Porn Addled Man Sues to Marry Laptop

Okay, so there’s a few good things you experience with me being a blogger instead of a vlogger.  The first is that I have a face made for printed mediums.  The second is you won’t have to see my struggle to keep a straight face when I share this story.

On July 7, 2013, Huffington Post reported on a former Tennessee Attorney who was trying to sue Apple because his Macbook was granting him unfettered access to porn.  HuffPo reports that:

Per the complaint, [Chris] Sevier’s problem began after he tried to visit “Facebook.com,” but — accidentally, he says — typed “F**kbook.com,” an adult site that “appealed to his biological sensibilities as a male and led to an unwanted addiction with adverse consequences.”

The complaint continues that Sevier believes Apple is hijacking “great sex” by selling non-pornproof products.

Now fast forward to two days ago.

Former attorney Chris Sevier is back in the news.  He now wants to marry his laptop.

(This is not Chris Sevier but can you believe google had an image for "marry your laptop?) 

The story is being reported in numerous outlets including Houston Press.  Mr. Sevier’s argument is an attempt to undo the hardwon progress giving LGBT people equal rights to marriage.  He is launching various lawsuits in the State of Texas to sanction the ultimate cyber hook-up.  The Houston Press Article states:

Chris Sevier has filed a lawsuit against the Harris County district clerk, Governor Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton for denying him the right to marry his Mac because he is trying to make a pretty cruel argument. He is trying to prove that, essentially, marriage between the members of a same-sex couple can be equated to marriage between a man and a machine. He is trying to prove that, under Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that legalized same-sex marriage, people are now allowed to do morally disgusting things like marry whomever they are attracted to, whether that be inanimate objects or members of the same gender. Essentially, he is trying to give courts an ultimatum: Agree that this is what they have done and allow him to make vows to a piece of expensive chrome, or realize that this is morally wrong and undo Obergefell.

Sevier continues by asking the question, “Should we have policies that encourage that kind of lifestyle?”

I think the bigger question is:  Shouldn’t we have better healthcare programming in place to rehabilitate a man who has clearly gone over the edge with a cyber addition and has let his laptop destroy his already tenuous hold on reality?

Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation doesn’t understand what the big deal is for LGBT people to have won marriage equality either.  He doesn’t want to marry his Macbook.  Instead he thinks non-LGBT people should simply invite LGBT people into their homes, make friends with them, and convince them that they don’t need marriage.  As reported by Patheos, at an anti-abortion rally, Anderson stated with regard to marriage equality:

“There’s a universal human desire for friendship, for companionship,” he said. “We all have a need for relationships that matter. So when Thanksgiving comes around, when Christmas comes around, are you inviting a same-sex attracted colleague or friend or member of your church who isn’t married and doesn’t have a family of his or her own, are you inviting them into your family to share Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner? Are you having them be big brother or big sister, godfather or godmother to your children if they’re not going to be married and have children of their own? Are there ways in which we can show that there are other forms of community that matter, that are important, that are meaningful, without having to redefine marriage?”

So, married non-LGBT people, if friendship and companionship are adequate substitutes for marriage, why did you bother getting married?

Here’s the deal, folks.  In our culture the ultimate demonstration of love, connection, and commitment to another person is marriage.  The “one man, one woman” thing has absolutely nothing to do with biblical standards of practice.  How many of our biblical heroes had not only multiple wives but also concubines?  If you want to talk about “biblical marriage,” why is there never a conversation about Solomon?  He’s biblical and had lots of marriages.  Or, on the other side of the coin, if you want to hold up the Apostle Paul’s mentality on how a church should be run, how women should behave, and that LGBT people are sinful….why don’t you hold up Paul’s opinion that you shouldn’t get married at all?

But in our society marriage is legally more than the representation of love and commitment.  This is why “church blessed marriages” weren’t enough for the LGBT community.  Under the law, married couples have certain rights, responsibilities, and benefits.  Owning property together gets easier.  Healthcare and insurance is easier.  Paying taxes is easier.  Having a say in the care of a loved one in crisis….doesn’t get easier but becomes possible. 

I wonder what Mr. Sevier’s laptop would say if Mr. Sevier ended up in a vegetative state?  “CONTROL-ALT-DELETE!” maybe?

I’m writing this mostly because I needed a laugh today.  But I’m also writing it to remind you, dear reader, of how important it is for you to be telling your story when it comes to things like marriage equality or equal access to bathrooms or recognition of your gender in school or work.  It’s your story that makes the difference in people’s lives. 

So, in a way, Mr. Anderson has the right idea—invite these people into your lives. Invite non-LGBT people into your home, into your life, and share with them why this is so important to you and to the larger community.

Stories make all the difference.  

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.  

500 Word Friday: On the Liberty Counsel, Homophobic Parents, and the Boy Scouts

On April 13, 2016 the Liberty Counsel, which famously swooped in to defend Kim Davis when she was imprisoned for contempt of court when she failed to do her job by issuing marriage licenses to LGBT couples, issued a propaganda announcement through media outlets like Christian News Wire.  At the heart of their announcement was the reassurance that religious organizations, specifically churches, did not need to accept gay volunteers to head their Boy Scout troops. 

Matthew Staver of the Liberty Counsel, who actually served as Kim Davis’ attorney, stated:

"The once great Boy Scouts of America has taken a great fall when it changes the longstanding policy to allow homosexual scout leaders and members. This change in policy is fraught with danger. While there are ways for churches to protect their integrity and the safety of their young boys, the best alternative is to abandon the scouts because the scouts abandoned them. Trail Life USA is the best alternative to the failed BSA program…Liberty Counsel will continue to defend the right of churches to make employment and volunteer decisions based on church religious beliefs and the teachings of the Bible,"

(Serial Bride and God-fearing Holy Warrior Kim Davis w/ Matt Staver of Liberty Counsel)

Two things about this.  First, obviously if you’re not comfortable crossing the man-made boundary to live in community with LGBT people, you’re clearly not embodying the teachings of the Christ.  I wrote about this just this past week when I drew attention to the fact that anti-LGBT politics and policies are antithetical to the teachings of Jesus, whom Christian people of faith identify as our leader, savior, and ultimate example of how we should relate with people—particularly those with whom we disagree or don’t understand. 

Second, if homophobic parents want to keep their children away from LGBT adults, they should know a couple of things.

·        52% of young people between the ages of 13-20 identify as LGBT, this includes YOUR children, homophobic parents.  If you want to ignore that fact and deny your children the opportunity to have LGBT role models, it’s your children you’re going to end up harming.  Here are some statistics about LGBT kids who aren’t supported and are forced to struggle in a homophobic environment.

·        Speaking of statistics, the National Research Council, cited in this study, observes that "The distinction between homosexual and heterosexual child molesters relies on the premise that male molesters of male victims are homosexual in orientation. Most molesters of boys do not report sexual interest in adult men, however"  In other words, adults who molest male children?  Not gay.  Get yourselves educated before your ignorance damages your children still further.

But, by all means, if you want to ignore reality and tuck yourselves away in an alternate universe where LGBT people don’t exist, more power to you.  Hide in your fear mongering churches and establish your private clubs. 

Just stop insisting that the rest of the world needs to adopt your altered view of reality.  Stop pushing your ignorance and legalism and un-Christian views on others.  We’re not interested.  That much hate and intentional disregard for the rights and value of other human beings is too exhausting to sustain.

It’s poison.  Keep it to yourselves.

LGBTQ Nation (@lgbtqnation) covered the story here.  

Post Script

By the way, experience and research indicates that the most vocal opponents to LGBT rights and equality are, themselves, LGBT and suffering significant psychological distress.  Just this last week, for example, we learned about former House Speaker Dennis Hastert.  I'm not saying this is the case with Matt Staver and his partners at Liberty Counsel.  I'm just saying that this is what actual research tells us.  As opposed to what their fake research tells them.  

Lessons Learned from Nostalgia

My mother spent her teenage years being raised in a one room house with four brothers and one sister and, of course, her parents.  Seven people in a tiny white house with red trim.  It had no running water and, believe it or not, the phone was an old party line.  For you younger readers, a party line is like a landline but instead of having multiple phones plugged in throughout your house there were multiple phones plugged in around the neighborhood.  Everyone shared the line.  Anyone could listen in on the line. 

But that was the house she grew up in.  A well pump out by the barn and an outhouse out back. 

I remember the house from a trip “home” we made when I was quite young.  I remember the closeness and the coziness.  I remember the flower beds of petunias and marigolds.  I remember a huge garden.  I remember how clean everything was.  My grandparents didn’t have much but my grandmother was still incredibly house proud. 

I often think about that little house and how nice it would be to recreate that kind of lifestyle.  Simple.  Stripped down.  Not a lot of rushing around.  If you don’t have much, you don’t have much to worry about. 

Truth be told, I think a lot about the fact that it feels like I was born at the wrong time.  I think I could definitely be at home growing up in the 1940’s like my parents.  Or even the 1840’s with the first people settling in my corner of the United States.  I dream of living in a time when things were simpler.  The complications of modernity left behind as I travel back to a time when politics weren’t so ridiculous, the nightly news wasn’t so dire, and people were better connected.

But I think that this kind of romantic nostalgia is a trap.  If you turn back the clock, you will inevitably lose progresses that have been long fought for:  Civil rights, women’s rights, LGBT rights, medical advancements, and so on.  But, still there is something incredibly appealing to me about not having an electric bill every month and growing my own food.

I think what’s at the crux of my desire isn’t so much wanting to undo time but to bring elements of the past forward to replace those things about 21^st century society that make me so crazy.  When we look back through time we have the benefit of an objectivity people in the past didn’t have.  We can see why and how mistakes were made but we can also observe the successes that people at the time took for granted.  The same will be true about us, today, fifty years from now.  I would like nothing better than to draw those successes forward and replace those things that I think we can all acknowledge have been failures in our current time. 

·        Insane, radical, polarizing political leaders running campaigns not even close to being grounded in reality.

·        A deeper connection not only with the people around you but the place you’re in; there was no large scale food contamination scares based out of a processing plant in California and affecting lives across the country—food production was local if not right at home.

·        Education made sense—there were no modern gimmicks or trendy titles designed to make someone somewhere a name for themselves and a boatload of money to boot.  Education was a privilege and not a burden. 

·        People didn’t spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on a home that they then would spend the next forty years paying for by spending more time at work than in their new home.  I think this is one of the things that drives me the most crazy about our society today.

·        People weren’t so driven by consumerism.  It wasn’t a plastic, disposable culture in the past.  There was a lot of “waste not, want not” mentality that was born in the depression and reinvigorated during World War II.  But there was also pride in craftsmanship and if something was damaged or broken it wasn’t simply thrown out to be replaced by the next big thing from the closest big box store. 

I could keep going but you get the idea.  And, besides, this is my list.  I’m sure if you thought about it you could come up with your own list about things you would like to see us return to as a society.  Like the old saying goes, “We all have our good old days tucked away in our hearts and we return to them in our daydreams like cats to favorite armchairs.”

And, look, I know that life in the past wasn’t as good as my imagination would make it out to be.  I know that life for my grandparents in their little, one room house with six children wasn’t all summer picnics by fragrant flowerbeds.  I know that life was hard and sacrifices had to be made in order for ends to meet.  But, still, I know there are things about the past that could definitely benefit us today. 

I think some people get this.  I think some people engage in their own personal revolts against the failings of the changing tides.  People are going “off grid,” transitioning to a sustainable lifestyle.  More and more people grow a portion of their own food and farmers markets are becoming more of a regularity than a peculiarity.  People are realizing that more isn’t better and that the high-paying job that gives you the corner office isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. 

But these personal revelations and revolutions still aren’t addressing the larger problems in our society—like our politics, our healthcare system, our education system, our environmental impact….

I honestly don’t know what the solution is to these big issues.  I do know that our leaders aren’t going to solve the problem because they have a vested interest in the chaos.  As long as things are a disaster, they can use the disaster to play politics by blaming “the other party.”  They can also make some extra cash through the lobbyists who buy votes for one corporation or another. 

It’s this feeling of helplessness and hopelessness that turns my mind back to that little white house with red trim and a desire for simpler days.  I want to retreat from the situation and the problem that seems unsolvable.  I want to throw in the towel, stop caring, stop worrying, and slip off the grid and let the world continue on while I find purpose and meaning in a little bubble of time that insulates me from the insanity outside my door. 

I just can’t seem to do it, though.  I just can’t seem to stop caring long enough to make that drastic change in my lifestyle.  It’s not just because I’m wired to care, that everything about me is geared to fighting against injustice and fighting for the recognition of the individual’s humanity no matter how despised they are by segments of our society.  I think it’s an obligation, as a member of the human race, to care and to struggle against these failings and strive for a better world despite our leaders. 

I think that this is one clear lesson we can learn from our past.  We have to meet adversity and injustice head on lest it overpower us and we become something we despise.  This is what has happened to us today; for too long we have become complacent, deferring to leaders who really don't have our best interests at heart and who no longer know how to fix the damage our apathy and their greed have caused.  

And so I find that I can't check out of the mess.  I have to fight.  I have to speak.  I have to struggle against the winds of change that blow no good while celebrating the small victories we are able to achieve.

That doesn’t mean I have to stop dreaming about my own little red and white house, though.  We all need safe harbors in storms. 

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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