Incipient Fascism: "If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die."

President Trump attacks various "non-white/non-Christian" groups, the free press, and the very concept of actual facts.  

He seeks to stack the judiciary with unqualified right wingers who have little, if any, appreciation for constitutional government.  And he supports a candidate for the Senate who has twice been removed from the Alabama Supreme Court for flouting the rule of law.

He happily embraces policies that disenfranchise the poor and minorities and perpetuate gerrymandering.

He gleefully brings back the concept of private prisons, to be filled, often, with people who should not be imprisoned.

He appoints people to his Cabinet who are acting to push LGBT people back into the shadows, if not the closet.

He  enthusiastically embraces almost every authoritarian ruler he can find.  

He repeatedly lies about his tax policies, asserting that they are for the working and middle classes when, in fact, they will only provide meaningful benefits for the super-rich.  

All of this smacks of incipient Fascism.   

In the middle the 1940s, the scourge of Fascism was turned back because the United States had the economic and military strength to destroy it. Had we failed then, the world would be in a new Dark Age. But we succeeded, and progress continued (as bumpy as that progress has been.)

Today, there are three remaining big powers in the world: The United States, Russia, and China. The latter two are essentially Fascist states. If the United States becomes a Fascist state, as well, then all the world's social progress since the Enlightenment will be in dire jeopardy.  Which means that those of us in America who recognize the threat have an enormous responsibility to resist this creeping (and perhaps galloping) Fascism and protect Democracy. 

To quote Victor Lazlo in Casablanca, "If we stop fighting our enemies, the world will die."  The years 2018 and 2020 may be as significant as the fictional Lazlo’s 1941.

Transgender Day of Remembrance Interfaith Service and the Spiritual Journey of a Fine Woman.

Last night I attended the Montgomery County Interfaith Transgender Day of Remembrance Service at the United Church of Christ of Seneca Valley in Germantown MD.  I came representing my synagogue, Temple Emanuel of Kensington MD, and the Metro DC Chapter of PFLAG.  Speaking were people from many denominations, including Jewish (three rabbis!) and Muslim.  It was a moving, somber in remembering the people who had been murdered because of their gender identity, and ultimately uplifting evening.  The readings pictured here show the best of religion.

"Draw the circle wide."

"There is room for all, there is room for all." 

One of the speakers was L J Ingram, a transgender woman who recently has become a good friend.  After the service, I told her how much I was moved by her remarks and asked if she had published them.  L J, a deeply spiritual and humble person who has gone about the quiet work of helping other transgender people, said she had not, and was reluctant to do so because of her feeling that she had left her story in God's hands.  I responded by noting that President Kennedy had said that in this world, "God's work must truly be our own," and that Dr. King always reminded us that "human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of [people] willing to be co-workers with God." I offered to publish her remarks on my blog, if it was ok with her, with or without mentioning her name.  This morning  L J emailed me the text of her presentation for such publication, adding, "Yes, you may reference me as you make use of my spiritual journey,"  Thank you, L J, for not hiding your light under a bushel.  I believe that her testimony can help others, whether cisgender or transgender on their spiritual journeys. 

Here is L J's presentation from last night:

I seek your prayers. These prayers are not for me. These prayers are for all who have been and are victims of hatred and ignorance. So often, I shout out to the Great Divine... “WHY? Why must so many be oppressed?”

I now offer some words on my experiences and the source of my Faith to keep walking. 

My experiences are my own. I suggest the experience of each transgender person is their own. Furthermore, no matter the individual, whether they identify with a gender, two genders, or no gender... for me... we are all in this life together as One. 

My transgender journey began when I was three years old... You can guess by my grey hair... this was a few years ago. 

Here are some highlights of my journey experience which my God tells me can benefit others. It is because of these experiences and my Faith, I can keep walking in Faith and be present for others.

• In the 1980s, I shared my inner self with members of my family and church.
• Within a year of my sharing this truth, I found myself being sent to reparative therapy. 
• Next, I was in divorce court. 
• Members of my church’s leadership were in court speaking against me.
• The legal authorization for divorce? “Emotional and Mental Abuse.”
• I lost custody of my son.
• As my son became an adult... for 10 years he chose to be estranged from me. I did not know where he lived.
• Having been rejected by my church, I became an active alcoholic. I began to pray to the “black cloud of death” to come and take me. 
• One day, I felt the cloud come before me. Not being prayerful to God at that time, I now know, the following words were a prayer as I called out, “Oh God, I’m killing myself. I need help.”
• Help came. I learned from a good psychologist I had what was referred to as Gender Identity Dysphoria.
• After I transitioned, a significant weight fell away from me. 
• In time, I found a church home which accepted people no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity.
• My son came back into my life and I'm married to a very special woman.
• In Life, my prayers have changed. I now pray for my God to have me and do with me as God wills. I am walking in Faith.

Even with my Faith, anti-transgender acts of hate in society weigh upon me and my family. 

In response, as I walk in Faith, I raise these questions up to God:

• “Why did a family reject their transgender child and push them out of their home?”

• “Why were two young transgender women accosted in Wheaton, Maryland by two men while they walked into a 7-Eleven?”

• “Why was a young transgender women killed while she was walking in her apartment’s parking lot in the middle of the day?”

• “God! What will bring understanding and acceptance between all people?”

Without answers, I keep walking in the Light. 

List of LGBT/DSF related links

October  7 , 2017 Communities United Against Hate program brochure

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58b4706fa5790ad8fdf51689/t/59d7aaa12aeba55aaa05168b/1507306145558/CUAH+Program+v6+FINAL.pdf

February 23, 2017 on Cronkite News (Arizona PBS): Report on Trump withdrawal of federal school gender identity guidelines

https://cronkitenews.azpbs.org/2017/02/23/state-officials-welcome-feds-reversal-of-transgender-students-rule/

November 17, 2015 on presentation at PFLAG National Convention
http://davidfishback.blogspot.com/2015/11/successful-public-school-lgbt.html

October 25, 2015 Heschel Vision Award

http://davidfishback.blogspot.com/2015/12/heschel-vision-award-jews-united-for.html

January 15 , 2015 on Truth Wins Out report on Randy Thomas recantation, including my comment

https://truthwinsout.org/opinion/2015/01/40517/

September 25, 2014 on Comcast Newsmakers discussing LGBT youth and safe schools

https://comcastnewsmakers.com/2014/09/25/lgbt-youth-safer-schools-2/

November 1, 2013 Metro Weekly reporting on my interview on Fox 5 News on the Dexter Manley comments

http://www.metroweekly.com/2013/11/metro-pflag-dcs-david-fishback/

May 24, 2012 PFOX FOIA Receipts from MCPS on “secret” emails, including several from me

http://pfox.org/secret-emails-montgomery-public-schools.pdf

May 9, 2012 on WUSA 9 debate with Chris Plante on Obama announcement in favor of civil marriage equality.  Beginning at 5:28.  Only the first minute.
https://archive.org/details/WUSA_20120509_210000_9News_Now_at_5pm/start/1740/end/1800

March 22, 2011 on Fox News 5: Debate on Exodus International App with Peter Sprigg

https://www.facebook.com/mikefishback/videos/817021819561/

February 17, 2011 on Fox News 5: Debate on Maryland Civil Marriage Equality with Peter Sprigg

https://www.facebook.com/mikefishback/videos/803047389431/

May 2007 on NewsTalk, News Channel 28: Debate on MCPS Curriculum with John Garza of Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum

http://vigilance.teachthefacts.org/2007/05/newstalk-transcript-first-part.html

 http://vigilance.teachthefacts.org/2007/05/newstalk-transcript-second-part.html

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.”