Why Christians Will Lose the Transgender Debate.

Image courtesy of Dennis Hlynsky via Flickr creative commons - http://bit.ly/1VWTOaW

Image courtesy of Dennis Hlynsky via Flickr creative commons – http://bit.ly/1VWTOaW

This is a very good article, with a Christian take on why Christians will be losing when it comes to transgender politics and law.

When LGBT rights first became a national issue following the Stonewall Riot of 1969, conservative Christians responded with a disastrous campaign against gay and lesbian causes. Christian leaders cited pseudo-science claiming homosexuality was a “choice,” or worse, a mental disorder. Preachers regularly promoted the idea that AIDS was God’s judgment on LGBT people. And money began to flow into “ex-gay” Christian ministries that promised to make LGBT people straight, but ended up making them suicidal instead.

When it comes to conservative Christianity, it seems the more things change, the more things stay the same. A national debate on transgender rights has rapidly progressed in America, and predictably, conservative Christians have once again elbowed their way to the front lines. Christian leaders make speeches, pastors preach sermons, and political activists make cable news network appearances–each armed with rhetoric intended to incite panic and stir up fear.

Sadly, their messages are just as disconnected from reality as their response to the LGBT rights movement decades ago. By recycling old tactics, conservative Christians are poised to lose the transgender debate in America.

The full article is here. I’m very appreciative of progressive Christians who are actively working to make a difference, and recognizing that conservative Christianity isn’t good for anyone, including other Christians.

A Personal Stake in Transgender Politics

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, at her office on Capitol Hill, has veered away from many Republicans on gay and transgender issues. Credit Chad Batka for The New York Times

Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, at her office on Capitol Hill, has veered away from many Republicans on gay and transgender issues. Credit Chad Batka for The New York Times.

Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, a transgender activist and Representative Ros-Lehtinen’s son, in New York. Credit Jake Naughton for The New York Times.

Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, a transgender activist and Representative Ros-Lehtinen’s son, in New York. Credit Jake Naughton for The New York Times.

This is a really nice story, about people who have their priorities in the right place, and are ruled by love, care, and empathy, not fear, bigotry, and hate.

MIAMI — The day Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen told his prominent parents about his new gender identity, he did so in a letter that he left on their bed. Then he grabbed a packed bag and, unsure of whether he would be welcomed back, went to a friend’s house to see if his family would love him or leave him.

His shocked parents, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Miami Republican, and Dexter Lehtinen, who served as the top federal prosecutor here, did not hesitate. They grabbed the phone and told him that they loved him and that family trumped all, and asked him to come home. But as with many parents of transgender children, they were also overwhelmed by fear: The future they saw for their then 21-year-old, whom they had named Amanda, would be pockmarked with discrimination and bullying, if not outright violence.

It was this visceral reaction to want to protect her child that drove Ms. Ros-Lehtinen to break from her party’s skepticism or hostility on gay and transgender issues — a stance evident now in North Carolina’s battle over transgender bathroom visits — and become a conspicuous advocate in Congress and more recently in public service announcements. On Monday, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, her husband and her son, now 30, will appear in the latest one for SAVE, a longtime South Florida gay rights group that hopes to engage the Latino community here.

The Full Story is Here, and it’s full of warm fuzzies.

Are you gonna let the devil rape your children?

Another religious, um, person invades a Target, waving a bible about and screaming.

“Attention Target customers,” she yelled. “Do not be deceived, Target would have you believe with their Mother’s Day displays that they love mothers and children. This is a deception. This is not love, and they’ve proven it by opening their bathrooms to perverted men. I’m a mother of 12 and I’m very disgusted by this wicked practice.”

“Mothers get your children out of this store,” the woman yelled. “Mothers have enough decency to get out of this store, it’s a dangerous place… What Target has done is very hateful. It’s hateful towards families. It’s hateful towards mothers. It’s hateful towards children… Are you gonna let the devil rape your children?”

She then went on to accuse America of “bowing to the homosexual perverted agenda” and added, “You need to run and flee this place.”

“You need to run and flee this place”. One assumes she means Target, but if America is bowing to the gay agenda, perhaps it’s bible woman who should pack up and leave.

Via Raw Story.

https://youtu.be/TCIYsXhR1D0

Art Exhibition Reeks of Cultural Appropriation.

Courtesy Douglas Flanders and Associates An art exhibition in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is causing a stir over the artist's use of Native American imagery.

Courtesy Douglas Flanders and Associates
An art exhibition in Minneapolis, Minnesota, is causing a stir over the artist’s use of Native American imagery.

For over 200 years, non-Natives have appropriated Native American culture for their own intents and purposes. The sphere is wide when it comes to the misuse of Native American culture; appropriation can be seen in sports mascots, fashion and design, product logos; the list goes on and on. The problem with this current mainstream model is that it denies Indigenous people the right to represent their own lifeways and worldview.

The show “Scott Seekins, the New Eden” at the Douglas Flanders and Associates Art Gallery, is being touted as Seekins response to the “Great Sioux Uprising of 1862.” Seekins’s “body of work as an alternative to Minnesota’s tepid 2012 150-year remembrance,” as the gallery touts on its website, is problematic in its interpretation, as it reeks of Native appropriation, and lacks a Native voice.

Scott Seekins, a mainstay of the Minneapolis art scene, is best known for his eccentric dress and demeanor as opposed to the quality of his work. This particular collection of Seekins’s work imitates historic Plains style of drawing (erroneously referred to as ledger art), where he replicates scenes, moves the images around, and inserts himself in a sort of Forrest Gump manner. To be clear, Plains style drawings were a warrior’s record of bravery against the enemy, hunting scenes, courtship, and ceremonial life, these accounts were drawn in accountant ledgers and sketchbooks.

Seekins’s work is the quintessential example of cultural appropriation.

In Seekins’s painting, a clear replica of John Casper Wild’s “Watercolor Painting of Fort Snelling,” (1884), Seekins portrays himself guiding a non-Native woman holding a baby, in the background there are tipis and the fort on the bluff. In another drawing created in the historic Plains graphic style, a Native man has defeated an enemy Calvary, while Seekins, wearing his iconic suit, stands with his arms raised. By placing himself in these historical scenes he positions himself as a mediator and witness. By doing this he disregards the Native American narrative. Considering that this is one of the worst tragedies between the United States Government and American Indians, the U.S. Dakota War of 1862 and its aftermath has had a long lasting impact on the descendants of the Dakota that died. Many Dakota died at Fort Snelling and on the gallows in Mankato, their descendants carry the spirit of their Ancestors with them, they live among us, they are part of us, they are an important part of the Minnesota narrative.

You can read the rest of Joe D. Horse Capture’s article at ICTMN.

Sunday Facepalm

March_sign

Wikimedia Commons.

Christians Sue State over ‘Abortion Mandate’.

ALBANY, N.Y. — Pushing back against the state’s notoriously liberal stance on abortion, a number of New York’s Christian organizations served the Department of Financial Services with a lawsuit, claiming the agency obscured regulatory language which forces employers to cover abortions.

The 44-page filing in Albany County Supreme Court uses terms like “moral evil” and “unspeakable crime” to describe abortion. It highlights a section of the “model language” used by DFS over the last two years — a standard state form which dictates how insurance companies operating in-state should present their coverage to clients.

According to the lawsuit, Section 6 of the “model language” includes a subsection dealing with “Interruption of Pregnancy.” The language states: “We cover therapeutic abortions. We also cover non-therapeutic abortions in cases of rape, incest or fetal malformation.”

“Practically speaking, ‘therapeutic’ would include abortions for emotional health, fetal health, fetal malformation,” said Mary DeTurris Poust, spokesperson for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany. “Really, we’re talking about any abortion.”

The Diocese of Albany is one of 13 plaintiffs in the lawsuit, which also includes Episcopalians, Baptists, Lutherans, a nursing company and a general contractor in Plattsburgh. Their document goes to significant lengths to outline core beliefs on the “sanctity of every life,” including a number of paragraphs dealing with the concept of life beginning at conception in the mother’s womb.

The group claims the model language was “known only to DFS and the health insurers, and never disclosed to plaintiffs.” They go on to say they were caught unaware when their respective insurance companies informed the group that “they had been separately covering abortions under the service category of ‘medically necessary’ surgery.”

“There is a possibility that we could have already been forced to pay for an abortion,” DeTurris Poust said on Friday.

The full story is here. I will be forever grateful that when I had an abortion back in the 1970s, no one thought that was any of their business. Mine was quiet and professional, and there were no screaming, hateful people anywhere, thinking they had an absolute right to interfere with a private decision to have a medical procedure.

19.

Courtesy whitehouse.gov “Hayes started out his term believing in the reservation system, then he realized that Natives weren’t going to stay on reservations and white settlers wouldn’t stay off their land.”

Courtesy whitehouse.gov
“Hayes started out his term believing in the reservation system, then he realized that Natives weren’t going to stay on reservations and white settlers wouldn’t stay off their land.”

Rutherford B. Hayes’ four years in the White House, from 1877 to 1881, marked a distinct change in federal Indian policy, as the government moved away from forced removal of Indians to reservations and toward a system that allotted land to individuals.

Billed as a solution to the government’s insatiable hunger for land, Hayes’ policies reduced the size of reservations and called for acculturation of Indians into Western society. His strategies, which came amid ongoing conflicts with Indian nations, also included approval of the first Indian boarding school.

[…]

In his second message to Congress, in December 1878, Hayes pledged to “purify” the Indian Bureau and establish “just and humane” Indian policies that would preserve peace. His “ultimate solution to what is called the Indian problem,” however, was to “curb the unruly spirit of the savage Indian” and train them to be agriculturists or herdsmen.

“It may be impossible to raise them fully up to the level of the white population of the United States; but we should not forget that they are the aborigines of the country, and called the soil their own on which our people have grown rich, powerful, and happy,” Hayes told Congress. “We owe it to them as a moral duty to help them in attaining at least that degree of civilization which they may be able to reach.”

[…]

During his four years in office, Hayes issued several executive orders creating new reservations and reducing the size of existing reservations. The most drastic was the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota, which was cut from 7.8 million acres to 1.2 million.

Hayes’ actions came as Indian nations, fed up with forced removal and encroachment of white settlers, fought back. These battles included the Nez Perce War in 1877, the Bannock War in 1878 and the Ute and White River wars, both in 1879.

[…]

Hayes also called for the education of Indian youth. In 1878, he supported establishment of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in eastern Pennsylvania. The flagship Indian boarding school, Carlisle was the brainchild of Capt. Richard Henry Pratt, who notoriously plotted to “kill the Indian and save the man.” Carlisle opened in October 1879.

The full article is here.

The Carlisle Indian School is still in the news, and an ongoing issue.

Boarding School Healing Coalition Captain Richard Pratt designed boarding schools to transform the Indian into the white man’s image. His first was Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Boarding School Healing Coalition
Captain Richard Pratt designed boarding schools to transform the Indian into the white man’s image. His first was Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

In a clearing closer and less honored, on the grounds of what is now the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, lie nearly 200 children; gone, but never forgotten; casualties of a federal policy to “kill the Indian in him, and save the man.” A leading architect of that policy, former cavalry officer Richard Henry Pratt, founded the Carlisle Indian Industrial School on these grounds in 1879 on a model of military training.

Full Story: US Army Pledges to Bear Full Cost of Returning Carlisle Remains.

Etymological LGBT history.

Rep. Alan Grayson

Rep. Alan Grayson

Rep. Alan Grayson has made etymological LGBT history.

The Florida Democrat reportedly became the first politician to say “cisgender” in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Grayson employed the term, which describes nontransgender people, in a scathing denouncement of the “Republicans, bigots in North Carolina” who support House Bill 2 […] In a wide-ranging, nearly 13-minute speech, Grayson, who is hoping to oust Republican Marco Rubio as a U.S. senator from Florida, cited trans pioneer Christine Jorgensen, #WeJustNeedToPee social media posts, infamous “wide stance” bathroom toe-tapper Larry Craig, and even the gender wage gap as among the reasons to be outraged at these so-called bathroom bills.

“You’re going to force people who look like men, act like men, [and are men, Rep. Grayson] you’re going to force them into a ladies room. My God, what’s wrong with you?” Grayson said.

I’d really like an answer to that question too. The Advocate has the story, and video.

Russian atheists launch group to fight for equal rights

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, center, during a religious procession along the historic Peter Road from the Moscow Kremlin to the High Monastery of Saint Peter. © Sergey Pyatakov / Sputnik

Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, center, during a religious procession along the historic Peter Road from the Moscow Kremlin to the High Monastery of Saint Peter. © Sergey Pyatakov / Sputnik

The Atheists of Russia movement has held its founding convention in Moscow, setting its primary goal as resistance to the growing influence of religion and appointing an activist from a vocal leftist party as its leader.

According to Interfax about 300 people from 50 regions across Russia took part in the founding convention. They declared that their group will fight against the influence of religious institutions on society.

“Believers and atheists must have equal rights, the state has no right to interfere with the activities of any church, but the same applies to religions – they have no right to interfere with the affairs of the state,” the newly appointed leader of the movement, Ilya Ulianov, told reporters on Friday.

Full Story Here.

I wish them all the best, and if there are ways to help, I will. The Russian Orthodox church won’t give a fraction of an inch willingly. In related news, the rarely publicized, but ongoing actual persecution of atheists continues:

Should it be a crime to deny the existence of God?

In the Russian city of Stavropol, Viktor Krasnov, a 38-year-old man, faces trial, charged with publicly insulting Orthodox Church believers by supporting atheism in social media. For proclaiming in a heated Internet exchange “there is no God,” Krasnov was confined for a month to a local hospital for psychiatric evaluation. If convicted under Russia’s blasphemy law, enacted in 2013 and making it illegal to “insult the religious convictions or feelings of citizens,” he may spend up to a year in prison.

[…]

Russia, however, is not the only country where atheists face punishment. As noted in country chapters of its Annual Report, released on Monday, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), on which we serve, has found no shortage of nations that perpetrate or permit their persecution. It is time for our country to shine a powerful spotlight on these abuses.

Full Story Here.

Fake a film, win an award.

Last year, Canadian filmmaker Dominic Gagnon released a 74-minute film entitled “Of The North.” The film is a collage of the life of Inuit people using film clips the director says he took from public video sites such as Youtube.

Last year, Canadian filmmaker Dominic Gagnon released a 74-minute film entitled “Of The North.” The film is a collage of the life of Inuit people using film clips the director says he took from public video sites such as Youtube.

Last year, Canadian filmmaker Dominic Gagnon released a 74-minute film entitled Of The North. The film is a collage of the life of Inuit people using film clips the director says he took from public video sites such as Youtube.

[…]

Of the North has been screened at the Montreal International Documentary Festival, the Prizren festival of Kosovo, Leeds in Great Britain, the Film Festival of Rotterdam, the Distrital festival of Mexico City and it won an award at the prestigious Visions du Réel festival in Nyon, Switzerland.

[…]

The film has drawn tremendous criticism, because Gagnon has never been to the Northern territories and his film shows only selected segments of Inuit life, such as extreme weather, Ski-doos and hunting, and also shows drunk people, crashing vehicles and some sexually explicit scenes.

Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, an Inuk and a documentary filmmaker, told the CBC Gagnon’s film left her shaking.

“Violent, wandering drunks that neglect their children and don’t care for the lives of animals: that’s the image I took away from the film. I think it’s kind of a cheap move to totally play up a negative stereotype of a marginalized people for your own artistic gain,” she said.

Gagnon used the music of Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq in his film; she  told the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM) she was “disgusted” by the festival’s decision to screen Of the North, a film she says is racist and used her music without permission.

[…]

Thirty-four of the videos are not made by Inuit, and not from the North, like the men fighting on the floor: this sequence was shot in Austin Texas, and they are not Inuit. The videos of the industrial off-shore drilling are in the Baltic sea. It is misleading, as the trailer suggests that Inuit are working on the oil drill, which is not true. Then he is mocking Inuit identity in a music clip, “don’t call me Eskimo.” The term “Eskimo” is derogative. It is a Cree word, they used it as an insult to the Inuit.

Adding what I said in a comment:

You need to read the full story, where it’s made clear that assholes like Gagnon could get away with this because the Inuit have next to no resources when it comes to communicating with the wider world. Efforts have started, and small headway has been made, but this is a poor community, with pretty much no one giving a damn about them. It’s even worse when you realize this piece of fakery won a fucking award – people else where in the world don’t know, and unless they make a serious effort to find out the truth, this bullshit will be taken for truth, screaming the old standard of Indians everywhere being drunken, savage brutes, and in the case of women, drunken whores not interested in any children they may have. This was a bone deep shock to Inuit people, who know the truth of their lives, and what is in this piece of fakery is not it. When the average American and the average Canadian doesn’t know jack shit about Indigenous peoples, what can be expected of those who live in Britain, Switzerland, and so on? It’s bad enough that people often romanticize the idea of Indians, in a completely unrealistic way, and here comes along someone who decided to make a profit through exploitation and theft.

ICTMN has the full story.

Why the stakes are so high for the Black Panther

The first issue of Black Panther, a Marvel series written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, was released last month. Marvel Comics

The first issue of Black Panther, a Marvel series written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, was released last month. Marvel Comics.

The stakes are high for Marvel and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates to do Black Panther well. The character appears this month in the blockbuster “Captain America: Civil War,” a prelude to the film he’ll headline in 2018. And last month, Coates released the first issue of a new Black Panther comic series.

When it was first reported last September that Coates would script a 12-issue arc of the Black Panther, some commentators suggested that he might be an “odd” fit.

The implication was that a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient and winner of the National Book Award was participating in a genre and medium beneath his talents. But they might be surprised to learn discussions of racism in superhero comics is a long – albeit often troubled – tradition. They also might not recognize the extent of Coates’ literary undertaking. He is tasked not only with appealing to comics readers but also with attracting new fans to the genre. This would be a daunting prospect, no matter the property. But the Black Panther character poses a very specific set of challenges.

[…]

A white superhero film failing has not caused studios to shy away from superhero films with white protagonists. The failure of a superhero film starring a woman or person of color, however, can set back the development of diverse superhero films for some time. Many people would probably rejoice in anything that stops the superhero franchise juggernaut. But the last few years have brought increased attention to the real struggles for women and people of color to break into the comics and film industries.

Unfortunately, when it comes to underrepresented populations, the success or failure of these texts always ends up being about more than the specific text in itself. It becomes a referendum on whether or not stories about people who are not straight, white men are valuable, and whether or not people who tell such stories should be given the resources to do so.

Full Story Here.