FGB: Saturday Edition

I warned you this would be coming. Pictures later.

There -- all better now?

Insure.com

If you follow Box Turtle Bulletin (which I highly recommend), you're aware of Timothy Kincaid's reports on Insure.com and the untrue articles included on their website about sexual orientation and life expectancy, as related here and here. The first report does a good job of detailing the flaws, misrepresentations, and fabrications included in the articles. The second includes the response of Robert Bland, CEO of Insure.com; somehow, I find it unconvincing.

Kincaid reports, in the first post, the initial response to his inquiries:

On June 1, we contacted the Robert “Bob” Bland, the CEO of Insure.com and informed him that his company was hosting articles that were factually inaccurate and based on the work of an anti-gay activist that had been discredited.

Bland responded that because the articles were based on third party studies and not original research they would require time to do fact-checking. He did not pull the articles.

We offered to provide Bland with additional information, if needed. He responded:

I may, thank you. We want to do a wider-ranging issue that is fair and balanced and include more research and debate, maybe even quotes from you and your organization.

Can you give me a list of studies or links regarding gay male life expectancy that you think may be valid? Or are you saying that there’s no difference in mortality there?

We discovered that, while the 35 major life insurance companies do not ask about sexual orientation, virtually all of them immediately decline any applicant who is HIV positive, indicating to me that their actuaries have sound data showing reduced mortality for this group, just as they decline anybody who engages in risky hobbies or racing.

Aside from the ignorant offensiveness of his comment about "risky hobbies," I have one question: why is Insure.com waiting to vet these articles until after someone complains? Bland calls it a "human interest story from an actuarial standpoint" whatever the hell that means -- how "human interest" is an actuarial standpoint, anyway? It would seem to me, however, that this is merely an attempt to crawl out from under the apparently unwelcome attention Kincaid has brought to this item. If his agency has half the integrity he claims, it would seem that assertions like this should be checked before publication. And, given his linking of HIV status and sexual orientation, I think I don't put a lot of faith in his knowledgeability in this area.

As for the claim of no political agenda, that's quite possibly true, although I remain unconvinced, but the lack of responsible oversight on this leads me to believe that, while Insure.com may not be overtly anti-gay, they don't seem to worry too much about being accurate or fair. And this is one area where ignorance is no excuse: to publish an article based on results from "studies" by authors such as Paul Cameron, who has no scientific standing whatsoever (even James Dobson won't cite him any more), without any attempt to verify them until fingers start pointing, is simply not good enough.

DNC vs Itself

Chris Crain has a perceptive post on the Hitchcock/DNC controversy; DNC has lost another round in court. Read the first part of the post to update yourself on the circumstances.

Unlike people like Crain, Andrew Sullivan, Dan Blatt and others, I have no particular party loyalty to confuse the issue, although I've been more likely to support Democrats on social issues. (Wait -- I take that back, or at least should modify it to note that statement holds true much more on the national level. I've quite readily voted for Republicans for state and local offices in the past, and the only thing that stops me from doing that again is that they're Republicans, and that brand, right now at least, smells many days dead.) So it seems to me that Crain has hit it right on the head with this comment:

It's sad because, in reality, the DNC could really live up to the ideals that made Donald and Paul so fervently committed in the first place. The Democratic Party could actually win over people like me. They could get waves of support and dedication -- as could the Human Rights Campaign and other pseudo-party branch organizations in the gay community -- from a lot of now-very-disaffected gay people if they really did show the level of commitment and support and guts that they blather on about promising to have. But time after time, like in this case, they show themselves to be narrow-minded, petty, arrogant jerks who will throw you under the bus at the first sign of problems (or dissent) and then expect you to stand up and support them still, or else. (And no, guys, simply comparing them to the other party isn't an answer.) The Democratic Party's passive-aggressive relationship with many constituencies isn't a new story, but it seems to be one which teaches its leaders no lessons at all episode after episode, chapter after chapter.

My real concern in all of this is, given the records of both parties over the past generation or so, we're going to wind up with no one who can actually govern, with or without ideals.

(Citizen Crain has another post, this one from Kevin, about gays and party affiliations that links to this article by James Kirchik in The Advocate. Both together, I think, point up some of the pitfalls of ideology, or at least the kind of ideology that can be summarized as "the other side is Satan incarnate." Of course, without ideology, we have no political parties. Although I wonder if we actually have any now. Or whether their demise might be all bad. Probably confuse the hell out of the knuckle-draggers on both ends, though.)

Hold That Thought

At last: a concession from one of the fruitiest of the fruitloops on the right, Don Wildmon, reported by Autumn Sandeen at Pam's House Blend:

If we lose California, if they defeat the marriage amendment, I'm afraid that the culture war is over and Christians have lost. I've never said that publicly until now -- but that's just the reality of the fact.

If the homosexuals are able to defeat the marriage amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman, then the culture war is over and we've lost -- and gradually, secularism will replace Christianity as the foundation of our society.

--Don Wildmon, President of the American Family Association, as quoted at OneNewsNow

I don't quite know how to break this to you, Don, but secularism has always been the foundation of our society. Think maybe you've been fighting the wrong war?

And finally, thanks to Queerty, who brought dessert today: