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Round 2: Stanton Replies to Chapman

Editor’s note: Last week, we began a discussion on anthropological views of marriage, with special attention to its implications on same-sex marriage. Patrick Chapman, biological anthropologist and author of the forthcoming book, “Thou Shalt Not Love”: What Evangelicals Really Say to Gays (Haiduk Press: 2008) began the discussion. That post was followed by a response from Glenn T. Stanton, director of Global Family Formation Studies at Focus On the Family and co-author (with Dr. Bill Maier) of Marriage On Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting (InterVarsity Press: 2004). This past Monday, Dr. Chapman kicked off round 2 of the discussion, and today Mr. Stanton offers his rebuttal. I’ll return next week with some final thoughts.

I am happy to engage this discussion another round and am thankful to Box Turtle and Professor Chapman for their continued participation.

I see the headline on this exchange as “Anthropologist and Evangelical Researcher Disagree on Much”, which sounds like a good Onion headline. But I do believe this has been an opportunity to let two people with very different views carefully explain their positions and allow others to eavesdrop into and comment on the conversation. That is worthwhile. As we close this exchange, I want to thank Dr. Chapman for his clarity and kindness. And to Box Turtle for hosting the exchange in a very professional, remarkably fair manner. I say that with all sincerity.

Predisposed Bias?
Let me start by addressing an accusation he makes about Focus on the Family at the close of his last post. He says:

The organization, generalizing from Stanton’s methodology and the recent article that began our conversation, is more concerned about fitting anthropological studies into its predisposed bias than an honest appraisal and reporting of the research. (emphasis mine)

Actually NOT doing this is exactly what prompted me to write the paper under discussion. As I explained here in my first response to Chapman, I went to read leading anthropologists a few years ago on their explanation of marriage in light of gender and sex. Let me say this very clearly: I did not find what I went to the texts expecting to find. I went to this literature expecting to find and truly hoping to learn about the great diversity of gender-manifestations I always hear about from my many Women’s Studies friends.

I fully expected to have these anthropologists explain to me either the subtle or overt realities of how we in the West understand male and female are not so in other cultures. To that end, I anticipated they would employ great energy in explaining how our “he/she” categories don’t work in some/many non-Western cultures. But that is exactly what I did not find.

I found relentless talk about male/female and the only qualifiers offers were for 1) class differences for marrying couples in various cultures, and 2) the different tasks male and female perform in various cultures. But these were relentlessly about male and female together and absent of talk about “spectrums” of gender.

Even a full, careful read of a journal article on, as its title explains, “interpreting gender in Bugis society” (a society Chapman referred to as evidence in his first post) offers no explanation of anything but male or female (in either “sex” or “gender”) in the entire article. As previously noted, the article does mention what it calls “male transvestites” but only as a “very small percentage of the population.” If there are other genders among the Bugis, this anthropologist either failed to recognize them or failed to report it. Being a professor from University of Wisconsin, Madison, you think she would be keen to such subtleties if they existed. I understand they are quite sensitive to “heterosexism” at her institution. I will check out the Graham-Davies book that Chapman referred to on the subject.

This leads to perhaps our discussion’s biggest point, the “elephant in the room” that we are both feeling and describing different parts of.

Sex and gender
Chapman concludes from reading my response that I do “not comprehend the implications of, or difference between, sex and gender” and then proceeds to explain it to me. Goodness, anyone who has paid the slightest bit of attention to our national discussion on sex-roles over the past few decades gets the difference. My problem is I just don’t accept all the rhetoric that Gender- and Woman-Studies Departments accept and blather as established truth. I think this new understanding of “gender” is a cultural construct, which I will explain in just a bit.

Chapman then goes on to carefully explain to me that it is a mistake to assume that “all biological males are gendered masculine and all biological females are gendered feminine.” I know what the sentence means, but I don’t know what it means in practice.

Do you really believe that I think there are ways that all men and ways all women act? That is ridiculous. But equally ludicrous is the idea that it is silly-talk to speak of essentially-male or essentially-female qualities, even across cultures. If this were true, we would all need guides to point us to the males and females in cultures different from our own. When I travel around the world, I do this discerning on my own and have never had anyone correct me or had my supposed “ethnocentricism” embarrass me in a cultural faux pas. I have little trouble discerning who the men and women are, even when they are performing outside their “prescribed roles.” Please!

Let’s look at this more closely.

There are two sexes: male and female. I don’t see intersexed persons challenging this, as they are people who are “inter”…between the two, but typically identify relatively well as either male or female. This has been my experience with intersexed people I know. The Intersex Society of North America explicitly does not regard intersex as a third gender.

“Gender” is a much softer, less precise term than “sex”. If we use John Money’s classic, but new-fangled, definition of “sex is what you are biologically; gender is what you become socially”¹ gender here is understood to mean how you see yourself and how society forms you with regard to your sex. Given this definition, I would posit that there are some 6.5 billion different genders, because to be honest, we all understand and express our sex in different ways. Let me speak from my experience.

I understand that I live out my maleness in ways very different than many males. In any given sports season, I could not come close to conversing intelligently about how the season is going. I have no interest in hunting, NASCAR or eating chicken wings at Hooters. However, I could tell you what is currently on display at the local museum or what was on Ovation last night. I am like Niles and Frazier Crane. My buddies kid me about this.

As far as household roles, a feminist literature professor, who I liked very much, tried to convince me that I lived by strict gender roles, whether I realized it or not. As proof, she asked me her discussion-ending gotcha-question. “Glenn,” she asked, “who cleans the toilets in your house?” I had to be honest. “My wife has seldom touched a toilet brush in her life.” I told her. I clean the bathrooms. Nor does she mop the floors. She cooks, and I do the dishes. She does the laundry. We both change diapers. We have women who work full-time here at Focus and Family and do so in plain sight without the slightest bit of recrimination from Dr. Dobson. Some of them are even vice-presidents and directors, oh my! Does this mean we are gender-benders?

Being or thinking this way does not mean we are either the least bit confused nor staunchly rigid on what masculinity and femininity are, but only that we recognize there are different ways to be genuinely male or female. But — and this is a huge one — the fact that there are no incarnated golden feminine or masculine archetypes in the world does not mean these two ways of being human don’t exist in real, discernible ways or that we can’t talk meaningfully across cultures about what male and female are, either in what were are physically, biologically and psychically.

This is my problem with this new use of the term “gender.” That it is used as a way to imply that male and female are no longer adequate terms to describe sex-based human experience. I don’t find this in my diverse life experience, nor did it appear to me, that the anthropologists I read did either.

Name-calling and other things…
I was struck in both of Chapman’s responses his ease and confidence in making conclusions for me about what I believe. Professor Chapman, I am many things, but I am neither a naïve realist nor an ethnocentrist. If I were, I would find no value in the work of the anthropologists, for their specialty is explaining to us differing human experiences in diverse cultures.

You also explain, ala Stephanie Coontz, that historically “love is irrelevant” to marriage. This is the silliest thing she says in a book full of silly things. If she wants to say that love has not always been the sole or primary force in marriage that it is today, that point is hard to dispute. But to believe that marriage has always been a relationship solely about either class-cohesion or -advancement or about the transfer of land or material goods is deeply mistaken. The human heart didn’t grow warm in just the past 150 years. It has always felt and reacted to love, rejection and developed jealousy. These have always played a part of human relationships, including marriage and parenting, because it is profoundly human.

Regarding Murdock’s writings and the word “typical” in relation to his explanation of family being “a married man and woman with their offspring.” I read this word to mean it is usually this, while some families are single-parented because of death or desertion and some do not contain children. The reason I came to such a conclusion is that he discusses these different family forms in his book, but not homosexual marriages. The good scholar that he is, he stated the typical and later discussed the atypical. He explained these atypical families as variations on the heterosexual family. I did encounter discussions of same-sex marriage as rare from other scholars, and I address those in my paper.

In the occasions that Chapman cites instances of “same-sex marriage” he explains that couples must represent both female and male social qualities, regardless of their biological sex. I don’t doubt these are socially legitimate marriages, but he explains, “Relationships must follow the heterosexual model” in Samoa. That is the very point I made and when I have encountered the rare instances of same-sex marriage in other cultures. So do we both agree that there are no examples in past human experience, in any culture, is something looking like homosexual marriage where men as men and women as women are allowed to marry each other, regardless of what their “gender” might be? If I understand Chapman’s posts correctly, the societies he mentioned do place gender restrictions here.

Children and Well-Being
Let me end with what I think is the most important point: what this means for children of tomorrow.

First, I did not say that children do better in two-parent homes than single-parent homes. You put those words in my mouth and denounced it as a non-sequitur because SS homes are two-parent. What I do say in many of my books is that children who grow up with their own mother and father do markedly better in every important measure of well-being, compared to their peers growing up in single, cohabiting, step- or divorced homes. Children in SS homes are not, but definition, growing up in homes with their own mother and father.

He mentions the Lamotrek as a society where “same-sex couples” raise children with “no evidence of harm to the children or society.”

Two questions here. 1) What does “couple” mean in this context, especially in your explanation of frequent change of residence in their culture? We have a similar thing in the U.S. with children increasingly being raised by their mother and grandmother in the same home. It happens in other cultures also. The “same-sex couples” in Lamotrek should be clarified. 2) Regarding harm, which you say didn’t exist, was any study done on how these children actually fare compared to children in other family forms? The book you cite was published in 1965 and sociology was just starting to look at how family formation impacts child well-being in the West. It is doubtful Alkire did such an analysis because of this, but also because it is not the anthropologist’s task to make judgments about the quality of what a culture does, but only what it does.

Finally, the numerous research reports coming from sociology and psychology indicating that father-love is more impactful in some important child well-being measures than mother-love does not imply that children with two fathers would do extra better. The fatherhood effect is not cumulative. Scholars who have done work on fatherhood and child development explain that fatherhood is consequential in many ways, but primarily as it contrasts with and complements motherhood in important and unique ways.²

It’s been fun.

Glenn T. Stanton

P.S. Just watched the woman-who-changed-via-hormone-
injections-to-present-as-a-man-and-is-now-pregnant-because-
she-still-has-her-uterus on Oprah today.

References:
1. John Money, “The Concept of Gender Identity Disorder in childhood and adolescence after 39 years,” Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy 20 (1994): 163-77. [BACK]

2. Henry B. Biller, Father and Families: Paternal Factors in Child Development (Westport, CT: Auburn House, 1993).

John Snarey and George Vaillant How Fathers Care for the Next Generation: A Four Decade Study (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).

Ross Parke, Fatherhood (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996).

David Popenoe, Life Without Father: Compelling New Evidence That Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensable for the Good of Children and Society (New York: The Free Press, 1996). [BACK]

See also:
Round 2: Stanton Replies to Chapman
Round 2: Chapman Replies to Stanton
Glenn T. Stanton Responds to Professor Patrick Chapman
An Anthropologist Critiques Focus on the Family’s “Anthropological” Report on Marriage

Arizona Anti-Marriage Amendment May Be Dead

UPDATED – See Below

In 2006 Arizona became the first state to vote down an anti-gay marriage amendent to their constitution. That amendment is believed to have been defeated because it extended beyond marriage to ban any form of civil union or domestic partnership, something that hurts many senior citizens.

So this year anti-gay activists were ready to push through the legislature an amendment that would ban only the use of the word “marriage”. This was fully expected to pass and be placed on the ballot in November.

However, an unusual tactic may have been employed to get the bill in the House pulled by its own promoters.

From the East Valley Tribune:

House Speaker Jim Weiers is likely to kill his own measure after Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Phoenix, lined up enough votes to tack on a provision to grant certain rights to unmarried couples living together. That move effectively tied the two issues together — meaning voters who want to make same-sex weddings unconstitutional would be voting for some constitutional rights for gay couples.

From AZCentral

A change to the referendum in the state House of Representatives today would give new legal rights to domestic partners for hospital visitation and medical decision-making, funeral arrangements and inheritance. Because of the change, the measure will not go forward to a final vote, a spokesman for House Speaker Jim Weiers said.

Rep. Steve Yarbrough, R-Chandler, a supporter of the gay marriage ban, said putting the two issues together on the ballot is unacceptable.

Anti-gays often claim that they are not opposed to heath decisions or insurance but simply want to “protect marriage”. Sinema called their bluff and won this round, though only barely.

Sinema’s change passed 28 to 27, with five members absent and not voting. An attempt to strip the amendment off the measure failed on the same lines and the amended version was given preliminary approval, despite opposition from original supporters.

Four Republicans – Reps. Michele Reagan of Scottsdale and Pete Hershberger, Marian McClure and Jennifer Burns of Tucson – joined Democrats in supporting Sinema’s change.

This battle is not over but this vote may indicate that a marriage ban vote in Arizona in November may not be a forgone conclusion. Considering that “absent and not voting” is very very rarely accidental, this coalition may hold together to add the same provision to the Senate bill when it reaches the house.

UPDATE

The Arizona Star is reporting that the Senate version is also dead.

There is another version of the bill awaiting Senate action, this one still in its original form solely to constitutionally define marriage in Arizona as between one man and one woman. But Senate President Tim Bee, R-Tucson, the sponsor of that measure, said Thursday night that he will not bring that bill to the floor.

“I don’t see any point in it,” Bee said. Even if he corrals the 16 votes necessary in his own chamber, he said, the proposal still has to go to the House, where it lacks the necessary support.

The House vote and Bee’s decision constitute a major defeat for foes of gay marriage.

Happy day for gay Arizonans.

The optimist in me can’t help wondering if the vote indicates that there is adequate support in the Legislature to try for a Domestic Partnership law in Arizona.

Father of Ex-Gay Rants NARTHisms in Utah

A while back, Belinda Jensen, the president of the American Fork High School PTSA in Utah became impressed with Standard of Liberty, an LDS-oriented anti-gay organization. So she invited the group to make a presentation.

Standard of Liberty, and it’s co-founder Stephen Graham, are passionate, but not particularly accurate or logical.

Q: You say homosexuality is physically harmful. How?

A: Homosexual sex (sodomy), causes chronic illnesses and life-threatening disease (HIV/AIDS), shortening life by an average of 20 years. The human body is simply not made for this behavior. In addition, adopting the “gay” identity often masks dangerous psychological problems that need attention.

Q: Doesn’t heterosexual sex carry the same physical risks as homosexual sex?

A: No, none, if there is abstinence before marriage, and fidelity and healthy, normal sexual intercourse in marriage.

Because, of course, he thinks fidelity is by definition missing from gay relationships.

And my favorites:

Q: Should even those privately struggling with SSA, who have not “acted out,” be chastened, offered help and correction, and held accountable by the church?

A: Yes. The church should be concerned with the person’s soul. People with this problem have become involved in perverse and sinful lust to the detriment of their eternal salvation.

and

Q: How many really change from unwanted homosexuality?

A: A new study reports a 38% success rate. An additional 29% had made progress and were committed to continuing their efforts. That’s a combined total of 77% experiencing success. (Jones and Yarhouse, 2007) In the mental heath profession, this rate of success is considered very high.

You may recall that the Jones and Yarhouse study revealed little to no statistically measurable change in orientation in the prospective sample. The much touted “successes” were either in recollection (which again were quite small) or were those who had decided to no longer call themselves “gay”. However, they still identified their orientation as homosexual (“I’m not gay but my attractions are”).

In short, the Jones and Yarhouse study was funded and fully supported by Exodus and conducted by two researchers who were avid supporters of ex-gay ministries. They wanted to study 300 participants, but after more than a year, they could only find 57 willing to participate. They then changed the rules for acceptance in order to increase the total to 98. After following this sample for 4 years, 25 dropped out. Of the remainder, only 11 reported “satisfactory, if not uncomplicated, heterosexual adjustment.” Another 17 decided that a lifetime of celibacy was good enough.

But for some reason Jensen thought that Stephen Graham had just the presentation that she wanted for the Parents, Teachers and Students Association. The principle of the High School was not so convinced and canceled Graham’s presentation.

Undeterred, Graham shifted the forum to a local library. In his speech his anti-gay activist motivations became clear.

Standard of Liberty co-founder Stephen Graham began with an account of how his son overcame gay tendencies after counseling, then screened individual film segments detailing the “gay agenda,” “gay demands” and “gay agenda in schools.”

Graham relied heavily on NARTH materials:

Graham presented statistics from www.narth.com, the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. Some of the most common concerns for gay men, he said, include HIV/AIDS, marijuana, Ecstasy, amphetamines, sexually transmitted diseases, suicide, heart disease, anorexia, anal warts and anal cancers.

“These things do occur in normal population, but not nearly at the rate as in people troubled with homosexuality,” he said.

Along with some unidentified 1993 video, Julie Harren-Hamilton’s 2006 DVD, Homosexuality 101, starring Alan Chambers, Julie Harren, Mike Ensley, Christine Sneeringer, and Jack Harren, was featured both on his site and in his speech.

Various representatives from the Utah Pride Center were at the presentation to counter Graham’s propaganda.

The Utah Pride Center will hold another meeting to offer information on resources for parents and youths at the library at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 9.

Chile may be Considering Marriage Equality

I’ve only found one source for this story, the Catholic News Agency.

According to a report on Lifesitenews.com, a bill has been introduced into the Chilean National Congress to allow homosexuals to “marry” and adopt children.

Officially named the “Bill that Modifies the Civil Code in relation to the Concept of Marriage”, it is being promoted by the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation (MOVILH) and other homosexual groups, and is similar to one that failed in 2003.

I was unable to locate or identify the story they are referencing on Lifesitenews.

Pentagon Tries to Hide Maj. Rogers’ Orientation

We commented earlier on how the mainstream media omitted all mention of Major Alan Rogers’ orientation or of his efforts to overturn the military’s ban on open gay servicemen. We told you how the Washington Post ombudsman wrote a column to repair that deliberate exclusion. Now there’s a new twist.

According to the Washington Blade, Rogers’ profile on Wikipedia has been modified

The user on Monday redacted details about Rogers that appeared on the online encyclopedia site. Information that was deleted included Rogers’ sexual orientation; the soldier’s participation in American Veterans for Equal Rights, a group that works to change military policy toward gays; and the fact that Rogers’ death helped bring the U.S. military’s casualty toll in Iraq to 4,000.

And while the individual responsible isn’t known,

The IP address attached to the deletion of the details and the posted comments is 141.116.168.135. The address belongs to a computer from the office of the Army Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence (G-2) at the Pentagon. The office is headed by Lt. Gen. John Kimmons, who was present at Rogers’ funeral and presented the flag from Rogers’ coffin to his cousin, *Cathy Long.

The factual information has been reinstated in the Wikipedia entry.

* Long is the cousin that was unaware of Rogers’ orientation and thought it should be left out of the Post article.

Blog Invasions

This is something we’ve never encountered before.

We try to maintain a certain amount of decorum on this web site while welcoming diverging points of view. We have a few regulars here who rarely agree with what we post, but I can say that I value their inputs. One commenter, the various incarnations of “qou,” is particularly adept at posting some very challenging and informative comments, and I always look forward to seeing input like his.

However, something has been occurring in comments lately which, frankly, is not particularly encouraging. And that is this: it appears we’ve been invaded.

The invaders appear to all come from one group blog that I had never seen before. If the number of comments on that blog are any indication (and the number of comments often aren’t), then it appears that perhaps that blog doesn’t have many readers. And if the commenters themselves are any indication (and in this, I think they are) they are limited largely to other authors of that group blog.

Now, look at the number of posts they’ve put up. Since last Wednesday, those eleven authors have put up eighteen posts. Not bad. But in that same period, four of those authors have dominated the comments on this humble web site, posting eighty individual comments on these two threads alone. Out of 246 comments as of this writing, they account for nearly a third of all comments.

I appreciate their passion. I really do. And I also appreciate a few of the issues they’ve raised. But as I have watched the sheer volume of these comments scroll past my desktop, it has become apparent to me that they’ve decided not to merely discuss, but to so thoroughly dominate a thread with an overwhelming number of posts as to effectively shout it down.

One beleaguered commenter said, “Rather than continuing this futility, I am going to go back to lurking for the time being.” That’s a shame, and it’s the last thing we want here. But if we allow this behavior to continue, others will follow that commenter’s lead and the argument will appear to have been “won” by silence. It appears to me that this is the intent of the members of this group blog.

In the midst of their eighty comments on this blog, that group has managed to log exactly one post on their blog that’s directly related to the posts by Dr. Chapman and Mr. Stanton. And you know what? It’s really not a bad post, although of course I don’t agree with it. I won’t be commenting there, but maybe some of you might look it over and share your thoughts. I would however ask that you show much more respect there than they did here. Be respectful, and don’t do unto them what they have done unto you.

Really, if someone is going to leave eighty individual comments on two threads of this blog, perhaps they should spend more of their time and energy on their own blog. To help encourage them to do that, I have made an update to our comments policy. I am also banning them from commenting on this web site for the time being. This applies to all members of that group blog.

Did the Justice Department Fire Prosecutor Because She Is a Lesbian?

The Justice Department under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales operated in such a manner as to invite questions about its hiring and firing policies. While to date such questions have been about whether prosecutors were fired for partisan or ideological reasons, now NPR is raising questions as to why Leslie Hagen, by all accounts an ideal prosecutor and a loyal Republican, was let go.

So, what was Goodling’s problem with Hagen?

The Justice Department’s inspector general is looking into whether Hagen was dismissed after a rumor reached Goodling that Hagen is a lesbian.

We know that the Justice Department under both John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales was discriminatory against its gay employees, disallowing them to meet on the same terms as other employee groups. We also know that the current Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, appears less hostile to gay citizens and employees. Let’s hope that if heterosexuality has been used as a prerequisite to employment in the past, those responsible are brought to scorn and equal opportunity be made the rule for the rest of Mukasey’s term.

Exodus’ Local Ministry Aligns with Sally Kern

Today over 1,000 people showed up to demonstrate their support for Sally Kern, the OK state legislator who got caught on tape claiming that “the homosexual agenda” was a greater threat to the nation than terrorism. In addition to the usual anti-gays, Kern’s homophobic rants received the support and endorsement of the local Exodus International affiliated ministry.

Stephen Black, executive director of First Stone Ministries in Oklahoma City, said he once was gay. His organization, he said, helps men and women overcome homosexuality.

“There is a political agenda and a cultural message about homosexuality (and) that it is destructive to our country,” he said.

Black was a speaker at the rally. While First Stone claims to “educate churches and Christians how they may respond biblically, compassionately, and knowledgeably to those impacted by homosexuality”, evidently they are more interested in portraying their neighbors as a bigger threat than terrorists and spreading lies about “livestyles” and gays “infiltrating” and “shorter lifespans”.

Ironically, First Stone gets its name from the scripture “Let him who is without sin cast the First Stone.” Considering that he showed up today to cast stones, Black must think himself sinless.

As for Kern, she’s convinced that she’s a martyr

Kern said a biblical verse came to her after her comments were posted last month on the Internet. The passage is Philippians 1:12, where the apostle Paul wrote, “I want you to know that what has happened to me has served to the advancement of the gospel.”

Exodus has of late been trying to claim that it seeks to reach out to same-sex attracted people, not demonize them. But associating Exodus’ Oklahoma City ministry with the blatant and vile homophobia of Sally Kern and her ragtag collection of haters does little to validate such claims.

See also:
Sally Kern Is a Little Confused
Sally Kern’s Economic Fallout
Sally Kern’s Meeting with PFLAG on Tape
Exodus’ Local Ministry Aligns with Sally Kern
Certified Cameronite: Sally Kern
Kern Speaks to College Republicans
Sally Kern: Out of Context? The Complete Transcript
We Be Jammin’
Muslims and Gays United
OK State Rep. Sally Kern’s Son is “Straight and Not Gay”
Sally Kern Exaggerates Death Threats
A Letter to Sally Kern
LaBarbera Award: Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern

Exodus Ministry Leader Speaks At Sally Kern Rally

As a matter of record I wanted to note Stephen Black, executive director of First Stone Ministries in Oklahoma City spoke at a rally today in support of Rep. Sally Kern. Source

Today In History: BXG!

On April 2, 2007, one year ago today, Beyond Ex-Gay was founded. And what a year it’s been. It has been my pleasure to play a very small part in this young group’s activities over the past year. They’ve accomplished a lot in a very short time. Happy birthday, BXG!

Image from Peterson’s blog.

We’re Everywhere

Including Sioux Fall, South Dakota. Sioux Falls is home to about 125,000 people, five television stations, four minor league sports teams, three interstate highways — and now, two gay bars.

Texas County Official’s Job In Jeopardy Due To Sexual Orientation

According to the Dallas Morning News, Justin Nichols is to face an April 15 public hearing before the Collin County Commissioners Court, to discuss his status as coordinator of the county’s teen court program.

Justin is currently running as an openly gay city council candidate for the city of Plano, a Dallas suburb. The Dallas Voice covered the historic race of Plano’s first ever gay candidate. That soon led to anonymous attack emails being sent to Collin County commissioners and other political activists accusing him of being a child molester. That led an unnamed commissioner to call a hearing to determine Nichol’s fate.

Many anti-gay extremists claim that gays are far more likely to sexually abuse children on average. This despite evidence to the contrary. In Nichols’ case, there has not been any allegations brought forward whatsoever — no accusers, no arraignment, charges, no arrest, no trial. And yet Nichols will have to stand before the Commissioners Court and defend his job.

Update: Justin’s hearing before the Commission was canceled. But it doesn’t mean he’s off the hook:

While Mr. Nichols has requested that any discussions related to his job take place in public, the panel has the option of meeting in private about pending litigation, county officials said. The case of Mr. Nichols, who said he has retained legal counsel, could fit that description.

Also, the county had scheduled a job evaluation with Justin on Tuesday, but they canceled the appointment that morning.

Oregon Activists Seek To Repeal Civil Unions

Last February, we reported that Oregon’s civil unions law finally went into effect after a last minute court challenge was set aside. That victory however wasn’t enough to deter anti-gay activists from trying to turn back the clock.  State Rep. Sal Esquivel, state Senator Gary Georgeand former Sen. Marilyn Shannon filed Initiative Petition 146 Monday with the Oregon Secretary of State to repeal the Family Fairness Act. The group needs to collect 82,769 signatures to put it on the ballot.

This initiative petition joins two others which seek to set aside the new civil unions law. Another initiative seeks to set aside Oregon’s recently enacted anti-discrimination law.

California Group Claims Nearly Enough Signatures for Anti-Marriage Ballot Measure

The California organization “Protect Marriage” says it is close to meeting the requirement to place a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage on the ballot. The group says it has collected 881,000 of the 1.1 million signatures it needs to qualify. The deadline is April 21.