Jeremy Durham and the Need to End GOP Hypocrisy

I blogged a couple of weeks ago about the real threat in public bathrooms actually being Republican lawmakers.  I cited a number of resources demonstrating claims that transgender individuals wanting the right to use the bathroom of their actual gender were no threat to the public.  Furthermore, states which have guaranteed this right to their transgender citizens have seen no incidents of public lewdness or assaults in restrooms by “perverts who just want to watch your daughters and wives pee.”  I also reported three verifiable cases in which Republican politicians were arrested for inappropriate behavior in public restrooms. 

Multiple news outlets including Gay Star News (@gaystarnews) and Gayetey (@gayeteyco) are reporting a new twist in the Tennessee Bathroom Bill drama.  And, once again, it’s not an LGBT individual behaving badly.

Tennessee State Representative Jeremy Durham has been exiled from the House by the state Speaker of the House, ordered to move his office out of the legislative headquarters, was ordered to turn over state owned electronics, and faces multiple investigations into incidents involving 34 different women including staffers, lobbyists, and fellow politicians.  House Speaker Beth Harwell has referred to Durham as a risk to women.

How does this connect with the hate bill industry plaguing these religiously obtuse states of late? 

Durham, who recently resigned as majority whip, was a key sponsor of Tennessee House Bill 2414 which would bar transgendered people from using the bathrooms of their gender.  Durham was a vocal proponent of the hate legislation, stating, that he believes the bill will protect females from unwanted sexual advances by men who dress up as women in order to gain access to women-only restrooms.

How’s that for irony?

But this is an ongoing theme with Republicans.  They create issues out of nothing, become vocal about it during election years, toe the party line whether they agree with the faux issue or not, and forget about the skeletons hanging in their own closets.  The holier, the more self-righteous, the more obstinate a politician becomes in these battles of “morality,” the more our corporate experience tells us that their own house, so to speak, is in a shambles.

Here are a few other examples of anti-LGBT politicians, claiming a moral and spiritual highroad in their politics, but trawling the gutter when the cameras were off and their families away.

Ed Schrock, two-term republican congressman, with a 92% approval rating from the Christian Coalition. Cosponsor of the Federal Marriage Amendment, consistently opposed gay rights. Married, with wife and kids. Withdrew his candidacy for a third term after tapes of him soliciting for gay sex were circulated.

Robert Bauman (R-MD) was campaigning for his fourth term as a Maryland Congressman in 1980.  A practicing Roman Catholic with a wife and child, he was one of the most vocal conservatives in a very conservative Congress.  He regularly rallied for old-fashioned values and attacked all supporters of abortion and homosexual rights.  His campaign looked rock-solid, before it changed overnight with a series of shocking revelations.  The public learned that Bauman had been charged with soliciting sex from a 16-year old boy he picked up at a gay bar, and that he had been the victim of an extortion scheme by a man who claimed to have had a sexual relationship with him.  This, combined with an alcohol problem (which did not seem to bother his fellow Congressmen before), doomed his political career.

In the Fall of 2009, yet another conservative Christian Republican fell from grace. Assemblymen Michael Duvall of Yorba Linda, CA. made the mistake of bragging before a "hot mike" to a fellow legislator, about his sexual conquests with female lobbyists, at "the head table" of a legislative hearing room, . This champion opponent of gay equality was a married man with two children who had earned a 100% rating for good Christian family values organizations. Now, he's joined the cavalcade of disgraced hypocritical Republican former politiicians.

(More information can be found here.)

Look, I get it.  People can be screwed up and screw up.  Horrible things happen.  I know these are exceptions and not the rule. 

I am also certainly not trying to draw a correlation between closeted LGBT people and poor choices like the ones listed here. 

What is at issue here is people grasping for power, achieving and sustaining that power deceitfully, and then using that power to hurt others—including future versions of themselves.  And I’m not just talking about LGBT equality and these ridiculous bathroom bills.  I’m also talking about access to mental healthcare because, when it comes down to it, these individuals as well as others I’ve mentioned before in my post about the legitimate bathroom concern—all of these individuals would have done well to have their mental health attended to especially if they’re assaulting women.  But I would wager two things:

1.     All of these individuals were marinated in a culture that not only was ignorant about LGBT people but ignorant about mental healthcare and therefore perpetuated myths and misunderstandings about depression and addiction.

2.     My guess is that each of these individuals (and others like them) spoke disparagingly of mental health care and worked to fetter access to it.  I wonder how many sponsors of the Tennessee Bill permitting professional counselors to violate the American Counseling Associations Code of Ethics by refusing to serve LGBT clients for religious reasons are closet cases themselves.  I’m certain Jeremy Durham’s name is on the “support” side of this dehumanizing action. 

Knock it off, already.  You’re hurting a large segment of our society, you’re putting the lives of children at risk by casting aspersions and denying them equality, respect, and love, and you’re hurting yourselves.  And by this I don’t just mean the “closet case politicians” acting against the best interests of the LGBT community so others won’t go through what they have.  I’m referring to the fact that everyone who draws a line and refuses to associate with the people on the other side of that line is hurting themselves by missing out on what is in that person or those people to improve the line-drawers. 

The hypocrisy needs to stop.  We get it.  Your life was miserable because you feared coming out to your parents or admitting you had a problem and you stressed when our preacher told you God would never love you because you were LGBT.  But that does NOT give you the right to weigh down the LGBT community by denying them rights and protections while you hang out in public restrooms or rent callboys off Craigslist while staying in seedy hotels.

And, seriously, all you Bible thumping sex addicts from Jeremy Durham to Josh Duggar?  Don’t doubt for a minute that in the 21^st century your dirty laundry and dark secrets won’t find the light of day and when all is said and done YOUR behavior, YOUR choices, and YOUR messed up theology will have done more harm than good.

Time to grow up, GOP, and face reality.  It’s no wonder 80% of Americans are fed up with the government.  You’re not solving problems—you’re creating them and it’s pretty clear their creation starts in your own lives and your own homes.  Maybe it’s time you let go of power and reconnect with your life.

Or maybe connect with your life for the first time.  

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. 

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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