Please help me refute a Cop's statement about gay mens' life expectancy...

[eeyore]

My liberal wife works in an office with cops who are by and large very conservative. She often gets into friendly yet heated political debates with them. Many of them are fundamentalist christians who grew up small towns and got into law enforcement via the military. They get most of their news from Portland's local Rush wannabe Lars Larson. One of them actually told her that he'd rather have Hitler as President than Hilary Clinton. Verrry nice!

Anyhow, one of them said to her today that he had heard somewhere that the average gay man with AIDS has a life expectancy of 39 years, and that the average gay man without AIDS has a life expectancy of 42 years. To be fair, he said he wasn't quite sure he believed when she challenged him on his source.

Does anyone know the real stats or know where I can find them? She'd love to set him straight tomorrow. (no pun intended)

Thanks!
eeyore

[Mr. Blonde]

1. Lars Larson

what a great name. However, my all time favorite is a girl I went to school with named Autumn Fall.

[eeyore]

6. Lars....

The guy is an unholy cross between Rush and Michael Savage. He actually subs for Savage sometimes. Quite the balanced news source!

[dsc]

2. This was based on a study

done in the 1980's which relied on obituaries in gay news papers. Given that Stonewall happened in 1969 (which is when gays started being open) that means they ended up essentially answering the question when do young gays die. The answer, unsurprisingly, is young. Nothing short of voodoo science.

[NavajoRug]

3. I don't have a source at my disposal . . .

. . . but this guy may not be all that far from the truth. I'm sure the numbers have changed due to advances in medicine, but I remember reading something similar to this back about ten years ago.

[Sapphocrat]

4. Yes, I can help...

That particular piece of propaganda is from the debunked "research" of the wholly discredited "Dr." Paul Cameron.

Unfortunately, countless anti-gay organizations still cite that, and much worse, as the "gospel truth" -- including the "fact" that gay people eat faeces. I kid you not.

Give me a minute, and I'll come back with the best of the links I have on this particular scumball and his filthy lies.

[eeyore]

5. Thank you!

n/t

[Sapphocrat]

13. Here you go, eeyore...

And you are more than welcome. :)

Most relevant to your question is this first article, which will give you all the information (and ammunition) you're looking for:

The Cameron Group's "Gay Obituary" Study

Cameron, Playfair, and Wellum (1994) counted obituaries in various gay community publications and claimed to be able to use them to calculate the average life expectancy for homosexuals.

Their conclusion – that homosexual men and women have a shorter life span than heterosexual men and women – provides a textbook example of the perils of using data from a convenience sample to generalize to an entire population. ...

Obituaries in gay community newspapers do not provide a representative sampling of the community. This is evident in the fact that only only 2% of the Cameron group's obituaries were for lesbians. Moreover, community newspapers tend overwhelmingly to report deaths due to AIDS (only 11% of Cameron's gay male obituaries were not related to AIDS). In addition, community newspapers tend not to print obituaries for people who are not actively involved in the local gay community, those who are in the closet, and those whose loved ones simply don't submit an obituary to a local gay newspaper.
The Cameron group's gay obituary study reports many numbers and statistics. However, they are absolutely worthless for estimating the life expectancy of gay men and lesbians. ...

http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_cameron_obit.html

Here is the one long, ugly (and infamous) "study" of Cameron's, courtesy of qrd.org. WARNING: It is revolting.

MEDICAL CONSEQUENCES Of WHAT HOMOSEXUALS DO

http://www.qrd.org/qrd/religion/anti/cameron/medical.consequences.of.what.homosexuals.do.txt

If you can't stomach that, there are numerous quotes from that paper, as well as those cited by far-right sites, reproduced here:

http://www.wiredstrategies.com/cameron.html

A few examples:

Causes of homosexuality include: "sex with animals"- http://www.biblebelievers.com/Cameron3.html, What Causes Homosexual Desire and Can It Be Changed?, By Paul Cameron, Ph. D.

"At the 1985 Conservative Political Action Conference, Cameron announced to the attendees, 'Unless we get medically lucky, in three or four years, one of the options discussed will be the extermination of homosexuals.' According to an interview with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, Cameron was recommending the extermination option as early as 1983." - Mark E. Pietrzyk, News-Telegraph, March 10, 1995.

"33% ingested feces via anal/oral contact"-Paul Cameron quoted at http://www.biblebelievers.com/Cameron2.html

"a large minority of gays engage in torture for sexual fun. Sex with minors 25% of white gays admitted to sex with boys 16 or younger as adults" - Paul Cameron quoted at http://www.biblebelievers.com/Cameron2.html

From the same site, a page citing various anti-gay (mostly religious) organizations that cite Cameron's "data" to further their own anti-gay agenda:

http://www.wiredstrategies.com/relycameron.html


Cameron also says we regularly ingest urine and faeces, and that gay parents regularly molest their children.

Cameron also wants:

homosexuality outlawed;
gay people tattooed and/or banished to the former leper colony on Molokai;
gay men castrated;
isolation of all AIDS patients... among other things.

He also praises AIDS as a "godsend."


Finally, about Cameron himself:

I. Cameron was expelled from American Psychological Association.

A. Date of expulsion: 1983 (Los Angeles Times-2/22/1993).

B. Reason for expulsion: "He was misrepresenting and distorting other peoples' psychological research and using it to sensationalize his point of view on homosexuals. He talks about homosexuals being mass murderers and child molesters and credits other people for those findings. If you read their research, they have in no way made such claims. We have letters from those researchers saying his (work) has distorted their research." Natalie Porter, assistant professor of psychology at University of Nebraska. (LA Times-8/20/1985). ...

http://www.qrd.org/qrd/religion/anti/cameron/medical.consequences.rebuttal2.txt

This last one is long, but extremely revealing, and well worth your time:

Paul Drummond Cameron, a born-again Christian, was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on November 9, 1939 (1). After attending schools in California, he received his doctorate from the University of Colorado in 1966. ...

By 1985, "The Advocate," this country's most prominent gay and lesbian
newsmagazine, was already warning that he "just may be the most dangerous antigay voice in the United States today."

Since then he has touted himself as an expert on homosexuality, and his research has formed the basis for much of the anti-gay material being used today by conservative organizations around the country to combat the gay rights movement, including "The Gay Agenda," a widely disseminated videotape. ...

His main message, as delineated in one of his pamphlets, "What Homosexuals Do, Its More than Merely Disgusting," is that homosexuality is a crime against humanity. He regularly refers to gay men as "anus-lickers" and "feces-eaters" without shame.

A typical idea is his "Citizen Checklist of Opportunities to Halt the Spread of AIDS," which he developed in the 1980s. Among his recommendations were to keep discussion of "alternate lifestyles" out of schools; close gay bars and bath houses; prohibit homosexual advertising in the media (including "personals" ads); criminalize homosexual practices (in the interest of public health); and quarantine all known homosexual practitioners "until the public health emergency is over." He compared AIDS to rabies. ...

http://www.qrd.org/qrd/religion/anti/cameron/background.and.rebuttal

Best of luck, eeyore! If you ever need help debunking any more anti-gay lies, just holler. I've got literally thousands of resources on hand.

And by the way: THANK YOU for helping to re-educate some sadly misinformed people out there. I know I speak for my LGBT family when I say we appreciate it. Sincerely.

[dsc]

15. Nicely done.

[eeyore]

16. Holy cats!

I really appreciate the help Sapphocrat!

This job has been a really interesting experience for my wife who is liberal by anyone's standards. She's taken it upon herself to both re-educate them and to learn more about the conservative psyche. She's actually really surprised herself with her ability to separate out political differences, and has become very friendly with them. They have learned a lot of tolerance from her as well, and at seem to be coming around. At least they're genuinely intersted in hearing her side of things. Gotta start somewhere!

It can be really important to learn how to not completely demonize those who don't have the exact same views as ourselves. It's nice to see such opposite people coming together every day and being able to rationally discuss their differences. I'll keep you posted.

cheers,
eeyore

[MikeG]

7. Say this: Then lesbians will live longer than straight women.

[HEyHEY]

8. 42 years "FUCK YOU MORON" that's your rebut to that remark

WHat a joke.

[eeyore]

9. Ummm....no.

While that's what she really wants to say, she has to work with these guys every day. It's much better to just lay out the facts and make them admit that they are full of shit. And, believe it or not, she's actually managed to get beyond politics to become friends with them.

They all endearingly call her Lefty.

[Cronus Protagonist]

10. The stats are no different from the rest of the population

Of course, you knew that, right? Why would they be?

Click here for "BLAME BUSH FIRST", and other fair and balanced yet stunning buttons, magnets and stickers

[Yupster]

18. Doesn't sound reasonable

If AIDS takes people much younger than most other diseases like heart disease or strokes, then obviously the group that gets that disease proportionately more would have a statistically shorter life expectancy than the groups that get taken more by the other diseases.

Since gays proportionately are afflicted with AIDS more than straights, it just seems like it would certainly make a difference in lifespans.

Now as far as decades of difference, that seems ridiculous, but I would expect there to be some statistically measurable difference.

[RememberTheCoup]

11. I don't understand.

What is the point of that piece of info, whether true or not? What are we supposed to be getting from it? If gay men did have shorter life spans, would that make discrimination against them OK?

[eeyore]

17. I don't know what brought it up

He was most likely talking about something that he heard at church or something. The good thing is that he doubted it and wanted to know what the reality is.

[mitchtv]

12. uh oh , I better hurry up and die

I'll be 60 this year. My partner will be 68.

[eeyore]

14. lol!

Thanks for the laugh Mitch! I have gay friend who is almost 80. Hell, that's old by anyone's terms!

-eeyore