homosexuality

A New “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” For Conservative Politicians? You Wish, Jennifer Rubin…

/ Jack Marshall / 63 Comments

creationismOne of the Washington Post’s rare conservative columnists has a solution for GOP candidates and office holders whose views on some subjects are likely to make them targets of furious criticism: refuse to express them. She writes in her latest column:

“Not everything is a political issue, nor one on which politicians have any particular insight. Candidates are not asked their views on divorce, for example. Each state has laws on the topic, and one’s religious views aren’t a topic for public debate. It is not (and shouldn’t be) asked of nor answered by politicians…Creationism? Unless you are running for school board and intend to be guided by your religious convictions, it does not matter. Born again? None of my business.

“…[Q]uestions about creationism, gay marriage, the nature of homosexuality and other value-specific questions serve no purpose other than to provide targets for faux outrage. These questions are designed to divide the population into believers and nonbelievers, between those who share the same cultural touchstones and those who differ.

“If a topic has no relevance to public policy or character or fitness to serve, why ask the question and why answer it? We aren’t electing pastors, family counselors or philosophers; we’re electing politicians whose job description and qualifications don’t include a great many topics. If we are heading for a more tolerant society, we have to agree to disagree on some issues and to respect some realm of private opinion and faith. For Republicans running in 2016, I would suggest a simple response to the sort of question intended to provoke divisiveness over irrelevant topics: “I can’t think of a single instance in which [creationism/the origin of homosexuality] would be relevant. I’m not here to sow division or take sides in faith-based debates. Let’s talk about something germane to the presidency.”

Wrong.

Incredibly wrong. Continue reading →

Theater Ethics: The Big Daddy Affair

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments
"Yes, why DON'T you want to make love to a young Liz Taylor, Brick? I've been wondering about that myself..."

“Yes, why DON’T you want to make love to a young Liz Taylor, Brick? I’ve been wondering about that myself…”

It is convenient when the perspectives of my longtime dual personas as a stage director and an ethicist are simultaneously relevant, so I couldn’t pass up this juicy story.

From the LGBT blog of the LA Weekly:

A Southern California production of the Tennessee Williams classic “Cat On a Hot Tin Roof” was canceled today after a homophobic outburst in the audience led to a physical confrontation, the firing of an actor, and an apparent cast revolt….the Repertory East Playhouse… announced in a statement today that the run of the play was “suspended” …as a result of “cast members leaving the show with no time to adequately re-cast their parts … “[A] man in the audience was allegedly drunk and heckling the performers during Saturday night’s performance….The heckling had been building up, …with whistling and cat-calling aimed at the character Maggie, as if the heckler and his friend “were at a strip club.”….at the moment Brick is asked why he rejected a kiss from Maggie….the heckler called out something like, “Because he’s a fag,” according to the director. At that point the actor playing Big Daddy, John Lacy, went into the audience to confront the man…”

“It was almost like he [Big Daddy] was still in character,” another actor told the LA Weekly blogger, Dennis Romero. He and a third actor then left the stage, and helped subdue the drunken audience member and his friend. Apparently the audience applauded the scene—does this remind anyone else of “My Favorite Year”?—and the play continued. Said a cast member: “The rest of the play has more resonance than ever.”

The theater fired Lacy after the show.  Anton Troy, the actor playing Brick who had been heckled, then announced on Facebook that he was quitting the production in protest, saying in part, “I will not support homophobia or an establishment that doesn’t support its talent. Hate in any form is not something I choose to subscribe to. John is a seasoned professional and an honorable man. It should never escalate to a point where the talent has to handle an unruly drunk in the audience themselves regardless of the outcome. Producers dropped the ball..”

Other actors quit the production as well, and the entire run, which was to have included a tour, was cancelled.

Wowsers.

Here are some ethics observations: Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “The Humiliation of Jessica Urbina”

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

catholic church

I confess to priming Patrice, an old friend and the resident Catholic theologian here, for this. I have known here for many years, and she is what I would call a passionate and rebellious Catholic scholar, and hoping she would weigh in on my criticism of the Catholic Church in the wake of the treatment of high school senior Jessica Urbina, which I view as symptomatic of the Church as it is of the schools. As I expected, however, Patrice makes a strong case.

Here is her Comment of the Day on the post, The Humiliation of Jessica Urbina:

Well, you knew I was going to respond, right?

“The cruel treatment of Jessica is one more indication of the sorry state of the Catholic Church, which appears to be a fatal cesspool of hypocrisy, desperate public relations, and an integrity vacuum. There are two kinds of Catholics, it seems: those who profess the be devout followers of the Church but who discard and violate its doctrine and core principles whenever they seem too burdensome, unpopular or embarrassing, and those who blindly follow the dictates of the Church, no matter how clearly they have been proven wrong and wrongful by the accumulated experience and wisdom of civilization, because morality never changes.”

So, what am I? The feckless “Cafeteria Catholic” or the “Fundamentalist Catholic”? I really take exception to your gross generalizations about Catholics as being one or the other of your versions. Knowing me, Jack, how could you make such generalizations?

As a sometime student of Theology, I prefer to see myself as a Catholic who dissents in good conscience from certain teachings of the Church — not because they are “too burdensome, unpopular, or embarrassing,” but because I believe that there is more to be learned from the core teachings of Jesus than what we have thus far proclaimed. And for the record, I am saddened by what happened to Jessica. What the school did (notice I say school, not church) was not compassionate, kind, or tolerant.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states the following:
“A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience. If he were deliberately to act against it, he would condemn himself.”

The problematic part comes after that: “Yet it can happen that moral conscience remains in ignorance and makes erroneous judgments about acts to be performed or already committed.” It’s kind of a Catch 22. Does the Church see a well-formed conscience as one that has been properly educated (indoctrinated?) in the “truths” that the Church has put forth, and therefore agrees with the Church on all matters? Maybe. I suspect that this conscience thing was intended to give courage to Catholics who would have to disobey their “Catholic conscience” to do something they were being encouraged or forced to do in the secular world that is against Church teachings. Thus, martyrs. Regardless, I stand by my educated conscience.

I hold up the subjects of my senior thesis, which was about dissent in the Church: Hans Küng and Charles Curran. Both censured for their dissent, but still voices in the wilderness. Look at Pierre Telhard de Chardin. Got into a lot of trouble for his writings, but somewhat “rehabilitated” in today’s world of theological thought.

With regard to Jessica, I see this as an educational system problem, because it might have happened at any school. The fact that it happened at a Catholic school makes it look like a Catholic problem, but I sense that you would find the same problem in schools in various places around the country, as well as other denominations which teach (yes, there are others) that homosexuality is wrong/forbidden/whatever. I’m sure I’m breaking one of your principles here, but really I do see this as an authoritarian school problem first and foremost. It’s also a self-expression issue.

I personally wish Jessica great success as she, no doubt, continues to break the barriers that keep her and others from being and expressing who they are.

The Humiliation of Jessica Urbina

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

JESSICA_URBINA

Every year at this time, Ethics Alarms covers one or more ethics controversies over a yearbook photo that has been deemed inappropriate for a high school graduation yearbook. The 2014 controversy, I think, has more significance than the others. Like other examples of rigid school administrator enforcement of poorly though-out rules and blatant cruelty to children, what was done to Jessica Urbina demonstrates the peril of allowing those in what no passes as the education profession to have power over our children, since they so frequently abuse it, or influence over the development of our children’s character, as the administrators display such flawed character themselves. The more I think about this incident, however, the more I conclude that it foretells the dying of a major religion in this country, and why it may deserve to die.

The yearbook photo of senior Jessica Urbina was deleted from her class  yearbook because she wore a tuxedo. School officials at San Francisco’s Sacred Heart Cathedral High School said  she violated the Archdiocese of San Francisco’s policy because she didn’t wear the dress that’s required for female students in yearbook photos. This is the no-tolerance version of yearbook photo rules, sexist, anti-gay, cruel and stupid. Jessica isn’t dressed inappropriately or unkempt; in fact, she looks great. She took care to make herself presentable for her yearbook, and succeeded. Quite reasonably, however, she decided to appear in clothing that made her feel comfortable, given her sexual orientation, for she is reputedly gay. Tuxes are not a gay uniform by any means; hetero and gay women have worn them as fashion for decades. Below are, clockwise, Ellen Paige, Kim Kardashian, Madonna, super-model Danielle Luquet de St Germain, and the immortal Marlene Dietrich:

Celebs in Tux

I know: yecchhh! How disgusting!

Seriously–there is nothing, nothing, provocative, inappropriate or wrong with Jessica’s attire. She is nicely groomed, her clothing is impeccable, the photograph is impeccable, and she looks cute and happy. The school officials knew what to do about that.
 Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Let’s Have An Open Debate on Both Sides …”

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Blameblakeart’s comment to my post about the school district that condemned a student’s high school newspaper anti-gay adoption column, part of a “pro vs. con” feature approved by the editors and faculty advisor, illustrates a point that was the subtext of my post but never explicitly stated.  It should have been, but blameblakeart shows how it’s done. The productive, educational, fair and persuasive way to rebut any argument is by using facts and logic, not to just condemn it as “offensive” or “bullying,” or to discourage future expressions of unpopular points of view. That is true in school and out of it.

Here is his Comment of the Day on the post, “Let’s Have An Open Debate on Both Sides of This Controversial Issue. Wait…Your Side Offends Me. Shut Up. You’re A Bully.”  I’ll have a comment at the end: Continue reading →

“Let’s Have An Open Debate on Both Sides of This Controversial Issue. Wait…Your Side Offends Me. Shut Up. You’re A Bully.”

/ Jack Marshall / 74 Comments

The Shawano (Wisconsin) High School’s student newspaper decided to publish a “Pro vs. Con” feature on the contentious issue of gay couples adopting children. A student wrote a column advocating each position.

In his column headlined “Should Gay Couples Be Allowed To Adopt?” student Brandon Wegner catalogued various arguments against gay adoption, and included this:

“If one is a practicing Christian, Jesus states in the Bible that homosexuality is (a) detestable act and sin which makes adopting wrong for homosexuals because you would be raising the child in a sin-filled environment….A child adopted into homosexuality will get confused because everyone else will have two different-gendered parents that can give them the correct amount of motherly nurturing and fatherly structure. In a Christian society, allowing homosexual couples to adopt is an abomination.”

A male couple raising a child who goes to the school saw the paper, and strenuously objected to school administrators, saying that the piece was hateful and would encourage bullying. Naturally, the school district immediately caved and threw the student, the paper and the column under a metaphorical bus, because that’s what school administrators do. If an anti-gay bigot had objected to the pro-gay adoption feature, it is even money that the school would have done the same.

An official mea culpa was immediately released: Continue reading →

Bachmann and Elijah

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

"Psst! My mom is gay and doesn't need fixing. What's 'gay'?"

Rep. Michele Bachmann’s views on homosexuality are antediluvian and ignorant. Almost anything that causes her discomfort as a result of her bigotry is to be fervently desired. Almost anything. One exception is a mother using her child as a weapon against her in a war he doesn’t understand.

In the video conveniently taken by a friend of 8-year-old Elijah’s mother and subsequently posted on YouTube, the child reluctantly, after much prodding, whispers “My mom is gay and she doesn’t need fixing” in the strange Minnesota Congresswoman’s ear. If it makes some people happy to believe that Elijah did this on his own, I suppose that’s a plus; this makes two plusses when added to Bachmann’s probable pique. Sorry, it’s not enough. I know it wouldn’t create a viral video if Elijah’s mother delivered her sentiment herself, but that’s just too bad: children are not puppets, props or trained terriers, and using them to deliver political messages is unethical—unfair, irresponsible, a breach of trust, and an abuse of power. Placing a child’s programmed act on Youtube, where it will haunt him forever, just adds to the offense,

Elijah’s message was inaccurate. His mother does need fixing, just not in the way Michele Bachmann thinks she does.

 

Coercive Indoctrination in the Schools: Unethical, Regardless of the Content

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

A German language teacher at Western Hills High School in Fort Worth, Texas sent 14-year-old honors student Dakota Ary to the principal’s office for telling a classmate that he believes “homosexuality is wrong.”

Ary was then suspended as punishment. Homosexuality isn’t wrong,, but the school was.

Ary, who was raised in a church that believes homosexuality violates God’s laws, has a right to believe whatever he chooses to, and also has a right to express those beliefs as long as he doesn’t denigrate fellow students or incite violence or a disruption. There are words for schools punishing students for their beliefs, and among those words are “indoctrination,” “coercion,” brain-washing,” and “unethical.” Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “The Ethicists, Backing Judge Walker and Gay Marriage, At An Unacceptable Price”

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

The motion to vacate Judge Walker’s ruling on Proposition 8 has been filed, you can read it here. Since the original post, I have detected some cracks in the formerly near-united front of legal ethicists and journalists deriding Walker’s critics. Some of them are finally, grudgingly, admitting that the Judge might not have handled his potential conflict so well after all, and that the motion is not a frivolous, anti-gay outrage as they originally labelled it.  The most rickety of the rationalizations put forth on Walker’s behalf, advanced by some his most respected defenders, is that he had no obligation to reveal his own sexual orientation by disclosing his domestic arrangement because of its intimate and private nature. Yet the judge voluntarily disclosed it after his decision was in the books, raising a rebuttable presumption that his original silence was to avoid suggestions of conflict, not out of a desire for privacy.

First time commenter Jada adds her Comment of the Day to the discussion: Continue reading →

The Ethicists, Backing Judge Walker and Gay Marriage, At An Unacceptable Price

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

"Oh, all right...as long as we like the decision."

Thanks to the Judge Walker controversy, now have proof that the best legal ethicists in the nation are human. I suppose that’s something.

My colleagues in the legal ethics field are arguing—decreeing, really— that Judge Vaughn Walker’s decade-long same-sex relationship didn’t need to be disclosed before he ruled against Proposition 8 (California’s voter-approved gay marriage ban) because, they say, it created no reasonable doubts about his impartiality. Coincidentally, they also really, really like his decision. But then, so do I. Continue reading →