Family Research Council Press Release (9/12/98)
http://www.frc.org/press/081298.html
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- To view homosexuality as immoral is "backward  thinking," according to President Clinton's spokesman, Mike McCurry.

Christianity Today News (9/8/98)
http://www2.christianity.net/ct/8TA/8TA19a.html
Janet Folger thought she had seen enough of what she describes as hostility and in-tolerance. The new national director of the Center for Reclaiming America, a ministry founded by D. James Kennedy, had witnessed the public ridicule of notable conservatives--such as Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and football star Reggie White--who dared to call homosexuality a sin. The final straw came when White House press secretary Mike McCurry derided those who called homosexuality sinful [as] "backward." 

"Whatever happened to religious freedom?"  I fumed to the Bridges-Across Policy List. 

I was immediately reminded that (as King put it) "One of the great needs of mankind is to be lifted above the morass of false propaganda."  I discovered that McCurry had said not said what he was accused of saying.

Someone posted a transcript of the press conference at which Mike McCurry used the "backward thinking" phrase.  Ahh! ..  It was Senator Lott's  pathologizing of homosexuality, his comparing homosexuality to kleptomania, alcoholism, and sexual addiction that was referred to as backward thinking, not his statement about sin.

"It is [a sin]....You should try to show them a way to deal with that problem, just  like alcohol...or sex addiction...or kleptomaniacs." - Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott, Associated Press, June 15, 1998. [ref: Wired Strategies]

June 16, 1998 
PRESS BRIEFING BY MIKE MCCURRY
THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary
http://www.bridges-across.org/ba/tidh/mccurry.htm

 [Q.]: What does President Clinton think when the Senate Majority Leader describes homosexuality the way he did in an interview yesterday?

 MR. MCCURRY: He thinks that the American people understand how difficult it is to get business done in Washington sometimes when you're dealing with people who are so backward in their thinking. For over 25 years, it's been quite clear that sexual orientation is not an affliction. It is not a disease. It isn't something that is part of defining one's sexuality. And the fact that the Majority Leader has such views, apparently, consistent with some who are fairly extreme in his party, is an indicator of how difficult it is to do rational work in Washington. 

Had they said those things, it would have been truthful. 

When Senator Lott  was asked if he believed that homosexuality is a sin, he didn't simply say yes.  He said it was an illness, comparing homosexuality to sexual addiction, kleptomania, and alcoholism. 

The political Religious Right is engaged in the repathologizing of homosexuality.  In 1973, the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association voted to delete homosexuality as a mental disorder from the seventh printing of the second edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-II. Twenty five years later, Senator Lott, said homosexuality is an illness, a view that McCurry called backward.

What more effective way to make conservative Christians feel that intolerance is directed toward them, rather than toward gays, than to propagate the untruth that, from the White House itself, it had been said that their position on sin and morality is "backward thinking." 

Unquestionably, there is fierce disagreement about the sin issue, but religious beliefs are constitutionally protected, and whatever his private opinion,  McCurry did not, in his public role as presidential spokesman, say that to view homosexuality as immoral was "backward thinking."

However, McCurry did say that that predjudice against gay and lesbian people is "quite out of date."

MR. MCCURRY: Yes, exactly. You can see -- why would they oppose someone who is otherwise well-qualified to be a U.S. ambassador other than the prejudice that exists in their minds against people who are gay and lesbian? And that's such a clear example of why. I mean, now you understand why. It's because they have views that are, to put it charitably, quite out of date.

Q Mike, you've been saying that when you refer to people who are so backward in their thinking, people who can't do rational work, and people who are prejudiced against the gay and lesbians, are you referring to Trent Lott? 

MR. MCCURRY: I'm referring to people who reflect that point of view. And if that is the way in which he defines his approach on these issues, I guess it does apply to him. But he should maybe clarify that and explain how his views on sexual orientation are consistent with what every expert in the field has to say.

I am disappointed that gay rights leaders didn't call Folger and FRC to task on the assertions that McCurry had called a religious belief "backward thinking.  We need to distinguish carefully between pathologizing  homosexuality and a religious belief that homosexual activity is sinful.

I am asking gay rights leaders for greater sophistication and clarity in specifying what there is to "agree to disagree" about (the religious convictions) and what amounts to slander (sweeping generalizations, dubious science, etc).  The  two are completely distinct from one another.

I am disappointed that Christianity Today and Janet Folger ignored email we sent. 

I am asking pRR conservatives for a greater sophistication and honesty in specifying what amounts to religious intolerance and what amounts to fair diversity in the pluralistic marketplace of ideas.  When conservatives  make a debatable scientific claim or harsh sociological generalization, they should not interpret dissension -- even calling their thinking "backwards" -- as religious intolerance. Those are not religious statements to begin with. .