An interesting study is out which shows that, among committed couples, both straight and gay, monogamy is going up:

Data on gay and heterosexual couples from 1975 and from 2000 — the most recent year such data with identical survey questions was available to researchers — show the percentage of partnered gay men who reported sexual activity beyond the relationship dropped from 83% to 59%, while lesbians reported a decrease from 28% to 8%. Married heterosexual men and women showed a similar trend away from extra-relational sexual behavior.

“Our findings reveal a marked movement toward monogamy over time,” study authors wrote in the September issue of the journal Family Process.

And that data is now eleven years old. I find a few things of interest here:

1. While nonmonogamy seems to still be obviously higher among gay men, it’s interesting to see that trend line move down as homosexuality becomes more accepted and integrated in society. It would seem, possibly, that the move away from homosexuality being an “underground” thing — and with that, more societal support for our relationships, which happens to allow young gay people to dream the same dreams for life as everyone else — might contribute to these numbers.

2. It gives lie to the idea, promulgated by the Religious Right, that gay relationships are inherently nonmonogamous or inherently unstable.  [We gays already knew this, but whatever.]

3.  Moreover, it gives lie to the Religious Right idea that somehow we are in or are headed toward some sort of morally hedonistic place as a society, whether we’re talking about homos or heteros.

I’m not getting into the whole subject of whether monogamy is right for every couple.  What works for your relationship might not work for mine and vice versa.  That’s a different subject, and one about which we could fight all day.  And I’d like to see more data about this, but I would suspect that it would show similar results.  The world for gay people in 1975 was very different from what it was in 2000 and what it is today, and anecdotally I find that many of my friends’ and acquaintances’ expectations for their relationships are a far cry from what the ooga-boogas of the Religious Right would tell you about gay relationships.

Truth Wins Out praised the Presbyterian Church for ratifying an amendment to its constitution allowing the ordination of openly gay people in same-sex relationships. After decades of debate, that church’s national assembly approved the change last summer, and last night the Presbytery of the Twin Cities (MN) cast the decisive 87th vote required to give the amendment the support of a majority of church presbyteries, or local governing bodies. “We applaud the Presbyterian Church for taking this historic step,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “It is our hope that other religious leaders and faith communities will choose to follow their example.”

With this vote, the Presbyterian Church joins other mainline Protestant denominations including the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the United Church of Christ in accepting openly gay clergy members.

The last time the Presbyterian Church voted on the issue, in 2009, a majority of presbyteries voted against the change. According to the New York Times, 19 out of the church’s 173 presbyteries switched their vote this time around. “This rapid shift in favor of openness, inclusivity, and acceptance within the Presbyterian Church mirrors the trend in American society at large,” said Truth Wins Out Director of Communications and Development John Becker. “We are confident that the walls of religion-based bigotry will continue tumbling down.”

Period.

Wonder what he thinks about the genocide bill in Uganda.

OH WAIT, let me guess!

Focus on the Family yesterday criticized the American Medical Association for spelling out, in detail, the plain truth:

Christian Right discrimination against LGBT couples and gay servicemembers negatively impacts public health.

A complete copy of the AMA resolution is available in PDF format.

Focus on the Family did not provide readers with a copy of the resolution, nor did it disclose to its readers the facts supporting the AMA resolution.

Here in Rhode Island, even the state’s most liberal critics of the Republican Party were a bit surprised yesterday when the state’s Republican governor, Donald Carcieri, vetoed legislation allowing LGBT couples to make funeral arrangements for loved ones.

Despite being the leader of a fairly liberal state, Carcieri pandered to the most extreme of conservative Catholic donors and went out of his way to accuse gay couples of destroying traditional marriage.

“This bill represents a disturbing trend over the past few years of the incremental erosion of the principles surrounding traditional marriage, which is not the preferred way to approach this issue.

“If the General Assembly believes it would like to address the issue of domestic partnerships, it should place the issue on the ballot and let the people of the State of Rhode Island decide,” he wrote in a letter to lawmakers that was quoted by The Providence Journal.

Carcieri’s attitude has long been echoed by Christian Right organizations such as Exodus International, which strives to undermine the constitutional rights of LGBT couples by any means necessary: Opposition to marriage equality, opposition to civil unions, opposition to equal protection under existing hate-crime and discrimination laws, and opposition to equal protection under anti-bullying programs. Like Carcieri, Exodus boasts of having gay family members and friends, as if that (illogically) excuses the indecency and brutality of their antigay policies.

Carcieri was already unpopular even among some Republicans due to his pandering to Rhode Island’s non-existent antigay evangelicals and his inept destruction of the state’s finances. Carcieri fled this predominantly Catholic state briefly last month to seek support from a Massachusetts affiliate of Focus on the Family. Yesterday, Carcieri reinforced widespread disenchantment with his gubernatorial incompetence when he also vetoed a bill that would have prevented the governor from selling U.S. senate seats to the highest bidder, another bill that would promote green jobs in a state facing 14 percent unemployment, and yet another bill that would (gasp!) require lenders to give borrowers advance notice that they’ve been foreclosed.

Carcieri sees his future happening outside Rhode Island, somewhere in the vicinity of the Know-Nothing Sarah Palin-Rush Limbaugh-Tony Perkins celebrity circuit. But if he thinks that crowd has room for yet another sixtyish white male budget-busting talking head, he may wish to rethink.

Exodus International already is struggling with the same problem: How to become ever-more famous by becoming increasingly extreme in a crowd of fame-seekers.

Exodus has been playing that political game with the Christian Right a bit longer than Gov. Carcieri.

In 2003, Exodus spokesman Randy Thomas cozied up with his backers among the Christian Right when he condemned the U.S. Supreme Court’s legalization of sodomy, telling Christianity Today:

“This ruling gives validity to the gay community,” Thomas said. In addition to potentially redefining the family, it further solidifies their position as a political and social force.”

In 2005, Exodus involuntarily detained two gay youths — Zach Stark and Lance Carroll — in its Tennessee ex-gay boot camp. That made great headlines, telegraphing to the Christian Right that Exodus could be as brutal and righteous as anyone. Randy Thomas later borrowed a tactic from the same Christian Right by telling a Big Lie while counting upon public amnesia: “I and everyone I know, have no desire to force others into our line of thinking.” Exodus continues to detain youths and young adults like Bryce Thompson to this day, incommunicado and without legal aid or a patient’s bill of rights.

In 2006, Randy Thomas and Exodus friend Dawn Vedeto condemned a New Hampshire measure to afford that state’s LGBT couples some basic medical and financial options, saying that they were “saddened” because “as same sex marriage or any other sin becomes more widely accepted, those that are truly looking for healing and wholeness can become more discouraged than ever. Healing is possible, I am a living example of that, but I am sure most of those who live in New England and struggle with same sex attraction don’t know that.”

In other words, it seems, LGBT couples who wish to make medical or financial arrangements should be treated by courts and government offices like sinners, not citizens of the United States — and furthermore, apparently, New England should be treated like a foreign country to be ethnically cleansed by righteous conquistadors from the south.

Also in 2006, Exodus affirmed a court ruling that it is not the role of courts to uphold constitutional rights, but merely to interpret laws — no matter how unconstitutional those laws are. Randy Thomas — who spent much of that election year cheerleading for the GOP — described the constitutional rights of LGBT persons as “obvious degradation of our society.”

Since 2007, Exodus has gradually assumed control of the Christian Right’s “Day of Truth,” a campaign Exodus and preacher Ken Hutcherson to shout down and silence opponents of antigay bullying in public schools.

This year, Exodus board member Don Schmierer co-keynoted the launch conference for a campaign of antigay vigilantism and execution in Uganda. He told Ugandan parents that they were to blame for their adult children’s homosexuality. He also stood alongside one U.S. ex-gay activist who accused the world’s homosexuals of being responsible for the Jewish Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, another U.S. ex-gay activist who uses magic to cure homosexuality, and a Ugandan ex-gay activist who declared that his country’s LGBT citizens were all pedophiles for whom life imprisonment was much too lenient.

In the race toward hatred, what lies next for people like Carcieri and his friends at Exodus and across the Christian Right?

Evangelical antigay lawmakers in South Carolina have amended a bill originally intended to stop teen dating violence, so that the legislation excludes gay teens.

The bigots’ reasoning: Any effort to discourage domestic violence in gay teen relationships would implicitly acknowledge the existence and dignity of gay teens and would lessen the pressure upon teen-agers to pretend to be heterosexual or ex-gay.

Exodus International has two activist organizations and two member churches in the state — none of which have protested the exclusion of gay teens from antiviolence legislation, and none of which support antibullying programs in the state’s schools.

If you live in South Carolina, please let these activists know, politely, that those who tolerate or affirm violence against gay youth in your state betray fairness, justice, morality, and Christian values.

Contact New Song, the so-called Truth Ministry, Christian Assembly of God, and Westminister Presbyterian Church.

Much like its allies at Exodus International, the Family Research Council opposes any specific law that explicitly gives lesbian and gay couples hospital-visitation and estate rights that married heterosexual couples take for granted.

That’s why FRC today jeered Sean Penn for referring in his Oscar acceptance speech to enemies of gay couples as “haters”: because, when someone opposes hospital visitation, they really are guilty of hate.

And that’s also why FRC and the anti-family Hawaii Family Forum rallied opposition to state civil-union legislation which would explicitly allow Hawaii gay couples to share health benefits, gain hospital-visitation rights, and apply to adopt children. Hospital visitation, in particular, is a right that hospitals frequently disregard no matter how extensive a gay couple’s legal preparations have been.

FRC encourages antigay Hawaiians to “continue flooding senate offices with phone calls and emails” that oppose humane treatment and true family values.

In a Nov. 26 press release, ex-gay ministry network Exodus International says it’s “disappointed” and “saddened” that matchmaking company eHarmony is launching a dating site for GLBT singles.

Now, we’ve heard a lot about eHarmony of late: The site founded to serve Christian unmarrieds in 2000 initially discriminated against gays and lesbians seeking mates. Recently, the company announced plans to open CompatiblePartners.net, a companion site that will serve the GLBT community. Some have reacted with glee, while others find eHarmony’s separate-site approach to attracting gay dollars offensive. Still, this is the first time we’ve heard an entity admit to feeling sadness over the matter.

Exodus had wanted the issue surrounding eHarmony’s former no-gays-allowed policy settled by a judge. Two years ago, a gay man filed suit, claiming the company’s old plan violated New Jersey’s anti-discrimination law, which covers sexual orientation. (Exodus, interestingly, felt the need to surround the words “sexual orientation” with quotation marks.) Rather than risk a negative outcome in court, eHarmony decided to found CompatiblePartners.net as a way to settle the legal complaint.

This makes Exodus President Alan Chambers sad.

“Raising a white flag of surrender over foundational Christian principles cannot be an option when we truly believe that such truths are the gateway to freedom and new life,” Chambers said in the release. “The Bible is clear that homosexual relationships were never part of God’s creative design for humanity, nor is it His best plan for individuals. Those of us who have experienced the emptiness of gay life know that promoting it will inevitably lead to more heartache for many.”

What this has to do with the way in which a business chooses to operate escapes us. And what does eHarmony’s outreach to prospective gay and lesbian clients have to do with Exodus’ work? The group leadership says again and again that ex-gay ministries and likeminded reparative therapists exist to help those seeking relief from unwanted same-sex desires. In order to make a profit, eHarmony seeks to serve those looking to act on those desires. How does this threaten the work of Exodus and its hundreds of affiliates?

Chambers should take comfort knowing that eHarmony’s new GLBT-focused site may clear the decks, so to speak, so he can avoid wasting time on happy gays and more easily locate and “save” those not so accepting of their sexuality. And he shouldn’t take the existence of gay men and lesbians being happy and well-adjusted as a cause of misery — that’s just… sad.

I’m not female, I don’t live in a depressed area, and my parents don’t live in my basement.

But the plight of a middle-aged woman hit home, nevertheless: Her friends have drifted apart, and she wonders how to find new friends or maybe a companion. (Read More)