From the Human Rights Campaign (fyi - I know for a fact that HRC got involved behind the scenes as soon as this came out earlier, so they're not stealing anyone's thunder):
As most of you know by now, the SF Chronicle ran an article yesterday about a campaign the city is undertaking to get more GLBT people to adopt foster children that also cited arguments from anti-gay individuals. In that article, the SF Chronicle cited Paul Cameron as an “expert” and simply sourced him as the director of the Family Research Institute – hardly a complete picture of this character.
Thanks to the blogosphere who pointed out the glaring omission of Cameron’s full background, the communications department here at the Human Rights Campaign quickly contacted the reporter who wrote the story and asked for an immediate clarification from the paper that correctly sourced Paul Cameron’s complete background. Within an hour, the SF Chronicle agreed to run a clarification and a few minutes ago sent us the text of their clarification that is now posted online. The text of the clarification is below and can also be viewed [here]:
CLARIFICATION: In an article about San Francisco's campaign to get more gays and lesbians to adopt foster children - as well as an opposing evangelical campaign to get more Christian families to adopt -- the Chronicle quoted Paul Cameron, director of the Family Research Institute.
The article should have noted that Cameron, who believes gays make unfit parents and self-published dozens of articles he said were based on his research, was expelled from the American Psychological Association in 1983 when he refused to subject his work to peer review. The article also should have reported that his Family Research Institute was named a hate group in 2006 by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The San Francisco Chronicle did the responsible thing and quickly clarified their omission....
If the religious right leaders want to rely on Paul Cameron, they do so to their own detriment. However, we will not tolerate seeing the notoriously homophobic Cameron treated as an expert on issues that affect our community. And this clarification will allow other reporters in the future to fully understand just exactly who this guy really is.
And to reiterate, major credit to this intrepid blogger who discovered the Cameron mention in the Chronicle.
(UPDATE: SF Chronicle quotes hate group as legit expert saying gas are bad parents, likely to molest kids, just as city of SF prepares pro-gay adoption ad blitz.)
This is an unbelievably sloppy, offensive, and dangerous gaffe by the San Francisco Chronicle and their reporter Ilene Lelchuk. Not to mention, an incredibly stupid one for a paper headquartered in San Francisco.
Ilene Lelchuk, a reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle, quoted the leader of a known hate group (without identifying him as such) as a scientific expert on gay issues (he claimed that gays molest kids) in a story just published Monday. The "expert" in question is none of than Paul Cameron. You may recall that I've been writing a lot about Cameron in the past few weeks (as has Pam Spaulding), as the lead religious right groups keep pushing his hate "science."
What's the problem with Cameron? He's a man who has suggested that the extermination of gays might be necessary. Per the Southern Poverty Law Center:
He told the 1985 Conservative Political Action Committee conference that "extermination of homosexuals" might be needed in the next three to four years. He has advocated tattooing AIDS patients in the face, and banishment to a former leper colony for any patient who resisted. He has called for gay bars to be closed and gays to be registered with the government.
He was kicked out of the American Psychological Association, and was publicly rebuked by the Nebraska Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association. And he has been called the leader of a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center, America's number one civil rights organization for tracking the klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists. The Southern Poverty Law Center went so far as to say that "Cameron's 'science' echoes Nazi Germany." And the SPLC tracks actual Nazis, so they have the right to make the comparison.
This is the "expert" quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle. And to make matters worse, not only did the Chronicle quote a known hate group as an expert on civil rights, but they didn't even identify who Cameron really is. Nope. They don't tell their readers anything at all about Cameron, simply that he's an expert on gays molesting children. Do you think it's relevant that the man's "science" has been debunked? Not according to the "journalists" at the Chronicle.
One wonders if the Chronicle would quote the grand wizard of the Klan and not tell its readers that he is in fact with the Klan. Unlikely. And they certainly wouldn't go to the Klan for a scientific analysis of the black genome. Then why do they turn to a known hate group that is lumped together with the Klan, white supremacists and neo-Nazis by the Southern Poverty Law Center? Oh I'm sure they'll try to say that the reporter screwed up. How so? If you Google "Paul Cameron," the first thing to turn up is a detailed analysis of just how nutty this guy is.
And if that wasn't enough. Apparently the Chronicle also missed the time that Cameron appeared to endorse Nazi Germany's approach to dealing with gays (they gassed us along with the Jews and people with disabilities and gypsies and the rest). I'm not kidding. Cameron wrote an article about how the Nazis apparently had the right idea about how to treat gays. The article was so offensive that one of the lead academics of the religious right even disowned Cameron over the horrid thing (link above).
It's one thing for a newspaper to say that they're going to cite a gay critic and we just have to accept that fact. Fine. But you don't quote a critic who runs the Klan, the neo-Nazis or a white supremacist organization unless you are going to identify him as such. You don't quote that critic's "science," unquestioned, when the lead scientific associations in America have called it intentionally misrepresented junk. To do otherwise legitimizes the critic and their hate. To quote Cameron at all, let alone as just another guy who thinks that science proves that gays molest kids, is beyond contemptible. It is the lowest form of journalism. And what's more, the Chronicle has now, for the first time in years, put Cameron's name back in play in the mainstream media. Some other lazy reporter, some other TV station, some other radio show, will see Cameron quoted as an expert in the Chronicle and they'll reach out to him, having no idea that they are helping to promote a known hate group. The Chronicle should be ashamed of itself.
You can contact Ms. Lelchuk here (you have every right to chew her ear off, but please realize that there's a fine line between righteous indignation and simply being rude - she deserves the former).
Also contact the Chronicle's Reader Rep, i.e., the ombudsman, here.
UPDATE: More from Pam Spaulding on the Paul Cameron hate group here.
How sad that the far-right Republicans are now embracing known hate groups in order to further their homophobic agenda.
"CAMERON'S 'SCIENCE' ECHOES NAZI GERMANY"
Yes, they're now promoting extremists who have been labeled "hate groups" by THE expert on hate, the Southern Poverty Law Center. Amazing. SPLC lists religious right hatemonger Paul Cameron's Family Research institute as one of the lead hate groups in Colorado - SPLC lists Cameron's FRI alongside the Klan and white supremacists. SPLC says that "Cameron's 'science' echoes Nazi Germany." That's how bad it is. Here is SPLC's "hate group" map:
Now, why does the Southern Poverty Law Center label Cameron and his Family Research Institute a "hate group"? Look at what Cameron espouses, per the SPLC:
He told the 1985 Conservative Political Action Committee conference that "extermination of homosexuals" might be needed in the next three to four years. He has advocated tattooing AIDS patients in the face, and banishment to a former leper colony for any patient who resisted. He has called for gay bars to be closed and gays to be registered with the government.
(Note that Cameron made the speech at CPAC, the same conference at which Ann Coulter called John Edwards a "faggot" - nice long history of hate at the top conservative conference of the year.)
Uh huh, this is who the lead religious right organizations are using to buttress their anti-gay cause, to lobby Congress and the White House. This is how these self-proclaimed voices of God show their love for Jesus. By embracing someone who called for the extermination of gays - someone who was kicked out of the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association for being an unethical extremist. And these people are in the senior ranks of the Republican party and the Bush administration.
FORMER FRC AND CWA EMPLOYEE PROMOTES HATE GROUP
But, oddly, Peter LaBarbera, a former employee of both the Family Research Council and the Concerned Women for America, is pushing Cameron's hate research to this day (LaBarbera was also, until recently, the lead "family values" advocate in the state of Illinois). In an online screed blasting the gay organization Human Rights Campaign, LaBarbera cites the research of Paul Cameron.
"THE HILL" CAUGHT PUBLISHING HATE SCIENCE
Even more troubling, far-right activist Armstrong Williams published Cameron's hate research on the respected inside-the-beltway publication "The Hill" - a publication not known for promoting the Nazi-esque science of known hate groups (well, at least not until now). The study Williams' cites is Cameron's most recent study that LaBarbera pushed above.
AFA, FRC, AND CWA ALL ARE CURRENTLY PROMOTING CAMERON AND HIS HATE SCIENCE
Equally sad, and disturbing, three top religious right organizations, the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, and Concerned Women for America all promote Cameron's Nazi-esque research on their Web sites (examples: AFA in 2005, FRC in Oct. 2006, and CWA in 2002 examples - there are many more).
We exposed AFA's promotion of this known hate group over a year ago, to no avail. AFA continues to promote the hate group on its Web site. It's one thing for the religious right to be a bunch of anti-gay bigots, but it's quite another to embrace science that echoes of Nazi Germany. It's time for the American Family Association, the Family Research Council, and the Concerned Women for America to publicly rebuke Paul Cameron and their former employee Peter LaBarbera.
(More on Cameron here. And note that this is not the first time FRC's Tony Perkins has had a disturbing tie-in to white supremacists.)
