JC Penney will now be responsible for more women getting breast cancer and other illnesses, like depression, and more women will think about committing suicide, all because the mass merchandising retailer has hired Ellen DeGeneres as their new spokesperson, according to Bryan Fischer, the public face of the certified anti-gay hate group, American Family Association.
READ: Ellen: One Million Moms Are Wrong To Demand My Firing Because I’m Gay
Fischer, in a foolish piece titled, “Why pro-family Americans should care about what JCPenney,” wrongly claims that lesbians experience higher rates of breast cancer, suicide ideation, depression, vaginal illnesses, and drug addiction, merely because they are lesbians. And since JC Penney has now hired Ellen DeGeneres as their new spokesperson, Fischer claims that more women will try out lesbianism, and some apparently will be successful, subjecting themselves to higher risks of disease.
Of course this is about as intelligent an argument as my, “If I carry an umbrella it won’t rain because I always get caught in the rain without one,” but (until now) I would never mention that publicly because I know it’s idiotic.
As is Bryan Fischer.
Here are his comments, thanks to Kyle Mantyla at Right Wing Watch:
Will America’s young women be just a bit more likely to experiment with lesbianism now that JCPenney is mainstreaming it? Too any objective observer, the answer must be yes. Is this a good thing? To any objective observer, the answer must be no.
Research has indicated that lesbians suffer from increased levels of depression, suicidal ideation, substance abuse, breast cancer and vaginal diseases compared to heterosexual women.
Thus what JCPenney has done, by increasing, even if ever so slightly, the chances that young women will experiment with this behavior will turn out to be a tragic thing for some. JCPenney will have to share some culpability for that.
What Fischer actually should be saying because it would be much closer to the truth is that less women will suffer from depression, suicidal ideation, substance abuse, breast cancer and vaginal diseases, because Ellen DeGeres has been hired by JC Penney.
You see, Bryan, Ellen has done an amazing job of getting people otherwise unfamiliar with homosexuals to become familiar with homosexuals. And what scares the hell out of you, Bryan, is that, when people meet and get to know us, they generally realize that we’re really no different from themselves.
That’s what keeps Bryan Fischer up at night.
Truth of the matter and research that Fischer so ignorantly points to is not that “lesbians suffer from increased levels of depression, suicidal ideation, substance abuse, breast cancer and vaginal diseases compared to heterosexual women,” because they are lesbians, but research shows that whatever increased suffering from those illnesses and diseases is directly related to their fear or uncomfortableness with seeking medical help early enough, because they are concerned about sharing their sexual orientation with medical professionals.
As health writer Amanda Chin explains about the research, “lesbian and bisexual women are more than twice as likely as heterosexual women to report fair or poor health after having cancer.”
However, the findings do not necessarily mean that being gay, lesbian or bisexual increases risk of cancer, said study researcher Ulrike Boehmer, of the Boston University School of Public Health.
Rather, access to care, support from others, other diseases and lifestyle are likely factors that could explain the findings, Boehmer said.
And one of the reasons they are uncomfortable with that situation is because of people like Bryan Fischer, who make sure that there is a segment of the population which demonizes homosexuals and ensures that our very core relationships, like family and marriage, are made impossible, which is what Fischer does for a living.
Now who’s sick, Bryan?