Box Turtle Bulletin

Lavender Scare Documentary In The Works

If you’ve been following the historical items in our Daily Agendas, you may have noticed several references to the Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s “red scare” anti-communist campaign that also targeted gays in a concurrent “lavendar scare” campaign. The witch hunts against gay Americans lasted well into the 1960s, as gays were prohibited from federal employment. The Lavender Scare is the first feature-length documentary film to tell the story of the U.S. government’s ruthless campaign in the 1950s and ’60s to hunt down and fire every Federal employee it suspected was gay. The documentary is based on the award-winning book by David K. Johnson, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government,which I highly recommend. The documentary is currently in production.

Major Ex-Gay Conference Headed to St. Paul in 2012

Exodus International, the nation’s largest ex-gay umbrella group, has announced that they will hold their annual conference in St. Paul next year:

Plans are underway already for the 37th Annual Exodus Freedom Conference being held June 27-30 in the Twin Cities of Minnesota at Northwestern College.  Please consider giving now towards our scholarship fund so that we can make sure everyone who wants to be there can be there.  And, please consider being there yourself. It is a transforming experience!

They will be holding their conference in the Bachmann’s home turf. Now that will be interesting.

Update: Others are reporting that this is the same ex-gay conference in which, in 2004, Michele Bachmann gave her welcoming remarks. That’s not accurate. Bachmann gave her opening remarks at a Love Won Out conference, which is a one-day roadshow put on about six times each year marketing ex-gay therapy to gay people and — much more often, according to the typical attendance — to their parents.

On the other hand, the so-called “Freedom” conference is Exodus’s annual five-day conference, and is their signature flagship event. It is not a marketing event. It is the real deal, where ex-gay people from all over the country — and even around the world — come together for five days of conferences, worskshops, lectures, and worship. Think of it this way: where LWO is the infomercial, the Freedom Conference is the actual Clapper. What Bachmann spoke at was the theater poster; this is the second act. The third act, too often, ends badly.

Marcus Bachmann Defends His Ex-Gay Practice

In an interview with The Minneapolis Star Tribune, Marcus Bachmann, husband of GOP presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann, defended his psychological clinics, saying they are not focused on ex-gay conversion therapy. He also denied calling gay people barbarians in a 2010 radio interview.

Late last week, John Becker of Truth Wins Out revealed that he attended Bachmann’s clinic in Minnesota, where he was counseled over the course of five treatment sessions that he could change his sexuality. Counselor Timothy Wiertzema told Becker:

“…it’s possible to be totally free of [same-sex attraction]. For sure.” and that “It’s happened! It really has happened to people.” In the fifth session, Wiertzema says, “…obviously your goal is not to have any feelings of attraction for men…And I really am going to recommend that we start working on how you can develop your attractions towards women.”

…During session 5, Wiertzema advised Becker to “further develop your own sense of masculinity.” Reparative therapy reinforces strict gender roles and works to erase outward appearances of femininity in men and masculinity in women. Because these programs do not genuinely change sexual orientation, much focus is placed on changing behavior so an individual can “pass” as heterosexual, even if the gay person has not changed on the inside.

According to The Star-Tribune:

Marcus Bachmann said counselors at his clinics follow the wishes of patients and don’t force any treatment “This individual came to us under a false pretense,” Bachmann said. “The truth of the matter is he specifically asked for help.”

…He didn’t deny that he or other counselors at Bachmann & Associates have attempted to convert gay patients, but he said it is not a special interest of the business and would only be attempted at the client’s request.

“Will I address it? Certainly we’ll talk about it,” Bachmann said. “Is it a remedy form that I typically would use? … It is at the client’s discretion.”

TWO’s John Becker responds:

Marcus Bachmann wants Americans to believe that giving me reparative therapy was acceptable because I specifically asked for it. This is patently absurd. Responsible counselors refuse to provide ex-gay “therapy” because it is scientifically baseless and morally bankrupt. Bachmann & Associates, though, was more than happy to hold out false promises of change with one hand and collect the cash with the other.

Wayne Besen adds:

The notion that a counselor is required harm a client just because he or she asks is patently absurd, asserts TWO. Similarly, if a bodybuilder had asked a doctor to help him or her inject steroids, the practitioner could refuse. If an African American asked a doctor for a skin bleaching, he or she could decline. If a physician is urged to help manage a model’s anorexia, he or she could turn the model away and instead offer real medical help.

Every major mental health and medical organization opposes therapies intended to change sexual orientation. In an exhaustive review of the professional peer-reviewed literature, the American Psychological Association concluded (PDF: 816KB/138 pages) that “enduring change to an individual’s sexual orientation is uncommon” and that “there was some evidence to indicate that individuals experienced harm” from such therapies.

Bachmann also claimed that the tape of his 2010 interview with a Christian talk radio program “must have been doctored“:

“I was talking in reference to children. Nothing, nothing to do with homosexuality. That’s not my mindset. That’s not my belief system. That’s not the way I would talk,” Bachmann said.

…”I think the strongest myth. … is the myth that I have ever called a homosexual a barbarian,” Bachmann said.

The audio, provided by the Dump Bachmann Blog, includes annoyingly loud sound-effects where edit points occur. Beginning at around the two-minute mark, there is one such edit point, after which the program returns from a commercial break. At that point, the interviewer begins asking Bachmann — “since you pay attention to the culture wars” — about a a letter from the anti-gay front group calling themselves the “American College of Pediatricians” (not to be confused with the legitimate and mainstream American Association of Pediatrics) and a then-recent Wall Street Journal article titled, “What do you say when your teenager says she’s gay?” The interviewer asks Bachmann:

Interviewer: (at 2:45) What do you say to Christian parents that come up with this?

Bachmann: Well I think you clearly say, what is the understanding of God’s Word on homosexuality? And I think that this is no mystery that a child or pre-adolescent, particularly an adolescent, will question and wonder about sexuality. That’s nothing new under the sun since the beginning of time.

Inteviewer: (laughs) yeah…

Bachmann: But I don’t think we should take that, as because we wonder or we  think or we question, does that take us down the road of homosexuality?

Interviewer: Could you add the word “experiment” to that?

Bachmann: Well certainly, there’s that curiosity. But again, we, like… It is as if we have to understand barbarians need to be educated. They need to be disciplined. Just because someone feels it or thinks it doesn’t mean that we are supposed to go down that road. That’s what is called the sinful nature. We have a responsibility as parents and as authority figures not to encourage such thoughts and feelings from moving into the action steps.

And let’s face it: what is our culture, what is our public education system doing today? They are giving full, wide-open doors to children, not only giving encouragement to think it, but to actually encourage action steps. That’s why when we understand what truly is the percentage of homosexuals in this country, it is small. But by these open doors, I can see and we are experiencing, that it is starting to increase.

There does not appear to be any edit points or tampering with this portion of the interview. Bachmann told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he was speaking of children generally, but it appears that in the full context of the interview the focus very specifically on gay children when Bachmann uttered his “barbarians” remark.

On Monday, Michele Bachman refused to comment on her husband’s clinic, except to characterize his business as “jobs creation.”

Michele Bachmann’s Lesbian Sister at Obama’s Inauguration

This video shows Helen LaFave, Rep. Michele Bachmann’s lesbian stepsister at Obama’s 2010 Inauguration in Washington, D.C. talking about what Obama’s presidency means for her. It certainly is a sharp contrast to Bachmann’s view of Obama:

In the 2006 City Pages profile of the Bachmanns, G.R. Anderson, Jr., wrote about how Michele Bachmann’s anti-gay obsessions drove a split in her family (via archive.org):

But Michele Bachmann’s Christian testimony has not endeared her to everyone in her family. When Bachmann held a hearing on the gay marriage ban at the Capitol last April, she got a rude surprise: Sitting just a few feet away was her stepsister, Helen LaFave, who chose the occasion to come out publicly for the first time, with her partner of 20 years in attendance. “This issue has been very hurtful to me personally, and divisive for our family,” LaFave told the Star Tribune at the time. Bachmann said at the time that she had taken a family vote on the gay marriage ban, and that family members favored it by a 6-3 margin. But both Michael and Helen LaFave insist she never spoke to them about it. Helen LaFave added that Bachmann ignored letters LaFave had sent her about the matter.

(Helen LaFave, 46, declined to be interviewed for this story, saying, “My dad is in his 80s now, and it’s too much to have all of this out there for him.”)

“I’ve got to be clear that I’ve always been kind of proud of Michele,” Michael LaFave says cautiously. That all went sour, though, as Bachmann increasingly became the face of the efforts to ban gay marriage at the Capitol. LaFave had no choice but to take things personally: “I wrote her an e-mail, and asked very nicely why she had to carry the water on this, knowing that my father has a gay daughter. How could she discriminate against Helen?

“She’s out there courting a family values agenda, but she’s saying things about her own family that’s not true,” he claims. “She could have been talking to the voters the whole time about having a gay sister,” he says. “That at least would have been honest. Dick Cheney had the good sense to do that with his daughter. He had the good sense to know not to engage the base, to not get involved in the debate, because he knew how much it would hurt his daughter. If anyone spent the most time together between the LaFaves and the Ambles,” LaFave concludes, “it was Michele and Helen.

“What I’d say to Michele is that you’ve got a situation here that you didn’t have to create. You didn’t have to go about it this way,” he says, and pauses before announcing he’ll likely vote for Patty Wetterling. “I’d say, ‘Michele, for all of this, you’ve lost your family. You’ve lost my vote.'”

The Daily Agenda for Friday, July 15

TODAY’S AGENDA:

AIDS Walks This Weekend: San Francisco, CA.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Budapest, Hungary; Charlotte, NC (Black Pride); Colorado Springs, CO; Kitsap, WA; Peel, ON; Portland, OR (Latino Pride); Reading, PA; Rochester, MN; Rochester, NY; San Diego, CA; and Sheffield, UK.

And Also: Bear Week, Provincetown, MA.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Samuel Reber: 1903. He was a well-regarded American diplomat who spent twenty-seven years in the Foreign Service. During World War II, Reber scored a significant diplomatic success by getting Vichy France to agree that French colonies and possessions, ships and planes in the Caribbean would not be used by the Axis powers, an agreement which underscored Vichy’s weakness as a French power. Reber then joined the Allied Control Commission in Italy, and from there he served as the U.S. representative to the Allied French government in 1944. By 1946, he was a political adviser to the U.S. delegation at the Council of Foreign Ministers Conference in Paris, and in 1947 he was director of the State Department’s Office of European Affairs, and in 1950 he joined in the Allied High Commission as an adviser for the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany.

Beginning in 1948, Reber faced his greatest diplomatic challenge while working tirelessly for an Austrian peace treaty, enduring years of threats and insults from the Soviet Union. His work ultimately laid the groundwork for an independent Austria remaining outside of the Soviet block. But the treaty guaranteeing that independence wouldn’t come about until two years after Reber was forced out of the State Department in 1953. That’s when Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s Red Scare — and the accompanying Lavender Scare — was in full force in the U.S. Senate. McCarthy charged that the upper ranks of the State Department were filled with communists and homosexuals, prompting a wide-ranging witch hunt within the department. Reber was called in for a polygraph test and interviews on March 17 and 19, 1953. That investigation uncovered “a lot of admissions” about homosexuality. When McCarthy threatened to reveal allegations of Reber’s homosexuality, Reber promptly announced his retirement in May 1953, effective July 15 when he turned 50.

But because of Reber’s high profile, the reasons for his resignation quickly became well known in diplomatic and political circles. In 1954, McCarthy would use Reber’s resignation against his brother, Major General Miles Reber, who was called to testify on the first day of the Army-McCarthy hearings. According to Time magazine:

Returning to twist the dirk already thrust into the Reber brothers, McCarthy asked General Reber: “Are you aware of the fact that your brother was allowed to resign when charges that he was a bad security risk were made against him as a result of the investigation of this committee?” Jenkins roared in protest. McClellan roared in protest. McCarthy talked on, stuck to his question. General Reber sat in silence, gripping the edges of the witness table until his knuckles showed white. Finally, McCarthy, having made his point over radio and television, dismissed the entire question as unimportant, and grandly said he would withdraw it.

But West Pointer Reber would not have it so. In a voice thick with emotion, he asked to be allowed to answer the “very serious charge” made against his brother. After another long argument, Reber said simply: “. . . As I understand my brother’s case, he retired, as he is entitled to do by law, upon reaching the age of 50 … I know nothing about any security case involving him.” With a sigh of relief, Chairman Mundt dismissed Reber, thanking him for his frank manner—a remark to which McCarthy, who seemed determined to resent any civility, made a formal objection.

David Cicilline: 1961. When he was elected mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, in a landslide in 2002, David Cicilline became the first openly gay man to become mayor of a state capital. in 2010, he was elected to Congress to represent Rhode Island in the U.S. House of Representatives, becoming one of four openly gay representatives in the House.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

The champions of the bullies

In recent years bullying of gay children and those perceived to be gay has caught the attention of the nation. While this is not a new phenomenon, the rise of “new media” has allowed for stories that individually may have received little notice – or may have been intentionally misconstrued – to be seen as a pattern and an ongoing problem. And as the list of names of children tormented to the point of suicide grew, so too did a collective awareness that our culture has a serious problem with bullying.

Secular concern has been consistent and compassionate. Individuals, celebrities, corporations, and the President of the United States have all sought to give kids a message of hope that they should hold on because it gets better.

But the response to this problem from people of faith has been mixed. Some, mostly in Jewish and mainline Christian denominations, have condemned the bullying and expressed acceptance, love, and support for the gay and presumed gay victims. Others have agreed that bullying is not a good thing, but have dismissed its seriousness and resisted anti-bullying programs as being homosexual propaganda.

But generally there has been agreement that slurs are not appropriate behavior for Christian youth.

Yet there are those among conservative evangelical Christianity who don’t just downplay slurs and expressions of contempt but engage in such behaviors themselves. One such person is Daniel Beckworth, youth pastor at Union Grove Baptist Church in Opelika, Alabama and regional representative of Youth for Christ.

David Rattigan, at Ex-Gay Watch, chronicles an email exchange between himself and Beckworth which was initiated by a slur that Beckworth left on the site. When David reached out to Beckworth to remind him of the consequences of bullying kids who are “different”, he was met with a particularly telling rebuttal:

Maybe you should speak to the young boys who wish they had someone to help them be manly. You dont need to reply. You have no chance of convincing me that we need to pamper young boys.

David does not see Beckworth as an isolated instance. Rather he traces his views to rhetoric and example from Mark Driscoll, pastor of Seattle’s mega-church Mars Hill Church. Driscoll too, it appears, practices a religion that values contempt over compassion and arrogance over kindness.

But while Driscoll engages in a pattern of insult followed by pseudo-apology, his example gives cover to those like Beckworth who find virtue in abusing the weak. Go read the entire story at Ex-Gay Watch and keep it in mind for the next time that some conservative Christian tells you, “It isn’t us, it isn’t kids from our churches that are doing the bullying!”

In coming commentaries I’ll be discussing some things I’ve observed about a growing tension in a conservative denomination as well as how some recent correspondence illustrates the peculiar logic and self-deception required to justify cruelty.

Will you still need me, will you still heed me, when you’re sixty-four?*

In recent months we’ve seen several polls showing a majority of Americans now support marriage equality (plus one from NOM, less favorable, that merely highlights their own polling desperation).

These polls always display amazing support from young voters. Our opponents dismiss that: People get more conservative as they get older. They’ll change their minds. They’ll come to our side.

Many people do get more conservative as they age. Does that mean we’ll lose them? I’ve got two replies:

1. No.
2. It doesn’t matter.

I dove into the ABC/Washington Post poll, which compares results from March 2011 and October 2005 and breaks down the data by age.  It’s pretty damn interesting. First, let’s deal with…

It doesn’t matter.

Support for marriage equality has increased in every age group from 2005 to 2011.

Now, this doesn’t tell us whether we’re losing people as they age.  When you compare, say 30-39-year-olds in 2005 and 2011, you’re not comparing the same demographic group.  The older half of 2005’s 30-39ers aged up into the 40-49 group by 2011, and were replaced by 2005’s older 20-29ers.

But it doesn’t matter. Even if we were losing some individuals as they age, we’re still making inroads into every age group.  According to ABC/WP’s data, we’ve gone deep enough to gain a majority across the population, with momentum on our side.

Still, I would like to know what’s happening in people’s heads as they get older.  Are we losing them?  I can’t be sure, but I think the answer is…

No.

I wish this data were broken into five-year cohorts  (30-34, 35-39, 40-44, etc.).  That would better match the five-and-a-half-year period between surveys:  2005’s 30-34-year-olds would become 2011’s 35-39ers, and we could see how they had changed.

But we’re stuck with these ten-year cohorts. That means about half of 2005’s 30-39ers have aged into 2011’s 40-49er group. Let’s make the best of it and compare those numbers.

This chart compares each 2005 cohort with its aged-up 2011 counterpart.

That’s pretty cool. Except for the oldest respondents, each group in 2011 was more supportive than its younger neighbor in 2005. (And that oldest group spans more years than any other, possibly making  it less susceptible to change.)  So in other words:

For the most part, older people are more supportive of marriage equality in 2011 than younger people were in 2005.

Of course, this on the sloppy side, the result of wrestling with whatever data’s available.  To do this right, we’d want a long-term longitudinal survey, asking a large sample of the same people year after year, preferably with the marriage equality question buried among a bunch of other issues covered by the survey.

That being said, I’d still like to point out this startling result:

Do you see that?

50-64-year-olds today aren’t just more supportive than 50-64-year-olds five years ago…

…or 40-49-year-olds five years ago…

…but are even more supportive than 30-39-year-olds five years ago!

That’s amazing. And it makes it hard to believe we’re losing people as they age. They may get more conservative (I don’t have data on that) but they’re not abandoning us. In fact, they’re joining us. That makes sense. Every year you live is another year you might meet more real, live gay people, decent folk to knock out the demonizing anti-gay stereotypes most of us grew up with.

Lord, I’d love more data. If anyone has other surveys conducted over time and broken down by age, please send them to me.

One last note.

Some people look at these surveys and say, We just have to wait for the bigots to die. Ugh. A gay commenter on another blog made an angry point along the lines of, I’ve been fighting for equality since the 60s. When you’re waiting for the older generation to die, you’re waiting for me to die. I fought too hard for too long — and you’re reaping too many benefits — for me to put up with that bullshit.

We don’t have to wait for anyone to die. And we don’t have to dismiss any generation as bigots. That’s what these numbers tell us. We can reach every age group. We can fight for everyone’s equality, no matter how old they are, no matter how old we are, and we can do it today.

*With deepest apologies to Lennon/McCartney.

The Daily Agenda for Thursday, July 14

TODAY’S AGENDA:

AIDS Walks This Weekend: San Francisco, CA.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Budapest, Hungary; Charlotte, NC (Black Pride); Colorado Springs, CO; Kitsap, WA; Peel, ON; Portland, OR (Latino Pride); Reading, PA; Rochester, MN; Rochester, NY; San Diego, CA; and Sheffield, UK.

And Also: Bear Week, Provincetown, MA.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Arthur Laurents: 1917. The three-time Tony Award winning playwright, director and screenwriter started out by writing scripts for radio shows and training films for the U.S. Army during World War II. One photograph of GIs in the South Pacific jungle inspired him to write Home of the Brave about anti-Semitism in the military. The play opened on Broadway in 1945 and ran for sixty nine performances. (When the play was adapted for the 1949 film, the topic switched from anti-Semitic to anti-black bigotry.) That first run wasn’t a long one, but its controversial subject would come back to haunt him later when he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and was placed on the infamous entertainment blacklist during the McCarthy red scare.

His tenure on the list was relatively brief, and by the mid-1050s, Laurents was in Broadway and Hollywood’s good graces again. Good thing, because he went on to write West Side Story and Gypsy, and the script for Alfred Hitchcock’s The Rope. He also wrote the scripts for the films The Way We Were and The Turning Point, and directed the 1983 stage production of  La Cage Aux Folles.  Laurents died just this past May in New York of pneumonia at the age of 93. His partner of more than fifty years, Tom Hatcher, had preceded him in 2006. In honor of Laurents’s career, the lights on Broadway were dimmed at 8:00 p.m. on May 6, 2011.

My Mom: 1940. Happy Birthday Mom!

Jane Lynch: 1960. Nobody does bitter sarcasm like Jane Lynch. Since 2009, she has played the role of Sue Sylvester on Glee, where her Emmy- and a Golden Globe-winning performance is the only rational reason why anyone would want to watch Glee (in my opinion at least). She has also appeared in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and has a recurring role in The L Word. In 2010, Lynch married clinical psychologist Dr. Laura Embry in Sunderland Massachusetts. They had met at a gala for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. You can see their video for Dan Savage’s It Gets Better project here.

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

The curse of the anti-gay pledge

There is something truly delightful in watching the Family Leader’s anti-gay pledge – which was supposed to pressure Republican candidates into a commitment to fight the civil equality promised by the Fourteenth Amendment – go up in flames.

After it was discovered that Bob Vander Plaats had thrown in a statement that suggested that African-Americans were better off when white people owned them and after Michelle Bachmann was put in the unenviable position of having to explain to the media that, yes, she does think slavery is a bad thing, no one else wants to have anything to do with this pledge.

Mitt Romney rejected the pledge, calling it “undignified and inappropriate for a presidential campaign”, Newt Gingrich found too many unspecified problems (divorce, perhaps?), and even those who are slogging hardest to get the theocrat vote, Tim Pawlenty and Herman Cain, couldn’t distance themselves fast enough.

And as for Bachmann, this error combined with her husband’s wacky ex-gay counseling may prove just too much even for social conservatives who have a very high tolerance for crazy.

The social obligations of inclusion

“Fröken Salander, if I rescind your declaration of incompetence, that will mean that you have exactly the same rights as all other citizens. It also means that you have the same obligations. It is therefore your duty to manage your finances, pay taxes, obey the law, and assist the police in investigations of serious crimes. So I am summoning you to be questioned like any other citizen who has information that might be vital to an investigation.”

– The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Stieg Larsson

The funny thing about rights is that they come with obligations. The right to vote, to choose the people who will make the laws that effect your lives, also has the obligation that you learn the issues, select a candidate and show up on a Tuesday in November to pull the lever. The right to plead your defense against governmental accusations to a panel of people just like you also comes with the excruciatingly irritating necessity to occasionally be one of the jurors on that panel.

Like Salander, the gay community has been in many ways been declared incompetent and childlike. Religious leaders have judged us broken, unaware of what is best for us, and in need to have others make decisions on our behalf. Convinced that our lives demonstrate that we are incapable of choosing what is best for us, they tell us what our choices should be: celibacy, therapy, repentance, or even just manning up and doing what their doctrines say is right.

And politicians have readily agreed, separating from us the rights, responsibilities and trappings of adulthood. Marriage is for responsible adults. Children are for responsible adults. We are not proper role models and should not be allowed employment that would give us respect in the eyes of children. Citizenship is for capable adults, and gay people have been deemed incapable of living up to the full rights of citizenship.

Even employers made hiring and advancement decisions based on what they believed that our family structure says about our maturity. A family man with a mortgage is presumed to be a more stable reliable employee than a single man who might party all night and blow off work. And a woman incapable of finding herself a good husband may not be well suited for a job which requires managing abilities. A presentable mate at the company social gatherings has always been a factor in advancement, and gay men and women – being “single” by definition – were at a disadvantage.

Knowing these presumptions to be false, for the past four decades we have fought for our rights as an equal citizen, one that need no overseer or patronizing decision maker, one that can choose what doctrines to believe and capable of social contributions equal to others.

And we have plead our case well and our evidence has been compelling.

Employers have come to see the gay man in the ten year relationship as being more similar to a married man than to a playboy. Many churches have found a lesbian parishioner to be no less spiritual mature than any worshiper and equally capable of pastoral care. Friends, family, coworkers and neighbors have discovered that fears about our inability to live a healthy, happy, balanced and responsible life were unfounded.

And finally, politicians have looked into their hearts and found that if you set aside bias (and reelection goals), gay men and women are entitled to the role of full and equal citizen promised to them by their constitutional inheritance.

So bit by bit, state by state, the doctrines, the policies, and the laws that have declared us incompetent are being changed.

But this is not Christmas morning and Santa Claus. And we are now having to face the realization that with the rights of citizenship come the responsibilities. And with full inclusion into society comes social obligation and expectation.

Those who malign us are not entirely baseless in their accusations. Our community has at times given itself license for childish excess and antisocial behavior. Being denied responsibility, we have at times behaved irresponsibly. Being ostracized, we have responded with messages and images designed to shock and offend. And being victims of social institutions, we have given ourselves permission to thwart social protocol and turn decorum on its head.

But as we gain responsibility and self-determination, as ostracization fades and social institutions expand to include us, such behavior no longer has an excuse. As we become full members of society, we now have to consider what impact our choices have on society.

And while much of the above addresses the collective mature response of a community, this change is also experienced on the individual level. As those who know us have come to believe us when we say that we are no different from our brothers and sisters, they have placed on us the same expectations and social obligations as our brothers and sisters.

And this has not been, nor will it continue to be, an easy transition. (Chicago Tribune)

As New York stood poised to become the latest state to legalize same-sex marriage, Michael Koresky felt the pressure deepen from friends and family eager to see him and his boyfriend of six years tie the knot.

But Koresky and his partner, who live in Brooklyn, aren’t sure wedding bells are in the cards. Amid exultant celebrations of marriage equality, they’ve found themselves in the awkward position of coming out of the we’re-not-sure-we-want-to-get-married closet.
…
They’re reluctant to spend thousands of dollars on a wedding just because it’s expected, and are hesitant to elope for fear loved ones would be disappointed they weren’t included.

The men already exchanged rings as a sign of their commitment to one another, so they question the purpose of a wedding.

“What would it mean?” Koresky said. “Who is it for?”

Koresky is not alone in resenting family pressures to conform. While valuing the right to marry, some also maintain a firm grip on their right not to marry and see social pressures as intrusive. What right has anyone else to tell them how their relationship should be structured? Who is the wedding really for? What business is it of theirs anyway?

And it is not just parental demands for a string quartet and open bar that we will encounter. Employers are taking steps to pressure employees to tie the knot. (NYTimes)

Now that same-sex marriage has been legalized in New York, at least a few large companies are requiring their employees to tie the knot if they want their partners to qualify for health insurance.

Corning, I.B.M. and Raytheon all provide domestic partner benefits to employees with same-sex partners in states where they cannot marry. But now that they can legally wed in New York, five other states and the District of Columbia, they will be required to do so if they want their partner to be covered for a routine checkup or a root canal.

But some of the same activists who have led the call for legal marriage equality have objected to marriage equality in the workplace. “That isn’t fair, marriage is still a complicated legal decision,” they insist. And, besides, what business is it of theirs anyway. Why should benefits be tied to a marriage license?

But society has a vested interest in relationship stability. Korelsky’s parents have a good reason to wish him encumbered with legal obligations to the person that he has introduced into their lives and whom they have grown to love. Raytheon has a good reason to wish that asset entanglement gives a sales manager added incentive to work out problems and keep the relationship stable. And your tax-paying neighbors have good reason to wish that you have legal as well as emotional obligations should one of you require care.

With our new inclusion into society as equal members, we will continue to face the social obligations and expectations that other members share. Aunt Thelma will wonder (in a voice louder than she realizes) why you haven’t settled down yet. Mom will discreetly slip Bride Magazine into your bag. Your boss will not-quite-jokingly inquire when you’re going make an honest woman out of her. And all of them will expect you to be as shocked as they are by some of the more free-spirited elements of our community.

Change is coming. But I don’t think that it is change we need to fear. And much of it is occurring organically anyway.

Couples with babies already are finding that Saturday night out on the town is often more hassle than it’s worth. Those with children are abandoning places that they feel are not child-friendly, opting instead for inclusive family settings. And the option to marry is already encouraging gay men and women to ask themselves whether the new cute thing is worth the investment of time and effort – and whether they too can withstand a candid evaluation.

Further, none of this suggests that we must readily acquiesce to every demand and be assimilated to the point of extinguishing our culture or uniqueness. As we enter society as equal but openly gay, we bring not just ourselves, but also our traditions, our perspectives, and our wisdom.

Like all times when societies have merged people with different histories and traditions, some of the presumptions of the current culture will fall away to be replaced by what we have to share. I doubt that it will be as drastic as the abandonment of sexual exclusivity that Dan Savage recommends, but perhaps relationship power structures or role negotiation and dispute resolution will be effected by our experiences. Perhaps the gender assumptions which now have a tenuous hold will lose grip completely. And perhaps there will be aspects and attributes of same-sex marriage that never are quite identical to those of opposite-sex marriages, and that too is fine. We will have to wait and see.

This is going to be an exciting time, but it will not be easy.

Some in our community will be angry at the traitorous sellouts to heterosexist hegemony that dare question their individuality. Some will judge the world to be “judgmental” for daring to criticize their excess. Others will sadly reminisce about the days in which social rejection created a cohesive vibrant community of proud self-reliant outsiders. And perhaps all of us will know that something has been lost.

Nor will the new model be functional for all. Some will find that the expectations and demands of social inclusion are based on the assumption of opportunities that time will never bring again. Some of us have grown too independent, too self-reliant, too old and set in our ways to ever have any realistic expectation of marriage and children. And having grown accustomed to being outside, and having built a life accordingly, assimilation will simply never be a reality. And some, having found ways to make alternative structures functionally provide for their needs, may find life even more difficult as sympathies fade for counter-culture or non-conformist lifestyles.

But while growing up is a difficult and painful process, it is time that we individually and collectively rise to the challenge and take our place as full adult citizens of our community, family, and nation. Having proven ourselves worthy to be treated as adults, we owe it to ourselves to hold ourselves to that standard.

California Board Accepts Credits From NARTH for Licensing Renewal

Licensed therapists need to demonstrate that they are staying current in their field through the accumulation of Continuing Education credits. A few earn these credits by taking additional coursework, but most earn them by attending lectures, seminars and workshops at conferences and conventions put on by a large number of organizations.

California-licensed mental health professionals can earn Continuing Education credits from the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), according to a CE provider list dated May 1 (PDF: 1MB/87 pages) from the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (Number 1240, see page 15). You will recall that George Rekers sat on NARTH’s Scientific Advisory Board as well as its Board of Directors. In June 1, we exposed Rekers’s fraudulent reporting of his most “successful” gay cure, that of five-year-old Kirk Murphy who committed suicide at the age of thirty-eight. Every major mental health and medical organization has condemned ex-gay therapy, yet NARTH’s accreditation for providing CU credits provides cover for therapists who try to cure that which is not an illness.

The Continuing Education Coordinator for the CBBS can be contacted at Patricia.Fay@dca.ca.gov. You can also contact Executive Officer Kim Madsen and Assistant Executive Officer Tracy Rhine at:

Board of Behavioral Sciences
1625 N Market Blvd., Suite S-200
Sacramento, CA 95834
Phone: (916) 574-7830
Fax: (916) 574-8625

[via Towleroad]

The Daily Agenda for Wednesday, July 13

TODAY’S AGENDA:
It’s hump day! Get ready for the weekend.

AIDS Walks This Weekend: San Francisco, CA.

Pride Celebrations This Weekend: Budapest, Hungary; Charlotte, NC (Black Pride); Colorado Springs, CO; Kitsap, WA; Peel, ON; Portland, OR (Latino Pride); Reading, PA; Rochester, MN; Rochester, NY; San Diego, CA; and Sheffield, UK.

And Also: Bear Week, Provincetown, MA.

TODAY IN HISTORY:
Gay Pub Raided in London: 1810. From The Times of London: “The existence of a Club, or Society, for the purpose so detestable and repugnant to the common feelings of our nature, that by no word can it be described without committing an outrage upon decency, has for some time been suspected by the Magistrates of Bow-street; who cautiously concealing the odious secret, abstained from taking any steps on the information they had received, until an opportunity should offer of surprising the whole gang. About 11 o’clock last Sunday evening, three separate parties of the patrole, attended by constables, were detached from Bow-street on this service. … The enterprise was completely successful. — We regret most deeply, that the information given at the office was found to be so accurate, that the Officers felt themselves justified in seizing no fewer than 23 individuals, at a public-house, called the White Swan, in Vere-street, Clare-market.”

Two men were found guilty of sodomy and were hanged. Six more were found guilty of attempted sodomy and were made to stand at the pillory. The crowds who turned out for the pillory were particularly violent, throwing rotten fish, dead cats, “cannonballs” made of mud, and vegetables at the convicted men. The men were severely injured and barely survived their allotted time at the pillory.

“Brothers” Debuts: 1984. The first American television program featuring a gay lead character finally debuted on Showtime. The show, set in Philadelphia, centered around the three Waters brothers: Lou was a typical blue-collar construction foreman, Joe was a retired placekicker for the Philadelphia Eagles and owner of a sports bar, and Cliff, who in the first episode left his bride at the altar and came out to his family as a gay man.  ABC and NBC had already turned down the series out of fear of portraying homosexuality on prime time, but when Showtime decided to begin producing original television series, they saw Brothers as the perfect fit. After a successful first season, Showtime decided to pick up the series for a second season. Showtime also offer the series for syndication to over-the-air broadcast stations, and the fledgling Fox network decided to jump on that deal. Brother would go on for a full five seasons and 115 episodes.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS:
Robert Gant: 1968. He was Ben Bruckner in the American version of “Queer as Folk.” His HIV-positive character gave the series an opportunity to explore anti-AIDS hysteria and stigma, both outside and inside the gay community. He has had numerous television guest roles, and he acted and produced in Save Me, the film staring Chad Allen about the ex-gay movement. Gant and Allen, along with Christopher Racster, are partners in the production company Mythgarden. He is active in LGBT elder issues, supporting SAGE (Senior Advocacy for GLBT Elders) and GLEH (Gay and Lesbian Elder Housing).

If you know of something that belongs on the agenda, please send it here. PLEASE, don’t forget to include the basics: who, what, when, where, and URL (if available).

I support polygamists’ lawsuit

Get ready to hear the anti-gays shriek, “I told you so!” A reality celebrity polygamist family from Utah is suing that state to have its polygamy law found unconstitutional. And I support them. (ABC)

The polygamist family portrayed on the TLC reality show “Sister Wives” said all along its main goal in going on national television was to gain public acceptance of its lifestyle.

Now family patriarch Kody Brown, his four wives and 16 children and stepchildren are moving from the court of public opinion to the court of law, arguing that criminalizing their lifestyle is unconstitutional.

This lawsuit may seem to support the contentions of Maggie Gallagher and the others who spend their energy obsessing over my life and campaigning to keep me inferior. And it may seek peculiar that I would support such and endeavor.

But here’s the thing. They are not suing to have their family structure given legal recognition; that I would oppose.

The legal bonds of matrimony uniquely empower one person to be the sole caretaker and decision-maker over another in times of trouble, the primary heir with unique right at death, and encompasses a whole host of entanglements that become complicated beyond possibility when more than two are included. While the State can step in to a family squabble and say we recognize the spouse, chaos would result from multiple spouse with equal claim or, worse yet, some hierarchy of squabbling spouses.

But their lawsuit is about something else, the effort by the state to control their sex life. Unlike other states which do not recognize multi-party marriage, Utah has banned multi-party cohabitation.

The state law reads: “A person is guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person.”

Kody Brown is legally married to one woman, Meri, but also calls the other three women his spouses.

And while I do not wish to open legal marriage to multiple parties, I am a big fan of leaving people live how they want, love whom they want, and in general be as stupid as they want to be (and, believe me, I think any non-bisexual woman that enters into a relationship in which she is one of four women with one man is stupid). So if you want to live with the knowledge that you have no right to recourse should your man and his other three women tire of you, knock yourself out.

And this is not just a theoretical complaint against the state. The police in Lehi, Utah, launched an investigation into the Brown family’s lifestyle for a possible charge of bigamy.

So yeah, I side with the crazy people on this one. If you think that your god wants you to share your man with three other women (one of whom has all the legal rights) then I’ll support your right to sleep where you want and with whom. But fair warning, polygamists, don’t be marrying 14 year-olds or abandoning your male children on a street corner or I’ll happily lead the charge to throw your nasty ass in jail.

Chilean President proposes couple recognition

During the last presidential campaign in Chile, candidates sought to outdo each other in their displays of support for gay Chileans. At the time, we wondered whether or how this would translate into legislation after the election.

As it turns out, conservative Chilean President Sebastian Pinera, who as a candidate ran prime-time ads with gay men holding hands and lesbians kissing each other, is prepared to take action on the issue. It appears to be comparable to a Domestic Partnership (but will probably be called “civil unions” in English-speaking press).

From La Tercera (as translated by Google)

According to a draft summary of the currency delivered in recent days representatives of the Alliance, which agreed the Third, this will allow unmarried couples, heterosexual and homosexual, to register with the Registrar if they meet some requirements, including a period of coexistence of more than one year.

Although the agreement between the cohabitants must subscribe before a notary, as a way to avoid a ceremony that may resemble that of a civil marriage, the contract must be validated within 15 days, with an inscription to the Civil Registry .

In line also with the idea of differentiating the new institution of marriage, it would be called “non-marital cohabitation agreements” (ACNM), and “will not alter or marital status of the contractor or establish kinship by affinity relatives of the other. “

If I read this correctly, you get couple recognition and legal rights, but no in-laws.

If this proposal passes, Latin America will have the following forms of couple recognition:

Argentina recognizes marriage and Mexico recognizes marriage provided that they occur in Mexico City. Brazil, Uruguay, and Ecuador recognize civil unions. Chile will recognize whatever form ultimately results from the legislation, and Colombia recognizes common-law marriage.

Bachmann: Being Gay Is “A Part Of Satan”

Minnesota Representative and GOP candidate Michelle Bachmann spoke in 2004 at a National Education Leadership Conference:

And I think something that was meant for evil was meant for good, and I think we can see that again today. Well there’s something that’s happening in our schools, and one of the reasons why I felt I was called to take up this issue, of bringing a constitutional amendment to the state of Minnesota before our people—I was the chief author in the MN state senate—is because of the profound impact this would have on every man, every woman, every child in the state of Minnesota. Because everyone thought this would only impact the 1.3 percent of our population that is a same-sex individual — and again, don’t misunderstand. I am not here bashing people who are homosexuals, who are lesbians, who are bisexual, who are transgendered. We need to have profound compassion for the people who are dealing with the very real issue of sexual dysfunction in their life, and sexual identity disorders. This is a very real issue. It’s not funny, it’s sad. Any of you who have members of your family that are in the lifestyle—we have a member of our family that is. This is not funny. It’s a very sad life. It’s part of Satan, I think, to say this is gay. It’s anything but gay. And so we are not here tonight — in fact, I wish this whole room was filled with the gay community, because we’d reach our hand out in love.

The Love Won Out conference was here not too long ago in the Twin Cities, and it’s profoundly sad to recognize that almost all, if not all, individuals who have gone into the lifestyle have been abused at one time in their life, either by a male or by a female. There’s been profound hurt and profound things that have happened in almost all of their lives. And this gives us great compassion. So this is not to talk about gay bashing — do we understand that? That is not what this is about. But it’s to say that this new legal enforcement of a new status—homosexuality, lesbianism, bringing it into the mainstream, if you will, giving it a legitimacy if you will — that will impact not only the gay community, but every man, woman and child, particularly the schools.

Oh no, calling gay people, including one’s step-sister, a “part of Satan” isn’t bashing anyone at all. No siree…

In 2004, Michele Bachmann, who was then a Minnesota State Senator, gave a few opening remarks at the Love Won Out conference in the Twin Cities. According to this Christian Post press release, Bachmann said, “I know that Love Won Out will present the truth about homosexuality. I look forward to welcoming Minnesotans and residents of surrounding states to hear the message of healing that is possible.” The so-called “truth” would have included a line from Focus On the Family’s Melissa Fryrear, who claimed never to have met a lesbian or a gay man who had not been abused. As far as I have been able to determine, Fryrear uttered that line at every single LWO event she has ever spoken at. It was part of her standard stump speech. (She has since left Focus and is working at a church in Prescott, Arizona, and is no longer is part of the ex-gay roadshow.) When I heard her give that talk in Phoenix in 2007, I witnessed first hand the devastating impact it had on parents who were there:

The audience sat in stunned silence as Fryrear, her voice shaking, went on to talk about sexual abuse in greater detail. She later described her own sexual abuse as a child, and her talk had just followed a testimony by Mike Haley in which he described having sex with another older man beginning at the age of eleven. As far as this audience knew, there were no exceptions.

…It’s not fair to say that the parents and relatives were rife with suspicions, but I was surprised at the number of suspicions that did come up — and the circumstantial nature of the “evidence” which prompted many of them. I heard ex-boyfriends and babysitters suddenly come under suspicion where there had been none before. It seemed as if many of these relatives, taking Melissa Fryrear at her word, turned several possibilities over in their minds — dismissing some, but holding others for future consideration.

Sometimes, these suspicions got the better of them. Before that day, it had never even occurred to one mother that her son might have been molested. Now after Fryrear’s talk, she was momentarily certain of it. “There’s no other explanation!” she exclaimed. But as she thought about it, she remembered that she had no reason to suspect this, and that the only “evidence” she had was Fryrear’s statement. She was finally able to calm herself down after those around her reassured her that it probably didn’t happen.