Christian lobby: gay worse than smoking

I have a keen sense of humour, as has been told me in many instances. Particularly during times of struggle, such as when I ended the 2 months of dialysis last year a head nurse there congratulated me on keeping such a good sense of humour through a very difficult time. Humour helps. But not always.

My opposition to the extremist Australian Christian Lobby, headed by Jim Wallace, would be well known to long time readers of this blog. I usually find his comments rather predictable and sort of a bit amusing at least. He's a bit like some drone that comes out with the same tired old arguments time after time. But FFS, all I feel when I watch this is complete rage:

Everything he says is wrong, just everything. I wouldn't even know where to start with the asshole. It's like he sees the minority gays struggling with all the issues associated with having people like him denigrate them, and then he comes along and kicks them when they're down. How very Christian of him. The ultimate insult however is where he reminds everyone at the very end of the tax free status of his organisation.

 

Prime Minister Gillard pulled the plug on his organisation after hearing his comments, with some very strong language of her own:

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard will boycott the annual conference of a major Christian group because of its "heartless" attitude towards homosexuals.

Ms Gillard was to have given the keynote address to the Australian Christian Lobby next month but today cancelled her appearance.

She accused ACL managing director Jim Wallace of offensive comments Wednesday when he compared gay marriage with the health risks of smoking. Mr Wallace repeated his comments in a statement today.

The Prime Minister has said she opposes gay marriage but today took the significant step of defending those who are agitating for law changes to allow it. In political terms the Prime Minister was ensuring she did not lose the influential gay vote in inner city areas.

"There is a range of deeply held views in the community on the issue of same-sex marriage but it is the responsibility of all parties in this debate to be respectful and responsible in any public comments they make," the Prime Minister said today in a statement.

"I believe yesterday's comments by Jim Wallace were offensive. To compare the health effects of smoking cigarettes with the many struggles gay and lesbian Australians endure in contemporary society is heartless and wrong.

"Although everyone is entitled to their own view, these statements reiterated again today on behalf of ACL are totally unacceptable. In light of this, I believe my attendance at the conference would be inappropriate.
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After a bit of searching on the net, I found it's not even his argument. It came from some wacko extremist nut job in the good old USA, who stunned all the normal psychologists at some psychologist meeting in Philadelphia by presenting such bullshit as science:

In March 2007, at a Philadelphia meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, EPA President Dr. Philip Henline waited for Drs. Paul and Kirk Cameron to present what he had expected would be a poster presentation, "Federal Distortion of Homosexual Footprint." According to the information submitted for prior review by the study’s authors, the presentation would discuss findings on the true size of the gay community as a result of the exclusion of adults over the age of 60 in government tallies.

The study that Dr. Paul Cameron and his son, Dr. Kirk Cameron, presented to the prestigious group of mental-health academics and professionals purported to "prove" that homosexuality is more lethal than smoking. The study, it turns out, was funded by the Family Research Institute, the conservative Christian Colorado Springs-based think tank that proclaims as its "one overriding mission: to generate empirical research on issues that threaten the traditional family, particularly homosexuality, AIDS, sexual social policy, and drug abuse." Dr. Cameron serves as chairman of FRI.

The stated goal of the study was to demonstrate that legally married heterosexual couples live nearly 24 years longer then homosexual couples. The study used statistics gathered by Drs. Cameron from Denmark, Norway, the United States and Canada. "Smoking is condemned because it is associated with a reduction in longevity of 1 to 7 years," Cameron wrote in the study. "It is inconsistent to condemn smoking yet celebrate homosexuality when the decrement in life span for those practicing homosexuality approximates 20 or more years."
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The "study" itself by the way is here, and a cursory look at it brings forth such wonderful gems of Christian love as this:

Disproportionate expenditures on HIV seem unfair, given that the association between HIV infection and same-sex sex is similar to the association between lung cancer and smoking. No one has to smoke or engage in homosexual sex. So while the decrement in longevity associated with these choices is unfortunate, the decrement in lifespan that millions suffer from cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes — to name a few of the diseases in which no obvious choice was made to engage in high-risk activities — would seem to merit proportionately more research dollars. Despite enormous expenditures on HIV, those who engage in homosexuality appear to find numerous alternate ways to reduce their longevity (e.g., excessive drinking, use of illegal drugs, careless driving). 
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"Careless driving?" WTF? Where's the science for that? 

Also, I've written about this before; putting a moral imperative on HIV treatment. HIV is a disease just like any other. Should we condemn someone with cardio disease as well because they ate too much junk food? Oh please......  HIV doesn't discriminate, people do.

Well, I can sort of laugh again now. Jim Wallace is therefore just doing his normal thing; drivelling the same old arguments he's picked up from elsewhere. But really, we've got enough wacko's here already without importing wacko-ness. *sheesh*