I never went to see Borat, because just about everybody I know told me that I would hate it.  Plus I hate to pay money to be aggravated when so much free annoyance is available.

And yet I got a funny little twitch at the corner of my mouth when I found out that Paul Cameron appears in Bruno. Who is Paul Cameron, you ask?  Why, he’s the chair of the Family Research Institute.  Its stated mission is to generate research on issues that threaten the traditional family.

As you might imagine, South Carolina governor Mark Sanford and Homosexuality are two of those issues.  (I’m sure they’re going to get around to Mark Sanford soon, since adultery is nearly as big of a threat to opposite marriage as homosexuality.) 

Cameron mostly is published in Psychological Reports, which is kind of the vanity press for journals.  He’s often cited by Defense of Decent Living and Traditional Family groups, despite his sometimes extremely weird views.  Cameron has pretty much been discredited by psychological organizations, and yet his “research” is widely used in anti-gay propaganda.  Mostly recently a press release cited Cameron’s “research” about why gays should not be allowed to adopt, citing the Frank Lombard case.

Anyway, although I don’t want to see the movie, I’d like to know what his advice is for people who want to go straight:

Scene: Bruno comes to him for advice on going straight.

“I did a German thing a year ago. Is that this? I wondered what had happened to that. I’m in this bloody film? Well, I’ll be jiggered. I guess you never can believe when people are in distress.

“I had to go to Kansas City. I was told that this chap was a homosexual in Germany, had a popular TV program in Germany, was perhaps suicidal and wanted to [become straight]. And I was supposed to see if I could help him in some way.

His producer was telling people what to do. He’d say, ‘Here’s the setting. This will be your office. He’ll come in, give him the kinds of advice that will be useful for him.’ It took about two and a half, three hours. To put it mildly, a few of his questions seemed strange. When he tried to sit by me and he wanted to give me a b – - w job, that kind of stuff pushed it.

“If it’s a gag, it was pretty well staged. I’ll be another laughing stock. Oh, well.”

Just in case, yanno.