Pete Buttigieg Changed the Game for LGBT Americans

Growing up as a closeted gay child and then youth I - and so many others - had no role model of what a successful and accepted gay person could be.  I was raised in a Church which - hypocritically as it turned out - condemned homosexuality even as larger society ostracized gays and fears for one's career and physical safety were common.  My coming out journey was extremely difficult and included two suicide attempts.  Fast forward to 2020 and Pete Buttigieg has provided a role model and a sense of what is possible for countless LGBT youth, particularly those growing up in backward red states.  In some cases they may need to wait and flee once they reach the age of legal majority to follow their dreams, but Buttigieg has shown them that it can be done - even in a place like South Bend. The irony is that some far left gays continue to whine that Buttigieg "isn't gay enough" or isn't "the right kind of gay," but Mayor Pete has done what many of these preening self-styled "leaders" of the LGBT community have failed to do: set a role model and provide a sense of hope.  A piece in CNN looks at Mayor Pete's contribution.  Here are article highlights:

As Pete Buttigieg's husband addressed an audience of campaign supporters, family and friends gathered here in South Bend late Monday night, he told those gathered that, when his husband, their mayor, first asked what he thought about a presidential run, he laughed. And then he reflected on their still-young marriage.

"Pete got me to fall in love with myself again," Chasten Buttigieg reflected. "And I told Pete to run, because I knew there were other kids sitting out there in this country, who needed to believe in themselves too."

"You changed lives!" a supporter shouted.

"Yes, we did," Buttigieg replied, getting choked up. "Together."

And then, for the first time in American history, a presidential candidate took the stage, kissed his husband and ended his campaign. The moment was a fitting coda to Pete Buttigieg's historic campaign, one that both tested the nation's still evolving acceptance of LGBTQ Americans and represented a giant leap forward in the eyes of scores of those inspired by Buttigieg's candidacy.

[F]or LGBTQ Americans, who only nationally gained the right to marry in 2015 and still face the threat of workplace discrimination for their sexual orientation or gender identity, Buttigieg was more than a longshot candidate from a mid-level midwestern city -- he was a presidential contender of their very own.

From the start, Buttigieg's sexual orientation and faith set him apart from the standard Democratic presidential hopeful -- and especially his ability to square the two seemingly contradictory aspects of his identity.

At a CNN town hall in March 2019, he addressed both, creating a national moment largely credited with catapulting the mayor from obscurity to ubiquity.

During the town hall, Buttigieg, an Episcopalian, tore into Vice President Mike Pence for tying his conservative views on same-sex marriage to his faith.

"His interpretation of Scripture is pretty different from mine," Buttigieg said. "His has a lot more to do with sexuality and, I don't know, a certain view of rectitude. Even if you buy into that, how could he allow himself to become the cheerleader of the porn star presidency?" . . . . "Is it that he stopped believing in Scripture when he started believing in Donald Trump?"

That answer, and the rest of his town hall performance, caught fire, earning him praise from across the political spectrum . . . . . But Buttigieg's momentum surprised gay voters the most -- voters like Robert Moore of Dallas, Texas.

"Remember, marriage equality came pretty recently, you know, and it's a big jump from we can get married and be private citizens and be on our own, to being president of the United States," Moore told CNN in February. "And this is somebody that they are wanting to embrace, and not just embrace, but put up to lead them? That's a whole different game."

Perhaps more significantly, it signaled a new way to counter arguments against LGBTQ equality from the religious right -- with an appeal equally grounded in religion from the left. But Buttigieg's appeal to moderates on religion would prove representative of a larger theme throughout his campaign.

In attempting to expand the Democratic Party tent to independents and Republicans fleeing Trump, Buttigieg enraged a vocal, progressive wing of the Democratic base, who accused the mayor of compromising party ideals for votes in purple states. The anti-Buttigieg sentiment in the LGBTQ community also rankled Buttigieg's gay supporters.

"They're demanding too much," said Jerry Birdwell, a Texas voter who traveled to New Hampshire to observe the primary process there last month. "I personally think that if they make a comment like that, he's not gay enough, so to speak -- that's absurd...we're looking for a man that's going to represent the country, and he is the type of person who, his sexuality has nothing to do with his ability to run a campaign and to serve." Before thousands of Iowa Democrats, he drew a direct line between the case for a Buttigieg presidency and his own LGBTQ experience.

"I have seen what America can do, and so have you. After all, you're looking at someone who, as a young man growing up, wondered if something deep inside of him meant that he would forever be an outsider, would never wear the uniform, never be accepted, never know love," Buttigieg said. "And now you are looking at that same young man, a veteran, a mayor, happily married, asking for you to vote for president of the United States."

On the trail, Buttigieg took care to always note that while the LGBTQ community has made strides, there remained a great deal of work left to do. And he didn't gloss over that truth either, especially in Iowa, where, a week before the caucuses, he confessed that while he was "obviously thrilled by the progress that brought me the right to marry," the idea that marriage equality "meant the struggle for equality was, you know, done" is "just not true." Former US Rep Barney Frank, the first member of Congress in a same-sex marriage, agrees with Buttigieg's view, but thinks history will view Buttigieg's unsuccessful bid for president as historic in its own right.

"It's one of the most important moments in American history, not just of the LGBT issues," Frank told CNN in an interview after Buttigieg ended his campaign. "It is a sign that the prejudice against sexual minorities has diminished even more than we had thought. ... It further advances the fight against prejudice, because he was so good at it, being so articulate and doing as well as he did." "I never thought we'd have a gay candidate for president in our lifetime, no," said Paul King, who attended Buttigieg's rally in Raleigh, North Carolina with his husband, J.D. Brickhouse, just one day before Buttigieg would drop out of the race. "But I never thought we'd have civil rights in our lifetime either. It means a lot. Nobody who hasn't experienced growing up gay in America would understand how much that means."

What does it mean? I'm having the chance to vote for a gay man for president," Brickhouse chimed in bluntly.

For Annise Parker of the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which seeks to elect LGBTQ candidates up and down the ballot, Buttigieg's candidacy filled a more urgent need."I believe that he literally saved lives," Parker, president and CEO of the group, told CNN Thursday.

"We still have a horrible problem with internalized homophobia and suicide, leading to suicide within our community, and by seeing Pete there doing so well and speaking directly to disenfranchised young people, I know he had an outsized impact for them. I know what all of our candidates and elected officials do for younger LGBT people and how they provide hope, how they provide inspiration. He did that on steroids."

Buttigieg's run also afforded LGBTQ Americans a once unimaginable national visibility. And 9-year-old Zachary Ro of Lone Tree, Colorado, used his one chance to ask Buttigieg a question to enlist the former mayor's help in coming out to the world. "Thank you for being so brave," Ro wrote in a submitted question before a Denver rally in February. "Would you help me tell the world I'm gay too? I want to be brave like you."Later at the rally, as Ro approached the stage, the crowd of hundreds whipped themselves into a frenzy of cheers and encouragement, high-fiving the boy and chanting, "Love is love!"

"You will never know who's taking their lead from you, who's watching you and deciding that they can be a little braver, because you have been brave," Buttigieg told the 9-year old, visibly moved. "When I was trying to figure out who I was, I was afraid that who I was might mean that I could never make a difference. And what wound up happening instead, is that it's a huge part of the difference I get to make." "You'll never know whose life you might be affecting right now, just by standing here," he said. "There's a lot of power in that."

Doctors, Priests, Even Some Republicans Beg SCOTUS to Outlaw Discrimination

Out Magazine is reporting that a new study released by The Trevor Project – a suicide prevention organization - found that 39% of surveyed LGBT youth said they had “seriously considered” suicide in the past twelve month period. According to the report, 57% of youth who have undergone “conversion therapy” – a fraudulent practice much favored by Christofascists and Republican politicians like Mike Pence - reported a suicide attempt in the last twelve months. The study also found that more than half of the transgender youth surveyed “seriously considered” suicide.  Fueling these troubling statistics are the discrimination, bullying and often family rejection that so many LGBT youth experience. Yet what is the Trump/Pence regime doing?  Seeking to allow Christian extremists in the health care industry to refuse to treat LGBT individuals arguing that such treatment would offend the religious liberty of these modern day Pharisees and filing briefs with the U.S. Supreme Court ("SCOTUS") in support of employer’s right to fire employees based solely on their sexual orientation or gender identity.  To counter this malevolent effort, numerous groups, including doctors, priests, activists, major corporations  - even some Republicans - are filing briefs urging SCOTUS to rule that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars anti-LGBT discrimination.  A piece in The Advocate looks at this effort.  Here are highlights:

As the Supreme Court prepares to take up LGBTQ employment discrimination, plenty of equality supporters have weighed in — in addition to the expected activist groups, they include doctors, religious leaders, major corporations, and even Republicans.

On October 8, the high court will consider the cases of two men (Donald Zarda, a skydiving instructor, and Gerald Bostock, a social worker) who say they were fired for being gay and a woman (Aimee Stephens, a funeral director) who was fired for being transgender. At issue is whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans sex discrimination, also applies to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

A brief led by the American Medical Association, in which it was joined by 15 other health care organizations, applies to all the cases but deals primarily with issues of gender identity. Citing more than four dozen health care studies and papers, it argues that protecting transgender people from employment discrimination is crucial to their physical and mental health. . . . it notes, “employment discrimination against transgender people frustrates the treatment of gender dysphoria by preventing transgender individuals from living openly in accordance with their true gender identity and impeding access to needed medical care.” Discrimination often results in loss of income and health insurance, the brief points out.

Religious bodies are represented in a brief filed by the Episcopal Church, the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, the United Church of Christ, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, and more than 700 individual faith leaders. They “unite in believing it is both morally wrong and not constitutionally required to permit blanket discrimination in employment against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people based upon the personal religious beliefs of their employers or customers,” their brief states.

They note that in the Harris Funeral Homes case, a brief taking an anti-transgender position argues that some customers, because of their religious beliefs, would suffer “trauma” by dealing with a transgender funeral director in a time of grief. But that brief does not cite any cases in which someone was traumatized in this way — or why a business should be allowed to discriminate because certain customers object . . . . sustaining LGBTQ employees’ right to be free of discrimination will not interfere with the fundamental right to religious belief and practice, they say.

Another brief filed by religious organizations in support of the employees comes from several Muslim groups, including the Muslim Bar Association of New York, Muslims for Progressive Values, the Muslim Caucus of America, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council.

On the business side, a supportive brief was filed by 206 companies, including such major names as Amazon, AT&T, Bank of America, Ben & Jerry’s, Coca-Cola, Disney, Facebook, Goldman Sachs, IKEA, Microsoft, Nike, Prudential, the San Francisco Giants baseball franchise, and Xerox.

“Laws forbidding sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination are not unreasonably costly or burdensome for business,” they state. “To the contrary, recognizing that Title VII prohibits these forms of sex discrimination would strengthen and expand benefits to businesses, such as the ability to recruit and retain top talent; to generate innovative ideas by drawing on a greater breadth of perspectives, characteristics, and experiences; to attract and better serve a diverse customer base; and to increase productivity among employees who experience their workplace as a place where they are valued and respected.”

Organized labor is represented in briefs from the National Education Association and the AFL-CIO, and lawyers in one from the American Bar Association.

No currently serving Republican members of Congress were represented in the brief, but many currently serving Democrats — more than 150 — filed their own. “Title VII prohibits sex-based discrimination, and it is impossible to divorce an employee’s sexual orientation or gender identity from their sex,” their brief says. “Thus, discrimination on all bases that are related to a person’s sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity and nonconformance with sex stereotypes, is prohibited.” There’s also a brief from numerous former executive branch officials, from both Republican and Democratic administrations.

No one knows how the court will rule, and it will be considering oral arguments by the parties’ lawyers, precedent, and other factors along with the amicus briefs. And there have been briefs filed supporting the right to discriminate. But the many supportive briefs before the court present a host of powerful arguments against discrimination.

Mormon Church is Not Opposing an Anti-Conversion Therapy Bill

Last year, the Salt Lake Tribune reported that Utah, the home of the Mormon Church, has the faith highest suicide rate in the USA, with a particular problem of youth suicides.  The article reported in part as follows:

Utah had the fifth-highest overall suicide rate at 25.2 per 100,000, and since 1999, the state saw a 46.5 percent increase in residents taking their own lives. It is a crisis that has led Gov. Gary Herbert to create a youth suicide task force and state lawmakers to fund a new staffer to study why Utahns have died by suicide.

The problems most frequently associated with suicide, according to the study, are strained relationships; life stressors, often involving work or finances; and recent or impending crises. The most important takeaway, mental health professionals say, is that suicide is not only an issue for the mentally ill but for anyone struggling with serious lifestyle issues.

LGBT youth have a much higher suicide rate than youths in general, often fueled by family rejection (40% of homeless youth nationwide are LGBT as a result of such rejection).   Add on top of this the reality that gay conversion therapy can cause suicidal feelings, and it is a recipe for disaster which seemingly why the Mormon Church will not be opposing a bill in the Utah legislature to ban conversion therapy for those under age 18. A piece in The Daily Beast looks at this seemingly surprising move by a church that is notoriously anti-gay.  Here are highlights:

When Jason Lindow went through conversion therapy, he started abusing sleeping pills.  The treatment, he told The Daily Beast, “was making [him] feel dead inside” anyway, so he took the pills to stay in a “mellow state all the time.” He knew there was a possibility that he might “not even wake up” if he took too many, he said, but he was so depressed that death seemed almost preferable to an emotionless existence.

This was in 2012, five years before he came out as a transgender man and transitioned from female to male, so Lindow was being treated at the time for being a lesbian. The reason that Lindow, then a 21-year-old college student, sought out the treatment was so that he could serve as a missionary in the religion of his birth: the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon church.

Now, seven years after Lindow went through that ordeal, the LDS church has seemingly turned a corner on conversion therapy.  Earlier this month, LGBT advocates and Utah state legislators put forward a bill that would ban the practice of trying to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The bill is now in the House Rules Committee.

In a state where the vast majority of legislators are Mormon themselves, that lack of opposition from the church gives the bill a fighting chance. (In fact, the bill’s sponsor, Representative Craig Hall, is an active member of the LDS church.) If it passes, Utah would be the most conservative state in the country to have a conversion therapy ban.

The Mormon and Gay website currently says: “While shifts in sexuality can and do occur for some people, it is unethical to focus professional treatment on an assumption that a change in sexual orientation will or must occur.”

For a religion whose leaders previously taught that sexual orientation can be changed—and which stated in official literature as recently as 2007 that “many Latter-day Saints … overcome same-gender attraction in mortality”— those new statements represent a major step forward.

[M]ajor medical associations have denounced conversion therapy for precisely this reason: Not only is it unsuccessful at changing sexual orientation and gender identity, it has the potential to cause tremendous psychological harm to those who undergo it, including a risk of suicide.

In its campaign for the proposed conversion therapy ban, Equality Utah is highlighting the stories of survivors to draw attention to those harms.

Utah still has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the country.

Here in Virginia, Republicans in the General Assembly who specialize in prostituting themselves to the haters and extremists at The Family Foundation once again killed legislation that would have banned conversion therapy for minors.  Hopefully, regulatory licensing restrictions will accomplish this much needed goal since the GOP seemingly cares nothing about the suicides of LGBT youths. .  

Mother Chooses Gay Daughter Over Evangelical Church

All too often I find myself writing about parents who have rejected their LGBT children and instead clung to the brainwashing of their evangelical churches and the cherry picking of selected passages form myths handed down from uneducated Bronze Age herders - the true authors of the so-called Old Testament.  But sometimes parents, such as my own, make the right choice and stand by their LGBT and choose to reject the bigotry and embrace of ignorance that sadly defines a large portion of Christianity - and Islam for that matter.   A piece in The Advocate looks at one mother - and her husband as well - who when given the choice, chose their child and walked away from an anti-gay church.  Now, she works with other parents to help them make the choice to accept their LGBT child and to move on to a loving form of Christianity.   One doesn't choose to be gay, but one does have the choice in what kind of religious indoctrination they will embrace. Stated another way, sexual orientation is an immutable characteristic whereas continuing in a toxic religious tradition is 100% a matter of choice.  Check out her website here.  Here are article excerpts:

Susan Cottrell, mother, pastor, and founder of FreedHearts.org, recently released a TED talk where she shared the difficult choice she made when her daughter came out. "One day the phone rang and everything changed," Cottrell said in her speech. Her 20-year-old daughter, Annie, called her from college and said, "Mom, I've got something to tell you. I'm attracted to girls. I think I'm bisexual. I prayed about it, Mom. I resisted, but it won't go away." Cottrell admitted that her total acceptance for Annie didn't come immediately. 

After 20 years in an evangelical church, the mother of five "believed that being gay was somehow wrong." . . . . But she knew their family would never be the same in the church again. The advice from her Bible study peers was clear: "Homosexuality is a sin and we can't accept it."

So she had a choice to make. And in a tearful moment onstage she said, " I realized I was being asked to choose between the two most important parts of my life: my child and my church. I chose my child." And the audience stood and applauded.
 After leaving the church and losing the support of half her family, Cottrell found her heart opened to a new mission. "God was telling me to serve the gay community," she explained. Since that remarkable moment, Susan and her husband, Rob, also a pastor, have created a blossoming community of parents and LGBTQ children, that all started with a simple blog.
 Their work has helped over 3,000 people choose to love their children and has kept families together by reconciling their faith issues. "As pastors, Rob and I represent the voice of God, and it’s a voice of love," she said in her speech, countering the hateful messages often spewed by those who claim to represent Jesus Christ. The Cottrells have led support groups, officiated same-sex weddings, offered free mom and dad hugs at Pride parades, and connected LGBTQ folks with parents who love them, even when their birth parents won't.
 Cottrell is very aware of the lifesaving change that can come from choosing your child. She quoted a report that showed 57 percent of transgender youth without parental support attempt suicide. However, with parental support that number drops to 4 percent. "Fifty-seven percent to 4 percent — that’s the power of a parent’s love!" Cottrell commented,

By the end of the speech, she had shed tears and so had the crowd. The impact was visible on faces in the audience when she said, "LGBTQ people come up to us and melt into our arms. Many have not had parental encouragement in years." She and Rob tell everyone, "You're worthy. You matter. You belong." She affirmed that “real love accepts people as they are with room for who they may become.” And she reminded us that choosing love is always the right choice.

The 10 Biggest Homophobes and Transphobes of 2018

Homophobes Dallin H. Oaks, Mary Fallin, and Roger Severino.

As is common as December 31st approaches, many news outlets are looking back for significant events of the past year as well as heroes and villains.  In the last category should be included those who peddle hatred of others, especially LGBT individuals, under the smoke screen of religion or political self-prostitution to haters and hate groups.  A piece in The Advocate looks at some of the worse homophobes and and purveyors of hate towards those who are transgender.  Not surprisingly, the faux "Christian" Alliance Defending Freedom, the Roman Catholic Church, the Mormon Church and Republican politicians and apparatchiks that the prizes as the most hate-filled groups/individuals domestically.  The following are article highlights that look at these hate merchants and religious zealots:

LGBTQ people have made great strides toward equality in the U.S. and around the world, but we still have homophobes and transphobes trying to roll back our progress, and unfortunately some of them are running the country. We of course have had the usual suspects to deal with -- Mike Pence, Tony Perkins, Bryan Fischer, Louie Gohmert, Pat Robertson, and many more -- but here we'll spotlight some of those who particularly made news this year. 

Alliance Defending Freedom  The year's top Phobie Aware goes to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal nonprofit that specializes in causes important to the religious right. . . . . The ADF is still fighting for the right to discriminate. It's asked the Supreme Court to take up cases where ADF is trying to end a Pennsylvania school district's transgender-inclusive restroom policy and advocating for a funeral home's right to fire a trans employee. Oh, and it's got another case involving Masterpiece Cakeshop, for a refusal to make a birthday cake that celebrates a trans woman's gender transition. The ADF contends that the state of Colorado is harassing Philllips by expecting him to obey the antidiscrimination law.

Dallin H. Oaks [Mormon Chrch]  It's not news that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, known informally as the Mormon Church, isn't accepting of LGBTQ people, but one of its top leaders, Dallin H. Oaks, took the homophobia and transphobia to new heights this year. “Our knowledge of God’s revealed plan of salvation requires us to oppose many of the current social and legal pressures to retreat from traditional marriage or to make changes that confuse or alter gender or homogenize the differences between men and women,” . . . . Those pressures, he said, come from none other than Satan, who “seeks to confuse gender, to distort marriage, and to discourage childbearing, especially by parents who will raise children in truth.” . . . . There's an epidemic of suicide among LGBTQ youth in the church's home state of Utah, and much of the blame can be placed on the denomination's hatred.

Right-wing Catholics  It has been a banner year for homophobia in the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Francis, who once said “Who am I to judge?” about gay priests, said gay people don’t belong in the clergy. Not that the church has ever been truly accepting of gay clergy, but their presence has been an open secret for eons. With the church rocked by sex abuse scandals, Cardinal Gerhard Müller blamed gays for abuse, even though there’s no correlation between homosexuality and pedophilia.

Roger Severino [Trump Appointee] Roger Severino, director of the Office for Civil Rights at the Department of Health and Human Services, is overseeing the Trump administration's effort to define transgender people “out of existence,” as The New York Times put it in an October story breaking the news of a memo circulating among federal government agencies to legally define gender as something immutable and fixed at birth, as indicated by a person’s genitalia. He's also spearheading HHS's "conscience protection" efforts, aimed at aiding health care workers with religious objections to serving certain patients, which could well result in denial of care to LGBTQ people. Severino has a long history of working for far-right groups and opposing LGBTQ rights. He has opposed marriage equality, defended “ex-gay” therapy, and objected to allowing transgender people to serve in the military.

Mary Fallin and Jeff Colyer [GOP Governors]  As governors of Oklahoma and Kansas, respectively, Mary Fallin and Jeff Colyer signed bills into law that will allow adoption and foster care agencies that provide state-funded services to reject prospective parents who offend the agencies' religious dogma. They could be interfaith couples, single parents, or, yes, same-sex couples or single LGBTQ people. That's discrimination funded with tax dollars. For Fallin, the action was one more notch in a long record of anti-LGBTQ governing.

Texas Republican Party  Whenever the Texas Republican Party approves a platform, it's sure to be anti-LGBTQ. This year's may be its most hateful yet, though. At its biennial convention in June, the party adopted a platform that again endorses “ex-gay” therapy, as it has since 2014, as well as opposing marriage equality and supporting business owners’ right to discriminate against anyone who offends their religious sensibilities. It makes a new call for the state to repeal its hate-crimes law and opposes all efforts to recognize transgender people’s identity. 

The Hypocrisy of "Pro-Life," Anti-Gay Christians/Republicans

One of the sound bites that one hears ad nausea from Virginia's homophobic right wing, "pro-life" Christians is their deep concern for "the children."  One hears similar bleating from their political prostitutes within the Republican Party who will go to any lengths not to offend their Christofascist masters.  In reality, both groups only care about some children - those in utero and, after they are born, only white, heterosexual children.  The lives and well being of all the rest evaporates at birth  and we see these "devout Christians" doing all in their power to marginalize and make life a living hell for LGBT children, youth and adults. In respect to poor minority children, they support every effort to slash the social safety net and deprive them of health care assess.  They reserve something special for LGBT youth, however: (i) constant propaganda that being LGBT is wrong and shameful, and (ii) so-called "conversion therapy" - which is condemned by every legitimate medical and mental health association in America - that constitutes nothing less than a form of psychological and sometimes actual physical torture aimed at making LGBT youth "straight."  Yet through all of this we hear the disingenuous, hypocrisy laden claim that these people care about "the children."  A piece in GayRVA looks at the continued Christofascist/GOP effort to subject LGBT youth to what constitutes torture.  Here are excerpts:

Good afternoon, pro-lifers of Greater Virginia! I hope you’re sitting, because we need to talk.

You claim to be about the children, about their lives and safety. Do you just mean while they’re in utero? Or do you still care about them once they’re out of the womb — but only if they’re straight?

Because if you really care about children — ALL children — the way you say you do, then we need to know where you stand on conversion therapy.

The battle to ban conversion therapy continues to rage on here in Virginia. For years, bills have been proposed within the General Assembly to ban it. Sadly, all have failed.

As recently as January of this year, Sen. Scott Surovell (D-Fairfax) introduced a bill that would ban conversion therapy (defined within the bill as “any practice or treatment that seeks to change an individual’s sexual orientation or gender identity”) for minors in Virginia, and prohibit licensed therapists from performing it. Of course, the bill was sadly killed by Republicans on the Senate Education and Health Committee, 8-7.

Surovell explained to the Richmond Times-Dispatch that there is sufficient evidence proving the psychological and physical harm this plays on minors, including increased depression and suicide attempts. The American Psychological Association has outright stated that conversion therapy is harmful — a 2007 report on the practice by the APA stated that “results of scientifically valid research indicate that it is unlikely that individuals will be able to reduce same-sex attractions or increase other-sex sexual attractions through sexual-orientation change efforts.”

But, hey. Why listen to people who are actual experts? Silly talk!

In an interview with NBC12, Ted Lewis, Head Director of Side By Side, talks about what can happen to your child in conversion therapy.

“There are a lot of different things that can happen to a young person,” said Lewis. “First and foremost, there is a lot of shame that comes with the person being told they are not okay who they are. And on top of that, the tools used to get them to try and convert can be electric shock, hypnotizing the person, lots of shaming, and sometimes even forced intercourse.”

So, again I have to ask. Why do you seriously just not care about our queer children?  Do you seriously care that little that our children are being subjected to legalized torture? You’re okay with them being electrocuted or shamed for just being alive?

[E]ven the state licensing boards are over it, and recently aimed to ban it themselves despite the General Assembly’s continuous attempts to shut down any bills.

Last week, the Department of Health Professions held a work group to discuss this. Potential regulations were discussed that would prohibit anyone licensed to practice in Virginia from using conversion therapy to intentionally alter any child’s sexual or gender identity.

Naturally, Sen. Amanda Chase, R-Chesterfield, argued against these regulations, reminding the group that the bill had been killed in the General Assembly. “I voted against this bill (voted yes to pass by indefinitely) in the Senate Education and Health committee because it violates free speech, religious liberty, and endangers children who should be able to receive helpful counsel,” she posted on Facebook after the meeting.

Sen. Chase. You are specifically who I am calling out in this article. You are the real danger to our children, and people who think like you. You are why our children are dying.

So, I’ll just ask you flat out. Why do you want our queer children to suffer so badly?

So I’m going to ask again, my dear pro-lifers, who swear until they are blue in the face and writhing on the floor that they care about nothing more than the lives of our children. Do you genuinely care about our children once they leave the womb, or do you only care as long as they are cisgender and straight?

Because if you do care about all of our children, and yes I mean every single one of them regardless their gender and or sexual identity, then you need to stop allowing conversion therapy to be foisted upon them. If you’ll stand for that, you’re not pro-life.

The next time you hear Victoria Cobb of The Family Foundation or Republicans like Sen. Amanda Chase bloviating about caring for children, know that it is all a lie.  Better yet, call them out on it and, in case of Virginia Republicans, vote them out of office in 2019.

Study Links Religion And Suicide For LGBT Youth

As regular readers know, I have a very dim view of most forms of organized religion, especially fundamentalist denominations and, of course, the morally bankrupt and hypocrisy dripping Roman Catholic Church.  My own Catholic upbringing cause near unlimited amounts of self hate as I tried to deny who I was and sought desperately to conform to Church and by extension family expectations. The result was innumerable thoughts of suicide and two serious attempts that landed me in the hospital.  It literally years of therapy and walking away from Catholicism to find emotional and spiritual peace.   Based on my experiences, I view raising an LGBT child in a fundamentalist or conservative Catholic home as nothing less than a form of child abuse.  I also hold fundamentalist denominations and conservative Catholicism responsible for many needless suicides. A new study linking religion and suicide for LGBT youth confirms these views.  Here are highlights from a piece in Huffington Post:

Faith is supposed to be a source of strength for believers, especially during times of struggle and sorrow. However, a new study suggests that religiosity may be linked to negative feelings among queer individuals ― including increases in suicidal behaviors.

The study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine last month, is a chilling revelation of the ties between suicide and theology that doesn’t affirm queer identity.

“Religious groups who stigmatize LGBT people should be aware of the potential damage they can do to an individual and families, and honestly the damage they do to themselves as an organization,” study co-author John R. Blosnich told HuffPost. 

In order to study religiosity and suicidal ideation among sexual minorities, Blosnich and his fellow researchers turned to data collected by the University of Texas at Austin’s Research Consortium. The students were asked to rate how important their religious or spiritual beliefs were to their personal identity. They were also asked a number of questions about whether they had ever seriously considered or attempted suicide. Analyzing this data, the research team found that while 3.7 percent of heterosexual young adults reported recent thoughts of suicide, the percentages were significantly higher among queer youth. Those questioning their sexuality had the highest rate of recent thoughts about suicide at 16.4 percent, followed by bisexual individuals (11.4 percent) and lesbian or gay individuals (6.5 percent). 

Five percent of heterosexual youth reported attempting suicide in their lifetimes, compared to 20 percent of bisexual youth, 17 percent of questioning youth and 14 percent of gay or lesbian youth.

Notably, the study authors found that religion may have acted as a protective factor against suicide attempts among heterosexual youth. On the other hand, for lesbian and gay youth, increasing levels of religious importance were associated with increased odds of recent suicidal ideation. In fact, lesbian and gay youth who said that religion was important to them were 38 percent more likely to have had recent suicidal thoughts, compared to lesbian and gay youth who reported religion was less important. Religiosity among lesbians alone was linked to a 52 percent increased chance of recent suicidal ideation.

Questioning youth who said religion was important to them were nearly three times as likely to have attempted suicide recently, compared to questioning youth who reported religion was less important. 

“It can be very scary to be caught in a space where your religion tells you that you are a ‘sinner’ just for being who you are,” he told HuffPost. “Sexual minority people may feel abandoned, they may experience deep sadness and anger, and they may worry what this means for their families ― especially if their families are very religious too.”

Studies conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have also found that lesbian, gay and bisexual youth seriously contemplate or attempt suicide at higher rates than heterosexual youth.

While several mainline Protestant and even evangelical leaders have begun to embrace a more inclusive theology, some of America’s largest religious denominations still hold non-affirming views of queer sexuality. Roman Catholic Church doctrine views gay and lesbian relationships as “intrinsically disordered.” The largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., the Southern Baptist Convention, sees marriage as exclusively reserved for one man and one woman and actively rejects equating gay rights with civil rights. Blosnich’s study demonstrates that for many queer people, non-affirming theology is at best problematic and at worst lethal ― “no matter how kindly or compassionately” it is articulated. [I]n Utah, where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is based, researchers have documented a recent spike in teen suicides. Some advocates for LGBTQ Mormon teens have asserted that the spike is connected to the church’s policies on queer sexuality, although research hasn’t confirmed this link.  The Mormon church views queer relationships as sinful. In November 2015, it declared that Mormons in such relationships were to be considered apostates. 

Diane Oviatt, a Mormon mother with a gay son, is part of Mama Dragons, a group of parents who have banded together to advocate for their queer children. She believes that non-affirming theology has a “direct” effect on suicidal ideation among LGBTQ youth and young adults. . . . . “There is absolutely no room for homosexuality anywhere in the doctrine,” she told HuffPost. “Our kids are stripped of hope and faced with the notion that they, by virtue of their sexual identity, are ruining their celestial ‘forever’ family and will be separated from them in the hereafter if they choose a same-sex partner.”

What is just as troubling to me is that many of these anti-gay denominations care little or nothing about the lives being lost or damaged.  Sadly, the leaders of these groups care more about retaining their power and/or refusing to face the untrue aspects of their dogma than the lives of living, breathing individuals. I suspect that Christ would be appalled.