Box Turtle Bulletin
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyJune 2nd, 2010
President Barack Obama is limited by federal law from treating the domestic partners of federal employees as spouses. However, his counsel has identified specific benefits which he can elect, as Executive, to offer.
Today the President issued a memo directing that such benefits be provided. (Reuters)
Obama said he had directed government agencies to offer a number of new benefits to the families of gay and lesbian federal employees, including family assistance services, hardship transfers and relocation expenses.
His directive builds on a move he made last year to offer healthcare benefits, sick leave and medical evacuation for same-sex partners of federal employees.
June 2nd, 2010
For several years, California law has treated couples in domestic partnerships exactly the same as marriages, including in how income tax returns were filed. But the federal government’s DOMA has banned any recognition of same-sex couples as married and the Internal Revenue Service has treated them as though they were two unrelated individuals. This has resulted in the peculiar situation in which a couple files as married for state tax purposes, and then files separate federal returns in which each reports their own individual incomes and deductions.
While it is not true in all cases, quite often this results in same-sex couples paying much higher rates of federal income taxes than they would if they could file jointly, especially when one spouse earns significantly more than the other. It has also resulted in increased time and expense in complying with income tax return preparation.
Now the IRS has issued a memorandum revising its position on the reporting of income from domestic partnerships in California and providing an interpretation that will result in returns that are both easier to prepare and file and also which are more fairly taxed.
Because California is a community property state, and because individuals in domestic partnerships have, since January 1, 2007, had a community property claim on the earned income of their partner for both property law and state income tax purposes, then therefore the IRS has concluded that earned income by either is the joint property of both and should be reflected as such on federal income tax returns.
By 2007, California had extended full community property treatment to registered domestic partners. Applying the principle that federal law respects state law property characterizations, the federal tax treatment of community property should apply to California registered domestic partners. Consequently, for tax years beginning after December 31, 2006, a California registered domestic partner must report one-half of the community income, whether received in the form of compensation for personal services or income from property, on his or her federal income tax return.
This ruling is required in 2010, and couples may also opt to revise returns for 2007, 2008 or 2009. There are some open questions about non-community property and the treatment of certain deductions as well as variances in state law, so see your tax accountant or attorney for further clarification.
This is very good news for our community.
Many gay couples may find that this will offer a significant tax savings next April. And all of us benefit when our governmental institutions begin to recognize our relationships.
June 2nd, 2010
You work for an organisation within Makerere University called the Computer Institute and you also do part time work as at Synoviate at Nakasero. Most friday evenings you are seen heading to that place at around 9 pm.
We could tell you more about where you live and what your lifestyle is like but we trust that you dont doubt we know all that too and so for now we shall go straight to why we have written this letter to you.
We have been tasked with the job of stopping the spread of homosexuality and identifying and dealing with all stubborn homosexuals and sexual deviants in Uganda. …We have zeroed in on you as one of those hard core homosexuals (your family status not withstanding) that we could use as an example to the rest and this is our offer to you.
That is just part of a blackmail message sent last March to an Ugandan who was presumed to be gay. Today, the anonymous blogger GayUganda has released the entire sanitized version of that email.
The email demands that the recipient reveal the names of every LGBT person he knows and to write a public letter denouncing homosexuality. The email’s author, Peter Karamaga of a group identified as the “National Anti-Homosexuality Task Force”, claims that George Oundo, the so-called “ex-gay” who was trotted out a year ago in a massive outing campaign, identified the recipient as gay. The email threatens public exposure — to friends and family, employer, and neighbors — if the recipient fails to cooperate.
It takes a very special kind of evil to try this sort of thing.
June 2nd, 2010
One common theme found in anti-gay rhetoric is the dismissal of sexual orientation. This can be seen from Exodus’ statement that “the opposite of homosexuality is godliness” to the Family Values Coalition’s redefinition of sexual orientation to include all paraphilia to the obsessive use of “homosexual lifestyle” by virtually every anti-gay activist.
And the reason is clear. It is not overly difficult to condemn people for their lifestyle or even to justify executing them for their “behavior”, but few modern Americans are comfortable mistreating others based on an innate and immutable attribute.
And they know it. Consider this aptly named piece in OneNewsNow by virulently anti-gay writer Peter Heck: Why we’re losing the ‘gay’ debate:
Because of their ceaseless onslaught of propaganda, a majority of Americans (some even within the church) have come to believe in the existence of a group of people whose natural state is “homosexual.” We now casually use this terminology, assuming that there are “heterosexuals” and “homosexuals.”
When we accept this baseline, we have detached ourselves from rational thinking. We have allowed the debates over “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” marriage rights, hospital visitation and other legislative objectives like adoption privileges to become ones of civil rights and fairness. And once those advancing homosexuality have successfully framed these debates in this way, those holding to traditional morality are helpless. They are easily portrayed as cruel, discriminatory, hateful bigots unwilling to extend the rights they want for themselves to others who are not like them. Needless to say, this is all by design. It has been the stated strategy of the homosexual agenda from the start.
Heck argues that the only way they will win is if they convince the populace that they are not discriminating against people but discouraging behavior.
But since what they do sexually is always chosen behavior, it has nothing to do with their identity. Who a person is, is different than what a person does.
Heck is right that they are losing, and why, but he’s wrong about the solution. Rebranding homosexuality as a behavior rather than a trait will not and cannot be successful for three reasons:
1) The horse is already out of the barn. Regardless of how you feel about gay people, virtually everyone already recognizes that such a group exists.
Even rabid anti-gay activists who rant about there being no such thing as sexual orientation distinguish between those who are gay and those who are not. In fact, anti-gay activists are among the quickest to assign category and announce differences. They’ve spent years ranting about the imagined mental illness, criminal activity, diseases, and predatory nature of the ever feared homosexual, and now it is too late to declare that such a creature does not exist.
Even Heck, in a desperate effort to avoid any suggestion of an innate trait, talks about “men having sex with men”. Not as a descriptive act, but in substitution for “gay men” or “homosexuals”. It’s kind of amusing once you recognize it.
You can call us gays and lesbians or “men having sex with men” or “those struggling with same-sex attraction” or “militant homosexual activists” or queers, fags, deviants, or dykes and ultimately the effect is the same. Gay people exist, are a distinct population, and everyone already knows it.
2) The attempt to distinguish between behavior and identity, if it were possible, would only work in the favor of gay rights.
One of the more bizarre aspects of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell was that it pretended to be based on behavior. And part of the definition of “behavior” was having “a propensity or intent to engage in homosexual acts”. In other words, being a gay person was behavior. And there we are right back in a great big circle.
So assume for a moment that Heck’s imagined distinction were law. Suppose we took him at his word that “the debate should be held over whether or not those who do serve should be banned from participating in certain sexual behaviors.”
OK. Ban gay sex and not gay people… And just how would you go about enforcing such a law? Sex police?
Anti-gay discrimination in America has never really been about behavior. No gay person is fired from their job for having sex in the breakroom (or if they were, they should have been). And if you want to ban adoptions based on who uploads home porn to x-tube, you might even convince me.
Homophobes almost universally say, “I don’t care what you do in the privacy of your bedroom,” they just don’t want you to “shove it in their face.” And by that, they mean that they don’t want you to be a gay person. Because they don’t really truly care if you are engaging in homosexual acts, as long as you aren’t gay.
It isn’t behavior that is behind the adoption ban in Florida, or marriage in 45 states, or denial of benefits for federal employees, or denied hospital visitation, or any other anti-gay discrimination. A ban on “behavior” wasn’t enforced – or enforceable – in the states that had sodomy law before Lawrence v. Texas.
And behavior is not really Heck’s issue. He’s no more fond of the celibate single gay man that doesn’t sleep around outside a relationship than he is of the guy who is getting it on several times per day. In fact, he’d by far prefer a closeted shame-filled sexually active gay man sneaking off to the bathhouse than he would an out and proud celibate gay man.
It’s not really the behavior to which anti-gays object, it’s the kind of people who might possibly do that behavior, and especially the kind of people who aren’t ashamed of it.
3. Efforts to try and deny sexual orientation only make you look extreme, hateful, and lunatic.
The best thing that an anti-gay activist can do for us is loudly proclaim the ridiculous. It discredits them and those with whom they associate.
With each passing day, more people get to know their gay family, neighbors, friends and coworkers. And claims that “they’re not really gay, they’re just choosing aberrant behavior” are so far from their experiences that they fall on deaf ears.
Anti-gays are, on a rather rapid pace, losing influence on the culture around them. Now it seems that only like minded people will listen, and this reinforces extremism and positions that are further and further from the mainstream.
The more that they ratchet up the rhetoric, the less their positions are given credibility.
But what else can they do? I’m not sure that Heck or any of the others can really come up with a strategy that can, in the long run, allow them to implement or retain anti-gay legislation and discrimination.
As gay people are becoming more recognized as a demographic, a unique people with an innate and immutable attribute known as sexual orientation, the more that discrimination seems to be unAmerican and unChristian. And those who espouse it do, indeed, began to be seen as cruel, discriminatory, hateful bigots unwilling to extend the rights they want for themselves to others who are not like them
June 2nd, 2010
Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika, who pardoned Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza after they were sentenced to fourteen years at hard labor for gross indecency and unnatural acts,” has made it clear that he and everyone else should stop talking about those “satanic” gays:
“The story ends there… I don’t want to hear anyone commenting on them. Nobody is authorised to comment on the gays. You will spoil things,” Mutharika told reporters on arrival from the France-Africa summit.
He said the gay couple’s wedding was “satanic because they committed a crime against our culture, against our religion and against our laws.”
“I am looking at donors now… what will they say about the pardon?” Mutharika said.
…”Is it possible to stop aid to Malawi because of two people who are insane?” he asked.
Mutharika freed the couple following a meeting with UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon on Saturday. Malawi had endured months of intense international criticism of couple’s prosecution. Foreign donors make up over half of Malawi’s development budget.
But that just telling you what I hear. After all, I’m authorized to comment on the gays…
June 2nd, 2010
Malik Mohammad Iqbal (L) and Rani (R)
Police in Peshawar in Northwestern Pakistan last week broke up a wedding between a man and his transgender bride. The Associated Press reports that the two face seven years imprisonment for violating the Muslim country’s anti-sodomy law, while AFP says the penalty could be lifetime imprisonment.
Police arrested Businessman Iqbal Khan, 48, and his bride, who the AP describes as “an 18-year-old whose formal name is Kashif but goes by Rani.” Police also arrested 43 guests. AP has more details:
Police said the pair denied the gathering was a wedding
[police official Shaukat] Ali said it was apparent the two were getting married — pointing out that Iqbal Khan, a married father of five, paid 80,000 rupees ($940) to Rani’s “guru.”
In Pakistan, many transgenders are thrown out by their families and live in communal homes under the leadership of a “guru,” a fellow transgender who looks after their needs and takes a cut of their earnings.
…There are no official figures for the number of transgender people in Pakistan. Known as khusra, they live on the edges of society and are frequently harassed by police.
The groom reportedly owns the building that is being rented by a community of Khusra. “Khusra” appears to be Urdu slang for “Eunuch,” which has led most world news reports, including those from some rather reputable outlets, to refer to the bride as a Eunuch.
The 43 guests have been released on bail, but the couple remains in jail awaiting trial. In a hearing before a judge, Rani denied that a wedding was taking place. She said that the gathering was a birthday party being thrown in her honor. According to Pakistani news reports:
The accused were charged under sections 377, 511, 294, 148 and 149 of the Pakistan Penal Code, sections 3 and 4 of the Dance Act and Section 13 of the Arms Ordinance.
Police allege that an AK-47 was found at the venue. Automatic weapons are extremely commonplace in the Peshawar region.
June 2nd, 2010
Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively has a new post up at his web site, in which he promises to personally go all-out to oppose the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” by distributing copies of his book, The Pink Swastika to every member of the Senate — assuming he can get the donations he needs. Yes, there’s a fundraising angle, but that shouldn’t distract anyone from understanding that Lively is a true believer in his Holocaust revisionism whether it pays him a red cent or not.
In the Pink Swastika, Lively posits that the German Nazi movement was, at it’s very core, a homosexual movement, and that militant and violent fascism is the core feature and goal of the LGBT equality movement. He uses that same twisted view of history to argue against DADT’s repeal.
Lively certainly can’t be faulted for having an overly-active imagination. Consider his prediction of what will happen if DADT is repealed. First, if gays are allowed in the military, then straight people will refuse to serve. Those straights who remain will turn to violence in response to the unrelenting sexual harassment. That violence will lead to “politically correct” sensitivity training, which will prompt a further exodus. This then leads to a draft, which would be supported by the “anti-war Lefties.” But that sensitivity training? It won’t work, so they will have to segregate the services into gay and straight units. And that’s when the homosexuals take over all the branches of the military — just like, he says, what happened in Nazi Germany.
Whether or not a segregated service was initiated, a homosexual subculture of servicemen would form, characterized by intense internal loyalty and political ambition. Eventually, this “army within an army,” buoyed by pro-homosexual “affirmative action,” and the ability to act covertly (due to the fact that some would remain “closeted”) would come to dominate the services. What would they do with such power? The historical precedents are uniformly bad.
And just when the gay-Brownshirts have their own private army, that’s when the gay-hating Muslims gang up and attack. The end.
You know, I hope Lively does succeed in getting his message to every U.S. Senator. If he didn’t exist, we’d have to invent him.
But in all seriousness, the truly disturbing part of this whole thing is this: Lively’s lunacy is easy to laugh at when he lets his paranoia run wild here in the U.S. But when he exports it to Russia, Eastern Europe or Uganda, it causes real and lasting damage. He’s a buffoon, but that doesn’t mean he’s not mortally dangerous.
June 2nd, 2010
Malawi’s fledgling LGBT advocacy movement is happy that President Bingu wa Mutharika pardoned Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Seven Mojeza last week, after they were convicted and sentenced to fourteen years at hard labor for “gross indecency and unnatural acts” following a traditional engagement ceremony last December. While the couple have been freed, government officials warn that they are subject to re-arrest if they are caught together. Representatives from the Malawi Gay Rights Movement plan on testing the government’s willingness to endure renewed international condemnation:
The Malawi Gay Rights Movement (Magrim) has hailed President Bingu wa Mutharika for pardoning convicted gays, Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza, but says it will organise two gay weddings in the country this year to ‘see if the President is committed to promoting human rights’.
Magrim spokesperson, Wongani James Phiri, said Mutharika has show a good example to other African leaders, but added that what was remaining was to see whether he was committed to the promotion of human rights.
“Malawi has many gays; but these people are suppressed. We plan to hold two weddings this year to see if these people’s (gays and lesbians) rights will be respected. We are all Malawians,” said Phiri.
June 2nd, 2010
Hawaii’s new Republican congressional representative Charles Djou was among the five House Republicans who voted to add the amendment paving the way for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’s” repeal to the Defense Authorization Bill last week. Djou, who is also a captain in the Army Reserves, earned the Log Cabin Republicans’ endorsement partly because of his support for DADT’s repeal.
While we welcome Djou’s support for DADT repeal, his reason for supporting the repeal is more than puzzling:
Q: So why did you go against your party’s leadership on the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” question?
Djou: You know, on that particular issue, it comes from personal experience. I have served for nearly 10 years now as an officer in the United States Army Reserve. What concerned me about the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy is that it just simply doesn’t work. And I saw too many instances as an army reservist, soldiers would sign up for a re-enlistment bonus, get this gigantic sum from the American taxpayer, and then as soon as the unit gets called up to mobilize to Iraq or Afghanistan, they suddenly claim they are gay with no prior indication at all of that whatsoever. Get the discharge and keep the bonus. That’s wrong, that’s unfair and that’s why this policy should be changed, and I was very happy to cast that vote as I did last night.
Djou claims to support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. I wonder what kind of backhanded justification he has for that.
June 1st, 2010
In any society where males are herded together in closely-knit, interdependent groups, the problem of homosexuality invariably manifests itself. Such has been the case in the military service, to the extent that a greater of homosexuals have come under the scrutiny of psychiatrists than ordinarily are observed in civilian life. We have had the opportunity to study a large group of homosexuals, and our experiences have led us to believe that the subject of homosexuality is not as nebulous as one might gather from the literature. It became increasingly apparent to us that it has been unnecessarily distorted and confused by a conglomeration of viewpoints, and that clarification of the homosexual personality has been long in order.
That was the opening paragraph to a study published in the March 1945 edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry. Titled “The Homosexual as a Personality Type,” the article was written by Lt. Herbert Greenspan and Commander John D. Campbell of the U.S. Navy Reserves, two psychiatrists tasked with providing psychiatric counseling and evaluations for Navy personnel who had fallen under the suspicion of being “unfit for military service.” Many of those referred to the authors were suffering from a variety of legitimate mental and emotional disorders, but some were referred because they were suspected of being gay.
The psychiatric profession in 1945 had no official position on whether homosexuality was a mental disorder. The first edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,which would define what was and was not a mental illness, wouldn’t come out until 1952. When it did, homosexuality made the list and stayed there for another twenty years.
But back in 1945 the debate was still underway. But unlike later debates, that one wasn’t between whether gays were normal or ill. The choice then was between being mentally ill or a criminal delinquent (or both; diminished capacity didn’t always garner much sympathy for gay people in some quarters). While the two opposing camps were arguing it out in the professional literature, those arguing for the mental illness model were clearly gaining ground. And they were easy to identify; they tended to describe gay people using the relatively new word “homosexual,” or perhaps, occasionally, the not yet anacronistic “invert.”
But you were also just as likely to enounter journals describing gay people as delinquents, sexual deviants and perverts. Seeing these terms today is jarring, especially when you read them being used with the same professional detachment that was used in describing someone as an asthmatic, autistic, hysteric or schizophrenic — four more conditions which, like homosexuality, were often blamed on poor parenting or bad character. In that light, the emerging opinion that homosexuality was a neurosis was actually the more enlightened opinion.
And this is what makes Greenspan and Campbell’s 1945 article particularly interesting. They went beyond the “enlightened” position and argued that homosexuals were actually quite normal. They called homosexuality “a congenital anomaly rather than a disease,” although they based that opinion on some decidedly unscientific observations:
Additional substantiation for the biological theory of homosexuality is found in the predominance of female characteristics in these individuals. Much has been said both pro and con as to the significance of these and disagreement is still pronounced. However, it has been our experience that the majority of inverts display evidences of physical as well as psychic traits of effeminacy — an effeminate manner, appearance, temperament and interests. Delicacy of speech and movement, high-pitched voices, esthetic interests, feminine body configuration and “white-collar” occupations were particularly noticeable.
Greenspan and Campbell’s reasons for supporting a biological basis isn’t compelling by today’s standards. But their methods, such as they were, were standard practices at the time. Casual observances were routinely the basis for a whole range of supposedly scientific theories throughout the “soft” sciences. Just a few years later, Alfred Kinsey’s would try to fix that by introducing a measure of mathematical precision to the study of human sexuality. But even that pioneering effort was abysmally primitive and seriously flawed by today’s standards. Yet, for another thirty years, as unreliable as those statistics were, they were the best we had. Given that context, Greenspan and Campbell can be forgiven of their lack of scientific rigor. It’s just the way things were back then.
But what they lacked in statistical sophistication, they made up for with some pretty compelling logic. Blaming “bad environment” for criminal behavior was an emerging theme in psychiatry, and it was in this sense that Greenspan and Campbell chose to address the environmental issues which supposedly would have driven these men to “social delinquency”:
Further contradiction of the environment theory can be found in the obvious fact that there is a much stronger environmental force acting on the individual to become heterosexual, than homosexual. Most of our patients originated from small communities where there was every influence and reason to conform with accepted sexual practices. Yet, the direction of their original sex impulse persisted in spite of an environment which not only fostered, but made it mandatory that they comply with heterosexual demands. By the same token as acquired homosexuality, why did not heterosexuality become acquired? It would appear that there is a force at work in the homosexual, physiological in nature, which is more powerful than the family customs, laws and social expectations of his environment. Apparently, these so-called contrary sexuals cannot acquire heterosexuality, even under favorable circumstances, as some would have us believe that homosexuality can be acquired under conditions far less conducive.
This passage shows that Greenspan and Campbell were keenly aware of the intense pressures their gay subjects struggled with. But despite those pressures, their charges were still unable to conform to the dictates of the day. Clearly they were not mere criminals.
But were they mentally ill? Greenspan and Campbell looked again at their charges and said no. The men they saw were fully functioning, competent, conscientious, empathetic, nondelusional, nonpsychotic — in short, they suffered none of the conditions that people with mental illnesses experienced. Further, the authors were impressed by their gay charges’ adaptability to their hostile environments, and they admired their clients’ many talents — the very same Nöel Coward-like characteristics which likely brought them to their superiors’ attention in the first place:
The homosexual personality is usually intelligent, and frequently above the average. His mental processes do not differ in many respects from those of the normal individual… Evidences of his homosexual constitution are found in his hobbies, artistic interests, pseudosophistry, feeling of intellectual superiority and pursuit of a career. Esthetic interests in art, music, literature, the theater, etc., are particularly common. Dealing in the abstract entices the homosexual mentality, probably more on an emotional than an intellectual basis, and represents a sublimation of his homosexual tendencies. Many dabble in poetry, art, sculpture and drama; a delicate appreciation of colors, fabrics and the arts usually resolves in such occupations as beautician, music teacher, actor, bookkeeper, etc. In the military service we find homosexuals in the capacities of hospital corpsmen, yeomen and chaplain’s assistants. In our experience it was unusual for a homosexual not to like music in one form or another.
Consequently, Greenspan and Campbell found huge differences between these well-functioning gay men and those who suffered from genuine mental illnesses:
The psychopath is erratic, impulsive, restless, unreliable and devoid of conscience. He suffers with a poverty of emotion which makes it impossible for him to experience any qualms about his misdeeds or others’ misfortunes. The homosexual is the exact antithesis of all this, for we find him conscientious, reliable, well-integrated and abounding in emotional feeling and sincerity. The homosexuals observed in the service have been key men in responsible positions whose loss was acutely felt in their respective departments.
…Both the psychiatric and social status of the invert is becoming increasingly more clear with the advancement of clinical psychiatry, and it is encouraging to note that society is being weaned away from the fallacy that homosexualism is a crime. We are gradually coming to the realization that the homosexual suffers from a regrettable sexual anomaly, but otherwise is a normal, productive individual, who is neither a burden nor a detriment to society.
Sixty-five years later, LGBT servicemembers are still being kicked out of the military, and their losses are still being acutely felt. Some things haven’t changed. Not yet, anyway.
But it soon will, because sixty-five years later, we did pass another milestone that Greenspan and Campbell predicted. It was just this year, for the first time in history, that a clear majority of Americans finally determined that LGBT people are normal, productive people who are neither a burden nor a detriment to society.
Progress has been frustratingly slow, hasn’t it? Greenspan and Campbell were a whole lifetime ahead of everyone else. It’s nice to see the rest of the world finally start to catch up.
This commentary is the opinion of the author and may not reflect that of other authors at Box Turtle Bulletin
June 1st, 2010
I have not been a fan of outing.
Most of us have, at some point, lived in the closet. And we know the trauma and upheaval that can come from a public acknowledgment (or disclosure) of one’s sexual orientation in a world that does not treat gay people equally. Choosing to publicly identify as gay is to choose to be subjected to disapproval and animus by some and to be treated as an oddity or eccentric by others.
And because every person’s circumstance, family dynamic, social network, and financial situation are different, I generally favor allowing each person to decide on their own when is best for them to take the step towards honesty and disclosure.
On the other hand, the closet is debilitating and oppressive. Virtually everyone who has left the closet, whether voluntarily or though embarrassing scandal, agrees that life is much better in the light. The constant worry about who knows and what might happen should you be discovered is a heavy burden, and when it is lifted you feel free.
Take, for example, CA Sen. Roy Ashburn who sort of outed himself by means of a DUI on the way home from a gay bar (with the help of others who blogged about the event). Held hostage to fear, Ashburn’s closet life was limiting and his new found freedom was exhilarating.
“I would not have been speaking on a measure dealing with sexual orientation ever prior to the events that have transpired in my life over the last three months,” Ashburn told his colleagues. “However, I am no longer willing or able to remain silent on issues that affect sexual orientation and the rights of individuals. And so I am doing something that is quite different and foreign to me, and it’s highly emotional.”
And things have improved over the years. Support is available, and with each passing year the cost of being honest is lower.
There is no question that leaving the closet is the right decision, almost without exception. But less certain is who is entitled to pick the timing and the circumstances under which the closet door comes down.
One argument for outing is that it is appropriate when a politician or person in a position of power is using their authority in ways that actively harm the community. And there is a certain amount of logic to that criterion; the purpose is not to punish, but rather to stop the harm.
But the problem is in how we define “harm”.
For some, being registered as a Republican would be adequate cause for outing in as humiliating a way as possible. But this is based more in a desire to punish them for the “sin of being Republican” than it is in any real effort to protect the community.
For others, a voting pattern that is not 100% in alignment with the stated position of our various organizations deems one to be an enemy. But I find this to be a bit too much like extortion for my taste. And, frankly, I find many of the bills that our community organizations support to be ridiculous partisan posturing which has little actual value or meaning. Is someone “anti-gay” or doing harm to our community if they think that a Harvey Milk Day is a pointless waste of scarce resources?
And beyond questions about the definition of harm is the inherent assumption within the concept of outing that being gay is something that is shameful or shock-worthy. Outings that are designed so as to deliver maximum damage to the party being outed rely on the ill will of the public and not only validate homophobia but encourage it.
Which is why I am troubled by Mike Rogers’ outing of Illinois Republican congressman Mark Kirk.
Many Washington insiders, including Rogers, have known for years about Kirk’s same-sex attraction. Republican party insiders in Illinois have no illusions about Kirk, either.
In fact, in a blatant appeal to homophobia, a primary opponent tried to out Mark Kirk just this past December. This effort that resulted in the obligatory (and vague) denial by the candidate and condemnation of the bigot by the party structure.
And like a number of politicians across the nation, both Democratic and Republican, Kirk has kept his closet intact by having a relatively supportive record on gay issues. Rogers notes this as his reason for not outing Kirk earlier.
Until now, Mark Kirk elected not to play the typical Washington game. Instead of supporting his party’s dismal record on gay rights, Kirk received Human Rights Campaign ratings of 67% in 2002, 88% in 2004, 76% in 2006 and 85% in 2008. That’s more impressive than a lot of Democrats.
Rogers knows that in the long run a usually-supportive Republican can be even more effective than a reliable Democrat because he can provide the oh-so-necessary bipartisan vote. And Kirk, a military reservist who recently served in Afghanistan and is on the record as supporting DADT, has not changed his position.
But Mike Rogers has decided that today is the right time to reveal Kirk’s same-sex attraction. Here is the reason he gives:
Now, for the first time in his congressional career, Mark Kirk really had the chance to stand up and do what is right with the power of a vote. When I heard that five GOPers voted to lift the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell ban I instinctively though Kirk would be one of them. What a disappointment when he wasn’t.
Rogers would have us believe that this vote was the impetus, the motivation, the single action that compelled Mike to act. And I might find that vote to be an adequate reason, if I believed him.
But I don’t.
You see, the timing is just a bit too convenient. Although he has been running slightly ahead of his Democratic opponent for US Senate, Alexi Giannoulias and Kirk now appear to be very close in the polls. This may have been just too opportune of a moment for Rogers to pass.
Had Mike Rogers made an appointment with Kirk, expressed his intention in reporting the claims of his witnesses, allowed Kirk to respond or plan his own revelation, I might doubt my instinct. Had Rogers waited until after November, had the vote gone the other way, had it not been bipartisan, any of these might lend him credibility.
But the gotcha nature of the report negates any possibility that Rogers was simply seeking to reduce harm to our community. No, his primary goal was to embarrass, humiliate, and damage Mark Kirk.
And if my suspicions needed confirmation, Rogers adds another element. He references another potential scandal/criticism of Kirk, one that has nothing to do with his sexual orientation. This piling on makes it apparent to me that Rogers’ outing of Kirk is based less on his disappointment with Kirk’s vote and more on his desire to influence the outcome of the election.
No doubt many readers will find the advancement of a Democratic candidate to be an absolutely acceptable reason to out Mark Kirk. They may believe that we are in battle and that anything that lowers the chances of a Republican majority in the Senate is fair game. Some may argue that anything which hurts any Republican candidate at any time is a tool to be employed without question.
I do not.
Because while it is possible that Rogers has hurt Mark Kirk, it is absolutely certain that he has also hurt the gay community.
Because by introducing Kirk’s sexual orientation into the senate race, Rogers is reinforcing homophobia. By giving anti-gay voters a “reason” to vote against Kirk, he is validating bigotry.
And Rogers has now justified the actions of Kirk’s bigoted primary opponent. He’s confirmed that appealing to homophobia is a valid tactic to be used in politics and sexual orientation is a weapon to be wielded against those who are gay.
UPDATE:
Mark Kirk was not one of the five Republicans who voted to include the compromise amendment in the Defense Authorization Bill. Those were Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL), Charles Djou (HI), Judy Biggert (IL), Joseph Cao (LA), and Ron Paul (TX).
But he was among the five Republicans who joined them to vote for the Defense Authorization Bill which included the repeal. Those were Charlie Dent (PA), Mike Castle (DE), Mark Kirk (IL), Mary Bono Mack (CA), and Dave Reichert (WA).
Ron Paul voted for the amendment but not for the bill.
June 1st, 2010
The Iowa Family Policy Center and Purpose Ministries have collaborated on a list of about 500 clergy and ministry leaders who are petitioning the legislature to forcibly divorce same-sex married couples in Iowa. (Sioux City Journal)
Keith Ratliff, pastor of Maple Street Missionary Baptist Church in Des Moines, said the issue is not about hate or homophobia or lack of compassion.
“Just because you disagree with someone, it doesn’t mean you hate them. It can just mean we disagree with their viewpoint, and in this case, their lifestyle,” Ratliff said.
Well, no, Pastor Ratliff.
If I petitioned that you (or people like you) should be treated as inferior to me, I think you would find it difficult to locate the compassion in my efforts. And if I were to do so in the context of fighting the “People like Ratliff Lobby”, you might even identify animus in my motivations. And if I disagreed with other “viewpoints” and “lifestyles” without seeking to make them legally disadvantaged, you would probably discount my protestations and see me as a bigot and hater.
I’m just saying.
Does that mean that everyone on the list hates gay folk? No, of course not.
But it does mean that every single signatory thinks that gay people are inferior and not worthy of equal treatment under the law. And it means that they have aligned themselves with some who do hate us and that they have pledged themselves to be enemies of equality.
And they have conveniently provided us with a listing of who they are.
So if you live in Iowa and worship at any of the churches listed on this petition, you may wish to question your attendance. And if you should feel that you cannot in good conscience go back, please do let the pastor know why.
June 1st, 2010
From the Buenos Aires Herald:
According to several sources, the debate is scheduled to start at 4:00pm.
Several leaders are pledged to be present, such as Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transexual Argentine Federation President MarÃa Rachid, and the head of La Fulana community centre Claudia Castrosin Verdú.The bill aiming at allowing same-sex couples to get married posts the support of the biggest caucuses’ heads in the Upper House, Victory Front’s Miguel Angel Pichetto and Radical Gerardo Morales.
Then the Senate will go on tour (On Top Magazine)
After Tuesday’s debut in the Senate, the committee will take its gay marriage debate on the road, with stops planned for the cities of Salta, Tucuman, San Juan and Mendoza starting on June 14, and lasting until June 28. The cities are all provincial capitals and among Argentina’s largest by population.
The full Senate is scheduled to take up the bill on July 14, a Wednesday, where the measure faces an uncertain future. The bill has an equal number of supporters and opponents in the chamber, according to a poll conducted by news agency DyN, but 17 senators have remained mum on their position.
June 1st, 2010
In 1997, a teenage girl was raped and impregnated by a fellow churchgoer at Trinity Baptist Church in Concord, New Hampshire. When she complained to her pastor, Chuck Phelps, he reported the rape to state youth officials, but police were never able to find the victim. That’s because was shipped of to another church member’s home in Colorado, where she was home-schooled and not allowed to have contact with others her age. And all the while, she was told it was her fault she was raped:
The victim said Phelps told her she would be put up for “church discipline,” where parishioners go before the congregation to apologize for their sins. She asked why. “Pastor Phelps then said that (Willis) may have been 99 percent responsible, but I needed to confess my 1 percent guilt in the situation,” the victim told the police.
“He told me that I should be happy that I didn’t live in Old Testament times because I would have been stoned.”
Fran Earle, the church’s former clerk, witnessed the punishment session. At a night meeting of the church’s fellowship in 1997, Phelps invited Willis to the front of the room. Willis apologized to the group for not being faithful to his wife, Earle said.
“I can remember saying to my husband, I don’t understand it’s any of our business why this is being brought up,” Earle said. Phelps then told parishioners a second matter was at hand; he invited the victim to apologize for getting pregnant.
“I can still see the little girl standing up there with this smile on her face trying to get through this,” Earle said.
May 31st, 2010
Those who regularly read the comments sections will know the name Ephilei. We now learn some sad news from Ex-Gay Watch:
XGW is sad to report that Ephilei, whose real name was Johannah, has died in a car crash at the age of 26.
Johanna ran the website Transchristians.org, a resource for transgender Christians and anyone looking for answers on gender and transgender issues.
We will miss her.
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