The virulently, almost hysterically, anti-gay Liberty Counsel has offered an amicus brief to the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals. Its official purpose is to strike down rulings for same-sex marriage, but it can’t resist pushing one of its favorite notions: that gay men are pedophiles.
I refer to crazy bigotry in my title, but that’s redundant. Bigotry, almost by definition, is an emotional reaction that cuts one off from facts and reason, and that’s what crazy is. You’ll see that in bizarre reasoning used in this brief.
It shows up in what’s almost a throwaway line:
In 2010, young MSB (men having sex with boys, aged 13-24 years) accounted for 72 percent of new HIV infections among all persons aged 13 to 24.
“Men having sex with boys.” They got this assertion from the CDC, which worded it more clearly honestly:
In 2010, young gay and bisexual men (aged 13-24 years) accounted for 72% of new HIV infections among all persons aged 13 to 24, and 30% of new infections among all gay and bisexual men.
I’m sure you can see the many distortions Liberty Counsel managed to insert as they twisted this information.
- The CDC did not indicate how many of these young gay and bisexual men were infected via sex. I imagine many were, but Liberty Counsel is insisting they all were.
- The CDC did not indicate indicate how many of these young gay and bisexual men were infected by men. Again, I imagine some were (no one denies that boys — and girls — get molested), but many were likely infected by their peers.
- And most obviously — I imagine you’re practically screaming this by now — on what planet do we count 18-24-year-olds as boys? This is more than half that age range, men who can vote and serve in the military, and they are boys? And Liberty Counsel’s source doesn’t indicate what fraction of the group falls in this clearly adult range. The group, in fact, is likely to skew toward the older end.
Liberty Counsel actually anticipates this in a footnote, but it only serves to illuminate how crazy, how divorced from fact and reason, they are:
Since the incubation period for HIV can be 10-12 years, this means that they were first infected when they were 3 to 14 years old.
One obvious rejoinder would that just because the incubation period can be 10-12 years, that doesn’t mean it necessarily is. But that misses the point. The incubation period, of course, is the time from infection to the full onset of AIDS. The CDC, however, is not talking about AIDS, but about the age at initial infection. This whole incubation-period argument is nonsense, along with their “3 to 14 years old” conclusion.
Let me amend that: This whole “men having sex with boys” argument is nonsense, at least as presented in the brief.
That being said, I don’t claim Liberty Counsel is trying to deceive anyone. They may be completely sincere; crazy people often are. I’m also not saying their intentions are innocent. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have staff retreats devoted to nothing but inventing ways to spread vile statements about us. What stunning here is the naked stupidity with which they present their disgusting fantasies. And that, of course, can only be explained by recognizing homophobia truly is a mental and psychological disorder.
And with that, we can dismiss the rest of the brief. Not that I’ve proven it’s wrong from start to finish — I just mean it’s not worth our time. Once you hear the guy on the corner scream out one crazy thing, you don’t stick around to fact-check the rest of his rant. That’s just masochism. And in this case, Liberty Counsel truly is the crazy guy screaming on the corner.