LGBT Science
LGBT People Like Saving Their Planet More Than Straight People
Published October 27, 2009 @ 07:18AM PT
If Mother Nature had her way, the world might be run by LGBT people. That's because a new poll out shows that LGBT Americans think and act in more green-friendly ways than straight people. The statistics are even more stark when it comes to believing whether global warming is a significant threat to the planet, or that people should support environmental organizations and environmental causes with some money.
There's also a tinge or irony here that while anti-gay forces are busy trying to repeal marriage rights state-by-state or shift Anglicans into the Catholic Church, it's actually LGBT people on a whole that show more concern for the future generations of this world, at least when it comes to environmental sustainability.
The study, by Witeck-Combs and Harris Interactive, concludes that while on a whole everyone is doing more these days to protect the environment and save the planet, there's definitely a gap between LGBT people and straight people.
It's Time to End the Federal Ban on Gay Blood Donations
Published September 09, 2009 @ 03:52PM PT
In 1983, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) instituted a discriminatory rule on blood donations that prohibited sexually active gay men from donating blood. The thinking at the time, which was far more rooted in homophobia than medical fact, was that the majority of gay men were diseased and their blood contaminated with HIV.
Twenty-six years later, the U.S. still operates under this outdated and discriminatory policy, which leaves countless numbers of patients stuck without a blood or bone marrow donor. That's why it's welcome news that states like California are taking up the call to push the FDA to end the ban on gay blood and bone marrow donations.
In California this week, the State Assembly passed a bill called the U.S. Blood Donor Nondiscrimination Resolution, which (while symbolic) would urge the federal government to do away with the 1980s ban on gay blood and bone marrow donors. Equality California (EQCA), among other groups, have been helping to champion this bill all along, arguing that the fears about HIV transmission that resulted in the prohibition are no longer warranted.
"Today, a better understanding of the disease and significant innovations in blood screening technology make the fear of HIV/AIDS spreading through the blood supply nearly nonexistent," EQCA says. "The three major U.S. blood donation agencies, the American Red Cross, the American Association for Blood Banks, and America’s Blood Centers have found that the lifetime blood donation ban on men who have had sex with men is medically and scientifically unwarranted."
That's the key point, right? Banning gay men from donating blood is not preventing HIV transmission, it's just fostering discrimination. And this comes at a time when blood supplies continue to dip to dangerously low levels. As EQCA notes, this year alone California had a record low four-hour supply left of Type-O negative blood, while in January some hospitals in New York had to ration their blood supplies for fear of running out.
California's State Assembly took the right step here. It's a step that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius -- who oversees the FDA -- should be paying attention to. If not for equal rights, then for the greater good of public health.
(Photo courtesy of Garrett Albright's photostream on Flickr.)
The Malaysian Government Thinks that Homosexuality Causes Swine Flu
Published August 09, 2009 @ 06:05AM PT
Every so often there's a story on the global health circuit that is so absurd, it causes our proverbial record to scratch. Like the time that South Africa's former Health Minister, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, said that ingesting lemon juice and potatoes could help treat HIV. Or when evangelical groups like Word Relief, who received millions of U.S. federal dollars in PEPFAR funding under President George W. Bush, told people in countries like Mozambique, Kenya and Haiti that condoms don't work to prevent STDs.
Well, now it's time to count Malaysia's government-run news service as part of the global health lie factory. Today they're out with an article from a physician that says homosexuality and masturbation make the body an easy target for Swine Flu (otherwise known as H1N1). The scary part is that the news service in question, Bernama, runs their stories in nearly every part of the country. Lies and misinformation, get ready to spread.
The doctor at the center of the article, V. M. Palaniappan, used to teach ecology at the University of Malaysia. Maybe he should have stuck with ecology instead of wading into the waters of global health. Here's his rationalization behind his theory, which almost reads like a non-sequitor from Alaska's former governor. Check it out:
Dr. V. M. Palaniappan said that homosexuality and masturbation caused the body to develop friction heat which in turn, produced acid and made the body hyperacidised.
"Thus, the body becomes an easy target for H1N1 infection," he told Bernama, emphasising however, that normal sexual union between members of the opposite sex was absolutely safe....
Ah, yes. It's only the homosexual sex that causes friction heat. Must be all that dance music we listen to while getting it on...
Two words come to mind. Medical crackpot. Yet the government of Malaysia gives this guy a voice with which to reach people across the country, and offer medical advice. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that Malaysia criminalizes homosexuality with penalties ranging from twenty years in prison to whippings and beatings. Or that Malaysia's ruling political party is so vehemently anti-LGBT, that they even have a sub-section of the party known as the "People's Anti-Homosexual Voluntary Movement."
Anyone else thinking that we could start a reality show under the title of, "When Countries Attack Global Health"?
Even the American Psychological Association Says that Ex-Gay Therapy Causes Harm
Published August 05, 2009 @ 02:07PM PT
Ex-gay therapy has been roundly condemned by rights-based organizations and activists for decades as nothing more than a sham psychological practice that can have indefinite and considerable consequences on those that are forced to go through it. Now the American Psychological Association (APA) is on the record with their agreement.
Meeting in Toronto this week, the APA released a report that said ex-gay therapy is harmful, and that there's no credible scientific evidence to suggest that people can change their sexual orientation, regardless of what organizations like Exodus International or Love Won Out think. Here's the skinny, hot off the Associated Press:
The American Psychological Association has declared that mental health professionals should not tell gay clients that they can become straight through therapy or other treatments.
Instead, the APA is urging therapists to consider multiple options — that could range from celibacy to switching churches — for helping clients whose sexual orientation and religious faith conflict.
In a resolution adopted by the APA's governing council and in a comprehensive report based on two years of research, the association puts itself firmly on record in opposition of so-called "reparative therapy" which seeks to change sexual orientation.
No solid evidence exists that such change is likely, says the report, and some research suggests that efforts to produce change could be harmful, inducing depression and suicidal tendencies.
The APA should have the report up on their Web site within a few hours (UPDATE: It's here!). And not that we needed official confirmation from the APA that ex-gay therapy has devastating consequences. That's a fact that organizations like Truth Wins Out have been saying for years. And today they applauded the APA for taking ex-gay therapy promoters to task.
It was encouraging to see the APA question the ex-gay tactic of teaching vulnerable clients to live in a fantasy world. Groups like Exodus and the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), regularly encourage clients to say they have converted, even though they are still gay. The idea is that by proclaiming a false heterosexual identity in advance of any legitimate change, the desired transformation will eventually come.
This idea is equivalent to me wanting to play professional basketball, so I begin to identify as a member of the New York Knicks. Never mind that I am too short, too old and not good enough to make the roster. If I embrace this surreal existence long enough, I will one-day be dunking the ball under the bright lights of Madison Square Garden.
It is imperative that clients are honest about who they are and not prodded to make claims that are not true. Such a gap between fantasy and reality, according to the APA report, can create “cognitive dissonance” and does not resolve “identity conflicts.”
Woot woot for the APA.
Of Gay Penguins and Lesbian Fruit Flies
Published June 24, 2009 @ 06:34AM PT
Biology can be fun! Case in point, a new study by University of California researchers who have found that there is essentially no animal species that doesn't practice homosexuality in some capacity. In other words, and to rewrite that sentence because it uses a horrible double negative, homosexuality runs rampant through all species.
And that would include us humans, too, despite what the Family Research Council or the Yes on 8 folks might think.
Researchers Nathan Bailey and Marlene Zuk have found that same-sex couples exist in all walks of animal life, from insects to humans, and that same-sex relationships take on different meaning within many different types of species. Here's Bailey on the study:
It's clear that same-sex sexual behaviour extends far beyond the well-known examples that dominate both the scientific and popular literature: for example, bonobos, dolphins, penguins and fruit flies. These are astoundingly variable between species, and even sometimes within species. For example, male fruit flies that cannot distinguish between the sexes because they lack a key gene might court and mount other males, but this has a wholly different origin and function than male-male sexual interactions in bottlenose dolphins, for example, which studies suggest maintain group cohesion.
Dolphins, fruit flies, Goodeid fishes, humans...the list goes on and on for Bailey and Zuk. The implications? Well, that sexual orientation is likely biological, at least in some capacity. And while that worries some, who think that science might be used as a weapon to isolate any "gay" gene, there's a flip side to the argument that suggests that biologically, sexual orientation is no different than race, eye color, or shoe size.
