It’s always strange to me to hear people talk about the “gay agenda.” Because undoubtedly anyone who uses this term is antigay.
First of all, it’s important to remember that having an agenda isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Like when your boss asks you, “So, what’s on your agenda today?” she isn’t asking you what subversive things you’re planning on doing to ruin the company.
That said, the “LGBT community” is a misnomer. In reality, people who fall under the umbrella of “LGBT” are incredibly diverse in every way. There is no one thing that everyone agrees on, except maybe a desire to be treated fairly and equally under the law (though there’s no doubt far less consensus once you start talking about how to get there and what to do).
Which is why Americans For Truth About Homosexuality President Peter LaBarbera’s Aug. 19 “report” for Accuracy in Media — an organization that isn’t actually interested in accuracy so much as paranoid that the “liberal media” is out to get them — is so ridiculous.
In “Media Myths of the Homosexual-Transgender Agenda,” LaBarbera writes, “The purpose of this report is to expose and refute some of the longstanding statistical lies and propagandistic myths of the LGBT … activist movement. With media support, homosexual and leftist activists now openly campaign to banish dissenting conservative voices. This dangerous dynamic gives the homosexual-transgender lobby nearly full reign to advance its agenda.”
Ha. “Banish dissenting conservative voices,” eh? If he means that we think people who espouse the belief that LGBT people aren’t human and are incapable of love and unworthy of life don’t deserve TV airtime and shouldn’t be a reporter’s go-to for an opposing viewpoint on every article about any LGBT issue … then yes, banish them. Let them assemble their banished selves in the dark realm of a place like Accuracy in Media or Americans For Truth About Homosexuality.
LaBarbera’s “report” doesn’t really offer anything new. It’s more like a “greatest hits” of anti-LGBT talking points: Nobody’s born gay, sex-reassignment is mutilation, antigay reparative therapy works, homos die young, LGBT people make bad parents, etc.
But what I’m most interested in is what he calls “The 10-Percent Myth.” LaBarbera tries to get to the bottom of just how many LGBT people there are in the U.S. The rough figure of 10 percent has been bandied about for years. LaBarbera writes, “The 10-percent myth served its purpose of projecting enormous ‘gay’ political strength when the movement was still weak.” In other words, the LGBT movement was just pretending to be 10 percent of the population for the political clout. And we all know that pretending to exist is a totally sound political strategy.
LaBarbera then throws out some other much smaller numbers, eventually coming to the claim that LGBT people are about 3 percent of the population. To which I say, Who cares? Who cares what the percentage is? It’s not an easily ascertained or verifiable number. It’s as if LaBarbera is arguing that once a minority falls below a specific percentage, then it’s OK to declare them inhuman.
And he is. Because for LaBarbera, LGBT people are inhuman. That is, in fact, the cornerstone philosophy of his hateful organization Americans For Truth About Homosexuality. The very name implies that homosexuals are liars, that homosexuality is something to be exposed as evil.
Then again, until we know the exact percentage of the U.S. population who are members of LaBarbera’s little club, how can we be sure they even exist at all?