While I supported him against the now disgraced Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell, Creigh Deeds was a terrible candidate when he ran for governor of Virginia in 2009. That said, his appearance on 60 Minutes this evening was incredibly powerful and helped to expose the disgraceful state of mental health care in America. His scared face and deep emotion was so very, very moving. The lack of mental health care is literally a national embarrassment. But it is especially relevant to members of the LGBT community struggling to deal with the harm done by anti-gay bigotry and the family rejection that some of us are faced with. A clip from the show is posted above and well worth watching.
When I came out and struggled to overcome religious based internalized homophobia and societal condemnation, access to competent and supportive therapists was crucial. Yet even with good medical insurance, coverage for mental health therapy was greatly limited and significant out of pocket costs were part of receiving the assistance I needed. One can only hope that the nightmare that Creigh Deeds experienced and his personal testimony will push the Virginia General Assembly to do the right thing and (i) allocate more money for mental health care and (ii) force insurers to afford increased coverage for this much needed segment of health care.
A sincere thank you to Creigh Deeds for speaking out so that the tragedy that happened to his son and his family hopefully does not happen to anyone else!
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