Equality Loudoun Archive, 2003-2015

Just the facts

Posted on December 22, 2006 by David

I’m not sure why Doug at Below the Beltway thinks that Harold Meyerson gets it completely wrong in this op-ed. The churches that have voted to separate from the Episcopal Church, USA are opposed to equality for GLBT people in the church; they are opposed to women having leadership positions in the church; they are aligning themselves with the fundamentalist presiding Nigerian archbishop, Peter Akinola; and they do represent a distinct minority. These things are all factually accurate.

Doug asks whether Meyerson believes in “freedom of conscience” and whether the breakaway churches have the right to do what they feel is right. Isn’t this a bit of a red herring? I don’t see where Meyerson or anyone else is questioning that. Of course they have that right. All faith communities have the right to determine such issues as how they define marriage and who they accept as members and leaders. If the members of these fundamentalist congregations would rather be aligned with an Archbishop who “promotes legislation in his country that would forbid gays and lesbians to form organizations or to eat together in restaurants and that would send them to jail for indulging in same-gender sexual activity,” they are completely at liberty to do so.

Do they also have the right to be shielded from criticism and ridicule? No, they do not. Meyerson’s characterization of their new leader as “Archbishop Restaurant Monitor” may cause hurt feelings and embarrassment (the Reverend Martyn Minns of Truro felt the need to clarify that his church does not “support criminalization of gay sex”), but in no way impedes anyone’s freedom of religious belief or practice. Nowhere does he suggest that it should be otherwise.

Meanwhile, it turns out that there’s more to the story at one of the Virginia secessionist churches (hat tip to Alice Marshall). Apparently, over the course of three years, many of the original members of St. Stephens left the church because pastoral care and ministry had been abandoned in favor of what amounts to a weekly harangue about the sins of the Episcopal Church. The leadership essentially drove away many of the existing members, and brought in new ones who found their fire and brimstone message more appealing. I don’t know whether or not this is the money quote – there are so many contenders – but this is what one member who stopped attending services at St. Stephens said:

“Why would I want to sit there and have to listen to being indoctrinated into leaving something that I believe in?”

Indeed. I also don’t know whether this pattern generalizes to the other congregations like Truro and Falls Church, but I wouldn’t be surprised. The Episcopal Church is not the only mainline denomination to be targeted internally by what Meyerson terms a “revolt against modernity and equality.” The United Methodist Church is contending with something called “Good News/RENEW,” a “women’s ministry” whose leadership is 86% male. It seems to have a particular concern with undermining the social justice and anti-poverty work of United Methodist Women, labeling them “radical feminists” and “anti-American,” among other things. “Good News” also claims that “the church’s acceptance or approval of homosexual behavior is absolutely intolerable.” The leadership of this movement openly states that their goal is to split the church, and their effort is being underwritten by Richard Mellon Scaife, the “funding father of the right.”

The Episcopal secession movement is likewise being funded by scary extremist Howard Ahmanson. Ahmanson was at one point on the board of the Chalcedon Foundation, a reconstructionist outfit that advocates the death penalty for gay people, so I suppose that simply intending to jail us is an improvement.

Meyerson also calls attention to a newish development in the world of fundamentalism: The Orthodox International, an attempt to set aside the traditional us-versus-them religious deathfest in order to focus on a common enemy. (So glad we could help.)

The OI unites frequently fundamentalist believers of often opposed faiths in common fear and loathing of challenges to ancient tribal norms. It has featured such moving tableaus as the coming together in the spring of 2005 of Israel’s chief rabbis, the deputy mufti of Jerusalem, and leaders of Catholic and Armenian churches, burying ancient enmities to jointly condemn a gay pride festival.

How nice. Let’s hear it for burying the hatchet. In a joint press conference, the Vatican declared that the pride festival would be “a grave affront” to “the religious sentiments of believers.” A Muslim cleric suggested that allowing it would result in Sodom and Gomorrah, the sequel: “God destroyed those cities and everyone in them,” he said. “I’m warning everybody, God will destroy Jerusalem together with the Jews, the Christians and the Muslims.” And then, as the crowing touch:

An unknown extremist Jewish group announced it was offering a $500 reward for every gay man or woman killed during the parade…

…”We’ve chased them back into the closet,” exulted one religious extremist.

Amid all the current squealing about Muslim immigration and use of the Qur’an by elected officials, where all the fundamentalists can agree, it seems, is on the imperative of gay-bashing.

Echoes of this newfound fundamentalist interfaith cooperation can be discerned in this recent Leesburg Today op-ed. Incredibly, the three co-authors (Jewish, Muslim and Mormon) call for a federal constitutional amendment that would declare “exacting piety” as an essential characteristic of our nation (try not to laugh). At least two of these authors are known to advocate for anti-gay public policy, so what is meant by “piety” is not much of a mystery.

I’m not sure when religious liberty morphed into the entitlement to have one’s views, however foul, accepted as reasonable without criticism or question. Everyone is entitled to be wrong – but not to demand that everyone pretend that they are right. In the marketplace of ideas, there are natural consequences for endorsing ridiculous ideas.

Given all of this, I have to ask: What part, exactly, did Meyerson get wrong?

Posted in Commentary | Tagged Episcopal Church, Faith, First Amendment, Religious authoritarianism | 3 Comments

Ground Control to Sam Brownback

Posted on December 20, 2006 by Jonathan

The Mother Jones blog points out the hypocrisy of Kansas Senator Sam Brownback for stonewalling over the nomination of Judge Janet Neff. Bownback, best friend and ideological twin of our Congressman Frank Wolf, is a member of the clan that wanted to pull the “nuclear option” for Judicial nominees championed by the far right. So what’s the problem with Judge Janet Neff? She has a friend who has a lesbian daughter, and Neff attended the daughter’s commitment ceremony. Horror!

After being lectured by George Will over civil behavior at social events, we thought we could rest assured that attendance in some circumstances is mandatory. Being a judge and all, Judge Neff probably knows when to question a mother’s intuition, and when to go along to get along. It’s not clear whether Neff’s decision was driven by manners or morality (morality, we hope), but that’s not good enough for Brownback. He wants a litmus test, the test he has avoided for nominees who agree with his ideology:

…he has supported appointees who had been outspoken opponents of abortion and same-sex marriage but claimed they would rule based on their legal expertise, rather than their personal opinions.

Cameron Scott, the Mother Jones blogger, really takes Brownback to task:

Compare Brownback’s single-handed delay of the Senate’s confirmation process to the suits filed by Gov. Mitt Romney and Vote on Marriage claiming that the Massachusetts legislature violated their right to due process by tabling an anti-gay marriage amendment. It doesn’t take long to see that their homophobia is making a perverse mockery of democracy.

But the treatment doesn’t seem harsh enough. The Washington Post reports that Brownback demanded assurance that Neff will recuse herself from marriage equality cases. Other members of the judiciary committee reminded Brownback that ‘you can’t do that.’ (Separation of branches, remember? Anyone? Brownback’s reply: “That’s the only option I had.”)

As disconcerting as Brownback’s misunderstanding of (or willingness to ignore) the Constitution is, one wonders why he hasn’t attended a committment ceremony himself. He must not live in the real world.

Posted in Commentary | Tagged Law, Marriage | Comments Off

How many more?

Posted on December 15, 2006 by David

“I have struggled with homosexuality since I was a 5-year-old boy. … I can’t tell you the number of nights I have cried myself to sleep, begging God to take this away.”

The founding pastor of another large evangelical church in Colorado has resigned after disclosing that he had “sexual relations with other men.”

A month ago, the Rev. Paul Barnes of Grace Chapel in Douglas County preached to his 2,100-member congregation about integrity and grace in the aftermath of the Ted Haggard drugs-and-gay-sex scandal.

Now, the 54-year-old Barnes joins Haggard as a fallen evangelical minister who preached that homosexuality was a sin but grappled with a hidden life.

Like Pastor Ted, Barnes has been hiding his secret anguish and trying to live the way he was taught he’s “supposed” to for nearly 50 years. He also has a wife and grown children. In a video explaining his resignation to his congregation, he describes growing up in a “firm moral family” and becoming an “adolescent racked with self-loathing and guilt.”

In their only talk about sex, Barnes said his father took him on a drive and talked about what he would do if a “fag” approached him. Barnes thought, “‘Is that how you’d feel about me?’ It was like a knife in my heart, and it made me feel even more closed.”

No doubt that particular “talk about sex” is part of the package that the thoroughly discredited “Dr. James Dobson” advises as “what children really need.” It would complement this advice for making sure that children understand very early what they are expected to be:

Meanwhile, the boy’s father has to do his part. He needs to mirror and affirm his son’s maleness. He can play rough-and-tumble games with his son, in ways that are decidedly different from the games he would play with a little girl. He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger.

In Dobson’s world, children have to be carefully taught to be boys and girls. Never mind that at exactly the same time we are supposed to believe that these critical, rigid gender roles are “natural.” One can’t help wondering why something so natural must be so rigorously taught and enforced, through violence if necessary – but I digress.

This sort of training is supposed to result in reliably heterosexual offspring. In reality, orientation can’t be taught or enforced, so with gay children it only results in alienated, stunted, self-loathing and shamed offspring. Way to go, parents! Someone should investigate how likely it is that parents engaging in this behavior are “a married mother and father.”

Unlike the pastors, Mark Foley was not living a lie – but neither was he living as a person who likes who he is. He lived as if he were ashamed of his partner and of himself. His behavior tells us that he has internalized the belief that their 19 year relationship is inferior and not worthy of the respect to which a committed heterosexual relationship would be entitled, in fact, not even fit to be publicly acknowledged. When asked by a family friend how he could, as a gay man, vote for discriminatory legislation, Foley responded,

I could never compare any relationship I have ever had to the nature of my mother and father’s relationship.

This internalized inferiority and shame not only explains the political, but also the personal. Can we agree that a person who values his partner and has pride in who he is doesn’t need to flirt with teenagers, or worse? This is what the closet creates:

[W]hat can one expect from denying grown men — and women — a normal, adult sex life? Whether the denial of adult intimacy comes from religious conviction or the ordinary urge toward conformity, people who run away from their sexuality nearly always have to answer to nature somehow. For people who fear abiding and mutual love, the trust and confusion of the young is a godsend. Add to that the perquisites of power, and a degenerate is born.

Meanwhile, rather than addressing the very real ethical problem of adults of any orientation who take advantage of young people, the bright lights of the faux “family values” crowd have identified a new target in their perpetual war on gay people: Soy products.

Also notable: James Dobson has declined to help Pastor Ted; he says he doesn’t have time to participate in “overseeing Ted’s restoration.” One can only hope it’s because Ted said something similar to a statement by Paul Barnes in which he hopes for a future in which one can “be who you are” and be accepted and loved in the Christian community.

These are all people who can advocate powerfully for the truth, if they choose.

Posted in Commentary | Tagged Abuse, Closet, Focus on the Family, Religious authoritarianism | 2 Comments

James, meet Paul

Posted on December 14, 2006 by David

Update: Jennifer Chrisler, Executive Director of Family Pride, responds in Time.

James Dobson of “Focus on Families I don’t approve of” has officially joined the Order of Paul Cameron, meaning that any official or activist who cites him as an authority on public policy can be immediately dismissed as a hack.

Dobson’s two-dimensional understanding of gender really shines in this Time op-ed. This is only the latest manifestation of his pattern: a statement of his notions about men and women as creatures with essential, mutually exclusive sets of characteristics, followed by the citation of either non-existent or irrelevent research about broken families that has nothing to do with families headed by same sex couples. Besides, who cares about evidence? Dobson instructs readers to not worry about all that, and instead look for “something in our hearts that tells us, intuitively” that human beings are more like the symbols on restroom doors than they are individuals.

First Andrew Sullivan smacked him (“He attacks [Mary Cheney’s] family but says it isn’t personal. Yes, it is, Mr Dobson.”). Now the noted psychologist and author Carol Gilligan has demanded a retraction, apology, and assurance that her work will never again be misrepresented by Focus on the Family.

Dear Dr. Dobson:

I am writing to ask that you cease and desist from quoting my research in the future. I was mortified to learn that you had distorted my work this week in a guest column you wrote in Time Magazine. Not only did you take my research out of context, you did so without my knowledge to support discriminatory goals that I do not agree with. What you wrote was not truthful and I ask that you refrain from ever quoting me again and that you apologize for twisting my work.

From what I understand, this is not the first time you have manipulated research in pursuit of your goals. This practice is not in the best interest of scientific inquiry, nor does bearing false witness serve your purpose of furthering morality and strengthening the family.

Finally, there is nothing in my research that would lead you to draw the stated conclusions you did in the Time article. My work in no way suggests same-gender families are harmful to children or can’t raise these children to be as healthy and well adjusted as those brought up in traditional
households.

I trust that this will be the last time my work is cited by Focus on the Family.

Sincerely,

Carol Gilligan, PhD
New York University, Professor

This follows the July denunciation of Dobson by three other social science researchers, including Dr. Judith Stacey, professor of sociology and a prominent researcher on children raised by same-sex couples:

Stacey says, “I am deeply troubled by the ways in which Focus on the Family willfully misrepresents my research on lesbian and gay parenthood to support their ideological opposition to homosexuality. This politically motivated distortion of social science contributes to serious harm to lesbian and gay parents and their children.”

Stacey joins Dr. Robert Spitzer of Columbia University and Dr. Elizabeth Saewyc of the University of British Columbia in taking Dobson to task for his distortion of their work in support of a political agenda that seeks to deny civil rights to LGBT people.

If the only means of suppressing a cultural shift toward inclusion and equality for GLBT people is bearing false witness – otherwise known as outright lying – clearly there is something very wrong with that agenda.

Posted in Commentary | Tagged Focus on the Family, Fraud, Paul Cameron, Research | 2 Comments

The facts of life

Posted on December 10, 2006 by David

I see that high ranking officials of the Anti-gay Industry are “profoundly disappointed and upset” with the announcement of Mary Cheney’s pregnancy. That’s too bad.

The Cheney family seems to be delighted, a discrepancy that ABC News describes as “the battle between entrenched groups representing differing views of morality in the country.”

The problem is worse than that: It’s differing views of reality. Ruth Marcus nails it perfectly:

In fact, perhaps because it’s less susceptible to being hijacked by the extremes, the business world is outpacing the political sphere in recognizing and responding to the new, out-of-the-closet reality of gay Americans. More than half of the Fortune 500 companies offered health benefits for domestic partners this year, up from just 28 a decade earlier, according to the Human Rights Campaign.

The latest issue of Fortune describes how companies seeking to attract and retain gay workers are offering bereavement leave if a same-sex partner dies, adoption assistance or paid leave for gay employees who have children, and relocation help for gay partners when employees are transferred. “Put another way, gay marriage — an idea that has been banned by all but one of 27 states that have voted on it — has become a fact of life inside many big companies,” the magazine said.

Her matter-of-fact presentation of “the benign reality of gay families today” highlights the silliness of self-appointed family police like Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America, who described the pregnancy as “unconscionable.” She is shown here repeating one of the AGI’s favorite misrepresentations of research:

“Father absence is the biggest problem we’re facing in this country,” she said, and “the root cause of all sorts of negative outcomes “” drug use, juvenile delinquency. You name it.”

Not exactly. What she “forgot” to say is that the “father absence” that produces these outcomes represents the abandonment of children and their mothers by their fathers. The “research” to which Crouse and other AGI mouthpieces constantly refer – to give their utterences the gloss of science – concerns only comparisons between intact and broken heterosexual families, and has nothing whatsoever to do with same sex couples raising children. (This sort of flawed methodology and deliberate misrepresentation is discussed at length here.)

Reality is not the major concern for this crowd, however; the dominion of their “worldview” is – so they can be counted on to erroneously cite (and repeat, and repeat, and repeat) such findings in support of their opinions. There is no support for the meme that children are better off with opposite sex parents in comparison with same sex parents. Studies that actually include families headed by same sex couples suggest precisely the opposite, for example here, here, and here.

More pronouncements from the morally bankrupt:

“Mary and Heather can believe what they want, but what they’re seeking is to force others to bless their nonmarital relationship as marriage,” said Robert Knight [formerly associated with CWA and Familiy Research Council].

Translation: To treat Mary and Heather’s child as equal under the law to the children of heterosexual couples is the equivalent of accepting Mary and Heather as married. They have left us no choice but to treat their children unfairly and possibly do them harm.

“Unless they move to a handful of less restrictive states, Heather will never be able to have a legal relationship with her child,” said Family Pride executive director Jennifer Chrisler. The couple “will quickly face the reality that no matter how loved their child will be. … he or she will never have the same protections that other children born to heterosexual couples enjoy,” Chrisler said.

Yet somehow, in the distorted universe inhabited by Knight, the source of this harm is the choice of the parents to have a child. Standing reality on its head is a pretty neat trick. Here’s the logical arc: Knight, Crouse, et al, claim that it’s wrong and “tragic” for same sex couples to bring wanted, loved children into the world. Why? Because it’s harmful to the children. Why is it harmful to the children? Because Knight, Crouse, et al intend to use every tool at their disposal to deny legal protection to their families and put those children at greater risk than their peers, that’s why. That this is their intent is demonstrated over and over; for instance, after repeated claims that Ohio’s constitutional amendment was “just about marriage” (sound familiar?), anti-gay activists promptly filed a lawsuit to strip health insurance benefits from the partners and children of Miami University employees. That suit was recently dismissed due only to lack of standing.

Has it not occurred to these interlopers that children with same sex parents would be more secure and more likely to thrive if they had the same rights and protections that their peers with opposite sex parents have; if there weren’t anti-gay activists hovering nearby, vigilant for any opportunity for enforcing second-class status on their families? Are the anti-gay activists unable to refrain from this behavior?

Please, tell me again what is “unconscionable.”

Tell us again how you’re not anti-gay

Posted on December 9, 2006 by David

Way to go, geniuses. Instead of recognizing that another human being has all of the same concerns and problems that you have (wasting time in traffic, maintaining family relationships, building a successful career) and being glad that he is willing to step forward and run for public office, you decided to smear him. And you decided to smear him simply because he’s gay.

Via Equality Fairfax:

Yesterday in Prince William County, Supervisor candidate Jeff Dion and his family were attacked on an anti-gay right-wing blog because of his sexual orientation, his family situation, and oddly enough, the size of his home.

Here is the original outrageous post that was made on the Black Velvet Bruce Li blog

Resulting threads on the popular blogs Not Larry Sabato and Raising Kaine have further discussed the issue of openly gay candidates

Jeff, an Occoquan District resident, is the Democratic nominee for the Prince William County Board of Supervisors special election on January 30th to fill the seat of outgoing Supervisor Corey Stewart (R-Occoquan) who was elected Chairman on November 7th.

Haven’t you gotten the message yet that people are sick and tired of this kind of panty politics? Just because they were willing to vote for an amendment that they were told was “only about marriage” (remember that?) doesn’t mean that they don’t see through over the top personal attacks made by hypocrites.

There is no point in the author backsliding and claiming that this is about anything other than pure animus: “What makes this different,” he foolishly explains, “is that Jeff is now an openly practicing homosexual who lives with his gay partner.”

Already there is accumulating evidence that putting this animus into practice was exactly the purpose of the Marshall/Newman amendment, which the author cites as justification for his nakedly homophobic attack.

Many commenters have already pointed out the obvious – that if divorce suddenly made a person unfit for office there would be a lot of seats to fill. In fact, they’ve already slapped the author silly for this nonsense and suggested that he try sticking to the issues. Isn’t development a big issue in Prince William right now?

Too Conservative has had enough, too; “[S]tick to facts. Stick to issues. These are REAL people’s lives, children, and families.”

This comment says well what needs to be said:

Umm, I wish you people would just realize that:

#1 You’ve already lost this “war” (and it was ONLY your “war”).

#2 People do not hate other people simply because they’re born gay (or even if they choose as you love to assert).

#3 Your espousals would be viewed as an antithesis to the message of Jesus Christ, himself, and by Jesus Christ, himself.

Love thy neighbor. Stop lying about people you fear.

One more thing. When openly gay people run for political office as I did in 2003 in Sterling, it starts to change people’s perceptions. They realize there is nothing to fear, and that lots of good people who are smart and competent and able also happen to be gay.

That’s what you’re really afraid of. And guess what? It changes people’s attitudes. I’m pretty sure most of you would have been surprised to know last year that the amendment would only pass in Loudoun with 54% of the vote, and that 46% would choose a different path.

We are going to win the struggle for our rights and our ability to live our very simple and boring lives with equality under the law, because we deserve it, because we don’t harm anyone, because we raise beautiful. smart, loving and very well adjusted children, and because we have God’s blessing.

You can contact Jeff’s campaign at info@jeffdion.org to support the first openly gay candidate in Prince WIlliam County history.

Posted in Commentary | Tagged Campaigns, GOP | 1 Comment

Different Things “An open letter to Elizabeth Marquardt and Maggie Gallagher”

Posted on December 8, 2006 by Jonathan

Dear Elizabeth and Maggie,

What should be done with intentionally childless marriages? Your arguments to protect the cultural institution of marriage as a child rearing institution don’t address this question. You advocate for an exclusive cultural understanding of what marriage “is”, defined by the “specialness” of procreative sex and the “rights of children”. There are, however, couples who choose “different things” as Alexa Chiang’s letter in the December 4, Washington Post explains.

“I take raising children seriously. Because I have no interest in the lifestyle of motherhood and I do not want to place my child above my other interests such as traveling, theaters, and social events, I will never commit to becoming a mother…We want different things out of life than people who choose parenthood.”

Should our government sanction their marriage and grant it a legal status? Is Ms. Chiang’s statement “I take raising children seriously” sufficient to believe that she will pay taxes for schools and services, and maybe donate time and money to make this a better world for children? Will their childless “marriage” help them faithfully work as a team that contributes more good than two unmarried individuals? Will marriage bring them happiness? Is the value to society of two people committing to take care of each other for life adequate reason to grant them special status?

Looking at the question a different way, should intentionally childless couples be stripped of their legal status until they satisfy the guardians of the institution that they don’t threaten your foundational assumptions that 1) marriage and child-rearing are inseparably linked; and 2) that children have a “right” to both a mother and a father?

Couples choose to marry and stay married for many different reasons. If marriage is available to intentionally childless heterosexual couples, isn’t it terribly unfair to deny that legal status to intentionally childless same-sex couples? If you both care about not being labeled anti-gay, you’ll grant that this contradiction is an injustice and an unintended consequence of your advocacy.

Yours,
Jonathan Weintraub

Posted in Commentary | Tagged Marriage, Parenting | 4 Comments