Box Turtle Bulletin

Obama Issues Directive on Hospital Visitation and Medical Decisions

When then-candidate Barack Obama accepted the Democratic Party’s nomination, he only made one LGBT-related commitment in his acceptance speech:

I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination.

Today, President Barack Obama followed through on that commitment. Today he issued a Presidential Memorandum ordering ordered the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to issue new rules requiring hospitals who receive Medicare and Medicaid payments to provide visitation rights to same-sex partners, and to make it easier for gays and lesbians to make medical decisions on behalf of their partners.

The President’s memorandum makes a compelling case for the new rules:

[E]very day, all across America, patients are denied the kindnesses and caring of a loved one at their sides — whether in a sudden medical emergency or a prolonged hospital stay. Often, a widow or widower with no children is denied the support and comfort of a good friend. Members of religious orders are sometimes unable to choose someone other than an immediate family member to visit them and make medical decisions on their behalf. Also uniquely affected are gay and lesbian Americans who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives — unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated.

For all of these Americans, the failure to have their wishes respected concerning who may visit them or make medical decisions on their behalf has real consequences. It means that doctors and nurses do not always have the best information about patients’ medications and medical histories and that friends and certain family members are unable to serve as intermediaries to help communicate patients’ needs. It means that a stressful and at times terrifying experience for patients is senselessly compounded by indignity and unfairness. And it means that all too often, people are made to suffer or even to pass away alone, denied the comfort of companionship in their final moments while a loved one is left worrying and pacing down the hall.

Janice Langbehn

This has been a very real problem and persistent problem. In February 2007, Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital denied Janice Langbehn access to her partner of eighteen years, Lisa Marie Pond, who had collapsed due to a brain aneurysm while preparing to board a cruise ship. For hours, hospital staff refused to allow Janice access even after a legal power of attorney was faxed to the hospital. It was finally a priest who had been called to give last rites who made sure Janice could say her final goodbyes. A social worker at the hospital defended the hospital’s actions, saying that Florida was an “anti-gay state.”

This evening, President Obama called Janice from Air Force One to say he had been moved by her case:

“I was so humbled that he would know Lisa’s name and know our story,” Ms. Langbehn said in a telephone interview. “He apologized for how we were treated. For the last three years, that’s what I’ve been asking the hospital to do. Even now, three years later, they still refuse to apologize to the children and I for the fact that Lisa died alone.”

The memorandum directs HHS to begin the process to issue new rules for hospitals to comply to or risk being denied Medicare and Medicaid payments. The rule-making process could be a lengthy one, requiring the creation and publication of new proposals, a period for public comment and additional approvals. The weakness of this process is that it could be overturned by a future administration, but that overturning would also have to undergo the same lengthy process — creation and publication of a new set of regulations, public comment period, etc. While it is not as immediate as an Executive Order, it is much more robust and durable. And because this proposed rule would provide that any patient — gay or straight — could designate anyone — a partner, trusted friend, a relative who is not necessarily the next of kin — to have access for hospital visitation and make medical decisions on their behalf, it’s hard to see that there would be a significant impetus to overturn this rule.

Adios Betty la fea

For four seasons ABC’s Ugly Betty has delighted us. Drawing on it’s Columbian telenova roots, it was over the top, lunatic, and histrionically dramatic. There were murders, embezzlements, and plots and schemes ranging from sabotaged runways to stolen sperm.

But in spite of the improbable antics (or perhaps because of them) this show managed to present America with a broad range of gay characters, full of depth, unique, and interesting. Gone were the sincere very special after school movie characters who were gay bashed or dying of AIDS. Absent were the poor rejected teen thrown out of the house by conservative and disapproving parents. There wasn’t even the obligatory closedted gay character brought on to bravely come out and fall in love only to be written out once the drama was over.

Instead, Ugly Betty gave us LGBT characters who were integral to the story line and who were as fabulous, fierce, flawed and frantic and the straight characters around them. The more important included:

Marc St. James (Michael Urie) – Marc was the gay stereotype on steroids. He was flamboyant, bitchy, fashion obsessed, self centered, and above all insecure. The personal assistant to the show’s chief villain, Marc was (along with his best friend Amanda) Betty’s tormentor. He ran a daily blog on Betty’s unfashionable attire and came dressed as her for Halloween.

But over the show story arc, Marc came to represent personal growth and redemption. As he developed a fondness for Betty, he also developed character and personal integrity and, in time, his shallowness became more of a mask behind which he quietly did the right thing. Part of his transition is founded on his interaction with Justin, in whom Marc saw a younger version of himself. Once a principle schemer and betrayer, by the end Marc was in many ways the conscience of the show.

Alexis Meade (Rebecca Romijn) – The first season’s drama revolved around a Mystery Lady who, in bandages, was somehow scheming with the villain, Wilhelmina Slater (Vanessa Williams) to take over Mode Magazine. She was revealed to be Alex, the older son of the Meade media mogul, once thought dead but now returning as Alexis after a secret sex change.

This could have been played for laughs – and it was in many ways. And Alexis’ sexuality was a bit confusing as it seems that she had dated women in her male past (perhaps out of expectation) and now dated men. But the show was careful to clarify that Alexis was transgender, not a man in a dress, and that this was not the same thing as gay. And while her transgender status was at times more of a gimmick, this was one of few fully developed transgender characters on a television show.

Alexis was not in the fourth season.

Justin Suarez (Mark Indelicato) – When we first met Betty’s nephew Justin, then a young teen, gaydar across the nation went off. Effeminate, obsessed with fashion and pop culture, and possessed of a vibrant and sunny disposition, Justin was recognizably pre-gay. But unlike shows that go for the easy drama, Justin’s storyline was not all just “picked on at school” or “caught wearing mother’s clothes”. Instead, while Justin was at times tormented and hated P.E., his was a primarily happy life with a supporting mother, cool aunt, and doting grandfather.

Much of the conflict in Justin’s plotline revolved around his family’s uncertainty as to how to be there for Justin without pushing him in any direction. Particularly sensitive was the way in which Marc, as a mentor, never presumed that Justin was gay and was supportive of Justin’s brief exploration of liking a girl. Even half way through the final season, there was no certainty that Justin was a gay character. But in the last few episodes, he came to know himself, find a boyfriend, and come out to his family in a sweet and – for this show – surprisingly non-dramatic way.

So good-bye to Betty and all of her gay family and friends. I’ll miss them.

US Senate condemns Uganda’s Kill the Gays Bill

From Keen

The U.S. Senate yesterday unanimously passed a resolution calling on the Ugandan Parliament to reject a proposed bill that would impose harsh penalties—including life imprisonment and the death penalty—against gay people.

The resolution, sponsored by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), “encourages” the U.S. Secretary of State to “closely monitor human rights abuses that occur because of sexual orientation and to encourage the repeal or reform of laws.”

First Same-Sex Marriage in Argentina Anulled

The status of same-sex marriage in Argentina remains murky. Blabeando reports that a judge in the city of Tierra Del Fuego has declared the marriage of Alex Freyre and José Maria Di Bello is “nonexistent” under the constitution and has annulled it.  Freyre and Di Bello were the first same-sex couple in Latin America to marry last December following a long and complicated path to the registrar’s office.

Four same-sex couples have married altogether in Argentina, but another of those marriages has been annulled by a Buenos Aires court as well, leaving two legally married same-sex couples. One of those couples still married is Uruguay native Norma Castillo and Ramona Arevalo of Argentina, who became Latin American’s first lesbian married couple last Friday in Buenos Aires.

Exodus Co-Founder: The Inherent Harm In Ex-Gay Programs

Dawson McAllister

Last Sunday gay blogger Greg Kimball pretended to be a questioning 16 year old teen and called the syndicated radio talk show  “Dawson McAllister Live” and was directed to Exodus International for “help.”  This is little surprise as McAllister’s “partners” page includes a link to Exous’ website.  A support operator at McAllister’s program told Kimball’s fictitious 16 year old “They [Exodus] will talk to you, they will counsel you, they will not condemn you, they will not make you feel little or anything.”

Convincing supporters of exgay programs that said programs can cause harm is one of the greatest hurdles ex-gay survivor activists like myself face.  Like McAllister’s operator, supporters believe they are truly doing their God’s work and the idea that exgay programs are inherently harmful is often too much to comprehend.

When survivors of exgay programs like myself and Michael Bussee tell our stories of harm we’re often met with the response that no, exgay programs aren’t harmful, our individual program was just in need of a minor correction.

In the first of my video series, Exodus co-founder Michael Bussee addresses that common misconception:

(Video transcript after the jump)

Read the rest of this entry »

The race for eighth (and ninth and tenth)

With Italy now out of the running, the big question is which nation will be the eighth to recognize same-sex marriage. The contestants are:

Portugal – the legislature passed the bill. The President sent it to the supreme court which approved the bill. And now he has until about the end of the month to either veto or sign it. It vetoed, there are probably enough votes to overturn. The time frame is between immediately and early May.

Nepal – it is believed that same-sex marriage will be included in the new constitution. This should be in place no later than May 28, 2010.

Iceland – the San Diego Gay and Lesbian News is reporting:

The Sigurdardóttir administration presented the bill to Parliament on March 23. The bill’s passage is expected soon, and same-sex marriage could become legal as early as June 27

Luxembourg – the Minister of Justice said in January that marriage would be legalized by the legislature’s summer break.

Argentina – Although the administration intends to legalize marriage, without a law in place several judges are fighting over whether to grant couples the right to marry. In addition to the male couples previously reported, two women have now legally married in Buenos Aires (Santiago Times):

Two women that were exiled during the last Argentine military dictatorship (1976/1983) were married Friday in Buenos Aires, the first wedding among lesbians in the country, reported the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Federation of Argentina, or FALGBT.

Norma Castillo, from Uruguay, and Ramona Arevalo, Argentine, were married by Judge Elena Liberatori after having requested legal protection within the framework of the campaign “Same right, same names,” which the LGBT Argentine Federation has been carrying out for several months. They are both 67 years old and have been a couple for over 30 years.

Slovenia – the Family Law Bill does appear to continue to move forward but it is difficult to figure out just where things stand.

Cyprus – this tiny island seems to have dropped out of the race. Earlier this week the Cypriot government continued pondering the issue but the language now seems to focus on “partnerships”. (Cyprus Mail)

THE GOVERNMENT will take “seriously” the Ombudswoman’s latest report recommending legal reforms to allow same-sex partnerships, said Interior Ministry Permanent Secretary Lazaros Savvides yesterday.

“No decision has been taken. It is something we have to study a bit further. We have not closed the issue, it remains open,” he said.
….
Savvides told the Sunday Mail that the various departments will continue to examine the issue and reconvene after June to discuss the matter.

Papa Ratzi to meet victims of pedophile priests this weekend

Is there anywhere on God’s Green Earth that Catholic priests haven’t molested kids? Anywhere?

From the Times Online

The Pope is ready to meet victims of clerical sex abuse when he visits Malta at the weekend, but only if the encounter is conducted in a “calm and discreet” atmosphere rather than under the media spotlight, his spokesman said today.
…
The diocesan authorities in Malta said this week that of 45 child abuse allegations against priests on the island, 19 were found to have no basis but 13 were going ahead and another 13 cases were “pending”.

At a press conference on Monday eleven former victims of abuse by priests on Malta, led by Lawrence Grech, 37, who claims that he was abused regularly at an orphanage at Santa Venera, asked to meet the Pope “for a few minutes to help us heal and to overcome this trauma”.

Really? Santa Venera, Malta?

I mean c’mon. The island nation of Malta is about the same size as Oakland, CA and Santa Venera has about 6,000 residents. But I guess that’s big enough for at least one pedopriest.

Take action now, your parish is at risk!!

If you live in Connecticut, you must take bold action to protect your parish. Politicians want to change the statute of limitations on child molestation, and we must not let them attack the Holy Mother Church in this way.

Call your Congressman now!

This would be a tasteless parody if it weren’t what the Catholic Church in Connecticut is actually doing. (CNN)

A bill in Connecticut’s legislature that would remove the statute of limitations on child sexual abuse cases has sparked a fervent response from the state’s Roman Catholic bishops, who released a letter to parishioners Saturday imploring them to oppose the measure.

In a letter inserted in Sunday bulletins, the bishops appealed to parishioners to take action to fight the change.

This bill would retroactively eliminate the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits related to allegations of child sexual abuse. Connecticut already has the longest retroactive statute in the United States – 30 years past the age of 18. Over the past several years in states that have even temporarily eliminated the statutes, it has caused the bankruptcy of at least seven dioceses. House Bill 5473 would make Connecticut the only State without a statute of limitations. This bill would put all Church institutions, including your parish, at risk.

And as for the victims… well, the Church is the real victim here.

This unfairness is greater because Catholic institutions have largely resolved their problem of childhood sexual abuse through zero tolerance practices implemented in 1992 and excellent safe environment programs beginning in 2002.

So Catholics should oppose the change because it would allow the Church to be held liable for the molestation of their children by pedophile priests and might cost the Church some money. They make no pretense, it’s all about money.

Almost every day I am dumbfounded at the way in which the Catholic Church just doesn’t get it. Rather than show repentance for the horrific and inexcusable pattern of systematically covering up heinous acts of abuse by those entrusted to be the Church’s most intimate contact with the World, they continue to shift blame, circle the wagons, protect their leaders, blame the victims who “want it”, and do anything to protect their assets and power.

Bishop blames the “God-killing” Jews for Church’s pedophile priest crisis

The Catholic Church and an Italian news source are in a dispute over statements purportedly made by Monsignor Giacomo Babini, the Bishop Emeritus of Grossetto. Babini says he never made the remarks and Pontifex claims to have tape. (Time Online)

A retired Italian bishop has provoked fury by reportedly suggesting that “Zionists” are behind the current storm of accusations over clerical sex abuse shaking the Vatican and the Catholic Church.
…
Monsignor Babini’s reported comments follow a series of statements from senior Vatican cardinals blaming a “concerted campaign” by “powerful lobbies” for accusations that Pope Benedict XVI was involved in covering up cases of clerical abuse both as Archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982 and subsequently as head of doctrine at the Vatican.

None has explicitly blamed Jews or any other group. However Bishop Babini, 81, said Jews “do not want the Church, they are its natural enemies”. He added: “Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are deicides [God killers].”

The Catholic Church is in crisis over criticism of the way they enabled and protected priests who molested the children in their care. So far, their response has been to deny any institutional fault and to seek to push the blame to those whom they already consider to be their enemies.

They’ve blamed the gays outright and some now may be suggesting it’s all a Zionist Plot. History cautions against going in this direction.

No marriage celebration in Italy.

The supreme court of Italy has rejected the appeal by same-sex couples to allow them to marry. (SF Chronicle)

Italy’s highest court rejected appeals by three same-sex couples whose marriage filings were refused by local officials, a setback to gay advocates.

The Constitutional Court judged the requests related to gay unions “not admissible” and “unfounded,” according to an e- mailed statement today. Courts in the northern cities of Trento and Venice had asked the court in Rome to rule on the matter.

The motivation for the decision will be published in coming days.

Polygamy, Incest, Drug Use, and Puppies

Former Arkansas Gov. and possible GOP Presidential contender Mike Huckabee is really on a tear:

Mike Huckabee, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2012, says the effort to allow gays and lesbians to marry is comparable to legalizing incest, polygamy and drug use.

Huckabee also told college journalists last week that gay couples should not be permitted to adopt. “Children are not puppies,” he said.

…Huckabee told the interviewer that not every group’s interests deserve to be accommodated, if their lifestyle is outside of what he called “the ideal.”

“That would be like saying, well there’s there are a lot of people who like to use drugs so let’s go ahead and accommodate those who want to use drugs. There are some people who believe in incest, so we should accommodate them. There are people who believe in polygamy, should we accommodate them?” he said, according to a transcript of the interview.

Huckabee obviously sees this as a winning path to the GOP nomination as the party lurches farther to the right. But of course, this is no cynical political position; Huckabee believes this to his very core. He has previously compared same-sex marriage to bestiality, and in 1992 advocating quarantining indefinitely everyone who was HIV-positive. During his 2008 run for the GOP nomination, he said that we should “amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards.”

With that kind of belief, it should come as no surprise that Huckabee’s ties to Christian Reconstructionists run quite deep with longtime associations with Bill Gothard and George Grant, who cowrote Huckabee’s 1998 book, Kids Who Kill: Confronting out Culture of Violence. In that book Huckabee and Grant blamed the Columbine and Jonesboro school shootings on a general breakdown in morality on all fronts:

Indeed, it is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations — from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia. As we refuse to stand for morality, we easily fall into serving immorality.

President Obama rebutted by his own Justice Department on DADT

The Log Cabin Republicans are the plaintiffs on one of the few active cases opposing the legality of the Military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. And they have developed approaches that other plaintiffs more sympathetic to the President might not have employed.

One method was to try and establish that the Justice Department’s arguments were in direct contradiction with positions articulated by the President. This two-pronged approach either leaves the DOJ without much defense for an obviously discriminatory law, or embarrasses and pressures a President who is increasingly seen as having campaigned on promises that he has little interest in keeping.

And yesterday they were successful.

Log Cabin had been attempting to get the DOJ to answer yes or no questions so as to be on the record about whether the policy was bad for national defense. Obviously, if the Justice department admits that the policy is counter-productive, then there is little basis to defend it. So the DOJ fought having to answer.

But finally, after a direct order from the judge, they have stated their opinion. And their Response to Request for Admissions admits that the Obama Administration’s Department of Justice is basing their defense on arguments that completely contradict statements made by President Obama both in meetings with the gay community and in his State of the Union address.

They try to quibble that the Executive and Legislative Branches are in disagreement. They state that they are compelled to defend the law even if the Executive wishes it repealed.

And that may be correct. But they are not compelled to take specific factual conclusions that are contradictory to those espoused by the Executive Branch and yet that is exactly what they are doing.

The President of the United States, who formulates the policy of the Executive Branch, has stated, including in his State of the Union Address on January 27, 2010, that 10 U.S.C. § 654, the statute enacting “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” (“DADT”), should be repealed. The President has further said that DADT does not contribute to, and indeed weakens our national security, and he has stated that “[w]e cannot afford to cut from our ranks people with the critical skills we need to fight any more than we can afford – for our military’s integrity – to force those willing to do so into careers encumbered and compromised by having to live a lie.”

But nonetheless, their answers are:

3. Admit that DAD’T does not contribute to our national security.

Response: Deny.

4. Admit that DADT weakens our national security.

Response: Deny.

5. Admit that discharging members pursuant to DADT weakens our national security.

Response: Deny.

As a matter of legal fact, the Obama Adminstration’s Department of Defense has stated that the President was not speaking the truth. As Dan Woods, a partner at White & Case, Log Cabin’s law firm put it

Using President Obama’s exact words, Log Cabin’s lawyers then asked the government to admit that what the President said was true. Justice Department lawyers objected, Log Cabin filed and won a motion to compel the government to answer the questions, the government appealed, and the court rejected the appeal. Consequently, on Monday, April 12, 2010, the government finally had to answer the questions and, when the Justice Department lawyers answered, they denied the truth of what the President had said.

This puts the President in a difficult position. He is talking out of both sides of his mouth. His Department of Justice speaks for him. It makes legal arguments that are consistent with the principles and factual conclusions of his administration.

Which is it, Mr. President?

The American Academy of Pediatrics takes on fraudulent letter from bogus pediatrics group

Yet again, Truth Wins Out has done what TWO does so well: getting professionals to refute the nonsense claimed by anti-gay activist masquerading as scientists. In response to the letter that the bogus American College of Pediatricians sent to principals, the real representative organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics has set the record straight:

On or around March 31, 2010, school superintendents may have received another letter from the American College of Pediatricians, which is in no way affiliated with the American Academy of Pediatrics. The letter promotes another campaign titled “Facts About Youth,” which professes to offer guidance to educators on “approaches to students experiencing sexual orientation and gender identity confusion.” Their campaign does not acknowledge the scientific and medical evidence regarding sexual orientation, sexual identity, sexual health, or effective health education.

The AAP encourages school administrators and officials, teachers, parents, and youth to become familiar with and utilize the AAP developed and endorsed resources on this issue for reliable, sound, scientific, medical advice

Italy’s supreme court to rule on same-sex marriage this week

From On-Top Magazine

Italy’s highest court is expected to rule on a gay marriage case this week, Italian media is reporting.
…
The court will meet in closed session to discuss a large number of appeals – including the gay marriage case – on Tuesday and Wednesday. In March, the court postponed making a decision until after Easter.

And the race continues. Will Italy or Portugal be the eighth nation to recognize same-sex marriages?

Ted Cox’s Journey Into Manhood

We’ve had Tex Cox here before, writing about meeting Caleb Lee Brundidge during an ex-gay “Journey Into Manhood” event. (Cox would later discover that Brundidge was one of the three Americans who appeared at the March 2009 anti-gay conference in Kampala, otherwise known as the “nuclear bomb against the gay agenda”.) Cox is a straight former Mormon journalist who spent more than a year undercover in the ex-gay movement posing as a gay Christian man struggling to overcome his homosexuality. He’s currently writing a book about his experiences in the ex-gay movement, and this week he embarks on a series about attending a Journey Into Manhood weekend. The first part of his series debuted on Stinque on Monday, and the second excerpt was posted today. The entire series has been uploaded onto Scribd.

Journey Into Manhood, an ex-gay program recommended by NARTH, is one of those wilderness programs ostensibly designed to allow gay men to get in touch with their masculinity while addressing the lack of affection and affirmation they supposedly received from their fathers. By doing so, goes the unproven theory, they fill their so-called masculine gender deficit, and become heterosexual. Or more heterosexual than they were before. Or celibate. Well that’s the theory anyway, and its one that Cox found wanting:

I don’t remember exactly when I felt his erection pressing into my back. It might have been while he whispered in my ear, “Long ago, you were the Golden Child. But, somehow, that Golden Child was hurt, and you put up a wall to protect yourself.”

…I sat on the floor between the outstretched legs of a camp guide, my head leaning back against his shoulder. The guide sat behind me, his arms wrapped around my chest. This hold was called “The Motorcycle.” Five men surrounded the two of us, their hands resting gently on my arms, legs and chest.

There were about ten other groups like this sitting on the floor in the darkened room: one guide giving “healing-touch therapy” while the surrounding men rested their hands on the receiver. Some men were held in the Motorcycle position. Others were turned towards their guide, cradled the way a parent would hold a sobbing child who had just scraped her knee on the sidewalk.

Being able to tell the story about Journey Into Manhood posed a particular challenge for Cox. Because Cox has signed a confidentiality agreement, JiM threatened legal action to keep the story from going public. But Cox said that he felt that, confidentiality agreement or no, he had to shine the light on the ex-gay movement:

I had to. If I don’t talk about this, this is going to keep happening. I met one man who is married and has children and he would go online to hook up with other men and he was having anonymous sex with strangers and then going home to his wife. Another man was married and making phone calls to gay-sex chat lines and his daughter discovered the bill. A lot of these men are living lies and it affects themselves, their wives, their children. I can’t stay silent about this. I feel like there’s a greater good in talking about this and exposing what’s going on.

You can follow the entire series as it unfolds at this tag, or download what appears to be a chapter from his forthcoming book here.