Anti-LGBT Politicians? The Power of Christ Compels You!

One of the best known, most often repeated, and frequently lampooned lines in all of cinematic history is from The Exorcist.  I bet you already know it just by the title. 

“The power of Christ compels you.”

It’s the line in the film that the priest uses to exorcise the demon out of head-spinning-pea-soup-spitting Linda Blair.  The idea, of course, being that by invoking the power of Jesus Christ the priests will be able to cast out demons.  They’re modeling behavior the writers of the biblical gospels record of Jesus exorcising demons out of what the Bible calls “people tormented by spirits/demons.” 

Hold onto that thought for a while.

In recent weeks we’ve seen a lot of anti-LGBT legislation being pushed by politically conservative politicians in a variety of states.  As I’ve written before, this has absolutely nothing to do with legitimate issues and everything to do with election year politics.  Because of the supreme court ruling on marriage equality Republican politicians have tried to come up with a new way to demonize LGBT people and dehumanize them for their political ends.  Zeroing in on transgender people, states like Mississippi and North Carolina have passed legislation requiring transgender people to use the public restroom that matches their birth gender.  The idea of course is that those “sick, perverted crossdressers” want to get into the women’s bathroom and ogle your daughter while she uses the facilities.  As I wrote last week, though, there is no evidence of such a thing happening and, in fact, there is a considerable history of Republican politicians behaving in a lewd and perverted manner in public restrooms.

Tennessee is poised to enact a law which allows counselors and therapists the right to openly discriminate against LGBT people on religious grounds.  The problem is, of course, that this is completely unethical.  It is a violation of the American Counseling Association’s Code of Ethics which professionals are obliged to abide by.  But, as I said, Republicans like to make something out of nothing for their political ends. 

All of these bills are cleverly couched in religious language.  It’s what Republicans do to get people to vote for their stuff.  Remember “The Patriot Act?”  Or “Defense of Marriage Act?”  The rhetoric that surrounds these bills becomes quite incendiary.  “Can you believe Senator So-and-So doesn’t support the Patriot Act?  What kind of American is she?”  Or “Can you believe that Representative So-and-So is anti-marriage?  He can’t even put his name to a bill to defend the institution of marriage.  Makes you wonder if he has a mistress on the side or something.”

The worst is when politicians play the God card, trying to convince people that they are actually supporting this law because of their fear the Christianity and Christian principles are under attack.  These are the same people that celebrate the annual “war on Christmas” and bemoan the fact that teachers are no longer allowed to lead prayer time during class time.

Here’s what I know.

About two thousand years ago a guy by the name of Jesus of Nazareth spent about three years confronting the “Republicans” of his day.  These religious leaders were doing what they thought was right based on their understanding of the religious traditions.  They weren’t the bad guys.  (You can read more about them here.)  They truly believed they were being faithful people, abiding by their holy heritage and protecting the people entrusted in their care.  The problem?  They were so focused on enforcing “the Law” that they forgot all about seeing the person at the end of the Law.

In Hebrew, our English word “justice” means more than “punishment.”  In fact, our English word “punishment” comes from a Greek word which means “revenge.”  In Hebrew, in the language of the Old Testament, “justice” was more about ensuring people received what they needed rather than punishing them for suffering through the absence of a needed thing.  For example, justice to the ancient Hebrew people, as explained in the Old Testament, would be to make certain people had food.  If people don’t have food, they would steal food.  In our modern system of justice, the State enters in at the point of theft to punish the victims of society’s failure to provide.  Do you see the difference?  The Hebrew word “justice” is more about giving what is needed than dishing out arbitrary consequences to wrong doers. 

Even 2000 years ago the Jewish people had lost track of this fact.

And so we read about this Jesus guy confronting the leaders, feeding hungry people, healing sick people, hanging out with sinners, and so on.  Why does he do this?  Apart from the physical restoration Jesus offered through his “healing miracles,” Jesus offered a restoration to community.  Each time he reached out to an “outsider” whether they be ill, a non-Jew, a woman—Jesus’ actions were a profound statement against the prevailing mentality of his time.  “No matter what these leaders say the law says or how they weigh you down with their legal interpretations and enforcements, know that God loves you and considers you apart of God’s community.” 

That is the message of Jesus Christ. 

That is precisely what modern Republican politicians ignore.

And it’s not that they ignore this truth because they’re evil people.  They’re trying to be faithful to their religious understanding.  The problem is that when they cite biblical passages from Leviticus or Romans to condemn LGBT people, they do so ignoring the fact that it’s precisely these very same laws Jesus spoke against as he tried to erase manmade boundaries in bringing the kingdom of God into the here and now. 

Galatians 3.28:  “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”  That is to say:  If you are a Christian, a legitimate follower of Jesus, then these distinctions of who’s in and who’s out, who’s worthier than others, etc.—all of these distinctions are meaningless.  This passage can easily be modernized and contemporized by inserting “There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, nor gay or straight, for you are all one in Christ.”

Interpreting the Bible, if you are a Christian, begins and ends with Jesus.  If you’re ignoring the message of Christ in favor of the law of Leviticus or the opinions of the author of Romans, then you’re not being true to your calling as a Christian.  You’re a Biblicist.  Christ frees people.  The Gospel frees people from laws that strip people of their humanity and their dignity.  It allows people to be seen and drawn back into community where they belong. 

There’s nothing more dehumanizing than stripping a person of their equal standing in a community because they fail to meet arbitrary or impossible criteria. 

This is where these religious lawmakers in Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kansas, and so on miss the mark every time.  The point of the law shouldn’t be to dehumanize people—especially if you’re going to invoke your Judeo-Christian heritage.  The point of the law should be to improve people’s conditions and thereby improve the state of the community.  There’s that old saying “To save a life is to save the world.”  I think a Christian analogy to this saying would be “To recognize a life—to actually see a person and hear their story—is to save the world.”

But of course to do that, to see people and understand people, you would have to acknowledge that they are people.  Politically conservative politicians aren’t good at this.  After all, “Why waste your time with those people?  They’re ne’er-do-wells living off the system, threatening our way of life.  You just need to look at them to know all about them.”

Today I was listening to This American Life.  It was a podcast of last weekend’s episode.  The first act dealt with a study in which researchers discovered what many of already knew:  To change people’s minds (about marriage equality, LGBT rights, etc.), it takes individuals reaching out and sharing their stories.  In a noncombative, nonconfrontational way, it takes people engaging with others to share how prejudice and intolerance affects them.  It’s empathy that makes the difference. 

There are too many people in our culture, most of whom unfortunately claim that moniker “Christian,” who refuse to listen to others’ stories.  Which is ironic because of how often Jesus listened to people’s stories in the Bible.

This brings us back to The Exorcist. 

The best way to understand the exorcisms we read about in the Bible is not to take them literally.  This was a superstitious, unsophisticated culture in which the presence of demons and the eventually casting out of demons was highly symbolic.  It’s best to think of an exorcism as a metaphysical healing with the goal of allowing the individual to rejoin the community.  Sick people, devil possessed people, blind people, etc.—these people were all seen as sinful and made to live outside of the community—literally outside of town, often in graveyards.  Once healed, they would be allowed to come back into community, to have the support of the community, to be recognized as one of and one with the community.

That is what the power of Christ compels the Christian faithful to do.  It has nothing to do with “religious protection laws” so transgendered people can’t use the bathroom of their actual gender or so therapists who think LGBT people are damned by God don’t have to provide services to LGBT people.  That’s not Christian.  Not in the least.

So, self-professing Christian politicians who are voting for these hate bills and laws of ignorance and intolerance, my advice to you?  Take a long look at the gospels.  I guarantee you’ll see a striking difference between Jesus’ actions and yours. 

No Counseling for You!

I’ve written quite a bit about Minnesota nutcase and member of the State House of Representatives Glenn Gruenhagen.  Mr. Gruenhagen, who has opposed LGBT rights and equality since being elected in 2010, has recently introduced a bill which misuses and misinterprets the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA’s) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-V) to draft a law referring to LGBT people as “mentally ill” and “in need of treatment.”

Today I read an article originally run in the Associated Press and picked up by LGBTQNation about a Tennessee bill giving counselors and therapeutic care givers the right to refuse service to LGBT individuals based on the provider’s religious beliefs.  The bill is on its way to the governor’s desk as we speak. 

You would think that the Republicans could be on the same page with their regressive tactics.  Are LGBT people “sick” and in need of “healing?”  Or should we just deny their humanity and hope they all succumb to depression and anxiety by refusing them treatment?

But, then again, logic isn’t really a character trait most people associate with fear mongering and Republican political tactics.

This is what I can tell you about this Tennessee bill that should encourage you.

First off, if you are a licensed professional counselor in the United States, you must abide by the American Counseling Association’s  (ACA’s) Code of Ethics.  This ethical code adopts that old medical mantra to do no harm.  This paper from 2012 summarizes this ethical mandate:

The ACA Code of Ethics clearly states that counselors encourage client growth and development in ways that foster the interest and welfare of clients, and that the primary responsibility of counselors is to respect the dignity and to promote the welfare of clients (ACA, 2005, p. 4). In fact, it is a fundamental assumption of the ACA Code of

Ethics, as well as other ethical codes within the mental health profession, to “avoid harm to clients . . .and to minimize or to remedy unavoidable or unanticipated harm” (p. 4). In other words, the needs of clients, not counselors, are the priority. Ethical codes and practice regulations exist to assure the welfare of clients, not accommodate the personal beliefs of providers. “Convictions of conscience” clauses imply that self-interest rather than devotion to client welfare can be the counselor’s priority.

The idea behind this, of course, is that simply refusing a client or patient based on an “ookiness” factor (the client is gay, the client is homeless and smells, the client drools when he talks, etc.) completely undermines the client’s dignity and more often than not compounds the very reason the client is seeking therapeutic services (addressing anxiety, identity, self-worth and self-concept, etc.). 

That being said, in order to appropriately treat a client or patient while understanding that a single individual cannot be all things to all people, the ACA Code of Ethics does provide a way out for providers who aren’t comfortable treating a client or patient for whatever reason.  Usually it’s invoked when the provider understands that the client’s needs lie outside of the provider’s capabilities.  In the scope of the current conversation it would amount to the provider doing the referral not because they find the LGBT client morally or religiously repugnant but rather because the provider does not feel competent to provide treatment.  The referral is always done respectfully, pointing to the fact that the current provider is not equipped to meet the client’s needs.  The responsibility, though, is for the current provider to facilitate the connection to the next, more qualified provider, so that the client is not left without care.

Leaving a client or patient without care, whether it’s a medical issue or a psychological issue, is not ethical no matter what your governing body is or what your professional organization’s code of ethics are.  “Do no harm” undergirds nearly all care giving vocations.

And, really, if you were an LGBT person, wouldn’t you want to be referred on to someone who’s more equipped to help you than to sit in an office with a closet homophobe who sees you as condemned because their interpretation of religious text declares you as “abomination?”  The point I’m driving at, however, is that the care provider has a professional responsibility to refer a client without any form of evaluative judgment on the client’s needs or condition that might affect the client’s well-being.

This Tennessee law defies this professional responsibility and gives homophobic individuals the power to do just that.  Imagine being the teenage child of a parent who has dragged you into counseling because you’re gay or lesbian.  You’ve (rightfully) dug in your heals and declared that this is who you are and there is no “cure” for it.  However your parent has brought you to the one therapist in town and, upon the initial consultation, the therapist pulls your parent into the room and says, “I can’t treat your child.  My religious convictions do not accept your child’s choice.” 

How many things can you count as wrong in that statement?  And yet you know it will happen because it does happen and has probably happened to you. 

We need to do better.

But here’s the thing.

For a party of “smaller government,” the Republicans have a habit of shoving their noses in where they don’t belong and then creating a bureaucracy to enforce their opinions.  As I’ve reminded you for the past few weeks it’s common for the Republicans to do this in an election year, to make something out of nothing in order to motivate their base.  There is no actual need for a law like this but what it does is gives the Republicans a talking point that can easily sidestep reason and abandon logic.  And, remember, this isn’t about the truth.  This is about creating truth by repeating a story often enough that people believe it’s truth. 

Though there isn’t an actual need for a law like this we can clearly see why the Republicans would endorse a law like this.  Or a law like the heinous bathroom laws.  Or any law that legalizes discrimination.  Such laws dehumanize people and, when it comes down to it, the Republicans work best when they have a group of people whose rights have been denied but continue to struggle for equality.  The Republicans have always and will always point to that struggle for equality and play on people’s fears with it.

The ACA’s Code of Ethics underscores the dignity and welfare of the individual.  This law and others like it, like one passed in Mississippi not too long ago, completely ignores and even reverses what years of professional research and observation have accomplished.  It’s another case of law makers, who don’t have a clue about what it is they’re actually talking about, pretending that they are doctors or teachers or scientists and know more than the entire profession they are trying to micromanage through the implementation of laws.  Laws, by the way, that are underwritten by special interest groups and financed by lobbyists.  It would be interesting to see what groups are backing this Tennessee law because, I guarantee, it’s not the ACA or any other credible professional organization. 

One last thing.  If you’re an LGBT teen in Tennessee or Mississippi or any of these other states in which politicians are literally playing games with people’s lives, including yours, and you’re not getting the help you need, please talk to someone safe.  I’ll leave contact info for The Trevor Project below.  I worry about all LGBT people facing such hateful resistance to common sense and decency, but I think LGBT teens are at a much higher risk and the world needs you.  Without you, how are we going to change the world?

www.thetrevorproject.org

866-488-7386

TrevorText -  Available on Thursdays and Fridays (4:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. ET / 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. PT). Text the word “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200. Standard text messaging rates apply.

TrevorChat—Here is a link to chat online with someone from The Trevor Project:  

The North Carolina Temper Tantrum

I’ve somewhat reached a turning point in my opinion about North Carolina’s trans-panic induced hate bill. 

No, I’m by no means coming out in support of such ignorant and juvenile political tactics.  I’m certainly not swayed by any pseudo-religious arguments about “men dressing as women being an abomination” or any fake science put forward by people like Glenn Gruenhagen   I still solidly believe this hate bill, like the ones passed in Mississippi and Tennessee and like the ones being proposed in other states for election year publicity, are significant attacks on the progress we’ve made as a civilized people in the recognition of the humanity of a minority of our population. 

Where I think I’ve turned a corner is in the understanding how the ripple effect of these hate bills is going to play out. 

If you’ve ever watched a child, you’ll understand this analogy.  Suppose the child you’re supervising insists on going into a room you have declared as off limits.  The child totally understands that they do not belong in that room.  BUT…if you watch the child they are going to do everything sneaky to test that boundary.  It might start as a toe casually crossing the threshold or maybe a hand stuck in the room to make sure laser beams won’t slice the child’s body to bits.  The child will push back against the adults’ decision that the space in question is a space not to be disrupted by childish play.

This is exactly what’s going on with these hate bills.  The majority has spoken.  The US Supreme Court has ruled.  Marriage equality is the law of the land.  But as I’ve written before, Republican lawmakers always need to make something out of nothing in order to rally their base during an election year.  They can’t rail against “gay marriage” anymore.  The “repeal Obamacare” mantra has lost its punch.  Heck, even abortion rights seem to have fizzled among the voting public.  But “perverts wanting to use the women’s room so they can rape your daughter” sounds like a solid fantastical claim to get people interested in what you have to say.  And, again like I’ve written, facts no longer mean anything in situations like this.  It’s all about controlling the story. 

It’s children testing a boundary, trying to get into that space that the adults have declared a zone free of childish play. 

But here’s what I see happening. 

·        Paypal has pulled out of a plan to construct a “$20 million research and manufacturing plant in the state, which would include 50 new positions paying an average $76,000 annual salary.”

·        Braeburn Pharmaceuticals has canceled plans to build a research facility in the state.

·        Lionsgate Films and A&E network will no longer be filming in the state until the hate bill is repealed.

·        The NBA is looking at moving the NBA All-Star Game in 2017 to Atlanta, costing the state an estimated $100 million in revenue.

·        20^th Century Fox is not planning to do anymore filming in North Carolina.

·        State Governors are banning state employees from traveling to North Carolina for any reason.  My homestate governor, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, issued his orders affected Metro Transit employees from attending a conference coming up in North Carolina.  Dayton isn’t alone.  New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin and Washington, D.C. mayor Muriel Bowser have also issued bans on non-essential employee travel to North Carolina.

·        Bruce Springstein canceled his Friday concert in opposition to the hate bill. 

Those are just the notables and just in North Carolina.  Mississippi and Tennessee are facing the same kind of boycotting.  For example, today Bryan Adams canceled his concert in Mississippi because of their discriminatory law.

Of course, Pat McCrory, the governor of North Carolina, has called this a media smear campaign and referred to “The Boss” as a bully.  Like a child not able to take responsibility for his actions, McCrory is lashing out at others who are calling him out on his behavior.

But, see, this is what I find so encouraging about this horrible situation.  Everyone knows what the Republican party has become.  We all knew that sooner or later someone would try something to target the LGBT community again and attempt to force everyone to conform to extreme Republican political understanding of religious views.  They’ve shown us who they are for decades and everyone understood it wasn’t a matter of if but a matter of when.

But the adults in the room aren’t having it.  And like a tantrum-throwing child demanding everything be done their way, North Carolina politicians are getting put in the biggest time out imaginable.  Plans to hang out with the cool kids like Paypal and Braeburn and Lionsgate—all canceled.  Allowance—revoked to the tune of millions of dollars.  Even going out to a concert is out of the question until these people—these children—improve their behavior and fix what they broke.

And this is what has me so relieved and so excited!  The adults in the room are putting their feet down and declaring, “This behavior is not acceptable.”

We knew they would pull something, try to undo all the progress hard won.  In the back of my mind I always stressed about what the response would be.  Is it going to be another protracted battle?  Are people even going to notice or care?  Are people experiencing “compassion fatigue” when it comes to the saga of LGBT rights?  But what I’m seeing is quite the opposite—people do care and they aren’t going to put up with it.  In fact, the NAACP announced two days ago its plans to orchestrate a massive sit in at the North Carolina legislature if the hate bill isn’t repealed. 

This encourages me on so many levels but fundamentally it encourages me because it validates my belief that people are, when it gets down to it, fundamentally good.  When we have the likes of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham saying all this hateful nonsense it’s a relief to see reasonable reactions to capricious activities.  I mean, in an election year in which we seem to be experiencing the death of common sense, it’s good to know not everyone has abandoned morality and good judgement. 

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A Legitimate Bathroom Concern

I love doing research.  Knowledge is my drug of choice and I just can’t get enough of it.  So when I see something on social media or catch something in the news, odds are I’m going to be hitting the internet or pulling out one of the many textbooks or resource books I have lining the walls of my office. 

So when all of these so called “bathroom laws” starting popping up and I became more and more aware of Republican lawmakers trying to take advantage of people’s fear and ignorance to create the latest crisis-for-votes, I began pulling together facts.

Now that marriage equality is the law of the land, Republican law makers have been looking for the next non-issue to make huge to draw out their base.  This is what they’ve always done.  Every election year we are overwhelmed by abortion talk, gay talk, gun talk, and God talk.  “Liberals want to kill your unborn babies!”  “Gay marriage is going to undue civilization as we know it!”  “Obama’s coming for your guns!”  “We have to get back to biblical principles and be one nation under God again!”

This year, because of the Supreme Court’s ruling, one of their hot button issues has been taken away from them.  Apparently, in place of their opposition to marriage equality, Republican politicians are using the lives of transgender people as their cannon fodder. 

By now you’ll have heard about North Carolina, Mississippi, and Tennessee.  Other states are trying to do the same including Kansas where…

… transgender students are apparently such a threat to their peers that these lawmakers believe anyone who has to be in a restroom for them should have grounds for a suit. If a student encounters someone “of the opposite sex,” they have a private cause of action against the school. The aggrieved student is entitled to $2,500 for every time they saw someone transgender in the restroom, plus “monetary damages for all psychological, emotional and physical harm suffered as a result of a violation of this section.”

So being the responsible and intelligent person I am, I began looking into this.  I mean, after all, if there’s a real issue, a real concern here, I want to make sure I’m supporting the right side.  It’s too easy to let things like institutionalized superstition and emotional religiosity get in the way of facts and, thus, doing the right thing.

Do you know what I found?  There have been absolutely zero incidents of transgender people assaulting non-transgender people in public bathrooms.  In fact, lawmakers sponsoring these bills have been asked repeatedly by journalists, including Mic, for statistics to support their case against bathroom accommodations for transgender people but can’t seem to provide any.

On the other side of the issue there are states that have passed laws providing suitable accommodations to transgender individuals.  Do you know what they report?  Absolutely no problems.  Across the board.  No assaults.  No rapes.  No questionable activity

Zero incidents of transgender people preying on children.  No incidents of “cross dressing men” raping women in the ladies’ restroom.  No accumulation of data to support these legislative movements apart from the lawmakers’ personal conviction that transgender people are “confused” and “are intent on confusing the rest of society.” 

But, as I said, I like facts.  I like numbers.  And there were some facts and numbers rolling around in my head.  So…I did some more research and discovered:

Zero incidents of trans people assaulting restroom patrons.

Three incidents of Republican lawmakers being arrested for attempting to assault restroom patrons.

Jon Hinson:  In 1981, this Mississippi congressman was arrested for engaging in oral sex in the House of Representatives bathroom with a Library of Congress clerk.

Larry Craig:  The Idaho Republican was famously arrested in 2007 for lewd conduct in a men’s room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Bob Allen:  That same year, Florida state Representative Bob Allen was arrested after allegedly agreeing to pay $20 to perform oral sex on an undercover police officer in the men’s room of a public park.

You can read more here.

So the score, again, is:

            Questionable Conduct by Transgender People in Public Bathrooms:  ZERO

            Questionable Conduct by Republican Politicians in Public Bathrooms:  THREE

I don’t know about you, but I’m a little creeped out by this.  I think some sensible legislator who has the best interest of the public in mind needs to introduce legislation to ban Republicans from public restrooms.  I just don’t think it’s safe for our children to be subjected to these sex crazed fiends intent on victimizing innocent people while they’re trying to pee.  The numbers are there to support the action.  This isn’t anecdotal evidence shared at the corner bar but hardcore, empirical evidence. 

I think we would all be able to pee a little safer if something could be done about Republican lawmakers being able to use public restrooms.  

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Anti-LGBT Rhetoric in Politics

Repeat after me:  Correlation is not causation. 

This is a fact the people who do not understand how to interpret research and statistics often ignore as they attempt to legitimize their bigotry, prejudice, and hate by citing intelligent sounding and reasonably conducted research.

And I’m tired of it.

Here’s the classic example in the LGBT community.  I’ve talked about this before.  It’s no secret that the prevalence of depression and rates of suicide and suicidal ideation is higher in the LGBT community than the non-LGBT community.  Law makers and religious leaders are quick to draw attention to this.  They capitalize on this correlation (relationship or connection between two or more things) and make the heinously inaccurate statement that this means that depression and suicide are caused by an LGBT identity.  Legitimate research (that is, research that does not enter into a study with a preconceived notion of what the outcome will be based on things like religious convictions) has found that the majority of incidents of depression/suicide within the LGBT community are not due to the LGBT identity.  These feelings and tragedies are environmentally based due to fear of rejection or reprisal by people in the environment as well as fear of judgment by divine forces and family members.  What this legitimate research tells us is that, upon coming out (or transitioning in the case of trans individuals), and the establishment of a solid support system based on authentic ownership of the individual’s identity, suicide and depression rate plummet dramatically.

But, of course, politicians and religious leaders don’t go into all of that.  They simply pull out numbers from studies and run with them in order to frighten people or to appear educated.  I mean, look at what’s going on in North Carolina, Mississippi, and Tennessee.   Look at Minnesota’s Glenn Gruenhagen who continues to introduce hate-based legislation by pretending he’s actually informed and compassionate. 

And it’s not just in the United States.  Conservatives the world over play this game—a game in which they win political standing and the truth loses relevance. 

Today I learned of a German politician by the name of Katrin Ebner-Steiner who is a member of one of Germany’s conservative political parties.  Ms Ebner-Steiner believes that children with same-sex parents are more likely to be criminals and that teaching children about LGBT rights will set Germany back 60 years.  She states:

“The traditional family image offers children the most protection against ideological confusion, against drugs and criminality,…Only the traditional family image guarantees healthy interpersonal bonds, is meaningful and encourages entrenchment with the home land….Only the traditional family image can reunite our partially splintered society.”

Despite the fact that this is a German politician promoting her vision of German politics, the announcement of her beliefs made me very angry.  This article may be about Germany but politicians in the United States do the exact same thing every day. 

Would you like to know the truth behind the statistics?  They are troubling.  The problem is that because marriage equality is a new thing and same-sex couples with children tended to cover their relationship in fear of potential consequences, particularly in more conservative regions of the country, a lot of data are not available on the subject.  Heck, it wasn’t until this past month that same-sex couples were finally able to adopt in all fifty states.

So, without significant research at hand, this is what I can share with you and then I will draw some pretty solid conclusions based on the data.

A 2010 study done at Queen Mary University in London, using data from Sweden, found that, in their data, there was no predictive relationship between the criminality of adoptive parents and adopted children.  The children of parents demonstrated a criminal tendency that could not be recognized or grounded in the adoptive family.  What this means is that the adoptive parents had no criminal records, were often middle to upper class professionals, and yet their adoptive children developed anti-social tendencies that led them to criminal activity.

What’s the alternative to same-sex parenting of adopted children?  The foster care system.  It’s not like non-LGBT couples are stepping up to take in these kids. 

This article from the online journal STIR draws attention to the following statistics:

·        200,000 children are currently in stranger (non-relative) foster homes

·        On average a foster child will spend 23 months in foster care.

·        During that 23 months, 20% of children will experience 10 or more placements, dramatically affecting their ability to attach to caregivers and trust adults.

·        In 2012, nearly 36,000 foster children had been waiting more than three years to return home or to be adopted, and 24,000 had been waiting more than five years.

·        Kids in foster care are 12% more likely to be prescribed psychotropic meds (This number surprises me and deserves further investigation at another time—it’s easier to medicate a child than help the child work through the trust and anger issues the system has produced in the child.)

·        Foster children experience PTSD at twice the rate as Iraq War Veterans.

·        As the children age out of foster care

o   Despite an increased need for health services, particularly mental health services, 33% of adults out of the foster system lacked insurance

o   By the age of 25, 81 percent of all male foster care alumni had been arrested once, and 35 percent had been incarcerated.

And from the same study, here’s some of the most shocking information.  Adults who had been in foster care as children suffered worse prognoses than their peers in almost all domains (foster care/general population):

·        PTSD: 25% / 4.5%

·        Depression: 24.3% / 10.6%

·        Anxiety: 43% / 5.1%

·        Addiction/alcoholism: 11.1% / 2.5%

·        Males convicted of a crime: 60% / 10%

·        Homeless for more than one day: 22% / 2%.

Every expert agrees that the foster care system in the United States is in crisis.  This recent study offered by the ACLU observes:

Right now there is a critical shortage of adoptive and foster parents in the United States. As a result, many children have no permanent homes, while others are forced to survive in an endless series of substandard foster homes. It is estimated that there are 500,000 children in foster care nationally, and 100,000 need to be adopted.  But last year there were qualified adoptive parents available for only 20,000 of these children. Many of these children have historically been viewed as "unadoptable" because they are not healthy white infants. Instead, they are often minority children and/or adolescents, many with significant health problems.

But here’s the thing.  Adoption doesn’t magically make these issues disappear.  Grief, anger, trauma, multiple placements, multiple schools, trust issues….all of these things combine in even the youngest of adoptive children and continue to build during certain periods of development, particularly the teenage years when identity is such a crucial area of exploration for children.  Common sense tells us that if you start with a shaky foundation, no matter what you build, it’s not going to be solid.   With late-placed adoptions, of which same-sex couple adoptions count as highest in available data, these early experiences, both in the birth home and in the system, continue to be worked out in the adoptive family.  The adoptive family mitigates some of the earlier damage but trauma doesn’t just go away with love and hugs.  It often takes a lifetime to recover. 

By the way, that ACLU study offers some very good facts about same-sex adoptive parents.

Doctor Benjamin Siegel, a school of pediatrics professor, co-authored a report in the American Academy of Pediatrics, in which he:

·        Argues convincingly against the notion that children/adoptive children of same-sex couples are disadvantaged

·        Cites a national longitudinal study of Lesbian led families (a longitudinal study being a study that is done over an extended period of time).  This study began in 1986.  When researches recently “checked in” with the families they found: 

their children indicated that they had high levels of social, school/academic, and total competence and fewer social problems, rule-breaking, and aggressive and externalizing behavior compared with their age-matched counterparts,…The self-reported quality of life of the adolescents in this sample was similar to that reported by a comparable sample of adolescents with heterosexual parents.

·        Soundly confronts the work of sociologist Mark Regnerus of the University of Texas, of whom I’ve previously written.  Dr. Siegel easily discredits Regnerus’ findings.  Regnerus is often cited as an authority by conservative activist groups like the Family Research Council, which is famously anti-LGBT.

So, here’s the bottomline.  We don’t have conclusive research.  If certain politicians and religious leaders would stop frightening the LGBT community with their attempts at legalizing discrimination and systematic oppression of LGBT people, perhaps we could engage in more detailed research without adding to the fear and anxiety of the same-sex couples we need to interview.  People aren’t going to volunteer for studies like this and be honest in their self-reporting if they’re constantly afraid of undue scrutiny and retribution. 

But what this data does tell us?  The system is failing.  So, politicians and religious leaders who want to take away a child’s opportunity to be loved in a stable environment?  If you really want to make a difference, do it before the child experiences trauma and disruption.  I’m talking about addressing things like poverty, health care, mental healthcare, and addiction before a child can be affected by these things and victimized by a system that claims it cares for their welfare but clearly didn’t care enough to give their hurting parents what they needed.  There is no scapegoating this out to the LGBT community, politicians.  This is on you.  If you weren’t so busy defunding programs and attacking the poor and the victimized, study after study (some of which I’ve cited here) tell us that children would never have to be taken from their homes in the first place.

The other thing we know?  The thing that anyone who has ever taken a class in psychology or sociology can tell  you?  There are far too many variables involved in these studies for anyone to ever make a statement about correlation and causation.  

Stop treating people like they’re too stupid to know what you’re doing with your numbers. 

Stop pretending we don’t know how you’re twisting (if not simply inventing) facts.

Are you listening Glenn Gruenhagen? 

How about you Governor McCrory?

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The Grandma Agneses of the World

WARNING: 

Today I’m writing about The Real O’Neals.  I know.  I can almost hear some cries of indignation over the sound of eyes rolling.  I know it seems like I’ve become your one stop shop for commentary about this ABC sitcom.  I wasn’t going to blog about it anymore (at least for a while) but then I watched last night’s episode and I just can’t get some thoughts out of my head.

So if you’re tired of me blogging about The Real O’Neals, now’s your chance to click out of my blog.  Come back tomorrow and I’ll have something else for you.

Back to our irregularly scheduled blog post.

I don’t know if you’ve ever participated in a live Twitter conversation during a TV show but it’s quite an experience.  When you tweet during The Real O’Neals you not only get to connect with other fans of the show but pretty much the entire cast is there, sitting on the virtual couch, with all of the fans.  They crack jokes with the fans.  They give behind the scenes commentary to the fans.  And, most importantly, they support the fans.  I don’t think there’s been a week that’s gone by that fans haven’t tweeted their gratitude to cast members for validating them or helping them come out.  It’s powerful stuff.

Last night was episode 107 entitled “The Real Grandma.”  In short, Eileen (the terrifying and judgmental, very religious mother, played by Martha Plimpton) is visited by her mother (an even more terrifying, judgmental, and religious mother) played by the incredibly talented Frances Conroy of American Horror Story fame.  Eileen, who has always struggled for her mother’s approval, hides the fact that she and her husband, Pat (Jay R. Ferguson), are divorcing and that Kenny (Noah Galvin) is gay.   This doesn’t go over well with Kenny who eventually defies his mother and comes out to his grandmother by presenting her with a rainbow cake.

Grandma Agnes doesn’t take the news very well and announces to the family that Kenny has ruined cake and rainbows for her forever.  She also declares her intention to stay until “she saves Kenny’s soul.”

Meanwhile Kenny is pressuring his mother to admit to her mother that she’s planning to divorce Pat.  So, in order for Eileen to come out to her mother about the divorce, she plans a good old fashioned corned beef and cabbage dinner.  During the course of the meal, Grandma Agnes says to Kenny, “I know you think I’m a silly old woman and you’ve been mocking me and my beliefs.  But even if you don’t care what I think, you should care about what God thinks….You don’t accept that God doesn’t accept you.  He thinks you’re broken and I do too.”

The screen is then filled with Kenny’s face and you can see the shock and the pain these words have caused.  We hear Kenny doing a voice over, saying “I didn’t think anything grandma said could upset me, but I was wrong.”

My initial reaction was, “Oh, I’ve got to blog this!  This is exactly why I wrote what I wrote yesterday about One Million Moms!”  But, like I said, the ol’ blog has been pretty The Real O’Neals heavy of late and I was reluctant to do it. 

I finished the episode.  It has a spectacular ending.  I won’t give the details beyond saying that Grandma Agnes tries to force the family to go to church that evening.  The family ends up going, without Grandma Agnes and at Kenny’s suggestion.  Hold that thought.

If you’ve read many of the posts on my blog you will have noticed by now a strong theme in what I’ve shared:  Religion, over the centuries, has done horrible things to good people simply because the devotees of the religion subscribe to a superstitious view of the world, are legalistic about thingstheir holy books say without even actually knowingwhat those books say, or simply can’t make room in their worldview for continuous revelation ( the fact that God is still speaking despite the silence of biblical authors, namely through the vehicle of science).  As a result, religion, specifically Christianity (of which I am a practitioner), has killed people, maimed people, caused untold psychological damage to people…all because of something zealous adherents couldn’t understand and innocents can’t change.

When Agnes spoke to Kenny at the dining room table and declared that God could not accept Kenny because he was gay, I could feel the silence in every room in which this show was being watched.  I felt winded.  It may have just been a talented actress delivering a line to an emotive actor on the screen, but it was like a punch to the gut.  Why?  Because I don’t think there’s an LGBT person alive who hasn’t had someone they love or someone who loved them speak to them like this.  At some point in every LGBT person’s life a well-meaning but woefully ignorant loved one expresses this same concern:  God does not love you because you are too broken.

Here’s a newsflash, Grandma Agneses of the world:  In our Christian faith, it is precisely for the broken that Jesus came (Mark 2.17).  And it wasn’t to judge them, but to love them and bring them back into community despite the judgments and preconceived ideas of the righteous, holier-than-thou members of the greater faith community.  In other words, Grandma Agneses, Jesus came to bring the Kennys of the world back into the fold despite your objections.

And this is what’s so incredibly sad about the Grandma Agneses of the world and the One Million Moms of the world and the Focuses on the Family of the world and all of the North Carolina, Mississippi, Tennessee politicians of the world who have absolutely no idea what their Christian faith is all about.  It breaks my heart to see what these people do to innocent people in the crosshairs of their judgment but it breaks my heart more to know how far from the center of the Christian faith these people are.

This is why I wrote what I wrote yesterday about the OneMillion Moms organization.  Anything that doesn’t fit into their narrow view of what is right, moral, and acceptable to God is an affront to God and by extension them.  The problem is that the theology of these groups is ill-formed at best, handed down and institutionalized for hundreds of years.  The world has obviously changed and our understanding of the human condition has developed.  They simply can’t deal with the reality of the world we live in.  It’s easier for them to kick and scream and flail against change in an effort to make the world to conform to their expectations.  And, of course, the world pushes back, saying, “No, it’s time for you to change your expectations of the world.”  And upon hearing that, these arch-conservative, para-religious activist groups cry out that they are being victims of religious oppression. 

Disagreement is not oppression.  If you want to see real religious oppression, real religious persecution, I suggest visiting extremist countries where people are actually killed for their beliefs.  My stomach turned a long time ago when I heard about a little boy, about ten years old, who was a Christian.  When his master found out, he was driven out into the desert, his feet nailed to a board, and he was left there to die.  That is what I remember when I hear the likes of Kim Davis, Mike Huckabee, One Million Moms, Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham, Ted Cruz and all the others whine about their sense of religious persecution because they can’t seem to bully people with fear of divine judgment anymore.

So you remember that thought I told you to hang onto?  When I said that the O’Neal family ended up going to church anyway even without Grandma Agnes and her pressure?  It was Kenny’s suggestion.  “I’d still like to go to church.” he says.  I think this is what ultimately tipped the balance and brought me to the computer to write this entry, dear reader.  You see, throughout this ordeal of coming out and despite Grandma Agnes’ declaration of God’s judgment, Kenny still feels that connection to his faith. 

Too many LGBT people have been driven away from their faith because of the Grandma Agneses of the world.  In their view it’s the LGBT people who have left the church, probably because “they just can’t endure the reminder of how broken they are.”  In reality, it’s the church that has left the LGBT people.  Even if I subscribed to the view that being gay was somehow sinful (which I don’t and I can explain why in another post if anyone wants to know—just ask), where did the authors of the four biblical Gospels always show Jesus?  Not in the fancy synagogues hanging with the Grandma Agneses of his time.  He was always with the people that the Grandma Agnes crowd deemed to sinful to hang around.  So, Christians, if you’re going to say you follow Christ (which you do when you claim the title), maybe you should spend time with the people you think are sinners and love them as Jesus did instead of sitting astride your high horse looking down on the broken you think God can’t accept.

When a woman suffers verbal and emotional abuse from her husband and leaves, most of us say, “We support you!  No one should have to endure that!”  When LGBT people suffer verbal and emotional abuse from the Church and leave, most people don’t make the connection.

We need to make that connection.  If not in a religious sense and context (because, again, I recognize the plurality of belief and no belief that exist in the world), then just in a decent human being sense and context. 

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Dress Codes, North Carolina, and Subjective Opinion

I’ve gone back and forth on whether I should tackle this topic.  The initial event took place in August 2015 and, though there is plenty that can and should be discussed with regard to what happened and the thinking around it, it’s a bit of “yesterday’s news.”  But then I realized that if Froma Harrop (@FromaHarrop) could pick up the topic roughly seven months after it happened I probably could, too.  After all, I’m just a pseudonymous blogger; she’s a nationally syndicated journalist.  Besides, like so many other things, the story I’m about to relate intersects so easily with other stories we need to talk about.

Here’s what happened.

On Monday, August 17, 2015, The New York Daily News ran a piece discussing the disciplinary action Woodford County High School in Versailles, KY, took when a student arrived on the second day of school wearing a shirt that exposed her collarbone.  The headline of the article read: “Kentucky high school students, parents fight strict dress code that requires girls to cover collarbone.”  The protest to the school’s dress code began where all protests begin these days:  On social media.  The Facebook following for the movement began identifying the policy as sexist.  Students from Woodford County High began speaking to the issue including Maggie Sunseri, who produced a documentary entitled Shame: A Documentary on School Dress Code and posted it on YouTube. 

I can’t speak to the sexist aspect of the enforcement of Woodford County High School’s dress code.  I did review the dress code, having found it online, and discovered that the same expectations are laid on male and female students alike.  I don’t doubt the feasibility that one gender is held to a higher standard than others; that seems to be the rule of thumb in our society.  Look at our presidential election.  Bernie Sanders and all the other “old boys” can go from event to event wearing the same suit and tie without comment.  If Hillary Clinton didn’t change outfits between events A and B, there would inevitably be commentary about her appearance.  I’m not saying that this is what happened in this case; I have no idea.  I’m simply saying that this is the prevailing attitude and approach in our society.  I can imagine that this is how things happened in Versailles, KY. 

And this is what bothered me about Froma Harrop’s column on the topic.  Where I feel hesitant to address the sexist approach taken by the school in response to the student’s adherence to the universal dress code identified in the Woodford County High School’s student handbook, Ms Harrop had no hesitation.  Ms Harrop announced that “dress codes are the opposite of sexist.”

Ms Harrop may have a point in certain circumstances.  Perhaps in schools and institutions where there is an actual uniform dress code (school uniforms, military uniforms, etc.) and both genders are expected to wear the exact same clothing.  However, dress codes have always been skewed toward sexism.  I remember a story my mother shared in which she had to kneel in high school to have the length of her skirt measured in order to determine whether or not she was abiding by the dress code.  Talk about demeaning.  What application of dress code enforcement sees boys having to assume such a degrading posture? 

“Yeah, but, Troy Comets,” I hear some of you saying.  “That was sixty years ago or so.” 

That’s true.  But in doing research for this post I discovered that this sort of thing still happens.  An Edmonson County High School student (again in Kentucky) was forced to kneel in front of the male principal and have her dress measured just this past January.  

Dress codes and the enforcement of dress codes are fraught with sexism.  The whole idea of a dress code is to establish morality and appropriateness in those the dress code is designed for.  The Woodford County High School Student Handbook makes this claim right off the bat when it says:  “All students are expected to adhere to common practices of modesty, cleanliness, and neatness, and to dress in such a manner as to contribute to the academic atmosphere.”  [Emphasis mine.] 

Who defines modesty?  I have yet to discover a definition of modesty and an application of modesty that isn’t subjective in nature.  What is modest for this age bracket in community A could be deemed risqué and immodest in Community B. 

To understand what Woodford High School may mean by using the word “modesty,” it’s helpful to consider the demographics of Woodford County, Kentucky.  This is what I discovered:

·        Politically, Woodford, KY, is solidly Republican in its leanings.  In the last presidential election, 60% of the population voted for Romey versus 40% voting for Obama.

·        Religiously, nearly 40% of the population is Evangelical Protestant (the largest religious subset in the county).  According to data from 2010 the Evangelical Protestant community grew by nearly three thousand people since the year 2000.  Mainline Protestantism dropped and the Roman Catholic community grew ever so slightly.  This data informs us that the majority of religious adherents in Woodford County (nearly 10,000 individuals in a community of 23,208 people are of a so-called conservative Christian variety. 

·        From the same census data we learn the racial makeup of the county was 92.08% White, 5.41% Black or African American, 0.13% Native American, 0.31% Asian, 0.01% Pacific Islander, 1.13% from other races, and 0.93% from two or more races. 2.99% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race.

What this helps me understand is that, at least on the surface, Woodford County High School’s dress code isn’t sexist.  It’s subjective, born out of a culture and community that is conservative politically and religiously.  Their definition of “modesty” is going to reflect these conservative values. 

And this is the problem.  This is precisely why we need movement on a larger scale to establish rules, guidelines, and most importantly protections from outdated and outmoded notions of modesty and propriety that are often times completely divorced from reality.  There are zero studies that support Woodford High School’s statement regarding their dress code that these “common practices of modesty, cleanliness, and neatness” or even “dressing in such a manner as to contribute to the academic atmosphere” exists.  There are no conclusive data on these claims. 

Do you know what verifiable data does indicate?  The Woodford County High School student body is 65% proficient in English (which is amazing considering the demographic makeup of the student body), 49% efficient in Algebra, and only 38% are considered college ready.  Either the school board is right in their assumption regarding dress code, in which case the school is barely hanging on with these percentages all thanks to “modesty, cleanliness, and neatness” or the school district as a whole needs to evaluate its priorities and focus less on female collar bones and more on teaching Math and English.

This is precisely what North Carolina has failed to do.  Imagine Woodford County, Kentucky, on a larger, statewide scale, in which a section of the population, with its strict adherence to conservative political, social and religious principles, are able to force its definition of morality onto the entire population.  Not only this, but this section of the population then determines how it will enforce these principles and who will receive protections from these principles.  Just like Woodford County High School’s dress code and dress codes everywhere, girls are going to be targeted and held to a different standard than boys.  In North Carolina, LGBTQ people are going to be targeted, held to a different standard than non-LGBTQ people, and there is going to be no protection from the consequences of the intolerance they will face. 

Again, I can hear some of you objecting, “Yeah, but, Troy Comets, shouldn’t the community be able to decide what is appropriate or not for their own community?  Shouldn’t they be able to apply their political and religious beliefs as they see fit?” 

Do you know who else makes this argument?  Extremist Muslims and the so-called Islamic State.  Guess where the population of Woodford County, Kentucky, comes down on Islam and the “war on terror.”  Here’s a hint:  Trump won the GOP caucus in Woodford County with Ted Cruz a very tight second.  The rhetoric of these two (“Ban all Muslims” and “Carpet bomb their families”) is all you need to know.

Here’s the deal, folks.  There is more to our judgments about modesty and appropriateness than just our declarations and determinations.  You can sit behind accolades and achievements and declare that the application of a dress code is the opposite of sexism.  You can use this event and events like this one to further the advocacy of your belief that dress codes preserve female dignity.  But don’t think for a moment that your position on the issue is born out of anything but your experiences, prejudices, and opinions.  

The Woodford County High School school board can cite whatever support it wants for its subjective view of modesty but in the end it’s just an opinion and in the end the application of that opinion is going to be biased and prejudicial. 

North Carolina politicians can attempt to justify its decision to legally exclude a segment of its population from rights and protections but in the end it’s their prejudiced opinion that brought this heinous law to fruition. 

Make your rules, set your guidelines, establish your boundaries—but don’t be surprised when someone comes around and calls you on your baseless opinion and presents verifiable facts that contradict your beliefs.  Try owning your opinion and acknowledging that your views on modesty, propriety, and decency are subjective and, at the end of the day, just your opinion.

And that, dear reader, is my opinion.

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