Paul Cameron: Prop H8 Lawyers “Scared” to Use His Junk “Science” (Lavender Newswire)
Posted by Richard Metzger
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12.10.2010
03:26 pm
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