Friday, July 22, 2011
Sen. Franken 1, Lying Homophobes 0
Posted By Brandon Burt on July 22, 2011, 4:00 AM
The Senate's hearing on a measure to repeal DOMA provided perhaps the only good news coming out of Washington, D.C., this week. It also provided Focus on the Family an opportunity to do what Focus on the Family does best: slander LGBT families with lies and distortions. ---
For years, anti-gay groups such as FOTF have been backing up scurrilous claims against gays and lesbians with half-baked "research" and misreported studies: They claim that people "choose" to be gay, that gays have a drastically shortened lifespan, even that gays routinely engage in coprophagia.
Such claims are always easily disproved. But anti-gay groups know how to game the media: Outrageous accusations easily make headlines; reasonable and accurate refutations, not so much. The truth is available, but only to those who pay attention.
Seldom has an anti-gay lie been so soundly and publicly trounced than this one by FOTF senior vice president Tom Minnery, after he offered testimony before the U.S. Senate suggesting that same-sex couples make worse parents than heterosexual ones:
"The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services explains in its new and exhaustive report 'Family Structure and Children's Health in the United States' ... that children living with their own married biological or adoptive mothers and fathers were generally healthier and happier, had better access to health care, less likely to suffer mild or severe emotional problems, did better in school, were protected from physical, emotional and sexual abuse and almost never live in poverty, compared with children in any other family form."
Not surprisingly, Minnery misrepresented the DHHS report to make it sound as though it supported his homophobic worldview.
So it is fortunate that at least one senator does his homework: Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., who took the trouble to actually read the report and, discovering that its findings show that children do better in households with two married parents regardless of the parents' sex, had this to say:
Gotta love an intelligent senator.
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