Leading Conservative Group: Aiding Gay Seniors A Waste

The Family Research Council (FRC), a conservative organization, has released a statement claiming the efforts by the Obama administration to assist senior citizens in the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual and Transgender (LGBT) community are a waste of time and effort.

The primary reason the effort is a waste of time and money is because “these people are less likely to live long enough to become senior citizens”.

That statement is just a part of the statement made by FRC’s Tony PerkinsTony Perkins.

Here is the quote in a larger context, so that no one can claim the quote was used out of context:

Apparently, our nation is never too broke to advance a radical social agenda. The agency released a statement on the [the LGBT Resource Center] last week, saying its purpose would be to "help community-based organizations understand the unique needs... of older LGBT individuals and assist them in implementing programs for local service providers..." In the release, HHS regurgitates the Left's propaganda to justify the waste, claiming that "1.5 to 4 million" LGBTs are age 60 and older. In reality, HHS has no idea how many LGBT seniors exist. No one does! The movement is only a few decades old, and people who are 80- or 90-years-old didn't grow up in a culture where it was acceptable to identify with this lifestyle.

Of course, the real tragedy here--apart from the unnecessary spending--is that, given the risks of homosexual conduct, these people are less likely to live long enough to become senior citizens! Yet once again, the Obama administration is rushing to reward a lifestyle that poses one of the greatest public health risks in America. If this is how HHS prioritizes, imagine what it could do with a trillion dollar health care overhaul!

There are quite a few problems with that statement.

First problem with the statement is just because the LGBT movement started a “few decades ago” doesn’t mean no LGBT people existed prior to the movement. The “gays” have been around since at least biblical times, I don’t think the FRC can deny that, unless of course the Bible was wrong.

The statement wants you to think the government estimates are incorrect, and there’s no possible way there could be that many LGBT people around because the movement is only decades old and the elderly wouldn’t come out and claim to be gay because they grew up in a time when coming out was not “acceptable”.

Right.

The range the government numbers gave themselves is from 1.5 million to 4 million people. That’s a large range. I think the government has given themselves a sufficient margin of error to work with in their estimations.

The FRC does not state their estimations on how many seniors may be gay. It just tries to discredit the government’s estimations, without any evidence or an estimation of their own.

The other thing this statement tries to do is make you believe that gays, because they have a lot of gay sex and most of the gays have AIDS, die before they even become seniors. That claim was made by a widely discredited doctor, many years ago, that no one besides hate groups and anyone desperate to deny gays any kind of right and assistance use.

FRC is one of those groups.

The “doctor” that has made that claim is Paul Cameron. He has, in the past, called for “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 has also said that there may be a need to call for the “extermination of homosexuals”. You know, because they have gay sex and have AIDS.

Those comments were made at a Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) meeting, the same kind of meeting where Ann CoulterAnn Coulter called John EdwardsJohn Edwards a “f*****”.

Paul Cameron has been “kicked out of the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association for being an unethical extremist” since making these statements, among others.

But his research and statements continue to be used for reference by conservatives groups trying to lobby Congress and Washington to deny Americans their rights. Conservative groups like the Family Research Council and media organizations like The Hill, Fox News, Limblah blah blah have at one point or another used Cameron’s views as fact.

Let’s assume it is true that gay men, because of their chances of acquiring AIDS is higher than the average hetero male’s chances (which can also be debated, but let’s run with it), die sooner than straight men, logically the claim that the LGBT community doesn’t have too many seniors still doesn’t make sense.

The gay men are just one of the letters in the term LGBT. They are just the G.

The truth is, HIV and AIDS are more likely to spread through any community that has a lot of promiscuous and unsafe sex. In this day and age that could be anyone and everyone.

To assume that only the gay community’s life expectancy is affected by AIDS and HIV is just being ignorant and prejudice.

Another point that was trying to be made by the FRC’s statement was that it is a waste of money to try and help the gay senior’s community. How is it a waste of money if you claim there really aren’t any seniors that are gay? If there aren’t any gay seniors, then the money will just sit around for a while and then will be used for something else instead.

Either way, the Family Research Council is just being stupid.