The Bizarre Christianist World of "Purity Balls"

For the record, I am the father of two girls - correction, two amazing young women, one 23 and one 30 - so I have some experience with raising daughters.  Which brings me to something that I deem really bizarre, if not almost sick and perverted in a sexual sort of way: daughters pledging their virginity to their dads.  True, one wants daughters who are responsible and who don't get themselves into trouble.  But pledging their virginity to me in years past.   I'm sorry, but this whole concept strikes me as creepy and at a minimum borderline incestuous.  But then again, since these "purity balls" are popular with the sexually repressed and sexually obsessed Christianist crowd, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised.  Part of me cannot believe that these girls attending "purity balls" dreamed this ritual up on their own.  Mom and/or dad had to do some brainwashing and/or arm twisting.   A piece in Religion Dispatches looks at this bizarre practice.  Here are are excerpts:

As I watched Virgin Tales, a Swiss documentary about purity balls—dances where young girls pledge their virginities to their dads—I thought of my father often. Because the most compelling focus of the film wasn’t the events themselves, but the way in which one family’s dynamic can reveal so much about American culture and politics.

Filmmaker Mirjam von Arx follows the Colorado Springs-based Wilson family whose patriarch, Randy, invented purity balls. Von Arx focuses on one daughter in particular, Jordyn.

While other dads may have been teaching their daughters soccer, Randy was making sure that his little girls were focused on traditional feminine pursuits. Jordyn runs “the School of Grace” out of their home, where she gives advice to other young women on how to be properly ladylike. (She uses a book on etiquette from the 1920s to demonstrate how to modestly bend over at a water fountain, or how to greet people with a smile when they come into your home.)

His wife, Lisa, homeschooled their children and the “curriculum” speaks volumes. Daughter Kaalyn reads from an illustrated book: “Because you are my chosen princess you should dress modestly every day.”

“Sadly, there are a lot of girls that don’t think about me when they get dressed in the morning. They wear clothes that do not cover their bodies or that show their bodies in an immodest way. Keep your body covered and be my model.”

Later we see Randy building a hope chest for his daughter Kameryn that will be revealed at a ceremony held in the family living room. There, Kameryn is given her great-great-grandmother’s wedding ring as a purity ring and is taught about “fruitfulness.”

Even to the women who marry into the Wilson family, their roles are clear. Colton Wilson’s wife Anna tells us, “Because I love God I love my husband, regardless of whether or not I have feelings of affection for him in a given moment.”  “The command to love him is just that—it’s a command.”

As a feminist, I found the purity balls themselves the most difficult to watch. Young women and girls are dressed in ballgowns, their hair professionally done. They pose with their fathers under white arches decorated with flowers, like prom dates. And the midst of all this revelry, they promise to remain virgins and their fathers, in turn, pledge to be the protector of that “purity.”

Even now, after having written a book on purity culture and politics and having had met Randy in a truly bizarre interaction on a daytime talk show (don’t ask), they still affect me on a visceral level. The Wilsons claim to be offering an antidote to the hypersexualized pop culture that targets young women—but by defining girls so concretely by their virginity, they’re ensuring that young women will continue to be judged by what they do or don’t do sexually. The women who take virginity pledges and go to purity balls are promising that their bodies aren’t their own, but instead belong to their fathers and future husbands.

But despite the radical evangelicalism and sexism the Wilsons promote, as I watched the film I found it difficult not to root for Jordyn. Here’s a young woman—a bit awkward, and a lot unworldly—who just wants to be loved. She wants a happy life, a family, and to please her parents. And she wants it desperately. The boundaries of her goals may be more narrow than most women’s, but that kind of youthful desire and uncertainty are universal experiences.

The problem, of course, is that it’s not really about love. Sitting outside of a purity ball, in black-tie attire, Lisa tears up as she explains the events aren’t just about the party.

“It’s a beautiful moment with their father to say, ‘I care enough about you to invest in an expensive hotel and expensive meal and a lovely dress for you.’ To say that you’re valued.”

Women know the ways in which they’re valued. Whether we go to purity balls or rock concerts as young women, the limits of our worth in American culture are as subtle as a kick to the head. My hope is that not all of us will believe it, that we will want more for ourselves than subjugation dressed up in ballgowns (or bikinis). Until then, I hope we can find happiness and our own love stories.

Sick and bizarre.  I don't know what else to call these rituals.

Thomson Reuters Opposes Minnesota's Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment

The list of companies that the Bible thumping hate merchants at American Family Association and its Christiofascist allies need to boycott just keeps on growing.  While no where near as powerful or with as strong a grip on global business, Thomson Reuters has joined the list of progressive companies that are opposing the effort of the hate family values organizations that seek to drag America back into a Middle Ages mindset and force same sex couples into a 4th class citizenship status.  Minnesota United for All Families has issued a press release on this latest slap in the face to the knuckle dragging forces of the far right.  Here are highlights:

Thomson Reuters, a company with thousands of employees in Minnesota, announced today that it firmly and clearly opposes the proposed constitutional amendment that would limit the freedom to marry for committed, same-sex couples in our state. With its historic announcement today, Thomson Reuters joins Fortune 500 companies General Mills and St. Jude Medical in opposing this freedom-limiting marriage amendment.

This news comes on the heels of a statement from leaders of seven major Minnesota law firms in opposition to this amendment, saying in the Star Tribune today that, “the marriage amendment endangers our business climate, signaling that ours is a community that does not welcome members of the LGBT community. This directly impacts Minnesota businesses, including law firms, which are dependent on attracting and retaining the best and brightest talent, regardless of sexual orientation.”

Thomson Reuters said, “As we’ve heard from employees, recruiters and customers, one thing has been very clear: we’re a better place when we have a rich variety of perspectives, talents, backgrounds, lifestyles and experiences in our workplace, and within the broader community from which we recruit. We believe that building a culture that thrives on diversity and inclusion and provides equal opportunities to everyone is a critical factor in our ability to serve our customers and be successful. …We believe the Minnesota Marriage Amendment, if passed, would limit our ability to recruit and retain top talent. For this reason, we do not believe that the Amendment would be good for Thomson Reuters or the business community in the state.”

The law firms noted in the Star Tribune piece include among others Oppenheimer Wolff & Donnelly LLP, a large international firm for which I have served as local counsel in the past.  Here's portion of what these legal powerhouses had to say on the vicious anti-gay amendment on the ballot in November:

As leaders of law firms, we write in our individual capacities to express our personal opposition to the Minnesota marriage amendment that will be on the ballot this fall.

The marriage amendment would embed in the Minnesota Constitution a definition of marriage as being solely between one man and one woman. In so doing, it strives to prevent future judicial or legislative action that could allow our gay and lesbian citizens to marry and enjoy a right that is available to all others.

 

As lawyers, we also believe that this issue is more important than just its impact to the business climate. The amendment uses the ballot to restrict the rights of our fellow citizens, and to embed those restrictions in our state Constitution. Simply put, it is a bad precedent to use the Constitution to deny the civil liberties of a few.

We will be voting "no" on the marriage amendment and encourage our fellow members of the bar to join us.

Friday Morning Male Beauty

New Gallup Survey: U.S. Confidence in Organized Religion at Lowest Point Ever

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A new Gallup Survey indicates that Americans' confidence in organized religion is at the lowest point ever recorded by Gallup.  Frankly, given the toxicity and hypocrisy that flow virtually non-stop from most forms of organized religion in this country (if not the world), this is actually probably a good thing.   Yes, there are some denominations that do a better job at implementing the so-called Golden Rule, but sadly, most seem to have division and passage of judgment on others and often outright hate as their principal characteristics.They claim to preach a message of "love" but their actions speak otherwise.  What's interesting is that while confidence in organized religion has fallen sharply, spirituality has not.  It is also telling that Catholics have far less confidence in organized religion than do Protestants.  Here are some highlights of Gallup's findings:

Forty-four percent of Americans have a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in "the church or organized religion" today, just below the low points Gallup has found in recent years, including 45% in 2002 and 46% in 2007. This follows a long-term decline in Americans' confidence in religion since the 1970s.

In 1973, "the church or organized religion" was the most highly rated institution in Gallup's confidence in institutions measure, and it continued to rank first in most years through 1985, outranking the military and the U.S. Supreme Court, among others. That began to change in the mid- to late 1980s as confidence in organized religion first fell below 60%, possibly resulting from scandals during that time involving famed televangelist preachers Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart. Confidence in religion returned to 60% in 2001, only to be rocked the following year by charges of child molestation by Catholic priests and cover-up by some in the church.

Currently, 56% of Protestants express a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in the church/organized religion, compared with 46% of Catholics. This is in line with an average 12-percentage-point difference in the two groups' confidence, according Gallup polling from 2002 through 2012, with Protestants consistently expressing higher confidence.

Two major findings apparent in Gallup's confidence in the church and organized religion trend are, first, the long-term decline in Americans' confidence in this societal institution since 1973, and second, the suppressed confidence among Catholics relative to Protestants starting in 1981, and becoming more pronounced by 2002.

New Study Confirms 4 In 10 Homeless Youth Are Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender

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This blog has looked at the plight of homeless LGBT youth and a new study confirms that 40% of homeless youth are LGBT.  The main cause of homelessness? Rejection by their families due to their sexual orientation.  Yes, yet again we see the evil consequences of ignorant, religious based bigotry.  As a parent myself, I can only feel that these parents who reject their own children deserve a special place in Hell.  They most assuredly demonstrate their hypocrisy when they place allegiance to myths and Bronze Age writings over their own flesh and blood.  The New Civil Rights Movement reports on this new study.  Here are article highlights:

A new study confirms that approximately four in ten homeless youth and teens are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, and more than 40% of those ran away from home or were kicked out of their family’s home because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. While these numbers don’t sound new, the massive study, taken from the results of surveys of 354 youth agencies, confirms tragic previous findings.

“Overall, respondents indicated that nearly seven in ten (68%) of their LGBT homeless clients have experienced family rejection and more than half of clients (54%) had experienced abuse in their family,” the study, conducted from October 2011 through March 2012, notes, adding that “family rejection on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity was the most frequently cited factor contributing to LGBT homelessness.”

The study also found many barriers to proper assistance for these homeless youth who have been so often treated as disposable trash by their families.  The chart below sets out these barriers.  The article also notes another barrier to assistance:

It would be negligent to omit, given today’s political climate, what a Mitt Romney presidency would do to these already-challenged front-lines of defense.

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It goes without saying that here in Virginia, the anti-gay bigotry of the Republican Party of Virginia and its puppet masters at The Family Foundation bodes ill for any state funding.   With these nasty folks, hate, bigotry and prejudice - and, of course rank hypocrisy - are "family values".

The Catholic Church's Fading Influence in Poland

With the fall out of the sex abuse scandal that continues to explode all around the world (Australia for example is lately seeing case after case of the now familiar pattern of enabling of and cover up for known predators), the Church's reactionary rejection of modern knowledge and science, and the Church's anti-gay jihad, the Roman Catholic Church is largely in a much deserved free fall in the Western world.  In Ireland, once a bastion of Catholicism, the Church's reputation and influence has suffered irreparable damage.  Now Poland, another former bastion seems to be headed the way of Ireland.  Indeed, the only growth areas for the Church are in backward and uneducated areas such as Africa where ignorance and naivete have so far protected the Church's reputation.  Der Spiegel has an article on the Church's decline in Poland.  Here are some excerpts: 

Twenty years ago, the Catholic Church played a major role in the fall of communism in Poland. Today, with the country changing rapidly, the church's influence is quickly waning. Once considered the most Catholic country in Europe, the faithful are vanishing. 

Just past the Polish border, passengers traveling by train from Berlin to Warsaw can see Jesus. He is 36-meters (118 feet) tall, made of concrete, and towers over the surrounding fields near the town of Swiebodzin, a gilded crown perched nobly on his head. His gaze is directed over the Recaro plant, which makes car seats and is the region's biggest employer, and toward the setting sun. His outstretched arms seem to suggest that he wishes to take the Western heathens into his heart.

The plaque at the base of the giant religious statue says that Jesus Christ is the true king of Poland and will rule for eternity. It is not for nothing that the country is, in the eyes of the church at least, Europe's most Catholic nation.

Some 95 percent of all Poles still say that they are Catholic. Yet loyalty to the church is waning. Even the conservative Catholic publicist Tomasz Terlikowski estimates the true number of devout Catholics at little more than 20 percent. "We Poles like to proclaim our Catholicism," he says, but the reality looks quite different.

Only slightly more than 44 percent of young people say they go to church on Sundays, compared with 62 percent in 1992. Forty-two percent admit that they do not observe all religious commandments. Hardly anyone pays attention to rules about things like sexual abstinence before marriage anymore. The number of illegal abortions runs into the hundreds of thousands every year. In addition, four-fifths of Poles are bothered by the fact that the church regularly intervenes in politics.

[T]he church has failed to keep up with the modern age, says Barto. Many of his fellow Poles agree.
After joining the European Union, Poland turned to the West and embraced the Western lifestyle more than almost any other country. Nowadays, Polish women dream of careers, self-fulfillment and children. Hundreds of thousands of young Poles live together without being married. In booming cities like Warsaw and Poznan, gays and lesbians live their lives as openly as in Berlin or Madrid.  "More and more taboos are falling by the wayside. But the church reacts by hardening its positions even further," says Barto.

The church is short on answers to the challenges it faces in booming Poland. The priests routinely react to job market volatility and long working hours, emigration and return, stress and careers by invoking earlier, more pious times.

"In reality," says former monk Barto, "most clergymen are preoccupied with internal power struggles. If there is anyone who is especially ill-suited to teaching people ethical behavior, it's a scheming church leader."

I would certainly second the last sentence quoted.  Moral bankruptcy is the principal hallmark of the Church hierarchy and I would argue that most atheists are likely far more ethical than the Church's bishops, cardinals, and yes, the Pope.  Greed, secrecy and the quest for power and control are their main characteristics and objectives.

More Thursday Male Beauty

In 1998 Romney Invested Millions in Chinese Firm Profiting on US Outsourcing

As the prior post indicates, Mitt Romney seemingly has himself in a pickle on the question of when he really left Bain Capital.  As also noted, the reason for Romney's strenuous efforts relate to his desire to dodge claims that he was involved in outsourcing of jobs overseas and the closure of American firms that left employees jobless and often with lost pensions.  I'm sorry, but Romney seems like one callous bastard who'd consider selling his mother if a buck could be made.  Now, Mother Jones has broken a story that makes the 1999 date Romney has been clinging to possibly irrelevant because it shows that he was selling out American workers at least a year earlier.   The man is worth at least $250 million.  When does one have enough money? Especially when the money is not being made by creating jobs and opportunity but instead betting against.  Here are highlights from the Mother Jones story:

Last month, Mitt Romney's campaign got into a dustup with the Washington Post after the newspaper reported that Bain Capital, the private equity firm the GOP presidential candidate founded, invested in several US companies that outsourced jobs to China and India. The campaign indignantly demanded a retraction, claiming that these businesses did not send jobs overseas while Romney was running Bain, and the Post stood by its investigation. Yet there is another aspect to the Romney-as-outsourcer controversy.

According to government documents reviewed by Mother Jones, Romney, when he was in charge of Bain, invested heavily in a Chinese manufacturing company that depended on US outsourcing for its profits—and that explicitly stated that such outsourcing was crucial to its success.

This previously unreported deal runs counter to Romney's tough talk on the campaign trail regarding China. "We will not let China continue to steal jobs from the United States of America," Romney declared in February. But with this investment, Romney sought to make money off a foreign company that banked on American firms outsourcing manufacturing overseas.

On April 17, 1998, Brookside Capital Partners Fund, a Bain Capital affiliate, filed a report with the Securities and Exchange Commission noting that it had acquired 6.13 percent of Hong Kong-based Global-Tech Appliances, which manufactured household appliances in a production facility in the industrial city of Dongguan, China. That August, according to another SEC filing, Brookside upped its interest in Global-Tech to 10.3 percent. Both SEC filings identified Romney as the person in control of this investment: "Mr. W. Mitt Romney is the sole shareholder, sole director, President and Chief Executive Officer of Brookside Inc. and thus is the controlling person of Brookside Inc." Each of these documents was signed by Domenic Ferrante, a managing director of Brookside and Bain.

The Romney campaign and Bain Capital have insisted that Romney departed Bain in February 1999 to head the troubled 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City and had no involvement in the private equity firm's deals after that point—a contention that has been challenged by the Obama campaign. But the Global-Tech Appliances transactions occurred long before Romney jetted off to Utah.

Romney's Global-Tech deal adds a new dimension to the debate over Romney and outsourcing. Whether or not he was at the helm when Bain invested in US firms that did or did not ship jobs overseas, Romney was in command when a company he owned and controlled bought a large stake in a Chinese venture that counted on American companies sending manufacturing—and that means jobs—to China.

[W]hen there was money to be made by acquiring a chunk of a Chinese company that aimed to displace American manufacturers (and American workers), Romney's patriotism did not interfere with the potential for profit.

The Bain of Romney's Campaign

At first blush, it would seem that either Mitt Romney lied in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") or he's lying to the public as to when he left Bain Capital.  What has ignited the issue is the Boston Globe story today that carries a sub-headline of  "Firm’s 2002 filings identify him as CEO, though he said he left in 1999."  In addition to the SEC filings, Massachusetts disclosure filings reflect that Romney remained CEO through 2002.  Romney has gone to great lengths to stress that he was no longer with Bain when it bankrupted a number of companies and threw workers to the wolves.  Yes, you read that right, the filings with the SEC seem to indicate that rather than leaving Bain in 1999 as claimed, Romney may have stuck around for several more years.  Here are highlights from the Globe story:

Government documents filed by Mitt Romney and Bain Capital say Romney remained chief executive and chairman of the firm three years beyond the date he said he ceded control, even creating five new investment partnerships during that time. 

Also, a Massachusetts financial disclosure form Romney filed in 2003 states that he still owned 100 percent of Bain Capital in 2002. And Romney’s state financial disclosure forms indicate he earned at least $100,000 as a Bain “executive” in 2001 and 2002, separate from investment earnings.

The timing of Romney’s departure from Bain is a key point of contention because he has said his resignation in February 1999 meant he was not responsible for Bain Capital companies that went bankrupt or laid off workers after that date.

A former SEC commissioner told the Globe that the SEC documents listing Romney as Bain’s chief executive between 1999 and 2002 cannot be dismissed so easily.  “You can’t say statements filed with the SEC are meaningless. This is a fact in an SEC filing,” said Roberta S. Karmel, now a professor at Brooklyn Law School.

The Globe found nine SEC filings submitted by four different business entities after February 1999 that describe Romney as Bain Capital’s boss; some show him with managerial control over five Bain Capital entities that were formed in January 2002, according to records in Delaware, where they were incorporated.

With all due respect and with due recognition of the consequences of filing untrue documents with the SEC (i.e., it's a felony), it would appear that Romney and his campaign are lying.  Andrew Sullivan neatly summarizes the issue this way:

The relevant question is why Romney was listed as CEO and sole owner and chairman for three years after he says he stopped having anything to do with Bain. I don't believe he was SuperMan, running the Olympics and a political campaign while involved in Bain's day-to-day operations. But either you own the company or you don't. And saying one thing to the SEC and another thing to us needs to be reconciled. Even if the shift was abrupt with Romney's departure for the Olympics, it's stunning to see it took Bain three years to correct the record. Legally, Romney is responsible for everything that happened while he was sole owner of the company. Which is what he told the SEC.

A piece in Politico looks at the political turmoil that the Bain issue may be starting to ignite.  Here are some excerpts:

The problem for the Romney campaign, when it comes to the Bain issue, is that things are reaching the point where the facts don’t really matter. The bigger problem is that the Bain cloud now hanging over the former Massachusetts governor is growing daily, and the Romney campaign still hasn’t found a compelling way to respond to what’s becoming the driving narrative, fairly or unfairly, of the 2012 campaign.

After the Globe reported that Romney formally led Bain longer than he’d previously acknowledged — an allegation that Team Romney adamantly contests — Republicans worried that their soon-to-be nominee hasn’t sufficiently answered numerous questions swirling around his Bain tenure.

But Republicans warned that none of that would make Bain go away as a political issue.  “Mitt Romney had an opportunity to answer these questions during the primary,” said Rick Tyler, who ran the pro-Gingrich super PAC that spent millions attacking Romney on the Bain issue. “ He did not answer these questions and now they’re coming up again.”  Tyler warned that the newest Bain twist has the potential to inflict real harm if Romney doesn’t start providing answers.

 Ana Navarro, a Republican strategist who worked for Jon Huntsman during the primary, said the controversy could be solved if Romney were to release his tax returns, acknowledging that no one wants to put their financials out there but that it has become necessary.  .   .   .   “He should just release the stupid taxes and eliminate the Obama campaign tactic of insinuating he’s got something to hide. The Obama people are going to keep the issue alive and it has the potential of mushrooming into a bigger issue,” she said. “It’s time to just pull off the band-aid.”

“It could be a real problem,” said GOP strategist Mark McKinnon. “The accumulation of stories about taxes and Bain and offshore and Swiss accounts and secrecy begin to put glue into the narrative Team Obama is pushing that could make it really start to stick.”

Not answering has the potential to eat away at Romney’s support in swing states.  “We’re starting to see evidence in some of the battleground states that this is working in the favor of the president,” O’Connell said. “There are only so many more of these chinks in the armor Romney can take.”

As I have noted before, the more I see about Romney, the less I like the man whatsoever and I trust him less and less by the day.

University of Texas Investigating Regnerus Study

Readers will remember how the anti-gay hate groups and the National Organization for Marriage trumpeted the supposed findings of the study on the children of gay parents done by Mark Regnerus (pictured at right).  As this blog and many others have noted, there were many serious flaws in the study and now the University of Texas is investigating Regnerus' study for possible scientific misconduct.  No doubt the Christianists will somehow try claim that Regnerus is being persecuted for his religious beliefs rather than the fact that his study seemed to echo the type of "research" done by the long discredited Paul Cameron.  Here are highlights from the American-Statesman: 

Allegations of scientific misconduct have prompted the University of Texas to investigate a professor's study that found adults with gay parents reported significantly different life experiences than the children of married, heterosexual biological parents.

The study, authored by associate professor of sociology Mark Regnerus, made a splash when it was published last month in the journal Social Science Research. It has since drawn criticism from scholars at UT and elsewhere.

Bucking the consensus of the past decade of scholarship that the sexual orientation of parents does not negatively affect children in consequential ways Regnerus found that adults with gay parents tended to report lower levels of success in economic and romantic pursuits and struggled more with mental health issues.

The university began the inquiry after New York City freelance writer Scott Rosensweig,  .  .  .  .  sent a letter of complaint to UT President Bill Powers on June 21.
 
In his letter, Rosensweig alleged that Regnerus had committed scientific misconduct because he had created "a study designed so as to be guaranteed to make gay people look bad, through means plainly fraudulent and defamatory." Rosensweig also pointed out that the study was funded by the conservative Witherspoon Institute and the Bradley Foundation, writing that Regnerus had taken "money from an anti-gay political organization for his study."

The University of Texas defines scientific misconduct as "fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism" and "practices that seriously deviate from ethical standards."
A panel of UT professors is conducting the inquiry, and the process will be completed within 60 days of the complaint, said Gary Susswein, a UT spokesman. Ultimately, if a university investigation finds that Regnerus' work constitutes scientific misconduct, Provost Steven Leslie would decide how the administration will proceed, Susswein said.

Among the study's critics is UT sociology professor Debra Umberson.  "Regnerus' study is bad science. Among other errors, he made egregious yet strategic decisions in selecting particular groups for comparison," Umberson and three colleagues wrote in a June 26 editorial on The Huffington Post.

Five UT faculty members also signed a letter, along with 200 scholars at multiple universities, to the editor of Social Science Research, James Wright, pointing out what they said were flaws in Regnerus' methodology and saying the journal's review process took five weeks, when most take between two and three months.