President Trump speaks to hate group

It is often hard to focus on one particular outrage by President Trump, when he commits so many every day. So I will just stay in my particular lane of particular experience and discuss for a moment the significance of today’s first-ever presidential address today to the Family Research Council's Value Voters Summit. The Southern Poverty Law Center has long-identified the Family Research Council as a hate group, based principally on its vicious hostility to LGBT people.  SPLC definitively lays out the case here:  https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/family-research-council 

For a President of the United States to address the most visible convocation of a national hate group is frightening.  In my heart of hearts, I do not believe that the progress made on LGBT rights and acceptance in our society will be reversed.  Still, when the President embraces without qualification a Senate candidate, Roy Moore, who affirmatively states that “homosexual activity” should be criminalized and that same-gender marriages should be abolished, and further removes federal protections of LGBT people , it sends a chill up my spine.  In a Trump World, my sons and their husbands and my grandchildren are at risk. 

I know from my own direct experience how anti-gay the Family Research Council is.  Between 2005 and 2014, during the ultimately successful struggles to secure sensible LGBT-related health education curriculum and anti-discrimination policies in the Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools, see here, I worked to fend off bogus claims and frivolous lawsuits brought by groups including PFOX (“Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays"), whose representative in these disputes was Family Research Senior Fellow for Policy Studies Peter Sprigg.  I debated Mr. Sprigg many times, on paper and in public testimony before the Board of Education and on television on MPT’s State Circle, Fox News 5, and Bruce DePuyt’s NewsTalk program on News Channel 8, as well as in the newspapers.  See here and here.  However gently Peter may speak, he repeatedly makes erroneous statements about LGBT people, consistently presses the discredited notions of “reparative therapy” to make gay people straight, and takes the position that "homosexual activity" should be "criminalized."   See, also, for example here, here, and here..

Lately, Donald Trump has been touting the campaign promises he is fulfilling, like destroying the Affordable Care Act, ending the nuclear deal with Iran, and killing environmental regulations.  He conveniently ignores his campaign statement that he would be "much better for the gays" than Hillary Clinton, and his  promise “to do everything” to protect LGBTQ people.  See video here.  Well, I suppose that I should present the full quote, as it is in the video.  In the wake of the Pulse Nightclub killings, he promised to protect LGBTQ citizens from the “oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.” But he did not promise to protect them from the oppression of a hateful domestic ideology.

NOTE:  In Montgomery County, we are not putting up with the Trump/Pence/Sessions/DeVos/Family Research Council homophobic/transphobic agenda.  See  http://davidfishback.blogspot.com/2017/03/recap-and-resources-sexual-orientation.html

ADDITIONAL NOTE:  The departure of Bruce DePuyt from News Channel 8 is most likely part of the fallout from the purchase of the station by https://www.washingtonian.com/2017/01/11/bruce-depuyt-out-at-newschannel-8-and-wjla/ and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvtNyOzGogc.  There is a concerted effort by Trump and his allies to stamp out fair reporting and discussion.

"She became a warrior, a true champion for the rights of GLBT people everywhere."

I posted this on the PFLAG-MidAtlantic Region Facebook Group earlier today:

I do not know how many of you know Paul Wertsch. I recently learned that Paul’s wife, Kay Haggestad, passed away earlier this year.

Back in 2005, when we were battling the right-wing in Montgomery County, we needed an expert medical doctor to speak on the actual facts about sexual orientation. We were put in touch with Paul, who was then chair of the American Medical Association’s Advisory Committee on LGBT Health; Paul graciously flew down on his own dime from Madison, Wisconsin to address the Teachthefacts.org's Just Say Now to Comprehensive and Inclusive Health Education. His presentation was instrumental in the victories we have won here, both in terms of the climate of the community and the policies of the Montgomery County Public Schools.

Paul and I became friends, and I later got to know his wife Kay at PFLAG Conventions. In advance of her death, Kay wrote her own extraordinary, humorous, and life-affirming obituary. .http://www.channel3000.com/obitua…/kay-a-heggestad/270546837 I highly recommend reading it. There was also a Minority Report from Paul, which is included in the same link. Here is an except from the Minority Report:

"She was a part in changing the world. When she found out that her son was gay, she educated herself and became an advocate for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. She became active in their local PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) and went on to serve on the National Board of PFLAG. She became a warrior, a true champion for the rights of GLBT people everywhere."

Mark Twain wrote that we should "endeavor to live so that when we die, even the undertaker will be sorry."

Twain could have been thinking of Kay.

Presentation at the Communities United Against Hate School Conference, October 7, 2017

COMMUNITIES UNITED AGAINST HATE (MONTGOMERY COUNTY MD)

SCHOOL CONFERENCE (Part I), October 7, 2017

REMARKS AT THE OPENING PLENARY SESSION

David Fishback, Maryland Advocacy Chair, Metro DC PFLAG

Many years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King preached these words:

"Hate distorts the personality of the hater.  We usually think of what hate does [to] the individual hated or the groups hated.  But it is even more tragic, it is even more ruinous and injurious to the individual who hates. 

 "You just begin hating somebody, and you will begin to do irrational things.  There is nothing more tragic than to see an individual whose heart is filled with hate.      

"Envy . . . , a lack of self-confidence, a feeling of insecurity . . . are all rooted in fear. 

"Is there a cure for these annoying fears that pervert our personal lives?

" Yes, a deep and abiding commitment to the way of love.  Perfect love casteth out fear.  Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear; only love can do that.  Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it.  Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it.  Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it."

The words of Dr. King.

How do we get to this “perfect love”?

There is no silver bullet that will eliminate hate and its close cousin, ignorance.

While most people are good at heart, and see themselves as good people, it is also true that people tend to be tribal.

They tend to fear what is unfamiliar and what they do not understand.

So we must work to transcend tribalism and seek to help people understand, accept, and even embrace differences.

The good news in Montgomery County is, with respect to matters of sexual orientation and gender identity, that we have made great strides toward these goals in recent years.  These strides include accurate teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity in our secondary school health education classes and a set of clear anti-discrimination rules and excellent Guidance on Student Gender Identity matters. ALL MCPS staff are required to view a comprehensive video from a high-ranking MCPS official detailing MCPS policies.  The commitment of MCPS was demonstrated last winter when MCPS filed a friend of the court brief in the Supreme Court case involving the effort of a Virginia transgender student to be treated fairly, and by its clear recommitment to non-discrimination when the Trump Administration withdrew the federal guidelines on gender identity.

The sobering news is that we still have a way to go.  We have laws to protect people, we have excellent policies in our public schools to protect people.  And the adults in charge of our schools let students know that hate and bullying directed at LGBTQ students is wrong.  But we have not eliminated ignorance and hate.

Two PFLAG moms, Stephanie Kreps and Candice Haaga, have been meeting with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of LGBTQ students over the years, and they share the following observation:

Recently, when they ask students how things are going at school, the students say “fine.”  Then, after a few minutes, the students open up about the slurs and bullying they endure.  Not from most fellow students, but from more than a handful.  Sometimes these incidents are reported, sometimes not.  The “that’s so gay” trope – which once was used often without conscious understanding by the users as a slur – more and more has the intended hurtful meaning that the phrase suggests.  Sometimes the attacks are worse.  Sometimes, school personnel intervene, sometimes they may not even know the attacks occur.  While the official position of MCPS is foresquare against such hate, hate still rears its ugly head – although far less than in past years.  And, of course, the tragic incidents of the murders of young transgender people in our area reminds us that the work is not done.

Our challenge is to find ways to help the ill-informed lose their ignorance, to help haters shed their hate.  MCPS has done much to advance that cause, as have many in our community.  But there is still a way to go. 

One way may be to bring age-appropriate discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity into the elementary school health curriculum.  Another may be to highlight the contributions that LGBT people have made to the fabric that is America.  Just as African American History month seeks to inform our students of the contributions of African Americans – information which lessens ignorance – a similar focus on LGBT may also have a salutary result.  When our history and literature classes focus primarily on straight, white, cisgender Christian males, those who are not in that category can be seen as interlopers.  That is not good for anyone.  And it is bizarre when, as the MCPS enrollment figures show, our school population is probably less than 20% straight, white, cisgender, Christian, and male.

Again, there is no one silver bullet.  But we must continue to seek to advance what Civil Rights icon (and strong supporter of LGBTQ rights) John Lewis wisely calls the “Beloved Community.”

What is the true motivation for the Trump Administration's vote against the UN resolution condemning the use of the death penalty against people for being LGBT?

The Trump Administration recently voted against a United Nations Human Rights Commission resolution (United Nations Human Rights Commission resolution) condemning the use of capital punishment against people because they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.  Reported here.

My initial reaction was that not only does President Trump endorse a candidate for Senate, Roy Moore, who would put my sons and sons-in-law in jail, but he goes along with foreign governments who would execute them and make orphans of my grandchildren. What could the Trump Administration say in defense of its United Nations vote?  And what could  Republican officeholders with gay children like Senator Robert Portman (R-Ohio) have to say? Would they say that these are matters upon which reasonable people of good will can differ?

Well, we have the answer to the first of my questions. And I do not find it satisfactory.

The Administration asserts that the language the UN Human Rights Commission of September 2017 principally involved a total condemnation of capital punishment (something still legal in most states and under federal law) and that that is why the Administration voted NO.  See here.  A State Department spokesperson made the following statement:

“As our representative to the Human Rights Council said last Friday, the United States is disappointed to have voted against that resolution. We voted against that resolution because of broader concerns with the resolution’s approach in condemning the death penalty in all circumstances, and it called for the abolition of the death penalty altogether. We had hoped for a balanced and inclusive resolution that would better reflect the positions of states that continue to apply the death penalty lawfully, as the United States does. The United States unequivocally condemns the application of the death penalty for conduct such as homosexuality, blasphemy, adultery, and apostasy. We do not consider such conduct appropriate for criminalization.”

The problem with this rationale is that while the September 2017 resolution references an earlier statement calling on countries to eliminate the death penalty (the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights), the instant resolution only calls upon “States that have not yet acceded to or ratified the [Second Optional Protocol] “aiming at the abolition of the death penalty to consider doing so” (Item 2 at p. 3, emphasis supplied) and “Calls upon States that have not yet abolished the death penalty to ensure that it is not applied on the basis of discriminatory laws or as a result of discriminatory or arbitrary application of the law”(Item 3 at p. 3).  It then goes on to “urge[] States that have not yet abolished the death penalty to ensure that it is not imposed as a sanction for specific forms of conduct such as apostasy, blasphemy, adultery and consensual same-sex relations) (Item 6 at p. 3, emphasis supplied).” 

I myself am not a proponent of total abolition of the death penalty. After the Holocaust and the Nuremberg Trials, I personally cannot be so categorical, even though I recognize the horrible inconsistencies, unfairness, and invidious discrimination in its implementation. This is a tough question over which, I believe, reasonable people may differ.  But the September 2017 resolution, while it “urges” States like the United States to “consider” abolition, it does not itself require abolition.  Rather, it condemns discriminatory use -- like killing LGBT people for simply living their lives.  

So I believe that the Trump Administration’s vote against the September 2017 resolution is essentially a wink and a nod toward the most heinous of anti-LGBTQ forces, yet another attempt to have it both ways on issues where Trump's Roy Moore/Steve Bannon base and the rest of the American citizenry fundamentally differ.