It's Uganda all over again - same tired (but dangerous) play, with different sets and a few different cast members. This time, the ambassador of hate is one Paul Cameron, the setting: Moldova.
Yes, Moldova.
Remember, the kill queers policy of the Christian Right has to pick on the poorest, most backward, most superstitious countries and it can't get a poorer, more backward, more superstitious country than Moldavia: it's a short hop to the Carpathian mountains, land of the Romanis (gypsies), Transylvania, Dracula, Elizabeth Bathory (Countess Dracula) and...the Werewolf.
So they're sending discredited "researcher" Paul Cameron to state their case that homosexuals are intrinsically evil and that any law passed for anti-discrimination is an abomination.
Of course, Cameron doesn't usually address his audiences festooned in garlic, but his charisma is nonetheless odoriferous: he is passionate about imprisonment and execution of gays. His claims are so horrific, that no one in America has taken them seriously (Tony Perkins and Bryan Fischer excepted, of course): they regularly eat feces, they are natural pedophiles, they live shorter lives, they stuff gerbils up their rears, they recruit because they can't procreate. And to a backward, superstitious populace, these claims are horrifying music to their ears.
An anti-discrimination bill that prohibits unequal treatment on grounds including sexual orientation is before its Parliament, due for debate at month's end.
In the days before the debate starts, Paul Cameron is coming to town. An e-mail from the AlianÃ... £a pentru Salvarea Familiilor din Moldova (Alliance to Save the Family in Moldova) announces that the "U.S. sociologist, founder and president of Family Research Institute" will stay from October 24-29, and "will share the U.S. experience in implementing anti-discrimination legislation."
Of course, it makes no difference to the Moldovans that Cameron has been denounced by more reputable researchers and unceremoniously kicked out of most major professional organizations:
Individuals:
- Epidemiologists Morten Frisch and Henrik Brà ¸nnum-Hansen were vehemently against Cameron's crude and minimal attempts at research concerning the life-expectancy of gay men (he used obituary columns from gay newspapers during and after the AIDS crisis).
- Psychologist Gregory M. Herek charged Cameron with deliberately misrepresenting his work researching child molesters.
Organizations:
- The American Psychological Association: "We are concerned about Dr. Cameron because we do believe that his methodology is weak."
- The Nebraska Psychological Association
- The Canadian Psychological Association
- ...and the American Sociological Association:
It does not take great analytical abilities to suspect from even a cursory review of Cameron's writings that his claims have almost nothing to do with social science and that social science is used only to cover over another agenda. Very little of his work could find support from even a bad misreading of genuine social science investigation on the subject and some sociologists, such as Alan Bell, have been 'appalled' at the abuse of their work."
MOLDOVA IS DOOMED
Unfortunately, this will not be Cameron's first visit to Moldova (he had previously visited the country in 2008). And his visits have been supported by appearances of premier anti-gay hate monger Scott Lively who was definitely instrumental in Uganda's Kill-The-Gays Bill. Through Lively and Cameron, the Christian Right has been delivering a series of one-two punches to Moldavia's humanity: an attempted gay pride parade in 2008 met with bashings of gays from skinheads while the police looked on approvingly. The situation for the passage of an anti-discrimination bill (at least one including sexual orientation) looks grim.
And if Cameron gets his way, Moldova will institute laws very close to that of Uganda's.
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