Recently in Hypocrisy Category

United States: Scientists have complained that anti-gay religious groups are pretending to be legitimate scientific organisations, and presenting deliberately distorted versions of their research as fact. This is nothing new—the Prattle dissected one example back in 1998. The most recent case involves Dr. Gary Remafedi of the University of Minnesota, whose work on adolescent sexuality has been appropriated and misrepresented by a bogus paediatrics organisation, the American College of Pediatricians, trying to deny any support whatsoever to LGBT kids in school.

The letter, and the Facts About Youth website it pointed school officials to, was dense with footnotes citing scientific studies. Remafedi's research was at the top of the list.

The ACP argues that schools shouldn't support gay teens because they're probably just confused. Most adolescents who experience same-sex attraction...no longer experience such attractions at age 25, the letter says, citing a 1992 study by Remafedi.

Except that's not what Remafedi's research suggested at all. His work showed that kids who are confused about their sexuality eventually sort it out—meaning many of them accept being gay.

That's not the only example of this organisation lying about Remafedi's research. They took his finding that people who come out earlier are more likely to experience stigma and isolation, leading to an increased suicide risk, and twisted it to claim that identifying as gay itself was the problem. As Remafedi noted, It's obvious that they didn't even read my research. I mean, they spelled my name wrong every time they cited it.

Alvin McEwan has summarised the problem in a posting at the Huffington Post, and also links to Respect My Research—a Truth Won Out site dedicated to highlighting such abuses.

Evangelists treat the distorted research as the truth when they need to justify hate speech against LGBT people. Bradlee Dean looks like a 1980s hair rocker, a particularly naff one. His You Can Run But You Cannot Hide ministry uses allegedly punk music (with hair that long?!) to corrupt young minds with his imaginary friend. He has recently praised Islam for its murderous intolerance of homosexuality, and urged Christians to kill LGBT people. And he uses falsified scientific research to justify his violence.

On average, they molest 117 people before they’re found out. How many kids have been destroyed, how many adults have been destroyed because of crimes against nature?

As The Freethinker points out, this claim is bollocks, based on misrepresentation of research. Perhaps he was confused and thinking about the child abuse scandals involving Christian clergy (of several denominations) which have recently come to light?

University of Minnesota professor's research hijacked—City Pages, 26th May 2010; 'Let's threaten gays with death as the Muslims do', says Christian wingnut—The Freethinker, 26th May 2010.

Mexico: The hijacking of an airliner yesterday turns out to have been done in the name of religion, with the guidance of the hijacker's imaginary friend:

The Bible-carrying hijacker used a juice can he said was a bomb to hold the 103 passengers and crew on the tarmac for more than an hour before masked police stormed the aircraft with guns drawn and escorted several handcuffed men away without firing a shot....

Jose Flores, 44, later told police his three companions were "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost". ...

He is also a Christian music singer who in videos posted on YouTube sings of leaving drugs and finding God.

Strangely, the press have not been calling out for bans on Christian symbolism, suggesting those who wear such symbols be treated with suspicion, nor printing articles suggesting all Christians are inclined towards terrorism.

The neo-nazi British National Party has recently produced an anti-immigration poster. They chose to illustrate it with a Spitfire.

But RAF history experts have identified the iconic Romeo Foxtrot Delta Plane as belonging not to Britons but to a group of Polish pilots instead.

The plane was actually flown by the celebrated 303 Squadron of the RAF -- made up of Polish airmen rescued from France shortly before Nazi occupation.

A BNP representative could only come up with WE MENT 2 DU DAT, DUH, ONNIST GUV.

BNP uses Polish Spitfire in anti-immigration poster —Daily Telegraph, 4th March 2009.

United Kingdom: The UK government is on a bit of a roll at the moment, what with letting in people with manslaughter convictions who then go on to commit murder, whilst banning obnoxiously opinionated but non-violent politicians, regardless of the opinion of at least one Muslim organisation, which believes in dialogue and was looking forward to an opportunity to engage in such a subversive activity. Meanwhile, an Islamist bampot is being chucked out, but being sent somewhere where he will be tortured.

The latest preachers of hate to be banned from the country are Fred Phelps and his Merrie Men, who wanted to picket a Basingstoke sixth-form college's production of the Laramie Project.

A father and daughter from a US church which preaches hatred of homosexuals have been banned from entering the UK by Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

Fred Phelps and his daughter Shirley Phelps-Roper from the Westboro Baptist Church had urged protests against a play being put on in Hampshire.

Queen Mary's College in Basingstoke is staging The Laramie Project, a play about a man killed for being gay.

So, no opportunity for the London Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence to organise sponsorship of the picket, whereby cash is raised for HIV/AIDS or LGBT organisations based on how long the Westboro Baptist Church hangs around, and no chance for the fundie bampots to remind the British public why the nation is not very religious at all. No doubt a tirade against our royal family will follow, just like when the Queen Mum died, seeing as they don't realise that the British attitude to royalty is as far removed from the Thai one as you can get without chopping the monarch's head off (very often).

Anti-gay preachers banned from UK—BBC News, 19th February 2009.

United Kingdom: SF author Liz Williams also runs a brace of occult shops in Glastonbury and, like many people, is interested in the recent leak of a British National Party (most of whom would have been more comfortable on the other side during WWII) membership list.

Following the leaked BNP list, I acquired a virtual pair of tongs and a face mask and took a look at the BNP's website. It is, not surprisingly, the usual vacuous presentation of some fairly sensible (in theory) policies with, as far as I could see, very little said about actual implementation....

One of these issues was that of buying British. Now, even anticipating the beat of jackboots down Glastonbury High St, this is something I can get behind - we support a lot of local craft people in the shops, but we can't exclusively buy British goods because of cost effectiveness. But there is already quite a lot of very good stuff out there, being made by woodworkers and metalworkers in the UK, and so I perused Excalibur, which is the BNP's online shop....

And lo! A lot of the stuff they sell, especially the Celtic things, is not just like the stuff we sell - it *is* the stuff we sell.

It's made in China.

And more dumb—Liz Willams' Journal, 20th November 2008.

Australia: It's been a year since the antics of Kenja have darkened our doorsteps. The cult has since published several more full page ads in high profile Australian papers in strange attempts to convince the locals that their alledged paedophile leader was really a good bloke. At least the last attempt wasn't as libellous as the first and just stuck to lying about Dyers rather than lying about those who accused him of being a naughty boy. But this isn't about glorifying their leader in print, it's about their co-founder bizarre attempts to put the frighteners on a woman who pointed the finger at Dyers.

Alison Pels thought she had finally escaped the grasp of the cult Kenja Communications when she left the group in February last year.

But six months later the then 20-year-old found herself the subject of a bizarre plot by Jan Hamilton and other members of the group, who disguised themselves with fake facial hair and wigs while posing as directors of a play.

Vatican City: Due to the internets being a bit recalitrant, this gem of fiscal losses has come my way. The Vatican has announced that it has had its first loss in four years and quite a hefty loss it is too at €9.1m (£7.25m or US$14.3m). Not something you're likely to find down the back of the couch. It seems the weak US dollar is being blamed and I was a wee bit baffled by this as I would have thought the Holy See would have been running on the Euro.

Much of the Vatican's income comes from donations from Catholics around the world. The US was the largest single contributor to Peter's Pence — the collection used by the Pope for charitably donations — sending almost US$19m (£9.5m).

Zimbabwe: Barry Duke of The Freethinker feels that the Roman Catholic Church might have its priorities ever so slightly the wrong way round, and isn't afraid to use robust language to say so. In particular, he notes that the Church seems uninterested in criticising members of its flock who are, for example, murderous dictators:

Notice the book in Robert Mugabe’s hand when he was hastily sworn for a sixth term as President of Zimbabwe? Yes folks, the lunatic dictator – a devout Catholic – was clutching a Bible.

Mugabe is 84-years-old, and with any luck will soon be dead. And when he does finally turn up his toes, what’s the bet that religious revisionists, shaking their heads over the destruction he wreaked on his country, will vilify him as an atheist – just as they do now in respect of that other great Catholic dictator, Adolf Hitler.

For the moment though, Mugabe remains in good standing with the Roman Catholic Church...

Of course, should anyone suggest that pooves be treated as actual human beings, they would be deafened by condemnations from representatives of that same church.

Mugabe - a good Catholic dictator … just like Hitler!—The Freethinker, 3rd July 2008.

Scotland: As previously reported, a tiny Catholic extremist organisation has taken aim at HIV/AIDS activists, the Order of Perpetual Indulgence. As part of their vendetta, they published the e-mail address of one of the Sisters and, not surprisingly, that individual has been receiving hate mail. Which she forwarded to me. I expect there's more that got eaten by the spam trap, she notes, but I'm not going to bother looking for it. So, what do members of Catholic Truth have to say in the name of their imaginary friend?

United Kingdom: The Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement has published a 10 page document criticizing the government's decision to appoint homophobic Christian activist Joel Edwards as an Equality Commissioner. Edwards has campaigned against equalities legistlation in the past, and the LGCM report uses his own words to demonstrate why Joel Edwards should not have been appointed to the Equality Commission and should resign. The report summarises the case against Edwards on page 1:

• Joel Edwards aggressively lobbies against law reforms introducing gay equality
• Joel Edwards promotes groups seeking to cure gay people
• Joel Edward’s organisation seeks exemptions from the very laws Equality Commissioners are charged with upholding

They note that the organisation he leads, the Evangelical Alliance, explicitly opposes any kind of fair treatment for lesbians and gay men.

a homosexual lifestyle is a choice and is not to be classified in terms akin to race or gender. [p.3]

Of course, Edwards regards such criticism as religious discrimination and whines I therefore find it a shame that the LGCM considers my belief system less equal than others and a barrier to my serving the British public. Of course, as a religious lifestyle is a choice, surely it's not deserving of any kind of protection anyway, at least not according to Edwards' reasoning.

Joel Edwards and The Evangelical Alliance: Opponents of human rights for lesbian and gay people [Word document]—Lesbian and Gay Christian Movement, 21st January 2008; Gay Christian group criticises new equality commissioner—The Guardian, 21st January 2008.

United States: Another case of someone who used the Bible to justify their abuse of children being jailed.

Robert "Bobby" Hale, the Scripture-quoting "Papa Pilgrim" who used the Bible to pound subservience into his 15 children, went before a judge in Alaska last month, looking old and frail beyond his 66 years as he learned his punishment -- 14 years behind bars -- for sexually assaulting one of his daughters.

The strange story of 'Papa Pilgrim'—Star-Telegram, 9th December 2007.

England: Anyone old enough to have been involved in neopaganism in the UK in the 1980s will remember the Rev. Kevin Logan (a.k.a.Kev. the Rev.). The Anglican vicar spent a lot of time and effort promoting the Satanic Abuse Myth, and propogating outrageous lies about neopaganism. He fell from grace after a seriously disturbed woman, Caroline Marchant, committed suicide while in his care. R.A. Gilbert summarised the story:

Caroline Marchant professed to be a victim of satanic abuse and to have been involved in child sacrifice.... Her story, however, was utterly untrue.... Many of the 'satanic' elements in her story seem to have been derived from the work of Doreen Irivine (who counselled Miss Marchant at the Zion Christian Temple at Yate, near Bristol). What she needed most was psychiatric help, whereas what she received was spiritual counselling by fundamentalists who saw demons rather than a disturbed mind. In February 1990, while in the care of the Reverend Kevin Logan, Caroline Marchant committed suicide. (Gilbert 1993, 154).

Well, he obviously thinks no-one can remember him after 17 years, and is back having a go at Harry Potter. Nor does he seem to have spent the time learning anything about neopaganism, as he strangely seems to think that Rowling's books have something to do with it.

The Rev Kevin Logan, of Christ Church with Cannon Street, Accrington, said that JK Rowling's teenage hero has many similarities with Jesus Christ - but the author's references to paganism could lead children into danger...

The Potter epic encourages kids to be curious in an area that God forbids, he said. It is also an encouragement to the vulnerable and under-age to learn more of paganism and the occult, which have a track record of emotional and spiritual damage.

Obviously failing to look after someone in your care, and contributing to intense religious pressure on her to lie, to the point where she kills herself, does not give the Rev. Logan himself a track record of emotional and spiritual damage.

But there is a reason for his sticking his head over the parapet. In 1988, he published a book which he entitled Paganism and the Occult: A manifesto for Christian Action, in which he expounded, well, a load of complete bollocks. Gilbert (a Christian) was more restrained when he reviewed the work:

The author's aim is to provide the basis for converting occultists to Christianity, but his lack of objectivity and of factual accuracy remove credibility from his attempt. (Gilbert 1993, 177)

So, why do we think Kev. the Rev. is back to his old media-whoring ways?

Christian comment on the issue is being sought as Mr Logan prepares to update his book 'Paganism and the Occult'.

I wonder if they'll send the Prattle a review copy?

Vicar calls for Harry Potter debate—The Blackburn Citizen, 19th September 2007; Gilbert, R.A., 1993, Casting the First Stone: the Hypocrisy of Religious Fundamentalism and its Threat to Society, Shaftesbury, Element Books.

Australia: A month has passed since the news of Ken Dyers' suicide and it seems his cult has been attempting to create a martyr out of him, even if that means screwing over his victims.

Supporters of the 85-year-old Kenja founder — who shot himself last week while facing 22 counts of child sex assault and indecent assault — took the extraordinary step of placing advertisements in weekend newspapers declaring his innocence.

The full-page ads, which were run in The Sydney Morning Herald on Saturday, accused Dyers' two alleged victims of deliberately lying and behaving in an appalling fashion.

They also claimed police were out to get him to further their careers.