Lies, Damned Lies

You might think this would go into Friday Gay Blogging, but it's not really about that. It's really about the complete lack of moral foundation in the anti-gay Christian right. I'm always amazed at the bald-faced effrontery of the religious right. Box Turtle Bulletin has a couple of posts (here and here) with responses to the latest outrage from Focus on the Family.

From Focus’ Citizenlink publication:

Glenn Stanton, director of global family formation studies at Focus on the Family, said there’s a clear consensus among anthropologists.

“A family is a unit that draws from the two types of humanity, male and female,” he said. “Those two parts of humanity join together, create new life and they both cooperate in the legitimization of the child, if you will, and the development of the child.”

Stanton doesn’t give a source for claiming this consensus nor is Stanton an anthropologist himself.

No, Stanton is not an anthropologist nor any other sort of creature who feels bound in any way by factual accuracy. Of course, he's shrewd enough to work by deception rather than outright fabrication (well, not completely -- most of what he says is totally false); read the response from Patrick M. Chapman (the second link) to get it all in context.

A recent article from Focus on the Family’s CitizenLink suggests that “anthropologists agree on traditional definition of marriage.” This statement is true only if they reference what anthropologists consider traditional, not the Focus on the Family opinion that marriage is solely between one man and one woman.

The article also states “There are two definitions of marriage in today’s culture – one of them has been around for centuries; the other is brand new.” Once again, this statement is true. However, Focus on the Family is confused as to which definition has been around for centuries and which is new. Anthropologists, historians and sociologists all recognize the “one man with one woman” definition of marriage to be very recent and not representative of how marriage is or has been expressed throughout the world.

I'm reminded of the tactic used by FotF and others if its ilk when arguing against gay adoption: "studies show that children do better with a mother and a father." Well, yes, but they neglected to mention that the studies they were referring to compared single-parent households with dual-parent households, and no same-sex couples were included.

This is the kind of mendacity you can expect from the Christianists, so don't take anything they say at face value.