Tag Archives: lgbt

Why is it always an “agenda”?

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So, an incident happens in the workplace. One person is late. Another person who is irritated that the other person is late, and is griping about having to wait. A co-worker suggests they just chill out and wait. The grumbler gets a bit angrier and makes a comment to the effect that he is tired of always having to wait for “that faggot.” The co-worker takes offense at the comment, the grumbler gets even angrier and grabs the co-worker by the throat.

Other co-workers break up the scuffle, everyone separates to cool off. The late person arrives and eventually people are back to work.

Would anyone be surprised after such a thing happening in a workplace, that the person who grabbed a co-worker by the throat and referred to another co-worker (in front of witnesses) as a faggot received some kind of discipline?

No, we wouldn’t.

And if the person who had both physically assaulted one co-worker and verbally assaulted another, then goes public and insists it was just a joke, would we be surprised if other people in the industry begin to be a bit wary in the presence of the person?

Then nearly all the rest of the co-workers, including the guy who was assaulted and the guy who was called a faggot try to minimize the incident. “Sometimes tensions get high.” “People say things that they regret.” When that happens, you would expect the first guy to be grateful that people are trying to let him get past it. You wouldn’t expect him to, at a public event, in front of reporters and with TV cameras rolling, to suddenly say, “I’m just glad we’ve all stopped talking about me allegedly calling him a faggot!”

But this is exactly what actor Isaiah Washington did three years ago. It resulted in him losing that job. He dropped out of sight for a few years. And this week he resurfaced and gave an interview in which he says:

“After the incident at the Golden Globes everything just fell apart. It literally stopped. Whatever the agenda, whatever the plan was it worked. I lost everything. I couldn’t afford to have an agent. I couldn’t afford to have a publicist for the crisis management to continue. I couldn’t afford to continue. I went from 2 million dollars a year to residual checks. Zero. I couldn’t get another apartment after I turned in my lease for my $3 million home. I had to put it in my wife’s name. No one wanted to touch the name of Isaiah Washington for three years.”

And everyone is supposed to be sorry, because it was just some silly incident, right? I mean, the poor man lost a 2-million dollar a year job, and had to survive on just $200,000 a year in residuals. All because of one thing he said at the silly awards show. Then the whole thing becomes “an agenda.” Like there was some sort of conspiracy aimed just at him.

There are still people trying to portray this as some sort of “he said, he said” thing. One of the problems is that Mr. Washington’s story has changed several times. At first he said the scuffle on set didn’t happen. Then he tried to make jokes about the scuffle, but insisted the word “faggot” hadn’t been mentioned. Then he admitted he used “an unacceptable slur” when he was tired and angry, but insisted that he wasn’t really like that.

Then he used the slur again, with a big grin on his face, in front of the cameras. Yes, it was at an awards presentation where just about everyone had been drinking. And also he was denying that he had used the slur, but it was a comment completely out of context, and rolled so easily off his tongue that it gave a very different impression.

And here’s the thing about both anger and alcohol: they don’t force you to say things that you have never, ever thought before. They do lower inhibitions and make it more likely that you’ll say things you ordinarily wouldn’t say. But those things will be things that you think all the time.

So it isn’t an agenda. A lot of people would understandably be uncomfortable being around someone like that after a series of incidents like those. Particularly given how poorly he handled the apology, and even re-ignited the issue when it was beginning to look like it might blow over, it shouldn’t surprise him that other production companies are going to be reluctant to hire him. No one wants a similar incident, right?

Now, to be fair, I’ll admit that there used to be a conspiracy around these things. It used to be the case that a straight man could count on getting away with calling a co-worker a faggot without facing any consequences. Plenty of workplaces still overlook that sort of thing all the time.

For a long time there’s been an unspoken agreement that real men can literally push other people around and call them names like “faggot” with impunity. Because that’s the sort of thing “real men” do when they’re stressed and angry. Other “real men” are supposed to just laugh it off and move on as if nothing happened—because nothing out of the ordinary did.

That “real men” conspiracy is starting to break down. And I imagine that when Mr. Washington found himself in a place where everyone didn’t just laugh and move on it did feel as if people were out to get him.

Everyone is difficult to work with at least some of the time. Those of us who weren’t there don’t know what he’s like day-in and day-out. But the series of events which are not in dispute, including the series of unconvincing and changing apologies, indicates a pattern of behaviors. I suspect, therefore, that there are many, many other incidents over the years of his career that we never heard about. So, of course people are reluctant to hire him.

There’s no agenda. There are only consequences.

‘Fessing up, part 3

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I attended a Methodist university that had rules calling for expulsion for, among other things, being an “unrepentant homosexual.” At the time I enrolled (back in the mid-1980s), I was still struggling with my sexual identity—I was trying to convince myself that I was bi, or if not, then maybe I could live my life as asexual.

Being in the closet was a survival necessity in my day-to-day life back then. Almost everyone that I knew, whether through school, church, or just in the community, thought that being gay was inherently wrong. The state-approved high school health class text had a whole chapter on abnormal sexuality, and it described kinky straight sex, homosexuality, pedophilia, and necrophilia as simply different stages of the same psychological disease, for goodness sake!

I’d seen high school classmates kicked out of school, then sent out of town by their shamed family after rumors circulated that they had been caught having gay sex, as well.

Whether one of the colleges I was applying to had harsher anti-gay rules than another didn’t seem like a significant issue.

So, yes, I have to confess that I applied to a university fully aware that not only were my religious beliefs not very closely aligned with theirs, but several things I believed were actually violations of their rules and code of conduct.

But that’s only the beginning of the story…

Continue reading ‘Fessing up, part 3 →

Why would you even want…

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Whenever a story is published about some horribly racist, or sexist, or homophobic law or outrageously bigoted action by a government official in certain parts of the country (usually, but not always, a southern state), some a**hole will ask, “Why would you even want to live in __________?”

Similarly, when a story is making the rounds about someone being fired or expelled because they are gay/lesbian/bi/et cetera, the same a**holes will ask, “Why would you want to work for someone who felt that way?”

But when a teacher at a conservative religious school gets fired for being gay, or a student at a conservative religious school is expelled for the same reason, it takes an uber-a**hole to ask, “Why should I feel sorry for them?”

I’d like to deal with each question:

Why would you want to live there? Despite how mobile our society has become, our geographic location is seldom a matter of pure, unadulterated choice. We don’t get to choose where we are born or grow up, to begin with. Not all young adults have the means to pull up stakes and move to wherever they want. There is a constellation of complex social and economic reasons for why we live where we do.

It is easier to land a job with a company where you know someone who is already employed there or has been employed there, for instance. And particularly when you’re just starting out, who you know is largely going to be determined by proximity. You know people because you have lived near them. It’s just easier to get jobs in the area where you already live.

People usually have relatives to whom they feel obligations, as well. Census data shows that the majority of adults in the U.S. live within 30 miles of one their parents, for example. (Interesting side note: if a person’s parents are divorced, 80 percent of the time the parent who is geographically closest is the mother.) Sometimes it isn’t just a feeling of an obligation. There is an extremely strong correlation between how anti-gay a state’s laws and social climate are, and the likelihood that a gay or lesbian person married someone of the opposite sex while relatively young, had children, then came out to themselves and their community and got divorced. In many cases, the only way to maintain custody or visitation rights is to remain in the state.

Not to mention that every place has beautiful places, and at least some wonderful people. So often the reasons a gay person lives in a state that doesn’t have gay-friendly laws are quite valid, if not optimal.

Why would you want to work for someone like that? No matter how good the economy is, we often end up in jobs that are less than our dream job. Sometimes you take the job that is offered, and hope things work out. Sometimes you start out with a very tolerant, professional boss, but because of promotions, re-orgs, transfers, and the like, you suddenly find yourself reporting to the jerk who keeps making fag jokes. And it isn’t always one’s boss that is the problem. A hostile co-worker can create situations that lead to you getting the blame, et cetera.

And most of these situations don’t come from those obvious situations. I’ve written before about a past co-worker who made a big stink because I had a single picture of my late husband tucked on a part of my desk where most people couldn’t even see it. None of my conversations or interactions with him ever gave me the slightest clue that he felt that way.

I suspect a lot of these people were in a similar situation.

And except when I was working in a very tiny office, I have never been the only non-heterosexual person working there. And I’ve seen plenty of examples of gay employees in one department being free to be open about the gender of their partners, et cetera, when people reporting to a different set of managers quickly learn that if they don’t keep “that stuff” to themselves, there will be problems.

Finding another job takes time and energy a person may not have, even when they know the employer is not accepting. And if you aren’t a well-connected person socially both within your industry and community, finding a new job is not a matter of simply picking somewhere to apply, sitting back, and waiting for the offer letter. Depending on how specialized your skill set is, finding a comparable job, that pays enough to meet your current financial obligations and provides the benefits you need, can be more difficult.

And no matter how much research you do in advance, there is no guarantee that the new employer won’t have a similar issue with your sexuality under some circumstances in the future.

Why should I feel sorry for them? They should have known what would happen! So a lesbian is a teacher at a conservative religious school. See everything I said about about jobs. Then add in the following factors: when she began her career, had she even come out to herself, yet? Are there as many jobs in her specific field of teaching at secular schools? Does her church have a fairly large population of congregants who are far more supportive of gay rights than the leadership? How did all of that contribute to her feeling about how safe it was to admit who she is?

The one that really ticks me off is blaming the student at a conservative Christian college for not knowing what would happen. First, they’re college age, and by definition not experienced enough to be sure how people might handle their coming out. It’s also even more likely that she hadn’t even admitted to herself at the time she first enrolled at the school that she wasn’t straight. Second, maybe a Christian school was the only option that her parents would support. There are so many reasons that we pick which college to apply to, and getting accepted is not under our control.

The process of coming out, more specifically, coming to terms with your identity when you aren’t heterosexual, and then reaching the point of sharing that understanding, isn’t a simple issue of weighing all the pros and cons, checking one’s calendar, and thinking about how this announcement will affect your other plans. There is usually an incredible amount of frustration, fear, and weariness boiling up inside the mind of the closeted person like steam in an overheated pressure cooker.

The need to stop lying about who you are overwhelms the fear, let alone any caution someone has about what effect the truth might have on one’s next performance review. And being raised in (and working in) a deeply religious community makes all that pressure even worse.

Maybe the question these critics ought to be answering is, “Why don’t you have enough empathy to realize your questions are backwards?”

Not all like that, part 2

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I wrote a while back about being scolded by defensive Christians whenever I post or re-blog something about someone claiming to be Christian spreading hatred and bigotry. In that post, I mentioned that sex advice columnist and gay rights advocate, Dan Savage, refers to those people as NALTs or NALT Christians because of the phrase “Not all like that.” And then he advises that rather than tell us gay people that not all Christians are like that, you ought to tell the other Christians.

Several of those people have taken Dan’s words to heart, and have launched The NALT Christians Project (notalllikethat.org). Which I think is a good idea.

One of the things I really like about this and the It Gets Better Project (itgetsbetter.org) is that both of them set out to fight bigotry and hatred not by attacking people for being bigots, but by simply voicing non-bigotry, acceptance, and love.

Besides looking at the web sites, you can read a bit more about them here: New project to highlight pro-LGBT Christians.

And if you need a reminder about why people of faith who believe in equality and acceptance need to speak up, you might want to check this out: Christian Radio Host: Tell Gay Couples To Die On Their Wedding Day.

Speaking of pink boys, et al

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I love Goldfrapp’s music, and this… this is just amazing:
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Also, if you didn’t read this already, go check it out:

My Son Wears Dresses; Get Over It “To me, loving a child who is different, a target and seen as vulnerable is my role as a father and decent human being.”

Tomboys, pink boys, sissies, and amazons

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Lots of people have been talking about a couple of recent op-ed/blog posts about the recent faddish attention in the media and on social networks focused on gender non-conforming kids. Since as a kid one of the nicest words regularly used by my bullies was “sissy” it shouldn’t surprise any one that I have some thoughts on this matter.

The latest commentary asks us not to treat these kids and the parents who are allowing them to be themselves as if they are celebrities. No child is really equipped to be at the center of a media circus, and all the attention, even if all of it were positive (and it isn’t, as internet trolls quickly fill any comments sections or Facebook page with hateful attacks on both the kids and their parents).

I agree.

However, visibility is a crucial component of any attempt to diffuse hate. We wouldn’t have any schools that allowed these kids to dress as they wish, or policies to allow the transgender kids to express their gender, et cetera, if the existence of kids similar to them were unknown. We certainly wouldn’t have California passing a law to protect transgender kids in public schools.

We want the kids to be safe to be themselves. The act of being themselves means not hiding. So there is going to be attention, no matter what. When people like myself share links to blog posts of, say, a mom explaining why she let her son dress up as Daphne from Scooby Doo, we’re expressing joy that one kid has supportive parents. We’re telling people we know that we think it’s a good idea that this kid has supportive parents. We’re telling people we know that we think everyone should be accepting of kids like that kid, and parents like that mom.

And those are good things.

We need to admit to ourselves that we have other reasons. I know one of the feelings I have whenever I find one of these stories—whether it be the incredibly cool note a father left his teen-age son saying he’s known he was gay since the age of six and he’s loved him since the day he was born, or the mom whose son wanted to be Daphne, or the mom who was okay when her six-year-old developed a crush on a boy on TV—is envy. I wish that my parents had been as accepting of my non-conformities as a child. The subtext of my sharing of those stories is always going to include a bit of that wistful longing.

Similarly when I read the blog post of the dad who is appalled at news of some other father kicking his gay child out of the family home. As I feel the fierce feeling of protectiveness coming through the dad’s words, I can’t help a few tears coming to my eyes as envy (again) mixed with sorrow and more than a bit of anger at my own father well up. My dad didn’t have that overwhelming drive to protect me from the cruelties of the world—for much of my childhood he was one of the worst cruelties I faced.

So my reasons for sharing these stories is not entirely altruistic. I’m not trying to be exploitive of their stories. Maybe that’s the best we can hope for, that most of us aren’t intentionally sharing the tales for selfish reasons.

Not every boy who likes pink is gay. Not every girl who prefers sports over playing pretty princess is lesbian. Not all of the children who vary from society’s strict gender silos is transgender. No matter how much some of us may see ourselves in each of these kids, no matter how many stories we read or pictures we see or videos we watch, we don’t really know these kids. We don’t know their futures.

But to the extent that we empathize with how they feel, we need to put our attention and energy into making the world a more welcoming place for all of them, no matter who they grow up to be.

That isn’t what “misinformation” means

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On Wednesday attorneys working for Pennsylvania, under instructions from the Governor of that state, Tom Corbett, filed a brief with the state supreme court asking the court to stop the one county official who is issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples.

As reported far and wide, the brief included this brilliant piece of legal intellectualism:

“”Had the clerk issued marriage licenses to 12-year-olds in violation of state law, would anyone seriously contend that each 12-year-old . . . is entitled to a hearing on the validity of his ‘license’?”

A lot of people have taken issue with that analogy, and on Friday the governor issued a statement that did not backpedal, but tried to explain and deflect:

… the analogy was being taken out of context through a campaign of misinformation by the governor’s detractors. The reference to 12-year-olds was only meant to illustrate one group that is prohibited from marrying under state law, he said. But it’s an analogy, the governor feels was inappropriate, Hagen-Frederiksen said. The governor never said it or wrote it, Hagen-Frederiksen said, but his detractors are acting like he did. So Corbett wants to clear his name and wants the public to know, he doesn’t agree with it and he thinks it was an inappropriate analogy, Hagen-Frederiksen said.

Now, Corbett has only been Governor for two years, however, before that he was elected to two terms as the state Attorney General, had previously been a U.S. Attorney for many years, had served as acting state Attorney General for half a term, and spent many years before that as an assistant district attorney. One would think with all of that experience, he would have some idea how official statements about legal matters are drafted and sent to the courts, and how responsibility for what is said in them works.

But since he doesn’t seem to understand that, let me explain: Gov. Corbett, you instructed the state attorneys to file a brief, and you authorized them to file the brief on your behalf. So all of those news stories that say your administration filed it are absolutely correct. Further, even the headlines that elide over things are still accurate, because you authorized them to file the brief. It doesn’t matter whether you actually read it or not, you authorized it.

More specifically, you authorized lawyers to file a brief with the court on your behalf. As a long-time member of the legal profession, Governor, you ought to know that lawyers don’t speak to the court for themselves, they speak for their clients. As far as the legal system is concerned, you made that statement.

Your spokesperson has indicated (and emphasized by mentioning, twice, that you are away on vacation) that you hadn’t read the brief before it was submitted. If we are to believe that you didn’t read this brief which you authorized before it was submitted—a brief about what has become the civil rights issue of the decade and which is the subject of multiple political battles happening in your state right now—that calls into question your judgement, both legal and political.

The governor’s statement didn’t retract the brief. In fact, he said the logic behind the controversial statement is sound, just that the analogy is inappropriate. I could digress for some time about how argument by analogy is part of logic, but I won’t. The governor is standing by his statement arguing against marriage rights for gays and lesbians, and saying that he thinks it’s unfair that people thinks that proves he is biased.

I don’t know the governor, so I don’t know whether to believe him about not reading the brief beforehand. I strongly suspect that he at least read drafts of the brief before the final was filed. But if he didn’t, I suspect the reason he didn’t pay close attention is because he doesn’t think the matter is important. He doesn’t think the matter is important because he doesn’t think gay people (and non-gays who care about the rights of gay people) are important.

Thinking that any group’s civil rights are unimportant is a pretty strong indicator of bias, even without an “inappropriate analogy.”

The limits of dreaming

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It’s really easy to get caught up in our disappointments.

For instance, I’m one of the people who is very sad that the health care reform that is going into effect this October is not a real socialized medicine plan. I want a single-payer system, just like every industrialized country other than us. And saying that everyone can go to an emergency room regardless of ability to pay isn’t providing health care! I never want to read again a news story about a 12-year-old child dying of complications of a toothache because emergency rooms don’t treat ordinary toothache, and by the time the complications become life-threatening, it’s too late. I don’t want people to have to hold bake sales and kickstarters to pay for cancer treatments. We spend way more money on our medical system than any other country in the world and we have the worst coverage.

I’m disappointed that only 13 states (plus the District of Columbia and a couple of counties in other states) currently have marriage equality. I’m disappointed that we’re more than a decade into the 21st Century and there is controversy about the fact that courts say that the law ought to treat gay people the same as straight people. I’m disappointed that only two states have banned so-called “gay reparative therapy” for children. Further, I’m disappointed that kicking one’s children out of the house for saying they think they’re gay isn’t considered felony child abuse, subject to arrest, imprisonment, and having the rest of one’s children taken away.

I’m disappointed that I’ll never get to read that new Dirk Gently book (and whatever other books might have been written) because Douglas Adams died at age 49. And while we’re on the subject, I’m disappointed that Charles Dickens died before he finished the Mystery of Edwin Drood, and that Mark Twain died before he finished the Mysterious Stranger.

I’m disappointed that Doris Day has never won an Academy Award.

Not all my disappointments are big, societal problems, obviously.

My point is that it is easy to get lost in the weeds of disappointment. While some of our disappointments can be quite serious issues, even life-and-death issues, it’s good to take several steps back from those weeds to remind ourselves that there’s an awful lot of good and lovely stuff in the garden of life.

When I was a deeply closeted teen-ager, the very best future I could hope for was that maybe I could hide my non-heterosexuality and possibly find a woman who found me tolerable. I thought it much more likely that I would live out my life alone and unloved. I never dreamed I would meet and fall in love with a man who loved me enough to promise to stay with me the rest of my life (and did). Or that, after his death, I would meet and fall in love with another man who loved me as I was, and that we would not only be able to live together, but do so openly, and eventually stand in front of an assemblage of our friends and loved ones, exchange vows, and legally be pronounced married.

When I was in high school, two classmates who were accused (in separate incidents) of being gay were threatened with expulsion, kicked out of their homes by their parents, and wound up living with relatives in other cities. While many families still kick out their kids (or send them to therapy) if they admit to being gay, we also read stories of kids coming out in high school, junior high, and even elementary school with the full support of their parents. Many schools have straight-gay alliances and policies supportive of non-heterosexual kids.

When I was in my 20s, I was working on a science fiction story in which the President of the United States was an openly gay man, but I set it rather late in the 21st century, and even then, he had only become President because he’d been appointed a second-tier cabinet member, and in the course of a cataclysmic disaster, he was the only person in the line of succession left alive. We don’t have a gay president (and we don’t have any gay cabinet members), but we did have an openly gay man seeking the Republican nomination for President last time around. He appeared on the primary ballot in six states, and in some of them got more votes that candidates who got a lot more media coverage. More importantly, this last election cycle sent six openly gay candidates to the U.S. House of Representatives, an openly lesbian candidate was elected to the U.S. Senate (winning a statewide election), plus 74 openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual candidates were elected to state legislatures, and dozens were elected to city councils, school boards, and other government posts across the nation.

To sum up:

Just 40 years ago, the best future for myself I could imagine was I would be good enough at hiding my true feelings so no one would ever suspect I was gay. It was inconceivable to me that I could actually marry the man I love!

Just 35 years ago, it was inconceivable to me that ordinary schools would allow gay kids to attend openly.

Just 30 years ago, it was inconceivable to me that an openly gay or lesbian person could win elected office other than representing a “gay neighborhood.”

So, which thing that we thought was impossible years ago is going to happen next?

I hate being wrong

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I hate being wrong, but I try to own up to it when I find out.

When I wrote a few days ago about the leader of an ex-gay group who was saying ex-gays deserve federal protections just like the ones gays get, I said that there aren’t any federal protections explicitly for gays. That was really a minor part of my argument, but a number of people took issue with it.

When the spokesman was asked to explain what kind of discrimination ex-gays experience, he said that they’re intimidated, threatened, called liars, and that the media doesn’t take them seriously. Now, threats and intimidation can be serious, depending on what form they take. That’s why the Civil Rights Act of 1964 called out acts of interference and intimidation by force when it is motivated by a person’s actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin. It only covered such acts of force in specific areas: attending school, patronizing a public place, applying for work, serving on a jury, or voting.

But being called a liar? Not usually considered a crime. Particularly when it has been proven many times that you have lied. And not being taken seriously by the media? Excuse me? Since when is the federal government ordering the media to take gays seriously?

In 1994, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act added gender to the list of motivations that could be considered a hate crime, and directed a sentencing commission to provide guidelines for increased sentencing of those acts.

Several attempts were made over the years to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list, and those all failed.

Until 2010, when a rider was attached to the National Defense Authorization Act. Thanks to this rider, federal hate crimes laws do cover crimes where the motivation of the criminal is the perceived or actual sexual orientation and gender identity of the victim. The law also removed the requirement that the crime had to be committed when the person was attempting to vote or attend school and so on. It still has to be a crime of force or actual injury, though.

Somehow I had the recollection that the attempt to add this had been blocked in one of the houses of congress. But I had completely misremembered. Thus, I was wrong in my original posting.

So, federal hate crime laws do now include crimes committed because of one’s sexual orientation (or someone’s perception thereof—so people like the guys who beat and killed a pair of straight brothers because they thought the men were a gay couple would still qualify as a hate crime; the attackers thought the men were gay and the entire reason they attacked the men was because of that perception).

However, I must point out that even this act doesn’t protect specifically gay people. Besides the example I gave, of someone attacking a straight person because they mistake them for a gay person and they think gay people should be beaten or killed, it applies the other way, too. In other words, the law doesn’t say “perceived or actual homosexuality” it’s any sexual orientation, including straight.

And if the ex-gays are correct, despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, that they have somehow changed their orientation, then they are simply straight people, and if anyone is intimidating them through force or injuring them because of their no-longer-gay orientation, they are covered.

If I, and every medical and psychological association that has studied the issue, are correct, and they’re just gay people who are pretending to be cured so they can keep making money selling their fake cure to desperate and frightened people, well, if anyone is intimidating them through force or injuring them because of their not-really-ex-gay orientation, they’re still covered.

If someone is intimidating Mr Doyle or his fellow ex-gays through force (or threat of force) or are injuring them, those people are wrong and should be held accountable to the full extent of the law.

But having people like me point and laugh at them, that isn’t intimidation through force, it isn’t a threat, and it isn’t a crime. When specialized news blogs, such as Good As You, Truth Wins Out, Americablog, or Wonkette point out their lies, inconsistencies, and ridiculous claims, that isn’t a crime. When news organizations report on studies that show their therapy causes more harm than good, that isn’t a crime. When not even Fox News can be bothered to cover their rally denouncing gay rights groups, that isn’t a crime.

Maybe I’m mean when I call them parasites and liars, but the facts back me up. It might sound less harsh to say that they are disingenuously taking advantage of desperate and vulnerable people, but the meaning is the same. So I’m going to stick to “lying parasites.”

That isn’t what discrimination means

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One of my math professors began one of our classes with a lament about the loss of the word “discriminate.” She didn’t have a problem with any of the various movements to stop discrimination, of course. Having been a woman pursuing a career in science from the 1940s on, she had experienced her fair share of gender-based discrimination.

Discrimination ultimately means to perceive or distinguish the differences between things. “It’s unfair discrimination that’s the problem,” she said. “Someone’s race or gender has no bearing on how qualified someone is for a particular job. It’s perfectly legitimate to fire someone for incompetence, or for stealing on the job. In those cases you’re distinguishing between good employees and bad.”

While dictionaries still list the “distinguish between” definitions, in most modern discourse, people almost always use it to mean “an unjust or prejudicial distinction.”

When the largest ex-gay organization out there, Exodus International, disbanded recently, several of the smaller groups went into a bit of a panic. The spokesman for on the International Healing Foundation, Christopher Doyle, was right at the forefront. And then he announced that his organization, in concert with groups like the Family Research Council, was going to sponsor Ex-gay Pride in July, as a “balance” against Gay Pride. He even announced a banquet and reception at FRC’s headquarters, and so forth.

Except none of the more generic anti-gay groups he named would confirm they were attending the banquet. FRC wouldn’t even confirm that such an event was happening in their building! Next thing you know, they announced that they were re-scheduling it, claiming that they’re received death threats. Except, of course, they wouldn’t provide proof of the threats, nor could any news organization get any spokesperson from the other groups to confirm that they have planned to participate.

Doyle won’t be deterred, though. In radio interviews he repeated the charge of threats and talked a lot about how oppressed and discriminated ex-gays are.

“We want federal protection just as gays are given. Ex-gays also need to be given protection.” —Christopher Doyle, International Healing Foundation

There are several problems with that. First, at the time of this writing, gay people aren’t explicitly given much in the way of federal protections. The two big Supreme Court rulings that all the anti-gay organizations point to in this regard don’t extend anti-discrimination protection to people based on sexual orientation.

  • Lawrence v. Texas: struck down sodomy laws in 2003. The Court held that intimate consensual sexual conduct between adults was part of the liberty protected by substantive due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The ruling invalidated sodomy laws regardless of the gender. Most of the sodomy laws in question in theory could have been applied to opposite sex partners (remember that the original definition of sodomy is any sexual act that can’t result in pregnancy, it doesn’t just refer to anal sex between men, contrary to popular belief), though in practice they were almost never used against straight couples.
  • United States v. Windsor: struck down section three of the Defense of Marriage Act. The court ruled that if a state recognizes a marriage, then the federal government must also recognize the marriage. The ruling skirted around the issue of defining exactly what level of scrutiny should apply to cases of applying rights based on sexual orientation, though it implied a level greater than the lowest level, rational basis.

Neither ruling created any federal protection against discrimination. In fact, the second ruling was written in such a way as to completely sidestep the question of whether gay rights rise to the level of a constitutional right requiring strict judicial scrutiny.

Even their decision that effectively restored marriage equality in California didn’t create any federal protection. The ruling was specifically that the anti-gay groups didn’t have standing to appeal a lower court ruling.

The second problem with Doyle’s plea is what do they need protection from? As several people have pointed out, if what they say about their therapy is true, than an ex-gay is merely a straight person. So who is discriminating against them? No one is beating them or shooting them for holding hands in public with an opposite-sex person. No one is prohibiting them from marrying an opposite-sex person. No one is denying them any legal rights at all.

When confronted with these arguments, Doyle says that ex-gays are harassed by gay people. “There are tens of thousands of ex-gays out there, but they are afraid to go public because they are harassed, and threatened, and called liars.”

Here’s the thing. Every time that an ex-gay therapist or organization has been put under oath in a court of law, they have had to admit that they don’t cure gay people. Ever. For a while they claimed a 15% success rate (which seems dismal by any standard), until they had to defend the methodology in a court of law, at which point it was learned that the one study they pointed to was of 73 patients who enrolled in the same year with one ex-gay organization. They only got the 15% rate by excluding 98 other enrollees who dropped out before completing therapy, and by defining success as “the person reports that they feel their same-sex attraction is less than it used to be.”

More recently, they admitted their success rate was less than 0.1 percent. That means that 99.9% of people who try therapy, or pray-away-the-gay programs, et cetera, are unable to change from being gay. And even then, success is defined as refraining from same-sex sexual activity, not actually ceasing to be attracted to members of the same sex.

One of the former leaders of a couple of these groups published a book chronicling a couple of case studies of young men he treated from adolescence into adulthood. The book concluded by declaring great victory in one case, naming the boy as proof that god and therapy could cure homosexuality. The problem was that the young man in question had committed suicide, six years before the doctor published the book. The young man’s suicide note indicated that all the years of therapy (including aversion therapy, drugs to deaden his libido, et cetera) and praying hadn’t changed how he felt. And he would rather die than face rejection from his family.

Hardly a success.

Just google ex-gay and see how many news stories pop up of “famous” ex-gays who have been caught trying to hook up for sex in gay bars, or using hook-up apps, or hiring young male prostitutes to accompany them on overseas lecture tours. You’ll also find stories of once prominent ex-gays having quietly left the movement and taken up with a same-sex partner.

Even a superficial attempt to research this topic will make it clear that the only living ex-gay they can name are people who now make their living entirely by peddling ex-gay therapy or working for things like anti-gay political action committees.

When you make your living selling a therapy that has been proven not to work, when you prey upon people who fear rejection from their families and communities by promising a cure that has been proven not to work, when you sell people $300+ “introductory kits” and charge them exorbitant fees for therapy sessions that have been proven not to work, you are lying.

That makes you a liar.

Pointing out the fact that you are a liar when it has been demonstrated again and again and again that you are lying is not subjecting you to unjust or prejudicial discrimination. It’s an accurate description.

If we go further and point to people like that one young man who committed suicide (and there are far, far more than just him) as a result of your failed therapy, that isn’t unjust or prejudicial, either. That’s called holding you accountable.

After canceling Ex-gay Pride, Doyle announced an Ex-gay Rights Rally in Washington, D.C. He did the arch-conservative radio circuit confidently predicting that thousands of ex-gays would show up to demand their rights.

Three people with signs, two speakers, and a podium
Speakers at the big Ex-gay Rights Rally earlier this week. (Click to embiggen)
They came up a little short.

And to be clear, this isn’t a picture taken from in front of an enormous crowd of the oppressed masses of ex-gay people. There was no crowd. At all.

Afterwards, Doyle admitted that only nine ex-gays attended, but he declared it a success, because those nine people overcame great fear of discrimination to bravely show their faces. He failed to mention that he was including himself and eight other employees of ex-gay ministries in that count.

Eight people behind the podium, only reporters and camera men in front.
They didn’t just outnumber the crowd, there was no crowd. (Click to embiggen)
In the second picture I’ve included, everyone you see in that wide shot is an employee of one of the ex-gay groups, or someone there covering the “news” event. And please note, the camera crew was hired by one of the ex-gay groups hosting the event. Even Fox News couldn’t bother to send a camera man, they later ran the video shot by the organizers. The Wonkette news blog went so far as to issue an apology for its earlier story about the announcement which had predicted “maybe tens or even dozens” of attendees.

Just as accurately being described isn’t discrimination, trying to appear relevant so donations will keep coming in isn’t fighting discrimination.

It’s just pathetic.