End of the line for special rights seekers, Part 1

Posted on February 6, 2008 by David

On January 31, Maryland Circuit Court Judge William J. Rowan, III ruled on the last chance for PFOX, Lynn Chapman’s Family Leader Network, and other assorted anti-gay obsessives to derail the progressive human sexuality curriculum in Montgomery County.

Assisted in this round by the Thomas More Law Center (“The Sword and Shield of People of Faith” according to their website), here are the two legal arguments the complainants came up with at the bitter end:

  • 1) It’s a violation of the Maryland code “to present instruction that homosexuality is ‘innate'” on the grounds that this statement is not “factual”
  • 2) Including the term “anal intercourse” in a lesson on the correct use of a condom is a violation of the Maryland code section prohibiting instruction in “erotic techinques”

We’ll dispatch these one at a time.

1) ‘Innate’ == ‘Immutable’

The plaintiff’s argument that it’s factually inaccurate to tell students that homosexuality is “innate” was based on a 2007 ruling in the Maryland Court of Appeals. Here is the spin by Thomas More Law Center, presented to their newsfeed subscribers under the headline Teaching Erotic Sex and that Homosexuality is Inborn to 8th and 10th Graders is OK:

Maryland Circuit Court Judge William J. Rowan, III, ruled last week that it is permissible to teach…that homosexuality is inborn, even though in 2007 Maryland’s highest appellate court ruled there is no scientific basis for such a conclusion…

…Maryland’s highest appellate court issued an opinion in a 2007 civil union case, holding the proposition that homosexuality is innate is not supported by credible evidence.

Well, that certainly sounds convincing, doesn’t it? What they are referring to is Conaway v. Deane. This is the case in which several same sex couples sued the Maryland Clerk of the Court who denied them a marriage license, arguing that such denial constitutes discrimination on the basis of sex, in violation of the Maryland Constitution. The court found that there was not sufficient evidence, for the purpose of determining the appropriate level of constitutional scrutiny, that sexual orientation is an immutable characteristic.

Nowhere in Conaway v. Deane does the term “innate” appear.

Likewise, nowhere in the human sexuality curriculum at issue does the term “immutable” appear.

This argument was really not an argument at all, but rather a tactic in which the Thomas More attorney used the terms “innate” and “immutable” interchangeably, presumably hoping that the judge wouldn’t notice that these are two different words with different meanings. Even in the absence of this creative wordplay the court would have dismissed the argument. As Rowen notes in the ruling:

[T]he lessons did not teach that homosexuality was innate, but that “there is no single reason why some people are homosexual, heterosexual, or bisexual” but that “according to the American Psychological Association, sexual orientation results from an interaction of cognitive, environmental and biological factors,” and that “sexual orientation is innate and a complex part of one’s personality.”

So students are told that there is no single known factor that determines sexual orientation – we just don’t have a definitive answer there. This is the same argument that the plaintiffs themselves make. Next.

2) Heterosexual “copulation” is not erotic

This is the only conclusion that makes sense given the argument the Thomas More attorney made in court. According to their own report on the hearing, her position is that the mention of “sex acts other than copulation” is a violation of Maryland Code 13a.04.18.03: “[M]aterial may not be used at any level that discusses or portrays erotic techniques of sexual intercourse.”

[A]lthough state law does not define the word “erotic,” Bolling argued that a Maryland law which prohibits classroom material that “portrays erotic techniques of sexual intercourse,” makes video demonstrations of the use of condoms in anal and oral sex illegal. Bolling argued that if a sexual act is not done for a procreative purpose, it is an erotic technique.

A couple of things: It ought to be obvious that, despite the carefully crafted phrase “demonstrations of the use of condoms in anal and oral sex,” there are no demonstrations of any kind of sex in the condom video.

Also, aside from the unintelligibility of the entire argument, the plaintiff’s position is completely undercut by the fact that the original plaintiff group (the CRC) has stated numerous times that they supported the previous curriculum and didn’t want it changed. The term “anal sex” was already in that curriculum, notably in a video that included instruction on the proper use of a condom.

Jim Kennedy from Teach The Facts called attention to this a year ago:

So it’s interesting to look at the condom video that’s been in use in Montgomery County schools for ten years, at least — the one that the CRC likes so much. I myself sat in a room at Einstein High School with the CRC’s President a couple of years ago and watched this thing, so I know they know what’s in it.

The video was called called “Hope is Not a Method.” At one point, the narrator tells students:

Condoms not only prevent pregnancies but they are the only method that prevents the spread of sexually transmissible diseases like syphilis, gonorrhea, herpes, condyloma, and of course, HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Now we’re going to be talking about other methods of birth control as well but remember, whether you’re having vaginal, oral, or anal sex, condoms should be used to protect both you and your partner [emphasis added].

The new video and its accompanying lesson material don’t use the outdated term “condyloma,” and include this information:

(Page 13) “Condoms reduce, but do not eliminate the risk of STI/STD whenever there is oral, anal, or vaginal contact. (CDC, 2006; FDA, 2005)”

Elsewhere (page 2), they provide the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services definition of Sexual abstinence: “The avoidance of voluntary intimate sexual contact – oral, anal, genital, or intimate skin-to-skin.”

I don’t know why the plaintiffs in this case appear to be so stupid that they want to tell adolescents that as long as they abstain from vaginal sex they can remain virgins, but that seems to be the case. That kind of misinformation is arbitrary, unreasonable, and should be illegal. There are lives at stake.

“This court finds that there is nothing to demonstrate that the Board of Education’s opinion is arbitrary, unreasonable or illegal,” Rowan wrote. This debacle has been dragged out for six years now. This ought to be the end of it. CRC, PFOX and FLN could appeal the ruling, but why? They don’t have any arguments left to make.

But they want to make some anyway. The Gazette reports that they are all meeting this month with the Thomas More attorneys to decide what to do next. “We’re not leaving,” snarled the CRC president in response to this statement from the Superintendent:

We hope that we can put this litigation behind us now once and for all and move forward with our primary mission – educating our children.

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Refreshing honesty about marriage

Posted on February 5, 2008 by David

We’ve been hearing for years about how marriage has “always” been traditionally defined in major religious traditions as “between one man and one woman.” This is not at all true, of course, but for the purposes of this conversation, we’ll set that aside.

If the objection to marriage equality for all couples is that it changes a religious institution, then there is an obvious solution: Make it a religious institution only, and not the strange blend of civil law and religious sacrament it has evolved to be. That is what Doug at Below the Beltway argues, citing proposed legislation in the Maryland General Assembly to separate marriage and state. This is a sensible idea that some religious fundamentalists have supported here in our comments, as well. But, the bill just isn’t getting the support of the “conservatives” for whom it seems to have been designed. This piece just slays me:

[Delegate Christopher] Shank and other opponents say that same-sex unions defy religious convictions that marriage is between a man and a woman.

Yes, exactly. That is the purpose of the proposal: religious convictions need no longer be offended by bothersome civil law that has become confused with the religious sacrament of marriage. Within any given faith tradition, the practitioners of that faith can choose to perform the sacrament of marriage for same sex couples or not, and everyone will be treated equally in the realm of civil law, as the Constitution demands. That would respect everyone’s religious freedom, not just the religious freedom of those with one particular viewpoint. Or…wait. Could it be that that is the problem?

Shank sputters further:

They’re creating a situation for one special interest group that basically diminishes the value of marriage for everyone else.

None are as blind as those who will not see. How, exactly, does making the situation identical for everyone “create a situation for one special interest group?” This is a classic example of standing reality on its head. No, Shank and his pals want to maintain a situation that grants a special right to a group with a certain religious belief, and denies that right to those with different beliefs. On some level, it’s understandable that the value of that special right is “diminished” if they are no longer the only ones to have it. After all, that’s what makes it special.

But we don’t live under a theocratic regime in which people of one faith are granted special status (as much as certain groups might like to make it so). Allowing civil law and the religious sacrament of marriage to become entangled was a mistake that occurred because of an earlier prejudice against a category of person, and the entanglement has remained only out of custom. That’s not a good enough reason to fail to correct it now.

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Poor Cooch is not feeling the love

Posted on February 5, 2008 by David

I don’t know which is worse: Being a cold, cynical exploiter of the wedge issue du jour and throwing bloody meat to whichever bloc of voters is momentarily driven by the most mindless hate, or being genuinely driven by one’s own mindless hate. It’s a difficult question, hinted at today by Marc Fisher.

Cuccinelli — he could be here 2,000 years and he’d never change.

So says Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw (this would be Door Number 2). Saslaw then goes on to also describe the Cooch as a candidate for Door Number 1:

Saslaw sees Cuccinelli as a prime example of the kind of social conservative who is too willing to appeal to voters by tapping into popular discomfort with an outsider group in society. “It’s been pretty fashionable around here for the past four or five years to pound gays into the ground,” Saslaw says. “Now it’s immigrants. When they get done with them, it’ll be someone else. They make their living on that.”

The Cooch clarifies: While it’s true that he has introduced some of 2008’s goofy, harsh and punitive anti-immigrant bills, he wants us to know that his exploitation of that issue is secondary.

It’s not the be-all, end-all for me. It is an issue, but not the top issue.

Good to know. Could be it’s possible to be driven by both amoral utilitarianism and irrational prejudice. Speaking to the Some Families Foundation, the Cooch assured them that he is devoting his valuable time in Richmond to “‘the fight over the homosexual agenda,’ a phrase he used five times in a 10-minute talk.”

Wow. That’s just remarkable. Looking over the legislative “agenda,” I see: Allowing the free market to determine who can be the beneficiary in a health or life insurance policy; making state employment competitive with the private sector and surrounding jurisdictions by prohibiting non-job related discrimination; creating a registry in which people can designate someone to make medical decisions for them; and prohibiting housing discrimination (a provision which even the most conservative lawmakers I have spoken with assumed was already law). Could this really be the agenda he meant?

Oh, but wait: All of these tender attentions are for our own good. Telling the heartwarming tale of his effort to defeat a resolution commending the Richmond Gay Community Foundation and it’s associated Center, the Cooch explains: “When you look at the homosexual agenda, I cannot support something that I believe brings nothing but self-destruction, not only physically but of their soul.” Aww, that’s so considerate. As the Executive Director of the Center commented on an earlier post, “it is educational to learn which members of the General Assembly apparently object even to the commendation of an organization with a long history that includes audited philanthropy approaching two million dollars in direct support and community building.”

Our agenda: Securing basic fairness and equal treatment for all people. Their agenda: Being as punitive as possible to a group of people they don’t “believe” ought to exist. At any rate,

The crowd responded with warm applause, leading the senator to quip, “I can’t get this in Fairfax.”

I wouldn’t think so, no. There are not many places around these days where he can get that particular itch scratched. It’s not going to get any better for the poor guy, either. Too bad.

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VA lawmakers invited to “check a box”

Posted on February 4, 2008 by David

Well-run businesses don’t discriminate against their employees on the basis of irrelevant characteristics. That’s why former Governor Mark Warner signed an executive order at the end of his term in 2005, prohibiting discrimination in state hiring on the basis of sexual orientation. In addition, the Governor added similar language to that year’s budget, language that was later stripped by the General Assembly.

According to a statement from his spokesperson,

Warner’s decision to make the change was prompted by the number of lawmakers who have signed their own nondiscrimination pledges at the request of Equality Virginia [Ed. note – along with Virginia Partisans and Log Cabin Republicans of Virginia]. She also said eight of the 10 largest private companies in Virginia have similar policies, indicating that the state is ready for the change.

Not everyone agreed. At the request of Delegate Bob Marshall (who has elsewhere described himself as “Virginia’s Chief Homophobe”), Attorney General Bob McDonnell issued an opinion making the following curious claims: 1) That the Governor had no authority to amend previous Governors’ executive orders; and 2) That the budget language was “unnecessary” due to the fact that the discrimination was already prohibited by the executive order….the executive order that he purportedly didn’t have the authority to sign. *Cough.* Alrighty, then.

Equality Virginia Executive Director Dyana Mason made this observation at the time:

Now that McDonnell has removed the primary excuse given for the failure to act ““ that it was not necessary to do so ““ we will be looking to the legislature to make it clear what the state’s policy is. If the members of the General Assembly refuse to make an affirmative statement, one must only assume that they think it’s appropriate to discriminate.

Indeed, one must. In the intervening years, Governor Kaine has signed the same executive order, and legislation has been introduced that would codify the non-discrimination policy – again, the same policy that a majority of legislators have pledged to follow in their own offices – into law. This year is no different, with the introduction of HB 1493: Nondiscrimination; prohibits discrimination in state government employment based on race, etc. Note that protection from state employment discrimination on the basis of “race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions, age, marital status, disability, sexual orientation, or status as a special disabled veteran or other veteran covered by the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Act of 1974” currently also exists at the whim of executive order. None of these protections are yet permanently codified in Virginia law.

According to HB 1493’s chief patron, Adam Ebbin (D-Arlington), lobbyists from the Some Families Foundation have been telling people that “the legislation would require potential state employees ‘to check a box’ to state their sexual orientation.”

Now, we haven’t heard that these lobbyists are telling anyone that applicants would be required to “check a box” disclosing their religion, race, marital status, medical condition relating to childbirth, or any of the other categories specified by the bill. Because apparently, that would just be silly.

What we have heard is that the bill is still languishing in the House Courts of Justice Committee. Surely the members of this committee are not planning to check the box that says “I like discrimination.” Are they?

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A tale of two Lobby Days

Posted on February 1, 2008 by David

Well, not really. But there has been some amusing content on the “Some Families Foundation” blog lately, the first instance of which is an account of their lobby day. This would be the day that their followers “met with legislators from their districts to make their voices heard, fulfilling a portion of their Christian duties in the civil arena by educating themselves and others on Biblical government” and “promoting Godly laws.”

I’m not finding much in our founding documents and associated history about a mandate for “Biblical government,” but there does seem to be a great deal about religious freedom, individual liberties and equal treatment under the law for everyone. And as the folks who attended the People of Faith for Equality in Virginia prayer breakfast might tell you, opinions on what constitute “Godly laws” differ. It’s hard to imagine, for instance, that there’s anything “Godly” (let alone constitutional) about blocking young people who are being bullied because of their gender expression from forming a support network to stand up for themselves. Yet, that’s one of the things that these people who claim to speak for Christians have been peddling for the past few years, with the assistance of their allies in the General Assembly. Until now.

As it happens, no such attempt was made by Virginia legislators this year. The previous patron of this deliberate cruelty to GLBT youth confessed to the media that it had no chance of passing and would be a waste of time.

In fact, for the first time in the four years Equality Virginia has been holding a formal lobby day, all of the legislation being tracked is positive; common sense, pro-fairness and pro-equality. When EV Executive Director Dyana Mason asked the assembled volunteers why we thought there were no anti-gay bills on the list this time, a voice from the crowd sang out “Because they already passed it all?” Excellent comic timing, but not true. With the exception of the so-called “marriage” amendment and its precursor, the bad, the stupid, and the just plain ugly has been defeated. And now it really seems that the tide has turned.

Speaking with various legislators and/or their aides, a very interesting insight began to emerge: Many Virginians, even those one would expect to be highly informed about public policy, are simply unaware that GLBT people do not already have the basic protections from discrimination that other Americans enjoy.

Over and over, I encountered disbelief that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity is not already prohibited by Virginia’s Fair Housing Act, for instance. I think the truth is that most people are fair-minded, and just assume that others are the same way. They honestly take for granted that the world is already the way they think it ought to be: Fair and free of unreasonable bias.

This conclusion is also consistent with polling data collected during the campaign against the amendment. That data shows, for example, close to 90% of Virginians agreeing that GLBT people should be protected from employment discrimination. Even more striking: This was true for 80% of respondents who indicated that they would vote FOR the amendment.

Only now that we are free to talk about taking positive steps toward gaining these basic equal rights (and not wasting our time defeating silly, vindictive bills) is the situation becoming clear. Although I think this naive assumption can only be seen as an overall positive thing, it also suggests an explanation for the strange notion of “special rights.” If people believe that equal rights for GLBT people are already codified in law, it’s no wonder that they might be vulnerable to the argument that we are seeking rights above and beyond what everyone else has. Clearly, this is an education issue, and our community is certainly up to that task. All we need to do is tell the truth about our own lives, while our opponents have no recourse but to make up lies. Speaking of which, here is the other amusing item posted by the “Biblical” set; it seems that the gun lobby was in Richmond, and someone claims to have overheard Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw say this in an elevator:

“I see we’re debating a gun bill today. Half the cast of Deliverance is in town!”

Whether or not this actually happened, and the degree to which that day’s lobbyists actually resembled the cast of Deliverance, is unknown; but that’s not the funny part. The funny part is that the Some Families Foundation blogger was deeply, horribly offended that anyone would “stereotype a group [‘all of rural America,’ to be exact] in public.” Can you imagine – spreading negative sterotypes about an entire category of people? This is just awful. Anyone who would do such a terrible thing simply has no credibility at all.

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File under Hoaxes, poorly executed

Posted on January 23, 2008 by David

Update: Autumn from Pam’s House Blend would like an apology from all involved in this pitiful stunt. I’m not holding my breath, either.

Well, it seems that the story of “the man wearing a blue ruffled skirt” in the ladies’ locker room has badly unraveled. That didn’t take long.

According to two reports on the Teach the Facts blog, here is what folks have discovered:

It turns out that a woman named Theresa Rickman, spokesperson for the group “Citizens for a Responsible Government” (which has previously gone by at least two other names as the group adjusted its mission, so they are now known as CRWhatever) was actually in the lobby of the health club when the stunt happened. One of the many suspicious things about this incident from the beginning was that CRW had apparently called Channel 7, and was being interviewed within an hour of the initial complaint. A manager at the health club confirmed the presence of “an activist” who she assumed to be associated with a group that sure sounds like CRW (“the people at the grocery store with petitions”). It’s not stated why the manager recognized her as such – has she encountered Rickman at the grocery store? Was Rickman distributing propaganda in the lobby? – but she did.

According to this manager, the person in a dress signed in with a crowd of other guests so it is not clear who it was or if it was a man or a woman; they then proceeded directly to the ladies locker room, went into it and to the back of the room, and then came out and left the building. When this person came in, the employee at the door thought something strange was going on and called for an attendant to go check the ladies room, but the person left before they got there. Rio staff say they do not know who the person was.

The manager at Rio said she did not know who called the media, but she said the activist in the lobby was filmed in an interview after the event. The only “activist” interviewed by Channel 7 (the only media outlet indiscriminate enough to send a reporter to the scene) was Theresa Rickman of the CRW, who has written in our comments section that she goes to the Bethesda Sport and Health gym, not the one in Rio — so why would she have been there? In its newscast, Channel 7 failed to mention Ms. Rickman’s connection to the anti-gay, anti-transgender group, quoting her as if she were an ordinary citizen on the scene.

So, let’s see: The spokesperson for the group claiming that the new law prohibiting discrimination against transgender people will permit “men” to use the ladies’ room was present in the lobby of the health club – not her own health club – at the very time that this unidentified “man in a skirt” person signed in, quickly paraded through the ladies’ locker room, and then promptly disappeared. How interesting.

Also interesting: The woman in the locker room who reported this suspicious person to management was identified as Mary Ann Ondray – which seems to be a hasty phonetic spelling of her actual name, Andree. In one of the Anti-Gay Industry propaganda mills that was fed this story by CRW, they spell her name Andree. What would prompt them to change the spelling? There is no indication that they contacted her; the content of their story is basically a cut-and-paste from the Channel 7 story, with the addition of some commentary by another CRW spokesperson, Michelle Turner. It appears that Turner may have corrected the spelling of Andree’s name. But why would Turner have that information? Is Andree one of the 3000 or so names on CRW’s petition? We may yet find out.

That’s another thing that was revealed: CRW has only been able to convince 3000 gullible people to sign the thing, even by using outrageous misrepresentation. They are organizing petition drives in fundamentalist churches, standing outside grocery stores, and even bothering people with robocalls. They are still nowhere near the 12,500 signatures they must have by early February in order to continue their ugly campaign.

Oh – and in addition to the other lies CRW is telling people, they claim that the locker room stunt is a “test of the new law.” Trouble is, the law doesn’t go into effect until February 19. That date, of course, is well past the deadline for their spectacularly unsuccessful referendum campaign. In other words, a publicity stunt like this that occurred when there could be an actual test of the law would do them no good.

Finally, even if the law were currently in effect, this stunt would not be a “test” of it in any way. It is not now, nor has it ever been, illegal for persons to use whatever facilities they choose. Women commonly use the men’s room when the line for the women’s room is too long, for instance. What is, and will continue to be illegal, is harassing behavior. This is the case regardless of gender, gender expression, sartorial taste or lack thereof, or any other characteristic. We said it here, Teach the Facts has been saying it consistently, but it bears repeating:

The fact is, they had to make up this incident because it wouldn’t happen on its own. No transitioning transgender person is going to call attention to themselves in this way — the Rio gym even has a third bathroom that a customer could use, just for that purpose — and any voyeur who puts on a dress to go look at the women in the ladies locker room will be arrested. The CRW is campaigning on a lie, and they are desperate to make it seem real.

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Mike Huckabee continues to dig the hole deeper

Posted on January 18, 2008 by David

First, he declined to retract the stunningly ignorant 1992 remarks he made about people with AIDS, followed that up by treating Ryan White’s mother like dirt (par for the course when women try to tell him things, apparently), and now this:

In this interview with BeliefNet, Huckabee is attempting to “clarify” what he meant when he said that “what we need to do is amend the Constitution to meet God’s standards.”

Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal.

Huh? Hey, Mike – I think you forgot to include “a man and a corpse.” Should we not be able to expect more of our presidential candidates than gutter-level nonsense like this? Equating pedophilia and bestiality with the committed unions between GLBT people is what one would expect from the hatemongering mouth-breather set. This is the guy who claimed earlier that he’s a social conservative, but he’s “not mad at anybody.” (“This is good,” quips Wayne Besen, “because the more we learn about his shady friends, the less he seems like someone we’d want to anger.”) If I’m not mistaken, he just accused me, and a lot of you reading this, of being the equivalent of a child rapist. I tend to think that when someone refers to me in this manner, they’re mad at me. Even if they smile sweetly while they’re doing it.

Look, it’s possible to have a reasonable conversation about whether recognizing marriage as the legal union between two people as life partners is actually “changing the definition of marriage,” but starting off by talking about animals and children as partners is not the way to do it. That’s a conversation-stopper right there. Not only that, it suggests a serious poverty of intellect.

I’d like to like this guy, I really would. In some ways he seems to want to change the conversation about our moral obligations to those in need. And he has that cute dimple. But with a ginormous blind spot like this one, that’s not possible.

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