Some readers might be fed up with me babbling on about gays, but there is just so much homophobic silliness to report that I can't stop myself. Just now I read another bigoted article about hate crimes on World Net Daily, a news website of the Christian Right. I admit they have a point when they object to criminalizing hate speech, but their arguments are not serious. The same applies to their reporting. The WND article leaves out vital parts of the story to fit a religious anti-gay crusade. For one thing, the author links to a website entitled "Stop Hate Crimes Now" (intentionally ironic, I'm sure) with testimonies from people who were arrested after harassing gays. Why, if not to make the haters underdogs? Wouldn't it be better to stick to defending free speech? It would, naturally, but they can't since WND opposes free speech. Read the website regularly, and it becomes obvious that the writers want pornographers, gay-rights activists, radical Muslims, and feminists silenced. Only radical Christians should be able enjoy freedom of expression—and even force their ideas upon others.

The mentioned article contains a sob story about Anglican Bishop Peter Forster, who caused a row in Britain after suggesting that homosexuals should consider psychiatric therapy to get reoriented. If you only read the WND article, you will get the impression that it happened recently and that the bishop was fined or imprisoned, but the truth is that it happened in 2003 and that the bishop was only reported to the police. That's it. Nothing happened. But for false apostles on an anti-gay jihad the truth is irrelevant.

Anyhow, after reading this I searched the Internet and came about an interesting BBC article dealing with the curing of homosexuals. Most people nowadays know that homosexuality is not a curable illness, but I think many of those that do are completely unaware of how much research has been put into it over the years. I knew about aversion therapy, testosterone injections, electric shock treatments, and various brainwashing techniques, but testicle implants was new to me:

According to consultant psychiatrist Michael Knight, who is about to publish a paper on the subject, "biological treatments for homosexuality" dominated the early part of the 20th Century.

In the 1920s, mainstream medical researchers in Germany implanted testicles from corpses into the bodies of homosexual men, usually without their knowledge. The idea was to boost testosterone levels.

"They were told they were going to have an operation, but not what was going to be done to them. These experiments were written up in the German equivalent of the BMJ or The Lancet, although they were later discredited after the Second World War."

Needless to say, it didn't work. Once a poof, always a poof. It's programmed into the genes.

The Christian Right is entitled to their opinion, even if it's proven untrue. Bigotry should not be illegal. However, there is nothing to say that minority groups should have to accept being targeted with scornful comments and physical attacks in the streets. Hate-crime legislation ought to be about putting a stop to this. Everyone is free to speak their mind, but no one has the right to force their opinions on anyone else. After listening to the testimonies on the "Stop Hate Crimes Now" website, I understand that this is exactly what crusading homophobes want to do.