In 1980, Paul Cameron left his role as lecturer at the University of Nebraska to take up private practice as a psychologist. He became increasingly obsessed with homosexuality and, by 1982, was chair of the Committee to Oppose Special Rights for Homosexuals. This body had been created to oppose a proposed gay rights ordinance in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Cameron portrays himself as an expert in psychology and research and uses this to justify his homophobic views. But when the rigours of research get a bit too inconvenient, he opts for rumour and innunendo instead – and doesn’t bother telling people which is which.

So, at a public meeting to discuss the Lincoln proposal, Cameron advised the audience that a four-year old boy had been brutally raped by a homosexual in a local shopping mall. Unsurprisingly, there was no evidence to support this claim; a police investigation came up with nothing and Cameron later admitted that he had actually only heard the story as a rumour.

But his original declaration had the desired effect: people were outraged and the Lincoln proposal was defeated by a margin of 4 – 1.

Buoyed by his success, Cameron founded the Institute for the Scientific Investigation of Sexuality (now the Family Research Institute) that same year. His ‘research’, of course, was nothing like scientific: he was expelled from the American Psychological Association and the American Sociological Association, Canadian Psychological Association and the Nebraska Psychological Association and a number of individual researchers have all issued statements accusing him of misrepresenting research.

But why let the facts get in the way of a good argument: he has become the darling of the New Right, who are more than happy to use his ‘findings’ to back up their homophobia.

His ‘study’ Murder, Violence and Homosexuality, for example,  includes the bizarre claim that, “…there appears to be a connection between homosexuality and murder.” Even more bizarre is the cover image – a little girl cowering beneath an arm wielding an axe! *

Paul Cameron is a quintessential example of an individual who’s own hang-ups about sex has led them to distort reality in order to justify their own bigotry. He has, apparently, claimed that he started feeling sexual attraction to men at the age of three, was molested by a man at the age of four, was molested by a woman at the age of five (“I thought it was a much more pleasant experience”!?)* and ‘became heterosexual at the age of eight or nine’.

• There is more about Paul Cameron and other members of America’s ‘New Right’ in my book Gay in the 80s. Further information is available here.