The Pink News headline reads:

Hate group summit attended by Donald Trump warns about ‘diseased’ gay people

So, I decided I would look at the article to see how this hate group could land the President of the United States as a guest.

I’ll use my usual point by point analysis to approach the article with my observations after each quoted section of the article:

“The gift bags at an anti-gay summit addressed by Trump include a pamphlet warning about the “health hazards” of homosexuality.”

Calling the event an “anti-gay summit” is actually an attempt to exaggerate things so you imagine a lot of angry people attacking the very souls of people who experience same-sex attraction. You may even visualize a lot of people wearing white pointy hoods that cover their faces. Such a group would want to physically or financially harm individuals who experienced same-sex attraction. Was that the case here? Um… as we’ll see, no. The event is actually just a pro-family event. Because the LGBT community is not pro-family (at least not a family with a mother and a father), they feel the need to attack the event and those who attended it.

“Donald Trump today became the first sitting President in recent history to address the gathering of a listed anti-LGBT hate group, when he spoke at the Value Voters Summit.”

Not just a hate group, but an anti-LGBT hate group. But there is a nuance here. First, saying someone is anti means they are against something or someone. But here, the recipients of the “against” are people who say they are lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-gender. So this leads us to the first distortion. Is the group really against the people or is this “hate group” against what these people want to promote and celebrate? The answer is the latter. The event was to promote marriage and family which is a threat to the ideals of the LGBT community but not a threat to the people themselves. In reality, pro-family is pro-everyone. As it turns out the book at issue is also pro-everyone, but because the LGBT lifestyle is incompatible with health and family, the LGBT activists come out with aggressive criticism of the book and the event.

As for Trump’s participation in the event, I don’t see it as a big deal except for the fact that it has attracted a lot of attention for the group who sponsored the event, and that is a good thing.

“The event was held by the Family Research Council, a hardline evangelical group which is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an anti-gay hate group due to its aggressive homophobic stance.”

This is a loaded sentence. The most important fact is the identity of the organization who has listed the Family Research Council as an “anti-gay hate group”. You have to consider your sources, so here is a short but extremely informational video on the Southern Poverty Law Center: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNFNH0lmYdM#action=share

I suspect that the Pink News definitions of “hardline evangelical”  and “aggressive homophobic stance” are heavily tainted with bias as well, so I won’t even take your time on those labels. The bottom line is that the label “hate group” and or “anti-gay hate group” is simply the opinion of an LGBT advocacy group and it is used by another advocate of the LGBT lifestyle as a slur on those by whom they feel threatened.

“The White House ignored repeated warnings about extremist homophobes at the event, pushing ahead with a planned appearance by Trump, who praised evangelical voters and suggested support for broad ‘religious freedom’ protections in his speech.”

Tragic.

“Meanwhile, the event’s organisers were distributing anti-LGBT propaganda to attendees.”

Anti-LGBT propaganda means that it is not only against people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-gendered, but dishonestly so. If this were the case, it would be inappropriate. But let’s see what they are talking about before we just take their word for it.

“A gift bag handed to every attendee that heard Trump speak included a leaflet promoting a book titled ‘The Hazards of Homosexuality’.The leaflets say: ‘The sexual revolution and mainstreaming of homosexuality have created a public health crisis affecting us all. But the media give little attention to the danger of gay and lesbian sexual practices and the resulting health problems experienced by the gay-lesbian-bisexual population. Worse, the medical authorities deliver mixed messages to those at high risk while failing to protect the broader public. Homosexual and bisexual men are most severely affected and are driving the recent increases in STDs. Lesbians, heterosexuals and youth are increasingly at risk by imitating dangerous ‘gay’ practises.’ The book brings together widely dispersed facts, carefully documenting the disproportionate incidence of disease and mental disorders in the GLB community. A brief survey of the ‘transgender’ phenomenon is included.”

First, it is evident that no individual person or people are targeted. The targets are behavior, ideas and agendas. Second, the information is based in fact, a.k.a. true. Therefore, it is not propaganda. Propaganda takes information and twists it into sounding true when it really isn’t. The Hazards of Homosexuality simply takes medical facts and puts them together to teach. That’s what books are supposed to do. 

So how does Pink News discredit the book?

“The book was penned by MassResistance, which has praised laws criminalising gay sex.”

The author’s conclusion is based on the fact that the author disagrees with the group which published the book. Sorry Charlie, but this says nothing about the facts included in the book. I suggest that the author should address the claims made in the book instead of declaring the book false because he or she doesn’t like the author. 

Don’t get me wrong, I realize that I had already done something similar in saying that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is not to be trusted when they label the Family Research Council a hate group. But my approach was different in that the SPLC was not publishing a fact, merely an opinion. There is a difference and that difference makes all the difference here. It is reasonable to determine the weight of an opinion based on the credibility of the source of the opinion. But a fact is either true or false and if the book, The Hazards of Homosexuality, is stating facts, one should weigh the book’s value on the accuracy of those facts. Such is the case here. But the author of the article in Pink News dismisses the entire book without bothering to see if the facts are valid.

Did Mass Resistance praise laws criminalizing gay sex? No. The article refers to a law in Uganda that has been on the books for a long time. While Uganda was adding protections against child rape, incest and other immoral acts, one of the leaders of Mass Resistance voiced approval of such amendments. The LGBT activists have misconstrued that statement to make it seem like Mass Resistance approved of severe punishments for homosexual behavior, which was not the case.

“Sarah Kate Ellis, President and CEO of GLAAD, said: ‘This morning, addressing a gathering of some of the most extreme anti-LGBTQ activists in the country, Trump once again legitimized hate speech and vowed, again and again to write discrimination into law by pushing laws focused on religious exemptions. The religious exemption laws that groups like the Family Research Council and the Trump administration fully support do not reflect real American values, they legalize discrimination by allowing hotels, ER doctors, business owners, and even pediatricians to legally deny services to hardworking LGBTQ families.”

Ms. Ellis is not being honest. If the Westborough Baptist Church (WBC) was in attendance at the event, you would have anti-LGBTQ activists present. I don’t believe they were there because the WBC group is totally inconsistent with the Family Research Council as WBC truly promotes hatred and unjust discrimination. WBC also condemns people based on their actions, when at best, humans only have the ability to see and hear behaviors and words and make temporal judgments. Only God can judge the heart. Additionally, Ms. Ellis mischaracterizes laws that will protect religious freedom. There is no law which would allow an emergency room doctor to decline to treat a patient who was in need of emergency care. This is a scare tactic (actual propaganda) employed by LGBT activists.

The Pink News article then switches to a different rabbit hole, so I’ll spare you a long discussion on that part of the article.

Instead, I decided to look at the book on Amazon to see what people were saying about the book:

The reviews on the book that date back to the time of its publication are very positive. Then there are very few reviews until October 13, 2017, when suddenly approximately 100 people posted 1 star reviews on the same day. Most of the reviews since October 13, have offered only one-sentence negative statements. It is almost as if word got out and activists got together to post negative reviews about a book they all happened to purchase and read since President Trump spoke at the Family Research Council event. Hmm…..

The reviews are most numerous on the date that Queerty published an article decrying the book:

Coincidence? Likely not.