Positive Liberty

Conservatives: How often have you heard the following statistics?

Half of all sex murderers are homosexuals.

Homosexuals committed 7 of the 10 worst murder sets.

Homosexuals perpetrate between a third and a half of all recorded child molestations.

Homosexual teachers have committed between a quarter and four-fifths of all molestation of pupils.

Gays are at least twelve times more apt to molest children than heterosexuals.

Homosexual teachers are at least seven times more likely to molest a pupil.

The average life span of a homosexual is 39 years; fewer than 2% survive to the age of 65.

Gay men are

–fourteen times more apt to have had syphilis

–three times more apt to have had gonorrhea

–three times more apt to have had genital warts

–eight times more apt to have had hepatitis

–three times more apt to have had lice

–five times more apt to have had scabies

–over 5000 times more likely to have had AIDS.

Lesbians are

–nineteen times more apt to have had syphilis

–two times more apt to have had genital warts

–four times more apt to have had scabies.

Perhaps you are sometimes inclined to be tolerant of homosexuals, but then you see numbers like these and start to get worried. Maybe homosexuals really are a menace, and with these figures, who would even want to take a chance?

It might surprise you to learn that just one individual has been the source of all of these statistics. It might also surprise you that he drew virtually all of them from just one very deeply flawed study that he conducted twenty years ago.

He then assembled the rest of this bleak litany by compiling a set of retrospective meta-studies. He has openly admitted that he stacked the deck by choosing only those studies that favored his own pre-conceived notions. For instance, to find information on gay death rates, he looked at newspaper obituaries, which often focus on individuals who have been suddenly cut down in the prime of life. He compared these obituary figures to numbers about overall life expectancy in the general population, a method that will clearly give poor results. Unsurprisingly, he found that both gay men and lesbians were far more likely to die in car crashes, murders, and accidents–just the sort of shocking incidents that are most likely to make the news.

To get numbers on STDs in gay men and lesbians, he used studies that recruited them from STD clinics. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority were infected. He then compared these numbers to a sample of straight people who had been tested at random. For child molestation and murder, he again selected studies that favored his preferred conclusions, discarding the ones that did not–a tactic he freely admits using.

At times this one man merely speculated about the sexual orientation of criminals, and sometimes these speculations were entirely wrong. Still, they went into his “research.” Invariably, he deemed all same-sex molestation as having been perpetrated by a homosexual, even when the perpetrator’s other sexual contact, ideation, and self-classification were heterosexual.

I hope you will concede that these are all biased methods. The American Psychological Association thought so, and they disbarred this man for unethical conduct.

The man’s name is Paul Cameron, and his story ought to be old news, because his only original work came in 1983. It has since been thoroughly debunked, again and again. The best critiques can be found here and here. If you are not familiar with Paul Cameron, I urge you to quit reading PL right this moment. Instead, follow these links, especially the second one, and only come back when you’re finished.

All done? Good. Now I don’t have to tell you that Paul Cameron has suggested tattoos and concentration camps for people with AIDS. I don’t have to tell you that he has called for all homosexuals to register with the government. I don’t have to tell you that he has professed himself happy about AIDS, because it rids the world of “perverts.”

I don’t have to tell you that Cameron has deemed the extermination of all gay people “a viable option.”

Paul Cameron ought to be old news, just another crackpot researcher–albeit one with an especially nasty axe to grind. But Cameron is hardly washed up. His “research” resurfaces continually in the conservative press. He says the things that people want to hear. He says the things that make hatred okay.

I do hope that Cameron looks ridiculous to you by now. His friends, though, do not look ridiculous, because Cameron’s friends constitute the power base of today’s Republican party. His friends look sincere, and pious, and very, very righteous. As recently as this week, Operation Rescue leader Randall Terry quoted some of the above numbers as if they were authoritative statistics. In recent years, Terry has crusaded against homosexuality. He’s often called it “suicide by the installment plan,” and used Cameron to support this claim. This week he even denounced his own son, who has recently come out as gay, and stated that his son is no longer welcome in the Terry house. Major media outlets publicized Randall Terry’s comments, complete with Cameron’s bogus statistics, but they neglected to note that all these claims have been discredited.

The trouble doesn’t stop here. Funded by the religious right, the Family Research Institute continues to give Cameron a place to publish his “original cutting-edge” material. From this outpost, Cameron’s claims have permeated the religious right. Dig through the statements of respected authorities like William Bennett, or through the files of the American Family Association, and you will find that Paul Cameron is a prime source of what most conservatives think that they know about homosexuality. Follow up on the references you find in anti-gay publications, and a remarkable number of them are derivative: They ultimately refer not to new research, but back to Paul Cameron’s 1983 study.

Interestingly, the FRI itself was also kind enough to place on the Web an article from the New Republic debunking Cameron himself. It’s another link well worth following.

Lastly, I’ve saved a juicy tidbit for my gay audience: Cameron also displays an almost erotic fascination with all things homosexual. Oddly for a straight person, he describes gay sex as being far, far better than straight sex–and therefore more dangerous. This link reprints a 1999 Rolling Stone article on him, in which we read one of Cameron’s most interesting arguments. It runs in part as follows:

So powerful is the allure of gays, Cameron believes, that if society approves of gay people, more and more heterosexuals will be inexorably drawn into homosexuality. “I’m convinced that lesbians are particularly good seducers,” says Cameron. “People in homosexuality are incredibly evangelical,” he adds, sounding evangelical himself. “It’s pure sexuality. It’s almost like pure heroin. It’s such a rush. They are committed in almost a religious way. And they’ll take enormous risks, do anything.” He says that for married men and women, gay sex would be irresistible. “Martial sex tends toward the boring end,” he points out. “Generally, it doesn’t deliver the kind of sheer sexual pleasure that homosexual sex does.” So, Cameron believes, within a few generations homosexuality would become the dominant form of sexual behavior.

It depresses me beyond words that this individual’s biased, hateful forgeries have had more influence on the gay rights debate than anything I could ever hope to accomplish. Cameron has succeeded at repeating a lie until it has become the conventional wisdom. Now, when many people see me with my partner, all that they really see are Paul Cameron’s lies.

What does a historian make of this? Cameron’s findings, particularly as regards child molestation, look remarkably like a resurrection of the ancient blood libel. In a blood libel, a hated group allegedly practices in secret a set of closely-related evils. Above all, the hated group abuses children to satisfy its own perverted cravings. They corrupt, molest, torture, kill, and even devour the vulnerable children of the dominant group.

The hated group is filthy, poisonous, secretive, and criminal. They are a menace to others and to civilization itself. Once, the Romans used the blood libel against Christians. Then the Christians used it against Jews–even as late as the twentieth century. Today, the blood libel comes against the only group for whom such allegations are still likely to get an audience.

Like always, it’s said that the hated group isn’t quite in control of its own actions, because a quasi-religious fervor has consumed them. The blood libel’s alleged motives are subject to change, reflecting the demonology of the era. In ancient times, Jesus–a subversive foreign god–made the Christians do it. In the middle ages, the Devil made the Jews do it. Today, the “heroin rush” of gay sex is to blame. But in all cases, the hated group lures children from their parents and perpetrates horrible crimes against them.

The only solution–the final solution–is to destroy the group itself.

Once you’ve heard the blood libel, it has a way of staying with you. It rests just under the surface of your mind. It doesn’t matter how many “good” gays, or “good” Jews, or “good” Christians you meet. Because the blood libel is so shocking, it’s hard ever to put it aside. No one wants to take a chance on a thing like that, and our doubts allow the Paul Camerons of the world continue their work…

I don’t know how to exorcise this demon. It’s been with us for thousands of years, and in all likelihood it will still be around to dance malignantly on my grave. But even the simple act of recognizing and remembering might do something to help; diagnosing a malady is usually the first step in treating it. It’s worth remembering, then, that not only has the blood libel been used in the past, but it’s probably been used against your group, too. And now it’s being used again.