There seems to be pretty widespread disagreement within the GLBT community over the meaning of the New Mexico Human Rights Commission ruling in the Elane Photography case, and whether the decision was correct. (The short version: Lesbian couple approaches photographer to take wedding pictures; photographer refuses, citing religious objection to homosexuality; couple files discrimination complaint with Human Rights Commission; photographer is fined.) For those who find the ruling troubling, the gist is that equality for GLBT people can’t be attained through the use of force, and there is a danger of that approach backfiring. Timothy Kincaid at Box Turtle Bulletin:

On one hand, I recognize the value of the limitations that society has placed on the application of religious beliefs and can see the societal benefits that have resulted from anti-discrimination laws. I would not want a plumber, for example, using religious freedom as an excuse to deny services to a Muslim. And I don’t want to return to the day when a store can refuse service to someone solely because they are black or Jewish or gay.

But, on the other hand, I don’t think we are best served by forcing photographers to participate at same-sex commitment ceremonies and I am not convinced of the wisdom of laws that don’t allow for religious objections. I fear that legislatures that might be considering laws that protect gays and lesbians from discrimination will balk if they believe that individuals will be forced to participate in events that they find immoral or objectionable.

Of course he’s right that people who find someone else’s beliefs or conduct objectionable can’t just be forced to change their views. There is not much value in forcing someone who hates you to associate with you, I get that; but I question whether that objective is really the one underlying this complaint. And as much as I share the concern about sending the wrong message to legislators, I think the alternative may be even worse.

Since what we are really talking about is a case of religious discrimination, I’ll stick with comparable examples. Suppose that the proprietor of a photography business is an Orthodox Jew, and would find mixed marriages objectionable on religious grounds. If the business is advertised as doing “wedding photography,” it’s certainly likely that its services will be sought by couples with a different religious view on this question. Is it acceptable to advertise to the public that a business does wedding photography, and then refuse to work with certain prospective clients on the basis of their religious beliefs? (Some would probably say yes, but New Mexico law says no.) The same would be true of a devout Catholic who believes that it’s a sin for divorced people to remarry, or, for that matter, someone who objects to women having children out of wedlock. Can such a person advertise to the public that they specialize in baby photography, and then refuse to photograph the baby of a single mom? Should they be able to demand information about marital status, where the baby’s father is, how the pregnancy was accomplished, etc?

I don’t see how the Commission could have ruled other than the way they did, given that they define a photography business as a “public accommodation” (a valid question in and of itself, taken up by some of the commenters at Box Turtle Bulletin). They would have to come to the same conclusion if the hypothetical Catholic photographer refused the business of a couple by saying to them “It offends my conscience that you divorced people are getting married, and I will not participate in your sinful behavior.”

The point that some are making, that photography requires good rapport between the photographer and the client, and is therefore different from, say, service in a restaurant, is well taken. Certainly, the couple wouldn’t have wanted this hostile woman to actually be their wedding photographer, so the question becomes why didn’t they just walk away? I do have reservations about the decision to bring the complaint in the first place. In a business such as wedding photography, it seems to me that the market should be able to work this out without non-discrimination law being invoked. In practice, the market will demand photographers who are open to couples of all faiths and combinations, and those who are not will experience the consequences in their business.

In some areas it might be viable to only serve a niche market like non-interfaith Jewish weddings, and in fact there are plenty of places where different niche markets co-exist, even though discrimination is illegal. This is accomplished through something called “discretion.” Instead of our hypothetical Orthodox photographer saying to an interfaith couple, “I’m not doing your wedding because self-hating Jews like you are contributing to the demise of our people, and by the way, you’re breaking your mother’s heart,” he might say, “I’m so sorry, but we’re already booked that day.”

See how this works? Elaine Huguenin chose to handle this situation without discretion, in a way that seems to have been calculated to cause offense, and that very deliberately communicated her belief that she could violate New Mexico law with impunity. That was her choice, and it was very stupid and belligerent, not to mention unnecessary. The fact is that not every business is right for every client, and people should be able to sort these things out without taking up positions behind the barricades. Here is a real-life example of how that reality can be handled 1) without violating the law and 2) without being insulting. This is how people with very different beliefs and viewpoints co-exist:

Let me give a comparative example. In CA, there is an anti-discrimination law that includes LGBTs. Yet in Palm Springs there are several bed-and-breakfasts that cater to gay men and are typically clothing optional. I asked the owner of one such establishment how he handled reservation requests from non-gay men (since the law works both ways, he cannot refuse reservations from straights). He told me (and the story he related was actually of an Orthodox Jewish family who had contacted him about booking some rooms) that he was very frank. He would certainly welcome them to the b-and-b, but explained that there would undoubtedly be gay men also there at the time, that the rules that people could be nude around the pool would not be restricted, and basically left it up to the family to decide. They opted for another establishment, which he recommended to them after they asked. No laws were violated, and all information was upfront.

The photographer could have taken that same route, instead of refusing the work. Simply explain to the couple that, of course she would take the job, but that she would be uncomfortable around the ceremony. If the couple still wanted her, they would have to deal with the discomfort during the day. Presumably they would have shopped elsewhere.

Exactly. Notice what happened here - or, more accurately, what didn’t happen; this Orthodox family didn’t respond by becoming outraged that this guy runs a B&B at which they might not be comfortable, and declare that they were going to stay there anyway and be miserable. They thanked the proprietor for the reference to a more suitable establishment, and life went on. When you treat someone with respect, they tend to respond in kind. There could easily have been a similar outcome in the Elane Photography case. Just as it didn’t serve the Orthodox family’s interests to stay at that particular B&B, it wouldn’t have served the lesbian couple’s interests to have an uncomfortable, homophobic photographer at their wedding. If Elaine Huguenin’s objective was one of mutual interest - she didn’t want to do the job, and they didn’t want someone uncomfortable with same sex marriage to do the job - she could have explained that she probably wasn’t the right photographer for them, and recommended someone else. The free market would have worked, and all parties would have had their needs met. Mutual interest doesn’t appear to have been her goal, though. Instead, she seemed to need to make a point of refusing them and asserting her “right” to refuse them, to make a political statement. As absurd as this sounds, the equivalent would be for our B&B proprietor to have huffed at the Orthodox family that he most certainly would not accommodate them because he found their religious beliefs and way of life offensive, and furthermore, that his own beliefs give him the right to violate the law with impunity. Would anyone be defending him if he had done that?

This is the reason that, although I might not have chosen to take legal action, neither do I have much sympathy for Elaine Huguenin. She went beyond the reasonable pursuit of her interest as a business owner in finding compatible clients, and chose to make an unnecessary, inflammatory STATEMENT that she was violating the law.

I don’t claim to know the rationale for the decision to file the complaint, and I really don’t know anything about this couple, but it could be that they were looking beyond their own interests (after all, this unpleasantness certainly couldn’t have enhanced their wedding celebration much) and were instead considering the larger implications of this incident. Wedding photography is not a life-and-death issue. That is not the case with some other services and accommodations.

We have, in recent years, seen an unprecedented attempt on the part of certain “religious conservatives,” as they call themselves, to establish a “right” to discriminate against people who hold other beliefs in the critical area of health care delivery. These health care providers have asserted that their “religious freedom” includes the freedom to determine, according to their personal moral judgment, who is and is not entitled to receive their services - to have prescriptions filled, to obtain surgical procedures, or even to be accepted as a patient in a general practice. Attempts are being made both through state legislatures and through the private sector to permit so-called “conscience clause” provisions that would exempt individual pharmacists from having to provide certain legally prescribed medications, or to fill prescriptions for certain people - for instance, contraceptives to unmarried women - simply on the basis of their personal “disapproval.”

This trend, part of a larger political strategy of framing every obstacle to the public policy desired by these “religious conservatives” as an attack on their religious freedom, is obviously extremely dangerous to the rest of us. There is no logical endpoint if individuals are allowed to make these “exceptions” to the delivery of health care based entirely upon subjective belief and bias. Taken to its logical conclusion, people could be denied life-saving medical treatment and allowed to die - which, in fact, is exactly what happened to Robert Eads, a transexual man who was turned away by doctors until his cancer was too advanced to successfully treat. He died at 53. See the film Southern Comfort for his story.

I have a solution for pharmacists who object to filling the prescriptions that people obtain from their doctors and bring to you: Change careers. The job description of a pharmacist is to fill prescriptions written by doctors, being on the alert for medical contraindications and drug interactions that may have been overlooked. Your own moral judgments and opinions about how other people live their lives is not a medical issue. If your conscience prevents you from filling certain prescriptions - which it may, and that is certainly your right - then you are not qualified for the job of pharmacist. It’s that simple. Ditto for any doctor or other health care practitioner who would refuse care to a person because that person offends your beliefs. If that is the effect of your “conscience,” then your “conscience” needs to be treated like any other disability that would prevent a person from doing a particular job. Firing or not hiring someone because they can’t do the job is not discrimination. Find something you can do.

It’s easy to see why, in the context of this kind of assault on the basic rights of anyone who doesn’t share the beliefs of these “religious conservatives” - to equal treatment in health care, housing and employment, things that are necessary for life - allowing someone to get away with openly declaring that their religious beliefs make them exempt from following a law sets a dangerous precedent, one that will have real, life threatening consequences.

It’s a shame that things turned out this way, and that a Human Rights law would be invoked in an encounter about something as voluntary as wedding photography - but there’s your slippery slope. People who consider their own beliefs so special that they trump everyone else’s will not put limits on themselves, limits have to be put on them externally. To see a real life, and local, example of this, you need look no further than the angry-man sputterings of Brian Withnell over at Nova Townhall. He claims, among other fascinating things, that GLBT people have “no right” to work in the interest of our own equality. That’s right, Mr. Withnell goes far beyond stating that he would refuse to do business with GLBT people, or even that the lesbian couple in this case went too far - he openly states that we have no constitutional rights that he recognizes, because to his mind such rights are only granted in accordance with his religious beliefs. The fact that completely escapes him is that our Constitution was written to protect the rest of us from people who think this way. Can you believe that this poor guy actually attempted to run for public office in Loudoun County? If he had any plans to try again, that idea just ended with a whimper. As for Elaine Huguenin, maybe she was ignorant of the law in her state; maybe she inadvertently got caught up in this without knowing what she was stepping into, and maybe not. I don’t know.

In the end - and maybe everyone can agree on this - I think everybody loses in this case. This is exactly the kind of situation that abstractions like “law” can’t really resolve. Only human beings acting in good faith can do that.

There’s still been nary a peep from the usual Anti-Gay Industry outlets about the recent public executions of gender variant youth. A local exception is a brief condemnation of violence from the Community Levee Association, which says “We condemn all violence and specifically in this case, that which is perpetrated against those who hold different opinions.” The “different opinion” held by Lawrence King, I suppose, is that he had the right to openly be who he was.

Now we are seeing the reports trickle in about the rescue of hundreds of young girls from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) “Yearning For Zion” Ranch in Eldorado, Texas. In an article titled Sect Teens Made to Have Sex, the Washington Post reports the discovery of a bed inside the compound’s temple where girls, some as young as 12 or 13, were ritually raped to consummate their “marriages” to much older men. Many of the rescued girls are pregnant. One 16 year old girl already has given birth to four children.

Authorities have had to explain why they waited four years to take this action, when the systematic abuse of young girls in FLDS communities was common knowledge. Jon Krakauer exposed this subculture back in 2003 in his investigative book Under the Banner of Heaven. A few other stories, like that of Carolyn Jessop, have also surfaced in the last decade. Jessop was interviewed on the Today Show on Tuesday:

I think it’s a form of pedophilia hiding behind a religion as a protection. There’s just a desire to control and manipulate and torture people, and religion is just used as the cover.

In this video, she discusses the indoctrination of children to believe that the abuse is God’s will. Children are never exposed to “any other kinds of information to challenge the information you’re given…you have no skills to see it as what it really is.” If a woman is unhappy with her lot in life, she has been carefully trained to believe it’s because “you don’t have the spirit of God, and it’s your fault.” The isolation was such that Jessop describes her experience of integrating into the world after her harrowing escape as being like “ending up on a new planet.” As she told the Washington Post earlier this week, the women who have left the Texas compound “have no concept of mainstream society, and their mothers were born into it and have no concept of mainstream culture. Their grandmothers were born into it.” Jessop herself was a sixth-generation member of the group. It’s astounding that anyone would ever have the insight and strength to even consider escaping under these circumstances. Where the girl who blew the whistle on these criminals found the courage to do so, I can’t even imagine.

Given even this limited information, what is being discovered in Eldorado should surprise no one. Equally unsurprising is the fact that the group’s attorneys are citing religious liberty as a shield to interfere with the continuing search for documentation of the abuse. The temple where the child rape bed was discovered - and I’m not going to call it anything but that - is described by authorities as “massive,” and as containing “multiple locked safes, vaults and desk drawers” thought to contain evidence. Lawyers for the sect argue that much of this material should be off-limits as evidence “for legal or religious reasons” and have attempted to have the search ended entirely.

Gerry Goldstein, a San Antonio lawyer flanked by nine other attorneys the church hired, said the search of the temple is analogous to a law enforcement search of the Vatican or other holy places.

Now, why are we not hearing thundering condemnation of this perverted, criminal behavior - in the name of God, no less - from Family “Research” Council, Prison Fellowship Ministries, Concerned Women for America, Eagle Forum, American Family Association, or any of the other self-proclaimed defenders of “traditional marriage?” Where are they? Every other week of the year these groups can be counted on to beat their breasts and scream about how our children are at risk from pedophiles, and how the institution of marriage will be destroyed by a “slippery slope” that leads to polygamy and incest (and that somehow, this is all connected to “the homosexual agenda,” so send a generous donation right away!).

In this case, rather than some propagandistic nonsense made up about a group of people who have no connection at all with these things, we are talking about an actual community, comprising perhaps 10,000 real people, that practices pedophilic rape, polygamy and incest, with very real consequences. Little girls are taught that unless they submit to sexual servitude at the whim of the old men running the joint, they will be condemned to hell. The inbreeding within these communities has resulted in widespread genetic disease. Young men (because there is always a surplus of them) are systematically driven out of the community, and many end up suicides or living on the street. Don’t these ordinarily loudmouthed trumpeters of “moral values” care? It doesn’t appear that they do.

I suspect that in some cases it may be that the notion of keeping children isolated from the rest of society, teaching them that “God has a plan” for their lives - especially their sexual lives, that the execution of this “plan” is the responsibility of male religious leaders and heads of household, and preventing them from accessing any contradictory information, is a bit too familiar for comfort. It sure sounds familiar to me.

What do you think?

So. It wasn’t newsworthy that a 15 year old boy who had been the target of relentless bullying and threats because he was “feminine” was publicly executed by a classmate - nor did the slaying of another “too feminine” teenager, barely a week later, even register a blip in the national media.

Only now, when thousands of community members in Oxnard and thousands more across the country have held vigils, launched websites, written letters, and otherwise recognized the significance of what happened at that school is the execution of a child for having the temerity to honestly express himself worthy of notice by the Washington Post.

The article is really about what we already know: That many schools - in particular middle schools, where gender-based bullying tends to be the most intense - do not “have programs that promote tolerance among students, provide training for educators, or include policies that specifically prohibit harassment and bullying based on sexual orientation.”

Naturally, the usual suspects weigh in with their mewling that sexual orientation is an “inappropriate topic” for students:

“The vast majority of parents believe it’s their role and their responsibility to teach their kids about sexuality,” said Bill Maier, vice president and resident psychologist for Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian organization. “The way you handle the problem is that you crack down on any sort of bullying or aggression on any child. You don’t single out sexual orientation as this somehow special status.”

Oh, my. So many lies in such a small space. First of all, the vast majority of parents support sexuality education in schools, so Bill receives an F for accuracy. His syntax and logic aren’t much better. How could “sexual orientation” possibly be a special status, when everybody has one? Let’s be charitable and acknowledge that that’s not really what he meant.

What we are actually talking about are children who have been given the impression that gay people, or as is more often the case, people who don’t conform to gender expectations, have a special status that allows them to be the target of bullying. This is the problem that needs addressing, the incorrect notion that some people have a special status that renders them unworthy of the same safety, dignity and respect to which other people are entitled. This problem is not, of course, limited to any one flavor of bigotry, but it is the flavor of bigotry we are discussing at present. It is undeniable that Lawrence King’s killer believed that Lawrence had a special status, one that made it acceptable to kill him.

And where do children acquire beliefs like this? From adults, of course. The adults they hear using language like “pervert” and “faggot” and “abomination,” the adults they hear making demeaning, ignorant statements about other people they know nothing about, perhaps around the dinner table. Adults like Saturday Night Live’s Dennis Miller, who “joked” about Brandon Teena’s murder that “everyone in this case deserved to die,” and adults like the Montgomery County showerheads (h/t to Emproph). This sort of adult hasn’t been showing themselves much publicly in Loudoun any more, but they’re still out there, spreading their toxins. Some of them in the little group that hangs around NoVA Townhall felt emboldened to come out today, in response to this story.

Naturally, the willfully ignorant (but happy to be judgmental anyway) Sophrosyne is “speechless,” but for all the wrong reasons. Did we not just go through a learning process in this community where the core lesson was that what’s important about a family is the love and security it provides, not what it looks like? I’ll admit that I’m somewhat speechless too - but because of the sacrifices that Thomas Beatie is willing to make to become a parent. That fact - that he and his wife really, really want to be parents, and are willing to sacrifice so much - indicates to me that this couple will be outstanding parents. Sophrosyne, your concern is badly misplaced. It’s the people who conceive by accident that we should be worried about. You just don’t get it. You should try learning something you don’t already “know.”

And naturally, Donna Rose does get it:

No matter who you are, this story will likely affect you in some way. You just don’t know it yet. It will refocus discussion on what, exactly, constitutes a man and a woman. It will raise questions about family and marriage that will transcend transgender. It will spark any number of moral debates. There will be pushback and it will not be pretty. It may even cause you to ask questions about your own open-mindedness and acceptance that you thought you had answered but somehow may now realize you haven’t.

Although some are seeing mostly doom and gloom from this I’m not there. In fact, I see rays of light that seem like hope to me. The same way that the disappointments of ENDA got people saying the word “transgender” in places I never imagined hearing it, so too will this situation spark conversation. To be sure, much of the conversation will be negative and will make our blood boil, but that’s the nature of social change. This is how it happens. But there is a positive side as well. We just need to give it time to brew.

So please, go right ahead and talk. The more everybody talks, the more everybody learns - and that’s a good thing, because ignorance kills.

There are folks who insist (as they oppose any and all efforts through the legislative and judicial branches to secure equal treatment for our families) that they bear no animus toward the GLBT community. We’re not really discriminated against, the argument goes, because we can draw up legal contracts to reproduce the same arrangements that married heterosexual couples enjoy.

Aside from the fact that the need to do so is, in and of itself, a special tax on our time and resources, and aside from the fact that in Virginia our defaced Constitution leaves such contracts vulnerable to challenge, the following examples illustrate just how grossly inadequate and unfair such arrangements are when the rubber meets the road. Hat tip to Equality Maryland, and a thumbs up to the good work they are doing to educate lawmakers across the river:

Take the case of Ellen Carr of Howard County, who told legislators that after her partner of more than twenty years, Judi, passed away in 1999, the government assessed a whopping $60,000.00 inheritance tax on the home that they owned together – a tax she wouldn’t have had to pay had she been married to a man! Judi had worked for the federal government for years, but Ellen wasn’t entitled to her pension or social security benefits.

“We had no idea of how inheritance taxes would affect us,” Ellen testified. “Our wills were written by an attorney. We felt we were doing all we needed to do to protect our assets. And we believed that the laws would treat us fairly. We were naive and very wrong. I was taxed on money that I contributed to and helped to fund. The laws separated us in death and did not allow me the opportunity to decide how I would use the money that Judi imagined I would receive from her inheritance.”

Paul Gordon of Montgomery County told legislators that he still isn’t listed on the deed to the home that he shares with his partner because of the prohibitive transfer taxes that same-sex couples have to pay, but that married couples and a slew of other relatives are exempt from.

“My partner Rick and I met back in 1992, a couple of years after he’d bought a house in Silver Spring,” Paul testified. “That house – our home – is still in his name only. And I live in fear that I could lose it if something happened to him. In 2005, I told a House committee how Rick and I had just spent three weeks as a family with his mother in intensive care and decided as a family to end her life-support. But Maryland says that Rick and I are not a family. Maryland says we are no different than two total strangers. And when I testified in 2005, Maryland was forcing us to choose: If we wanted to put my name on the title of our home, that meant we could not afford a gravestone for Rick’s mother. We picked the gravestone, and three years later, I still have no ownership interest in my own home, and I could lose it if something happens to Rick,” Paul stated. He added, “Current law imposes a financial punishment on innocent families and puts us at risk of losing our homes. It’s cruel. It’s wrong. And you can put a stop to it.”

I’m pretty sure that Jesus would find this hilarious. Albert Mohler, not so much. Hat tip to Dan Vera.

How do I know this? Because every time something happens in this community that Barbara Curtis doesn’t like, she fires off a post explaining that we did it. She has compiled a whole list of naughty things we have supposedly done, from “co-opting” the Leesburg Independence Day Parade, to posting a link to her public blog on…another public blog. This last one generated a personal email from Barbara, in which she accused me of “stalking” her.

In another memorable post, Barbara decided that Mainstream Loudoun (another civic group she dislikes and often confuses us with) had somehow caused her posts to disappear from Google. It’s just such a strange piece of work I have to share it:

Mainstream Loudoun - who fought valiantly to remove Internet filters from Loudoun County’s public libraries - does have one thing they like to censor: any public criticism of Mainstream Loudoun.

Evidently someone keeps a sharp eye out for any negative press about Mainstream Loudoun and then sees to having it done away with. Whenever I publish anything about Mainstream Loudoun, the post shows up on Google and then mysteriously disappears.

Indeed, if you google Mainstream Loudoun, you’ll find only page upon page of neutral or flattering results - with the one exception of a column by Linda Chavez, who is a prominent enough columnist that I assume they can’t target her stuff, and it wasn’t really all that bad.

This is typical leftist strategy: silence all opposition. And ironically, they represent themselves as being anti-censorship.

What I think is this: if your ideas are strong, they will rise to the top. Note to Mainstream Loudoun: quit the cowardly tactics and live up to your own hype about First Amendment Rights.

And know that I’m documenting these disappearance for bigger fish in the pond. [Emphases added]

I mean, seriously - “and then sees to having it done away with?” I can only hope that Barbara wishes she could see to having this embarrassing post done away with.

But no, this was not an aberration. The latest affront is that Barbara was let go from her column-writing gig at the Loudoun Times-Mirror. And - I swear I am not making this up - she thinks that “GLBT activists and supporters” are somehow responsible for this:

The Loudoun Times-Mirror has dropped my column

After four years of publishing a regular column for the Loudoun Times-Mirror, I have received my walking papers.

My guess is that the GLBT activists and supporters - like sharks who’ve tasted blood after their penguin victory - were demanding “Off with Her Head!” Because I disagreed with them politically, they thought I had no right to be published.

Such are the double standards of the constantly-crying-foul-and-yammering-about-censorship crowd. They want all views represented - as long as they are their views.

So like Animal Farm: All animals equal. Some animals more equal than others. [Emphases added]

As a writer myself, I can easily recognize Barbara’s rhetorical devices. I especially like the way that “my guess” quickly becomes, in the next line and thereafter, an assertion of fact. It could well be that this sort of disreputable writing style is what prompted the Times-Mirror to have second thoughts about continuing the relationship. I haven’t read one of Barbara’s LTM columns in a very long time, but I hope that if they were anything like this that the editors would have disassociated themselves from her long ago. This - and the other episodes of paranoia - strikes me as dangerously close to the edge.

We’ve tried politely correcting Barbara’s misrepresentations about us before, but she almost always censors the comments on her blog to make it appear that everyone agrees with her. David Hazard, a well known Evangelical author and long time Loudoun resident, has tried to engage Barbara in dialogue about her mistreatment of the GLBT community, and she used it as an opportunity to belittle him (she obviously didn’t realize who he was, and silently edited her blog once it was pointed out to her - the comment correcting her mistake, of course, never appeared).

David has shared with me a comment he submitted to her post earlier today. I doubt that it will appear anywhere but here - but I could be proven wrong:

Barbara –

I’m compelled to write to in response to your claim that somehow the gay community in Loudoun pressured the Loudoun Times-Mirror to cancel your column. You don’t know that, as you suggested in your first paragraph… but by your second paragraph state it as an assertion of truth. In fact, no one “got you” kicked out of the paper.

I’m challenging you on this assertion, because one of the Ten Commandments is: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Like it or not, we gay men, women, and teenagers of Loudoun County are your neighbors. And this is not the first time you’ve borne false witness against us.

Last summer, we were invited by the Town of Leesburg to have a float and represent ourselves in the town 4th of July parade. Your remarks about our participation were so far from the truth. You planted ugly suggestions. We were “penetrating” the community. We were there to “sexualize children.” Had you witnessed the parade — which you didn’t, so I’m not sure why you felt you had the right to comment — you would have seen how under-stated we were. (People came up to us afterwards and had to ask, “Who ARE you guys? What’s ‘Equality Loudoun’ all about?”)

You bore false witness then, and you’re doing it now. You need to repent. The means do not justify the ends, even if you imagine — which you seem to — that you’re representing the true Jesus Christ in this.

But let’s go back to your loss of the column. You’re hurt and a bit miffed, and you’re doing a very human thing, which is to “kick the dog.” Have you considered there might be other reasons your column was cancelled? As a former associate publisher, a former columnist, and as a writer, let me suggest some:

1) maybe your column had run its course and the material was no longer fresh; 2) maybe the writing was only just okay, not compelling (hard possibility to entertain as a writer ); 3) maybe they wanted the space for more ads…..

My guess is, L T-M was not pleased with you purporting to be writing a column for mothers… while focusing only on the concerns of rightwing conservative Christian mothers, and not the majority of women in Loudoun County, who have more centrist leanings and who don’t consider themselves a “professional mother” in the way you seem to. L T-M may have gotten tired of watching you say you were writing about motherhood and parenting… while you were REALLY there to push a conservative social / political agenda.

Or maybe they felt uncomfortable publishing the link to your blog, where you regularly take people apart.

My concern for you personally, as a Christian, is that you seem to like to wear badges. I wish you would do what Paul suggested, and “put on Christ” instead. What “badges” do I mean:

Badge #1: I was a lesbian who lived a wild lifestyle — and therefore I can speak as an authority about all gay people and how they live.

Even though you ( and Focus ) position yourself as something of an authority, based on your experience… that is completely ludicrous. You are only an authority about YOU. You have no basis of study or knowledge from which to speak about the gay community — which is as diverse in itself as Christians are diverse.

But you insist on speaking as if anyone who is gay is destined to have a bad experience because — well, just because if you’re gay you WILL have a bad life. Gay life = bad. Barbara, isn’t it at least possible that your “bad experience” resulted from the fact that you were also, at the time, an alcoholic?

Please do not presume to speak “authoritatively” about gay people any longer. For those of us who are gay, and settled, and professional, and living stable, loving, contributing, ethical lives, your bohemian life of alcoholism in San Francisco is alien to us.

Badge #2: My column was cancelled — and now I’m a martyr for the cause of Christ.

Barbara, you will be tempted to get a lot of sympathy-mileage out of that. If you take that very low path you will not be pleasing Jesus Christ. Do not fall for the temptation to create drama where there is none, to make yourself look more important than you are.

Relatedly, there is this fact: At times, you make fun of the gay community in Loudoun, saying, “There’s so few of you any way. You don’t have any power.” But when it’s to your advantage, like now, you make it sound as though vast numbers are arrayed against you.

We may be small in number, but as Americans we do have the right to work for the same rights, protections that the majority has.

Badge #3: I represent a community of good, decent, God-fearing people, whose way of life is being threatened by “the gay agenda.”

In online parlance — OMG! — who is pushing their agenda onto a community, if not the right-wing Christians of Loudoun County? Whose right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is being threatened if not the gay community’s?

The vast majority of public schools have churches meeting in them every Sunday. The public libraries, and even school libraries have Christian books — both fiction and non-fiction — on their shelves… and NO ONE from the gay community, or the community at-large, is “opposing” or “oppressing” you.

Please drop the absolute falsehood that you are a community whose right to live exactly as you please is being threatened. You’re everywhere ! And, this being America, go for it, girl !

But YOU are the ones trying to make monsters out of us, and trying to thwart and crush us out. That stands as a witness before God, not for you, as you suppose, but against you.

I left the Evangelical community when I realized how far off-course the movement had gone. I left when I witnessed big ministries and broadcasters and publishers create fears to plant in the minds of American Christians in an effort (sadly successful) to pump up fundraising and votes. The Evangelicalism you see now is NOT the movement I became part of in 1970. It is a bastardized version of Christianity.

I hope you will take this appeal, and these thoughts, seriously.

If it’s hard to wake up and realize that you live in a community where the majority of people don’t believe the line you’re pushing — well, that’s a tough one. My educated guess is, that’s why your column got cancelled. Not because we, who are “evil” in your sight if not in God’s sight, moved against you.

Sincerely,

David Hazard

My sense is that this episode - which should probably result in an intervention of some kind - will instead be misrepresented by Barbara on her blog and her speaking circuit as more “evidence” of her saintly victimhood. I hope that there are some friends and/or family members in her life who can see this more clearly.

…and we couldn’t be happier for her.

As everyone surely knows by now, what we had been hearing from several people in the Sugarland Elementary community turned out to be true: the complainant Sherrie Sawyer has no children enrolled at that school, hence the entire challenge process was invalid. Kudos to Superintendent Hatrick for recognizing that the mishandling of this incident was causing damage to the credibility of the school system, and acting to void the decision.

Having said that, I will repeat what I said earlier: Regardless of the standing of the complainant and the other procedural matters, the decision to remove And Tango Makes Three from general circulation was wrong on the merits.

Dr. Hatrick, in the remarks he read into the record late last month, tried to provide insight into the thinking behind his decision. Some critics in the community have assumed that he must, like the complainant, have been driven by ideology to reach the conclusion he did. I think that his remarks show this not to be the case. He is not an ideologue, and genuinely tried to find a good solution. I think that his error, in an admirable effort to be “fair,” was in his treatment of ideological criteria as comparable to legitimate pedagogical criteria.

Here is why I say that. Included among the background facts that he considered in reaching a decision that he describes as “51-49 at best” is this:

The book has already been the subject of considerable controversy across America, whether it has been removed from library shelves or allowed to remain. It has been described as the most banned book in America. I knew that whatever decision I made would be open to considerable challenge.

This is an example of allowing a false equivalency to be created between two groups that are not equivalent; those who support access to a diversity of viewpoints including ones with which they disagree, and those who desire to restrict access to only the viewpoint with which they agree. There is currently a unfortunate notion in the field of journalism that the truth can be found in the “middle ground” between two opposing sides of an argument, but that is often not where it is. Just because there is a “controversy” over an idea or aspect of reality does not mean that the objection to it has merit. A person (or group) who wishes to create a controversy can play this game with virtually any topic:

“Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is very controversial!”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Yes it is!”
“No…it really isn’t.”
“It is, too!”
“It is not.”
“See? I told you it was controversial.”

In the case of Tango and other books to which anti-gay ideologues have an objection, this circular argument is the formula: The “controversy” is created using the vehicle of a book challenge policy; the fact that the book has been challenged, as we see here, is then used as justification for objecting to it.

There can be no question that the objections to Tango are purely ideological. All of the negative comments about the book have been about the ideas it contains, nothing more. If there is a legitimate objection to the book that doesn’t amount to simple disagreement with the idea that same sex couples can and should be recognized as parents, I have not heard it. While people may freely disagree with this idea and say so, that is not a legitimate reason to restrict access to a book.

Several School Board members noted at the February 26 meeting their hope that the Loudoun community can have a civil conversation about these matters. I agree.

However, a civil conversation can only proceed from the premise that all of those participating in it are equally respected as members of the community and of the human family. Unfortunately, what I have heard, from some members of the community and some members of our School Board, is that they do not recognize the GLBT members of this community as legitimate and equal partners in this conversation.

I particularly applaud Potomac member John Stevens for speaking to the fact that everyone who is expressing their views on this topic has integrity and good intentions, and that we should all try to see those qualities in each other. He specifically mentioned conversing with Community Levee Association President Chris Stevenson, who spoke at the meeting in support of removing the book. He emphasized that although they may not agree, Mr. Stevenson is a good person and caring member of our community.

I know this to be true. There are not that many people who take the time to be actively involved in civic life, and Mr. Stevenson is one of them. He and I are actually allies on a number of other issues. That is why some of the things he said particularly sadden me.

“There is still no general consensus as to whether same-sex parenting is appropriate in society or not,” he said.

What he seems not to understand is this: “Society” is not considering some sort of theoretical proposition that there be same sex parenting. We, our families, are not an abstract idea. We are members of this community. Our children are in the classrooms of our public schools every day, along with the children of heterosexual couples, single parents, and other family configurations. Not only that, a recent report by the the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network indicates a higher than average level of parental involvement by our community.

LGBT parents are more likely to be involved in their children’s K-12 education than the general parent population. These parents are more involved in school activities and more likely to report consistent communication with school personnel. In addition, both LGBT parents and children of LGBT parents often report harassment because of their family structure.

In addition to policies that can put our children at risk - such as the inability of one parent to sign forms for their child - there are other, insidious forms of harassment and discrimination.

Nearly a quarter (22%) of students said that a teacher, principal or other school staff person had discouraged them from talking about their family at school.

“Don’t talk about your family;” It’s appalling to even consider saying such a thing to a child, but it apparently happens. Our high school drama students were told this three years ago, even by some of our sitting School Board members: That even the acknowledgment of GLBT friends and family members is “an inappropriate topic.” Two of these members, Mr. Geurin and Mr. Guzman, made similarly ignorant and prejudiced remarks at the February 26 meeting. This is exactly the sort of mistreatment of our children that inclusive instructional materials are intended to prevent.

Mr. Stevenson also stated that the presence of the book And Tango Makes Three declares to children that our schools are “in favor of one side of a topic.”

I have to wonder: Does he honestly believe that there are no books in our elementary school libraries that present what he would consider his “side” of this topic, that family should be defined only as a Mommy and Daddy with children? I would imagine that virtually ALL of the other books present this view; and yet, in the face of this overwhelming dominance of his “side,” the presence of a single book that presents another viewpoint is intolerable to him? That is simply stunning to contemplate.

This blindness - and I do not say this to be derogatory or insulting, but it needs to be said - is typical of people whose viewpoint has been granted a position of privilege. The special rights they enjoy are completely invisible to them, so they are prone to making the false claim that equal rights for others are somehow “special.” That, I think, is what we are seeing here.

I am more than happy to engage in civil conversation with those who think the book should be restricted, but - just as our commenting policy for this blog states - the starting point for that conversation can’t be disagreement over whether our families have the right to exist. That’s just not on the table.

The real danger, as John Stevens points out, of giving any credence to this sort of meritless complaint is that it can encourage self-censorship:

Even baseless challenges and reversed decisions can have a chilling effect on freedom of speech in our schools. This event and the words of the Superintendent and the Board will not be far from the minds of our librarians when they select new titles for next year. Our policies call for a selection process designed “to bring students into contact with the human experience and… provide a wide range of materials on appropriate levels with a diversity of appeal and point of view,” and I hope that our librarians and principals will remember this and not be reluctant to challenge our diverse students with diverse library collections in the future.

The decisiveness with which the decision was reversed (librarians were directed, not merely permitted, to return the book to general circulation), and the overwhelming public support for realistic diversity in our library collections should give our education professionals the courage they need to follow that selection policy - and we expect that the revised policy for challenges will not allow this sort of thing to happen again.

Just a small coda to the previous post, as we continue to be astounded by the interest taken by self-identified “Christian” activists in what other people’s genitals look like. From Claire Guthrie Gastañaga, discussing the California version of Maryland’s shower-nuts back in December:

When I was in law school working to get the Equal Rights Amendment ratified in Virginia, the two principle arguments made against the amendment by Phyllis Schlafly and her supporters were that the Amendment would make women and men have to go to the bathroom together and it would force women into combat.

As one of my friends pointed out the other day, there are more and more unisex bathrooms around these days, and women are dying in combat.

So, she asked, “where’s my Equal Rights Amendment?”

We reported awhile back on a very obvious hoax that was perpetrated by the same little group that tried for five+ years to stop Montgomery County’s updated sexuality curriculum from being implemented. What the group did was to put one of their men in a dress and send him into a women’s locker room at a health club, in order to create a media event. One of the leaders of the group, Theresa Rickman, was conveniently present in the lobby of the club at the time, and was lying to Channel 7 within the hour about how Montgomery County’s new law would allow men to legally enter ladies’ rooms to leer at and assault “women and children.” (The law actually changes nothing with regard to public restrooms - there is not now, nor has there ever been, a law regulating bathroom use. There is nothing stopping men from entering women’s rooms right now, but the group blithely ignores this inconvenient fact.)

Theresa’s group howled that they had nothing to do with this stunt, and Channel 7 was insulted, just insulted at the suggestion that they had fallen for something so laugh-out-loud stupid.

Well, now Theresa Rickman has admitted through a verbal slip that her group was behind the hoax. In an interview with “Concerned Woman for America” Matt Barber, she says this when asked to explain the “incident”:

A guy dressed as a girl went into the ladies bathroom. And, ah you know, essentially what uh, that was meant to get some media attention, you know..

Yes, we do know. And we also know that her group had to fabricate this hoax because of another inconvenient fact: There has never been an actual incident like this, anywhere, ever. Thirty-eight percent of the U.S. population lives in a jurisdiction with legislation that protects people from discrimination on the basis of gender identity, and there has never been a single case involving a man in a dress entering a women’s locker room under the pretext of being trangender.

The raw hate expressed by the people in this interview is really remarkable. I’m not going to encourage people to listen to it, but you can find the link to the audio here at Teach the Facts. Jim had the fortitude to transcribe some of it, although as he says, it makes him sick.

They are especially angry that there is a very smart, accomplished transgender woman who is employed as a senior aide to one of the Council members, and can’t resist venting their rage toward her with language such as “still a man,” and “she-male.” These speakers honestly come across as a gaggle of spiteful, venomous little schools girls, competing to dehumanize an outcast peer. I wonder if it makes them feel any better. For her part, their target has tolerated this verbal abuse for years with humor, intelligence and grace.

Every morning I have to delete the garbage that gets caught in this blog’s spam filter, much of which is porn. The language being used by these “Concerned Women” (Patricia Phillips’ group) is the same language used in porn spam. Grown-ups who expect their ideas to be taken seriously by other grown-ups do not use language like this.

CWA, like the even more potty-mouthed Traditional Values Coalition, is one of those organizations that uses the silly meme “love the sinner, hate the sin” while simultaneously using rhetoric that strips the humanity from the people they wish to eliminate. Sometimes it is more clever and subtle, but increasingly it is mocking and violent (Traditional Values Coalition is monitored as a hate group by the FBI). For example, Mike Adams, a writer for Townhall.com, frequently engages in “humor” about violence toward gay and transgender people:

I agree with you that young boys experiencing gender identity confusion have special needs. I have given the matter considerable thought. I think a young boy who thinks he’s a girl needs a serious a@@ whipping. Parents who hear a child whining that he feels like a girl trapped in a boy’s body should attend to his needs by whipping his a@@ immediately.

More recently, he posted an article about the Montgomery County fracas in which he refers to members of our community as “transgendered ‘persons.’” That’s right: “Persons” is literally in scare quotes.

Why are we talking about this? I haven’t said much about Lawrence King, although I did refer to his murder here, and specifically the eerie silence about it in the mainstream media compared to other incidents of school violence. There is another deafening silence that must be addressed, and that is the silence of the so-called “Christians” who supposedly “love” people like Lawrence and, one would think, would be the first to condemn the ignorance and confusion that led a fourteen year old boy to shoot him in the back of the head. Timothy Kincaid asks where they are:

I have searched and as best I can find, in the days since King’s murder, the sole discussion about this tragedy from Christian media has been limited to a single CNS article by Susan Jones titled “Hate Crime Charges Against Teen Who Shot ‘Feminine’ Boy”. This, incidentally is from a media source that actively opposes hate crimes legislation.

At no point did the article indicate that it was heinous, immoral, or even slightly inappropriate that Lawrence King was murdered for his orientation. But it did declare that “homosexual activists have seized on Lawrence King case” and that “some conservative groups say California has gone overboard when it comes to “sexual indoctrination” in the schools”.

I think that our young killer is probably well aware that it’s not acceptable to go get a gun and shoot another person. He just thought he could make an exception in the case of a person who didn’t conform to norms of gender expression. And here are some examples of why he might have thought that. From the lovable, loving Ken Hutcherson:

During his sermon, Hutcherson stated, “God hates soft men” and “God hates effeminate men.” Hutcherson went on to say, “If I was in a drugstore and some guy opened the door for me, I’d rip his arm off and beat him with the wet end.”

And then there’s language like this, posted to the aforementioned Mike Adams column:

“Deviants, perverts and weirdos of unimagined stripes get pampered.”

“My only hope would be that if one of these perverts tries anything to one of those gals, I hope she is armed and knows how to use the weapon.”

“Used to be a time when homosexuality and the transgenders where deemed mental and could be treated.”

“I predict we will see more violence due to a law such as this when we see the freaks on display.”

“I agree with Adams. They need the crap beaten out of them. Better to be beaten out off it than to go so far as to chop off your hoo hoo dilly.”

“Our founding fathers were talking about POLITICAL minorities, not faggots, in-betweens, don’t knows, etc.”

The oh-so pious Prison Fellowship Ministries (currently receiving a full tax exemption from our County Government) is deeply complicit in this murderous climate. Anne Morse, a ghost-writer for Chuck Colson, links to Mike Adams’ column in a frankly ridiculous post to her PFM blog, and both Morse and the dishonest blog administrator insist that they “don’t see anything wrong with it.” Today, Loudoun’s favorite felon posted a commentary and radio ad that repeats the same two lies: The locker room hoax and the fabricated claim that the law gives “men…full access to a woman’s restroom and locker room.”

From someone who claims to have written a book explaining “what Christianity is really about and why it is a religion of hope, redemption, and beauty,” I would expect better. Instead of engaging in some badly needed self-criticism and making the condemnation of real violence their highest priority, these supposedly Christian leaders are bleating about a non-existent “problem” of men invading ladies’ locker rooms, demanding the right to remove books from public school libraries, and, most incredibly, unconscionably of all, claiming that concerns about the safety of GLBT youth are nothing but complaints about “routine verbal insults.” This last author goes on to quote another anti-gay activist urging parents to demand “repeal all of these laws that violate our rights and beliefs.”

Sorry, but I see no evidence that your “beliefs” have any room for the right of our families to enjoy physical safety. Please demonstrate to me otherwise. Then, maybe we can talk.

This is an updated overview of the status of Tango, just in terms of the policy issues that have been uncovered. There will be more forthcoming about the community response, remarks at the February 26 School Board meeting, and the merits of Superintendent Hatrick’s rationale.

First, here’s the audio clip of Culture Shocks with Barry Lynn from last week:

Stacey Campfield and David Weintraub

#1108, First Broadcast February 21, 2008

Tennessee Bill would bar teachers from discussing homosexuality, with the sponsor Representative Stacey Campfield. Also, does the book And Tango Makes Three, the story of two male penguins hatching an egg, promote a gay agenda? David Weintraub with Equality Loudoun joins us.

Listen Now

The segment with Rep. Campfield is pretty funny. His argument is basically this: He doesn’t remember the topic of sexual orientation ever coming up in conversation when he was in school, so he “can’t imagine” that it would ever happen among students (K-8th grade) now. He also can’t see how his bill would constitute exclusion or disrespect for anyone’s family. Not the brightest bulb, I’m afraid.

Back to Loudoun:

Loudoun Times-Mirror
Leesburg Today
Loudoun Extra

At the Tuesday, February 26 School Board meeting, Superintendent Hatrick read into the record and distributed a statement in which he explained the rationale for his decision. He also conceded that he had overstepped his authority by extending the Sugarland book removal to all LCPS elementary schools, and a memo has since been sent to the other affected schools directing that the book be returned to general circulation. At Sugarland Elementary the book remains in the professional collection, where it is not accessible to students.

In his statement (available here), Dr. Hatrick makes reference to “some rather poor reporting of the facts in some publications and on some websites.” Since the story has been reported and commented on in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of blogs and articles across the country and beyond, has been placed in the context of a recent murder classified as an anti-gay hate crime, has been a topic of discussion on “The View,” and is currently being used as fodder for agitation and fundraising appeals by national anti-gay activist organizations, it’s very difficult to assess this statement. I can assure him that our pursuit of the facts has been, and will continue to be, rigorous.

Unless and until Dr. Hatrick identifies a specific source and assertion that he feels is in error, the statement remains a blank slate upon which anyone can project their particular spin. That’s unfortunate, because what is needed most in this conflict is the willingness to address in an open, honest manner what went wrong in this case, so that what is broken can be fixed.

And from what we can confirm so far, a lot went wrong in the way this challenge was handled. We already reported here that the documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the complainant, Sherrie Sawyer, failed to file her appeal of the Sugarland review committee decision within the five-day time limit required by the policy, but that her challenge was permitted to continue.

This violation has yet to be addressed by the School Board or the Superintendent. If the policy were to be respected, the entire process subsequent to that unanimous decision would be considered null and void, and the decision to retain the book would be recorded as final.

However, it now appears likely that the complainant did not even have standing to file the challenge.

She is an assistant teacher at Sugarland, but her Leesburg address would require her children to be enrolled at Tolbert. There are sometimes provisions made so that children may be enrolled at the school where a parent works, but several sources in the Sugarland community tell us that this is not the case with Ms. Sawyer. There is a Sawyer child enrolled at Tolbert. We are awaiting definitive confirmation of this information – alternative explanations are possible – but we also note that the Tolbert library collection does not include And Tango Makes Three.

If the policy were silent in these areas, it could be argued that the Superintendent had discretion (although his decision would still have been wrong on the merits). However, the policy is very clear: “All appeals under this policy must be made within 5 school days of receipt of the decision being appealed. If a decision is not appealed within this time limit, the decision on the request for review shall be final;” “Requests for review shall be made to the principal of the school the child attends.”

This is legally binding language. If Dr. Hatrick’s decision is allowed to stand, then it’s reasonable for people to think that LCPS cannot be trusted to make consistent administrative decisions – that they make it up as they go along. Radical anti-tax groups, and even more radical groups whose mission is to defund and ultimately to abolish public education, have just been handed a big, fat club with which to bash our public school system at the worst possible time. Even more troubling, a pattern of disregard for a clear policy duly adopted by the School Board potentially makes LCPS vulnerable to litigation. I doubt that anyone would sue over the Sugarland restriction on Tango - but what about a future book challenge that is resolved in a way that a censorious parent dislikes? Anti-gay activist litigation groups like the Alliance Defense Fund are drooling over the prospect of such lawsuits. Their reason for being is to exploit local controversies in order to set legal precedents, and they don’t much care how much of any given local education budget they burn up in the process.

Dr. Hatrick and some members of the School Board complained Tuesday night that penguins are trumping the school budget. That’s easy to answer: If the policy had been followed, this book challenge would have been resolved in June, 2007 or earlier, and we would not be talking about it right now.