Talk:David Benkof

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Devout Jew[edit]

Is this relevant to the article in the lead? If you are going to add this material, it should be done in a way that explains its relevance. Per wp:mosbio, only nationality should be mentioned in the lead sentence. Anyways, --Tom 20:30, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't have to be in the lead sentence, but it should be before it talks about him being the international president of United Synagogue Youth, before writing Modern Jewish history for everyone and definitely before he announces that he is going to stop having sex with men because he is Jewish. This isn't about ethnicity, but religious affiliation. I will do some more research on wp:mosbio and figure out the appropriate way to introduce that.Joshuajohanson 20:42, 17 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Joshua, I would suggest you look at other bios that are well developed and well written. This bio is terrible as it stands and is a hodge podge of facts strung together in no thought out manner. Is this individual even notable per wp:bio? Anyways, thanks --Tom 13:45, 18 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this is a stub. I will work on cleaning it up later. He is notable because he went from being a gay right activist to abandoning his gay label and fighting against gay marriages and adoptions, even though he wasn't Christian (most ex-gays are Christian). His story of changing sexual orientation is frequently cited by a variety of groups. Look him up in Google, (both under David Bianco and David Benkof), and you will see thousands of articles talking about him on gay websites, pro-family websites, Jewish websites as well as ex-gay and ex-ex-gay websites.Joshuajohanson 17:38, 18 May 2007 (UTC)[reply]

He doesn't oppose gay adoption; the referenced source doesn't even mention the word. He also doesn't call himself "a friend of the gay movement", so a quote from someone saying the opposite is irrelevant. And he doesn't live in Las Vegas. Zsero 04:42, 4 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, he does oppose gay adoption. Not across the board, like some do, but he is on the record as saying that gays should only be able to adopt children if heterosexual adoptive parents cannot be found. -LisaLiel (talk) 12:38, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's not opposing it; it's just a matter of which children he thinks they should adopt; There are plenty of children who will not find better options, and will benefit from even a less-than-completely-optimal adoption. If a child can have a conventional family with a parent of each sex, why deprive it of that chance? -- Zsero (talk) 13:48, 17 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Changing sexuality cat[edit]

User:Joshuajohanson added Category:Changing sexuality to this article. I disagree with this. Benkof doesn't appear to have changed his actual sexuality, just what he calls himself. He doesn't claim to be attracted to people to whom he wasn't before, or to have stopped being attracted to people to whom he was before. Is a change in the label one applies to oneself really enough to count as "changing sexuality"? It seems to me that that would make the category not very useful. -- Zsero (talk) 01:07, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sexuality has several meanings, including sexuality (orientation) and human sexuality, which seems to be more about behavior. He not only changed his sexual orientation, from gay to bisexual, but he also changed his sexual behavior. Same-sex attraction is only one small part of sexuality. Joshuajohanson (talk) 07:12, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, becoming chaste, even for a long time, is not a change in sexuality. Otherwise you'll have to include every previously married person who becomes a priest, monk or nun, or for that matter every person who conforms to conventional morality and becomes divorced or widowed. Or just anyone who's having a long dry spell. It's not as if Benkof has been having sex with women; he's just sworn off sex altogether. (And we have no idea how well this resolution has held, nor would I expect us ever to know, since it's nobody's business but his; all of us make resolutions and then occasionally slip from them.) If and when he actually marries a woman, perhaps we can regard that as a change in behaviour, but even then we'd have to include too many people who've done similar things. -- Zsero (talk) 14:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is the combination of that with his change in sexual orientation. He changed his sexual orientation from gay to bisexual. Even if his underlining attractions didn't change, sexual orientation "also refers to an individual’s sense of personal and social identity based on those attractions, behaviors expressing them, and membership in a community of others who share them." He changed his personal and social identity to become bisexual, whereas a married person who becomes a monk doesn't change to become bisexual. Joshuajohanson (talk) 16:57, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm copying this to Category talk:Changing sexuality; please continue the discussion there. -- Zsero (talk) 17:17, 25 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blog[edit]

User:Benjiboi recently restored a link to Timothy Kincaid's blog articles about David Benkof. I believe that this was without justification, per WP:EL#AVOID. It says that one should avoid, "Links to blogs and personal web pages, except those written by a recognized authority (this exception is meant to be very limited; as a minimum standard, recognized authorities always meet Wikipedia's notability criteria for biographies)." There is absolutely no indication that Timothy Kincaid is a "recognized expert" or that he is notable in WP terms. Devil Goddess (talk) 07:35, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Blogs get a bad rap on Wikipedia and rightly so in many cases. However there are many blogs that are informative, factual and helpful to our readers and I think this one is in that category. Box Turtle News goes above and beyond to present quotes, names, dates, places and sources. This criticism along the lines of investigative journalism is likely beyond the scope of what Wikipedia would include on a WP:BLP at a featured article level which is also a standard for our external links. I normally cringe at blogs at first blush myself but we need to be open that many media outlets and experts in their field also have blogs. Box Turtle News seems to uniquely covering LGBT subjects and doing so rather well. -- Banjeboi 21:57, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Your response is irrelevant and does not address my concerns. WP:EL#AVOID is clear and emphatic: you can't include links to blogs except those written by recognized authorities. As you make no attempt to argue that Timothy Kincaid is a recognized authority (there is no way he can be, not having published work in reliable sources), I am going to remove the link. Devil Goddess (talk) 22:06, 20 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It must also be noted that WP:EL#AVOID states, "In biographies of living people, material available solely in questionable sources or sources of dubious value should be handled with caution, and, if derogatory, should not be used at all, either as sources or via external links. External links in biographies of living persons must be of high quality and are judged by a higher standard than for other articles. Do not link to websites that contradict the spirit of WP:BLP or that are not fully compliant with this guideline." WP:BLP likewise states that, "External links in biographies of living persons must be of high quality and are judged by a stricter standard than for other articles. Do not link to websites that contradict the spirit of this policy or that are not fully compliant with our guideline on external links." Devil Goddess (talk) 02:19, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is my first post at wikipedia, so I apologize for the formatting issues … it's also why I didn't edit the article itself — but Mr Benkof did not, as the article states, permanently suspend his blog in July of 2008. Rather, he suspended it (see his post of 13 July 2008: David Benkof's Last Post) and then resumed his posting in December of that same year (see We're Back!), and continues to post regularly to this day. The entire paragraph would need to be rewritten to be correct and relevant — but I don't have the chops to do it. --Silus Grok (talk) 21:31, 26 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]