This afternoon, PFLAG Dad Phil Hicks and I were interviewed on Inside Out, an LGBT-themed radio program on WPFW FM, hosted by Maria Olsen. The entire program may be heard here. I serve as Metro DC PFLAG's Maryland Advocacy Chair, and Phil is my counterpart in Virginia.
It was a pleasure working with Phil on the air. We are different people, with different personalities, and our journey stories are different. But we share love for our children, and a commitment to making life better for all children. I hope our stories helped listeners know that they have a caring community of adults in the D.C. area, and that we have in the past, are in the present, and will in the future work to advance the human rights of LGBTQ people.
At one point, the conversation turned to religion. I observed that Leviticus (the chapter with a phrase that is used to justify condemnation of homosexuality) demands that anyone who shows disrepect for his parent shall be killed. Not may, but shall. (I just checked the precise language of Leviticus 20:9: "For every one that curseth his father or his motion shall be surely put to death."
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/vayikra-leviticus-full-text). Since I suspect no one would justify execution of children for cursing their parents, no one can truthfully say they are blblical literalists. Rather, we have to use the common sense God gave us.
One more note. During the interview, I mentioned a recent New York Times article reporting incoming Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos's support of a gay married couple's petition to adopt a child and her work to make the women's restroom available to a transgender woman in a Republican Party call center. I also noted that the excellent May 2016 Obama Administration guidelines regarding transgender students are still on the Department of Education website -- and challenged Secretary DeVos to keep those guidelines. Unlike the Trump appointees who have shown substantive hostility to LGBTQ people, Secretary DeVos clearly knows better. Will she have the courage to stand up to Vice President Pence and the rest of the Family Research Council crew? Or will she be a bystander to the efforts to roll back progress made over the last decade for the LGBTQ community?We shall see. (FWIW, I agree with the 50 Senators who voted today NOT to confirm the DeVos nomination. Her policies regarding public schools and private school vouchers on top of her ignorance of basic educational issues disqualify her, in my view, from being Secretary of Education. But since she is in the job, I hope what may be her only saving grace will shine through.)
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