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. 

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.

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