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Partners Task Force for Gay and Lesbian Couples Online from 1995-2022 Demian and Steve Bryant originally founded Partners as a monthly newsletter in 1986. By late 1990 it was reformatted into a bi-monthly magazine. Print publication was halted by 1995 when Demian published Partners as a Web site, which greatly expanded readership. In 1988, the Partners National Survey of Lesbian & Gay Couples report was published; the first major U.S. survey on same-sex couples in a decade. In 1996, Demian produced The Right to Marry, a video documentary based on the dire need for equality that was made clear by the data from the survey mentioned above. The video featured interviews with Rev. Mel White, Evan Wolfson, Phyllis Burke, Richard Mohr, Kevin Cathcart, Faygele benMiriam, Benjamin Cable-McCarthy, Susan Reardon, Frances Fuchs, Tina Podlodowski, and Chelle Mileur. Demian has been the sole operator during the last two decades of Partners. Demian stopped work on Partners Task Force in order to realize his other time-consuming projects, which include publishing the book “Operating Manual for Same-Sex Couples: Navigating the rules, rites & rights” - which is now available on Amazon. The book is based on the Partners Survey mentioned above, his interviews of scores of couples, and 36 years of writing hundreds of articles about same-sex couples. It’s also been informed by his personal experience in a 20-year, same-sex relationship. Demian’s other project is to publish his “Photo Stories by Demian” books based on his more than six decades as a photographer and writer. |
Dear “Doctor” Laura A Satire about a Not-So-Funny Prejudice © January 4, 2011, Demian (updated August 12, 2014) The fact is, prejudice is destructive. It takes jobs, children, and lives away. Some people, by way of their media or political dominance, use prejudice to gain adherents and make money. The “Open Letter” below is addressed to one such person. Laura Schlessinger is not the only one to offer damaging viewpoints, but she is a person, whose character appears to be so deeply flawed, that the idea of demanding others keep to a ridged moral path seems some sort of sick joke. About Laura Catherine Schlessinger Schlessinger’s use of “Doctor” is misleading. Her doctorate is in physiology. She is neither a medical doctor, nor accredited in a discipline traditionally considered to have expertise in moral, societal, or spiritual matters (such as divinity, psychology, or sociology). She has practiced as a licensed marriage, family, and child counselor for more than a decade. Her California Marriage Family and Child Counseling license has been inactive since around 2000. Veteran Los Angeles radio broadcaster Bill Ballance, a man who was pivotal in getting Schlessinger her start in radio, claimed he had an affair with her while Laura Schlessinger was still in her first marriage to Michael F. Rudolph. While Schlessinger has vociferously proclaimed her disapproval of unwed couples, personal friend, Shelly Herman, claimed that Schlessinger lived with her second husband, Lewis G. Bishop, for about nine years before they married. Herman says that Schlessinger told her she was pregnant at the time of their marriage. The New York Post reported that Schlessinger had used her television show staff to falsely pose as on-air guests. A September 25, 2000, episode (“Readin’, Writin’, and Cheatin’”) featured a so-called college student who specialized in professional note-taking. On the next day’s show (“Getting to the Altar”), the same guest, appearing in different hair and makeup, said she was living with her boyfriend. In fact, the guest was San-D Duchas, a researcher for the show whose name appeared in the program’s closing credits. Schlessinger has used her media prominence to display ignorance and hatred toward gay men and lesbians. That is the true abomination. Here is a sample of her unsubstantiated, hate-drenched rhetoric: “If you’re gay or lesbian, it’s a biological error that inhibits you from relating normally to the opposite sex.”Schlessinger apparently thinks nature makes errors. She thinks gay people are “errors.” This is dehumanizing speech. “Although numerically, there are more pedophiles that are heterosexuals percentage-wise in a population, it's much greater in the homosexual community.”Schlessinger lies about the percentage being greater. It is, in fact, less. [Please see: Gays are pedophiles? No. Here's the proof. by RfrancisR, on The Daily Kos, September 18, 2010.] [Also see: Facts About Homosexuality and Child Molestation, from the University of California, Davis, not dated, however, the most recent citation was for a 2006 event.] It is clear she, like most of the radical right-wing, have not done any research to back their claims. About the Letter The following “Open Letter” has circulated on the Internet since May 2000 or earlier. It has been attributed to professor James M. Kauffman, who has denied authorship, or to a “J. Kent Ashcroft,” and various others. It is likely, determining true authorship is now impossible.
In any event, the writing is satirical, and meant to address all those who pick and choose which parts of the bible or tradition they think should be law, while ignoring all other parts.
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