The good folks over at Queerty are mad at the Human Rights Campaign for opposing the inclusion of “ex-gays” as a distinct sexual orientation subject to protection under Disney’s non-discrimination policies.
Um. Okay. First let’s read what they had to say on the subject. They start off so good:
In October we learned about the effort from Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, the organization for those cured of The Gay, to get Disney to ban discrimination against ex-gays, the semi-legally protected sexual orientation class. It didn’t go so well.
A shareholder meeting this week saw the proposal get shot down, which Disney’s board recommended, and because there weren’t enough votes to reach a 3 percent threshold the matter cannot be brought up again for another four years.
Good work, shareholders!
The idea of “ex-gays” as a sexual orientation is a little bit silly for a few reasons. First, it suggests that sexual orientation can be changed, which is a farce. Second, if somebody was gay, but is now straight, that person is in theory a heterosexual, and would fall under any existing sexual orientation protections, because one’s sexuality cannot be a reason for termination.
Correct! If ex-gays exist, they’re now heterosexuals, and thus already protected under sexual orientation protections! I can only guess that the original writer of the piece was at this point incapacitated in some way (get well soon?), because the person who completed the piece went completely off the rails:
In a blog post, the Human Rights Campaign calls the shareholder vote a “victory.” Which is a little funny, because isn’t the Human Rights Campaign in favor of prohibiting all types of discrimination?
Us? We support banning workplace discrimination based on any sexuality. And that includes someone who believes he is ex-gay. We don’t want anyone forcing us to fit into the boxes they created, and we refuse to do the same to anyone else. If ex-gays want to be protected, great! We’ll support it! We don’t really believe anyone can ditch homosexuality, but if deep down you think you did, you shouldn’t be targeted in the workplace for identifying as a former ‘mo. Even if PFOX is a laughable institution, there are people out there who believe they are ex-gay, and they should not suffer the torment of workplace harassment for the same reasons gays, bisexuals, and transgender employees should not: because it isn’t right.
GUYS. You won the argument against yourselves in the first paragraphs of your piece. The Human Rights Campaign is indeed against all kinds of discrimination based on sexual orientation, but you just conceded that “ex-gays,” if they exist (!), are heterosexuals! There is no room in the current policies for discrimination against people who say they’re not gay anymore! They’re already covered! To give an inch on this merely (and quite na?Øvely) plays into Regina Griggs’ and PFOX’s inane strategy to create some phantasmagorical parallel reality where people who identify as HETEROSEXUALS are the real victims of discrimination.
Think this through, because the argument you’ve put forth is just as inane as when Tony Perkins flagellates around the television screen complaining about hate crimes laws being used to punish Christians, since religion is protected under hate crimes laws as well.
The Human Rights Campaign (and we at Truth Wins Out) are solidly against discrimination of any sort based on sexual orientation. “Ex-gay” is not a sexual orientation. Even if we were to pretend for a second that “ex-gays” were a real and lasting phenomenon, and even if we were to pretend for a second that there was a shred of truth to anything that comes out of the maws of Regina Griggs and PFOX, then “ex-gays” would be, by definition, HETEROSEXUAL, and again, protected.
Put another way: What the hell kind of discrimination would Richard Cohen and his wife be subjected to if he decided to somehow parlay his pillow tennis racket beat-off extravaganza into a career dressing up as Cinderella during the nightly parade/fireworks show? The wife would get benefits under their family plan, he couldn’t be fired for being married to a woman, etc.
Queerty people: this entire thing from PFOX is a publicity stunt, and you fell for it. I don’t know if this is what you all think of as “encouraging conversation” or being a “dissenting voice,” but there are ways to do that without embarrassing yourselves.
Thank you for spelling it out for them.
Federal and state laws forbid discrimination on the basis of age.
But I am not old; I am ex-young!
Therefore I am not protected!
I am outraged! I DEMAND that all laws be amended to include the ex-young.
I would go a bit further, by promoting ex-gay as a sexual minority that needs protection beyond their heterosexuality, they admit that they have not gone back to mere heterosexuality. By labeling them ex-gay as sexual orientation, they basically say that they do not see them as heterosexuals in the first place.
Ex-gay is not a sexual orientation, according to mainstream social scientific and mainstream legal standards (American Bar Association). It is an identity, that almost always includes a religious (and here almost always a Christian) component as well as as a sexual identity component.
PFOX’s real agenda (like Evan says) is to use this as a strategy to do two things: first (as Evan says), is to portray ex-gays as victims of oppression (BY GAYS – that’s and important part of this – they want to portray gays as oppressors even more than portraying themselves as victims).
Second, they want to try to undermine adding “sexual orientation” at all in anti-discrimination policies and laws. The “include ex-gays” tack is a ruse. They’d rather see “sexual orientation” deleted from all laws and policies, but since they know that won’t happen, this is their chosen strategy. The same is true for their campaign to undermine comprehensive sexuality education in public schools and to try to undermine the presence of gay-straight alliances in schools.
I think it is wrong to discriminate based on sexual orientation in public accommodations, housing, and employment. If your sexual orientation is bisexual, homosexual, heterosexual, or asexual (regardless of what it used to be in the past) – you are covered by non-discrimination based on “sexual orientation” – where such policies and laws exist.
I don’t doubt that people who identify as ex-gay may indeed experience job discrimination, harassment, and perhaps even rare cases of violence. When it happens, it should be punished severely. If violent acts are motivated by bias against sexual orientation or religion – it should be treated as a hate crime (thanks mostly to our Democratic Congress and President, mind you). It’s a shame that PFOX’s long history of transparent antics/publicity stunts over these last several years may lead some people (even its former supporters in the ex-gay movement) to question or minimize real incidents that occur. It is especially sad when a group (like PFOX) that claims moral superiority acts in such bad faith and lack of integrity.
Ostensibly “ex-gay” people are now straight. That’s what they like to claim when they’re pushing their $$$ programs to gullible, frightened gay people and parents who can’t stand the idea of their children having Teh Gay.
But of course the PFOX and Exodus crowd likes claiming “ex-gay” is an orientation all its own when it’s convenient for them, such as when they can demand special rights and get media time over it. However if an organization, city or state has in place protections for “sexual orientation” then “ex-gay” is already covered. They don’t need to make special provisions for “ex-gays” because every orientation–gay, straight, bisexual, pansexual, “ex-gay”, etc, is already covered under the “sexual orientation” umbrella.
This is just more grandstanding on their part.
Anti-gay, “ex-gay” activists speak with forked tongues. Groups claiming to “change” sexual orientation push the idea that being gay can be cured. Thus, the result would be heterosexuality. Yet, here they try to create a separate classification, distinct from gay or heterosexual. So just what is the result of the snake oil they are pushing for us all to take?
The moment these groups get “ex-gays” covered under discrimination ordinances or laws, we neeed to push for coverage of ex-ex-gays. What’s good for the goose is good for the other goose.
Exgay is a political orientation, not a sexual orientation.
Protecting “ex-gays” is a slippery slope! That would mean you’d also have to protect pedophiles, necrophiles, animal lovers, etc.
Whoever knew the slippery slope would lead into Regina Griggs’ fever dreams…
A few years ago some pillock — and circumstantial evidence suggested that it was someone from my workplace, but I could never prove who it was, although I have a shrewd suspicion — wasted his or her money by anonymously posting to my home address a right-wing, evangelical, fundamentalist, bible-based, spirit-filled “ex-gay” booklet. I perused it, purely out of curiosity, and after that it found its way safely into the bin.
I didn’t experience this as harassment: if they’d wanted, they could even have placed such trashy materials in my pigeon-hole at work every day till kingdom come, and I’d have enjoyed binning them every time. However, on someone who still hadn’t come out or who still hadn’t fully come to terms with being gay the effect could have been rather different.
I can’t help strongly suspecting that what these people REALLY want is the freedom to pester vulnerable people in this way. (Isn’t that, in fact, what the “Day of (un)Truth” is really about?) Then, if disciplinary action is taken against them for harassment, they can start whingeing and whining that the “ex-gay” orientation is being discriminated against. “Ex-gay” is a behaviour-based identity.
Pfox doesn’t seek to have “ex-gays” in included in anti-discrimination laws and policies out of any sincere desire or need to see “ex-gays” protected, they do so to get such laws and policies to spread the lie that people can and should reject their gayness and become heterosexual.
When “ex-gays” are discrminated against it is almost always because calling oneself “ex-gay” associates that person with being gay and people reject them under suspicion of still being gay. The very rejection of gayness they push is the reason “ex-gays” are discriminated against in the first place.
[...] course, PFOX’s real goal [...]
What the progressive movement needs are some real horny, masculine males like me to get super-charged in the gym, go out and seduce every “ex-gay” we can find complete with pictures and video. I can take three a day! SHOW THEM FOR WHAT THEY ARE (and get in great shape and having awesome sex while doing it!). Multi-purpose whoring around. Killing two birds with one nut. That sort of thing. Unfortunately the well will run dry after a couple of weeks but…the entire ex-gay movement will be discredited forever! Let’s stick to what we’re good at and get this job done.
Thank you for your selfless offer.
;-)
I used to be in one of those religious groups who “street preaches” and “evangelizes” in downtown Modesto, CA on Saturday nights. In 2004, it started out as a former co-worker of mine from Oakdale who supposedly had a miracle and “got saved.” When I met these “street preachers” as well as different ones at the Stanislaus State Campus, I was convinced that it was possible to change from gay to straight. So one day, convinced that I was “saved” and “born again,” I went to Pasadena, CA to a preacher’s wedding and thought that I had a miracle myself. Then I met some of those groups in Modesto and some from the San Francisco Bay Area, who also recommended ex-gay therapy. I thought that I was “in the spirit” and that I was “growing in my faith,” but I found out too late that blind faith is just as damaging, and even more, than having no faith at all. When I thought that I was “falling from grace,” they noticed it, we talked about it, and that is where my hell on earth began. To my surprise and without asking for it, this group scared me to the point to where I consent to an exorcism, quoting 2 Corinthians 13:5 saying that I “failed the test” calling what I have, “spirit of homosexuality,” “spirit of selfishness,” anything they can pull out of their a*s. I was told not to tell anybody about it. I was trying my best to “shape up”, to “read the bible everyday”, and the “do as I tell, not as I do” b******t. Like a totally gullible idiot, I believed them, thinking that I want to get rid of my homosexual “sin” for good. I was stressed out that without thinking, I went to Sacramento, thinking that having 916 as my area code on my cell phone means that God commands me to go there; even quitting my job in the process, without 2 week notice, just because I just let those hypocrites do the thinking for me instead of thinking on my own. As I went to the next bible study, I was condemned to hell by 2 group members just for being “irresponsible”, “selfish”, and “demonic”; and that I was never “saved” in the first place, told to just get down on my knees and stay there long enough until you are born again. This just prove that the closet is no longer a closet; it’s an iron maiden. Throughout the month of December until my birthday in January, I was exhausted, so tired, received phone calls from those group members saying that “they love me and want me to come back,” pulling the prodigal son cue card, but just like domestic violence, a man can sweet talk a woman into coming back with an apology after maybe a black eye; the mouth says I’m sorry, but the actions say otherwise. On my birthday in January 17th, I finally got out of that non-nameable “Christian” sect. It was not an easy journey getting out as it is getting in. What these groups look for is a vulnerable homosexual, who is shameful for who he is, after a “miracle”, to convince him or her that he is doing better, just to attack and make the victim a ritualistic sacrifice for their own personal harvest. They are just as bad as the Westboro Baptist Church, only worse. Unlike Fred Phelps, they claim that they love homosexuals and want then to repent, but they keep their hatred and homophobia behind closed doors. Now that I am unemployed and living with family, I am struggling to get a job anywhere, but I want to be a fighter, I want to move on with my life. Thanks to my decision to leave those kool-aid drinkers, 2 more people left. I am gay, I was born gay, and I am proud of who I am.