You may be aware of the recent interview and statements that TN Senator Stacey Campfield made regarding his proposed legislation.  In case you are not familiar with the story, he made the following statements:

• “That bullying thing is the biggest lark out there.”
• “Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community — it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men. It was an airline pilot, if I recall.”
• “My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex…very rarely [transmitted].”

There’s more, but read it for yourself via the link above.  I was stunned by the Senator’s comments and ignorance, but my long time friend Mike Wiseman found the voice I couldn’t and wrote an open letter to the Senator.  He posted this on Facebook, but I asked him if I could repost it for those who aren’t on Facebook (those people exist… trust me).  Here is Mike’s Facebook post, in it’s entirety:

An Open Letter to Tennessee Senator Stacey Campfield

I was taken aback earlier today after listening to an interview conducted on January 26, 2012 between you and radio host Michelangelo Signorile.  In the interview, you stated several false facts that I feel should be addressed & corrected since you are responsible for making important decisions concerning state expenditures for health and human services in Tennessee.

False Statement:  “That bullying thing is the biggest lark out there” – Stacey Campfield (January 26, 2012).  Actually, scientific research proves quite the opposite:

 

• It is estimated that 160,000 children miss school every day due to fear of attack or intimidation by other students. (Source: National Education Association)
• American schools harbor approximately 2.1 million bullies and 2.7 million of their victims. (Dan Olweus, National School Safety Center)
• Harassment and bullying have been linked to 75 percent of school-shooting incidents, including the fatal shootings at Columbine High School near Littleton, Colorado, and Santana High School in Santee, California. (US Secret Service Report, May 2002)
• Studies have shown that obese children are 63% more likely to be targets of bullying. Gay youth are also significantly more likely to be bullied, with lesbians experiencing bullying at 3 times the rate of other youth. (National Youth Violence Prevention Center)
• Kids with learning disabilities, speech impediments, ADHD, and medical conditions that affect their appearance (such as cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, and spina bifida) are also at higher risk of being bullied. One study found that 83% of adults who stuttered when they were kids reported they had been teased or bullied for it. (National Youth Violence Prevention Center)
• In Senator Campfield’s own state of Tennessee, 14-year-old Phillip Parker killed himself after enduring bullying for being homosexual. (WSMV & WBIR reports from January 23, 2012).

False Statement:  “Most people realize that AIDS came from the homosexual community – it was one guy screwing a monkey, if I recall correctly, and then having sex with men.  It was an airline pilot, if I recall” – Stacey Campfield (January 26, 2012).  Again, the history of HIV and AIDS began quite differently:

• The AIDS virus has been circulating among people for about 100 years, decades longer than scientists have previously thought.  Genetic analysis pushes the estimated origin of HIV back to between 1884 and 1924, with a more focused estimate at 1908.  (Nature, October 1, 2008)
• Most of the scientific community agrees that HIV was a post mutation of the SIV virus found in chimpanzees and apes.  Known as the natural transfer theory, the Bushmeat Theory or the Hunter Theory, the “simplest and most plausible explanation for the cross-species transmission of SIV or HIV resulted from a hunter or bushmeat vendor/handler being bitten or cut while hunting or butchering an animal” (The origins of acquired immune deficiency syndrome viruses: where and when? By P.M.Sharp, E. Bailes, R. Chaudhuri, C.M. Rosenberg, M. Santiago and B. Bahn 2001)
• As for your “astute” observation that an airline pilot “screwing the monkey”, I would imagine that you are referencing the book/movie “And the Band Played On”.
• A Canadian airline steward named Gaëtan Dugas was referred to as “Patient 0″ in an early AIDS study by Dr. William Darrow of the Centers for Disease Control. Because of this, many people had considered Dugas to be responsible for bringing HIV to North America. This is inaccurate however, as HIV had spread long before Dugas began his career. This rumor may have started with Randy Shilts’ 1987 book And the Band Played On (and the movie based on it, in which Dugas is referred to as AIDS’ Patient Zero), but neither the book nor the movie state that he had been the first to bring the virus to North America. He was called “Patient Zero” because at least 40 of the 248 people known to be infected by AIDS in 1983 had had sex with him, or with someone who had sexual intercourse with him.

False Statement: “”My understanding is that it is virtually — not completely, but virtually — impossible to contract AIDS through heterosexual sex…very rarely [transmitted].” – Stacey Campfield (January 26, 2012).This one really scared me considering you affect healthcare legislation in the state that my family & I live in.

• In the United States, HIV is most commonly transmitted through specific sexual behaviors (anal or vaginal sex) or sharing needles with an infected person. It is less common for HIV to be transmitted through oral sex or for an HIV-infected woman to pass the virus to her baby before or during childbirth or after birth through breastfeeding or by pre-chewing food for her infant. In the United States, it is also possible to acquire HIV through exposure to infected blood, transfusions of infected blood, blood products, or organ transplantation, though this risk is extremely remote due to rigorous testing of the U.S. blood supply and donated organs.(Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2012)

False Statement: “What’s the average lifespan of a homosexual?  It’s very short.  Google it yourself” – Stacey Campfield (January 26, 2012).  As pointed out on the Huffington Post article discussing your comments, this lie was purported from discredited researcher Paul Cameron and was debunked in the 1990s.

• In 1986 the American Sociological Association passed a resolution condemning Cameron for “consistent misrepresentation of sociological research”. This was based on a report from the ASA’s Committee on the Status of Homosexuals in Sociology, which summarized Cameron’s inflammatory statements and commented, “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.” In 1996, the Board of Directors of the Canadian Psychological Association approved a position statement disassociating the organization from Cameron’s work on sexuality, stating that he had “consistently misinterpreted and misrepresented research on sexuality, homosexuality, and lesbianism”. (American Sociological Association February 1987 Official Report; Committee on the Status of Homosexuals in Sociology January 1987; Canadian Psychological Association Policy Statements retrieved on February 20, 2007)

False Statement: “Homosexuals represent about 2 to 3 percent of the population yet you look at television and plays and theatres, it’s 50 percent of the theatres, probably more than that, 50 percent of the theatres based on something about homosexuality” – Stacey Campfield (January 26, 2012).  I was baffled where you found your statistics for this statement.  Here’s what I found:

• In his book The Celluloid Closet, Vito Russo analyzes the representation of gays and lesbians in Hollywood films from the 1890s to the 1980s, and demonstrates a history of homophobia. He argues that Hollywood’s portrayal of lesbians and gay men has often been cruel and homophobic. Gay and lesbian characters have been defined by their sexual orientation, and lacked any complex character development. (Vito Russo; New York; Harper & Row, 1987). 
• Since the 1990s, Hollywood has improved its portrayal of gay and lesbian characters. The popularity of films such as The Birdcage, Philadelphia, To Wong Foo, Flawless and In & Out demonstrates that audiences can and do enjoy films with gay and lesbian characters. But despite these advances, critics say that the industry is still too cautious in its portrayals of gay themes, characters, and experiences. Hollywood films are designed to appeal to as large an audience as possible; and producers fear that focusing on gay and lesbian themes risks offending a large portion of the audience, as well as potential investors.  (Vito Russo; New York; Harper & Row, 1987). 

False Statement: “Homosexuality does not appear in Nature” – Stacey Campfield (January 26, 2012).  Although the term homosexual was coined by Karl-Maria Kertbeny in 1868 to describe same-sex sexual attraction and sexual behavior in humans (Jahrbuch fur sexuelle Zschischenstufen 1905), there are numerous scientific studies that actually refute your statements.

• A 1999 review by researcher Bruce Bagemihl shows that homosexual behavior has been observed in close to 1,500 species, ranging from primates to gut worms, and is well documented for 500 of them. (Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity, Bruce Bagemihi 1999). 
• No species has been found in which homosexual behavior has not been shown to exist, with the exception of species that never have sex at all, such as sea urchins and aphis. Moreover, a part of the animal kingdom is hermaphroditic, truly bisexual. For them, homosexuality is not an issue. (Petter Bockman, Against Nature, 2007)

False Statement: ““I just think there are situations where some kids maybe sexually unsecure [sic] in themselves or sexually confused and don’t necessarily know clearly what direction they are. If someone, a person of influence, says maybe you’re gay, maybe you should explore those things — maybe the child, who is young and impressionable, says maybe I am gay.” – Stacey Campfield (January 26, 2012).  Homosexuality is not a choice, Mr. Campfield – it’s genetic and something that is decided before you are even born.  Look at these findings:

• Chromosome linkage studies of sexual orientation have indicated the presence of multiple contributing genetic factors throughout the genome. In 1993, Dean Hamer and colleagues published findings from a linkage analysis of a sample of 76 gay brothers and their families.  Hamer et al. found that the gay men had more gay male uncles and cousins on the maternal side of the family than on the paternal side. Gay brothers who showed this maternal pedigree were then tested for X chromosome linkage, using twenty-two markers on the X chromosome to test for similar alleles. In another finding, thirty-three of the forty sibling pairs tested were found to have similar alleles in the distal region of Xq28, which was significantly higher than the expected rates of 50% for fraternal brothers. This was popularly dubbed as the ‘gay gene’ in the media, causing significant controversy. Sanders et al. in 1998 reported on their similar study, in which they found that 13% of uncles of gay brothers on the maternal side were homosexual, compared to 6% on the paternal side.  (Born Gay: The Biology of Sex Orientation, London Peter Owen Publishers)
• A 2010 study stated: “The fetal brain develops during the intrauterine period in the male direction through a direct action of testosterone on the developing nerve cells, or in the female direction through the absence of this hormone surge. In this way, our gender identity (the conviction of belonging to the male or female gender) and sexual orientation are programmed or organized into our brain structures when we are still in the womb. There is no indication that social environment after birth has an effect on gender identity or sexual orientation.  (Sexual Hormones and the Brain: An Essential Alliance for Sexual Identity and Sexual Orientation by Garcia-Falgueras & Swaab 2010)

 

Mr. Campfield, your statements made in this interview combined with your history of supporting an anti-gay agenda is very alarming in this day and age.  The GLTB community at large has spent several decades trying to obtain the same rights and privileges granted to everyone else.  And while huge strides have been made in recent years, children struggling with their own sexual identity need a positive and safe environment to learn in.  Your bill will condemn homosexual children across our great state.  This isn’t about religion or one’s personal system of beliefs; it’s about protecting all of our children.  Homosexuality is natural and there is nothing wrong with it.  It has existed in every facet of humankind since the dawn of time.  Children who discover that they are gay need to realize that there is nothing wrong with them.  They should not have to endure physical or verbal abuse by those that do not agree with their sexual orientation.

I’m not trying to change your mind (or lack thereof), but as a Senator, you should do a little more reading and research before speaking on such issues instead of trying to create controversy for yourself to pander to the lowest common denominator of the uneducated voter.  I would be happy to discuss this matter with you personally, but I doubt that you will even read this.  Tennessee is a wonderful state full of compassionate and loving people.  There is room for everyone in the Volunteer State as well as the rest of our little blue marble.  I hope over time you are able to open your mind and be more accepting of those that do not fit into your view of what is “normal”.

Sincerely,

Mike Wiseman

Heterosexual and Very Proud Supporter of Gay Rights & Equality

I spent a couple of days at CES last week.  While two days isn’t enough to see the entire show, it is more than enough time for me to spend in Las Vegas.  Walking the floor is also a serious cardio workout.  It’s not the distance you walk but rather the constant crowds that you try to swim through.

If I had to sum up CES this year, it would be Smart TVs and Android tablets.  Everyone seemed to have an Android tablet and they were all running ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich).  You would have been hard pressed to find a booth that didn’t have a tablet they were marketing.  There were so many, it got to be boring looking at them.

Smart TVs were also all the rage.  They were last year too, but they were still pretty new. Every TV was connected.  I couldn’t find a TV that wasn’t and several vendors even told me they were going to stop making TVs that were not internet connected.  Of all the vendors I looked at, Samsung had the coolest TV.  It was high definition and was OLED.  It was so thin, it was hard to convey in a picture since all you saw was a line down the center of the photo.  To best illustrate just how thin this TV is, I shot a short video.

Watch this video on YouTube.

There were also several 4k televisions and even an 8k.  I think the latter was simply for bragging rights.  To put this into perspective, when you go to the movies and watch a digital projection, you are typically seeing a 2k image.  Don’t rush out and try to upgrade your TV just yet.  No one is broadcasting in 2k resolution let alone 4k.  Sony did announce at the show a Blu-ray player (model BDP-S790) that will upscan your Blu-ray disc to 4k resolution, but I heard nothing on price and only “2nd quarter” for when you could buy one.

Everyone had their 3D TVs as well as several glasses free 3D demos.  Most people just kept on walking past the 3D.  Content creators and manufacturers keep pushing the technology but the public just 1) doesn’t want to fork out the extra money and 2) doesn’t want to wear glasses just to watch television.  I looked at the glasses free televisions but they just didn’t look as 3D as those that require glasses.  3D is a novelty that people will indulge in from time to time when they go to the theater.

More updates to come!