Antigay activist Ruth Jacobs is a veritable pornographer for Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and for Christian-Right outfits in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.
Her testimonies against comprehensive sex education and transgender access to public facilities routinely consist of graphic and one-sided descriptions of sex acts. Her kinky speeches are purposely entered into the public record in order to fill the minds of taxpayers, library visitors, churchgoers, and elected officials with dirty thoughts and sex-starved antigay fantasies instead of uplifting public dialogue about public health, human dignity, freedom, and lifelong love between two people. Jacobs also refers to the supposed rights of unnamed, absent, and frankly non-existent “ex-transgender” and “ex-gay” people to be free from the existence of the real gay and transgender people who testify.
See for yourself — but don’t watch this from your workplace:
The Genocide for Jesus blog has helpfully transcribed her entire appearance at a District of Columbia hearing on marriage for the District’s gay couples.
Of particular note, according to the blog:
During a questioning period, she admitted to Council chair Phil Mendelson that she had no evidence of her claims of a connection between same-sex marriage and HIV infection. Councilman David Catania asked her what gay male sex had to do with lesbians and marriage, especially since lesbians have the lowest rate of HIV infection. Jacobs became flustered and said she wasn’t there to talk about that fact.
The antigay parents group P-FOX is demanding that the Walt Disney Company offer special protection for non-existent ex-gay employees who are already protected, in any event, under existing antidiscrimination policy covering sexual orientation.
According to TowleRoad, P-FOX also falsely claims (again) that the Superior Court of the District of Columbia ruled that “former homosexuals are a protected class that must be recognized under sexual orientation non-discrimination laws.”
In fact, the city court merely held that mutability of characteristics may not be used under the city’s Human Rights Act as a pretense exclude persons from protection under the city law. The ruling has no effect outside Washington, D.C., due to the extreme breadth of that city’s antidiscrimination law.
The antigay parents group PFOX claimed today that it has won recognition of “former homosexuals” as a protected sexual orientation in a D.C. Superior Court ruling. PFOX said:
“We are gratified that the ex-gay community in Washington D.C. now has the same civil rights that gays enjoy,” said Regina Griggs, executive director of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays (PFOX), which had filed the lawsuit against the District of Columbia government for failing to protect former homosexuals in the Nation’s Capital.
In a discrimination complaint filed by PFOX against the National Education Association (NEA) for refusing to provide public accommodations to ex-gays, the D.C. Office of Human Rights (OHR) had agreed with the NEA that sexual orientation protection did not extend to former homosexuals. “By failing to protect former homosexuals, the sexual orientation laws gave more rights to homosexuals than heterosexuals who were once gay,” said Griggs. “So PFOX asked the Court to reverse OHR’s decision, which it did. The Court held that ex-gays are a protected class under ’sexual orientation.’”
“All sexual orientation laws and programs nationwide should now provide true diversity and equality by including former homosexuals,” said Greg Quinlan, a director of PFOX. “I have experienced more personal assaults as a former homosexual than I ever did as a gay man.”
Not so fast, Greg. The court did not reverse OHR’s decision; it ruled in June 2009 that the NEA was justified in excluding PFOX for its stridently discriminatory, antigay literature, and it chose not to reverse the decision. According to Washington City Paper:
While [Judge Maurice] Ross decided in the NEA’s favor, he also held that ex-gays do, in fact, constitute a protected group under the D.C. Human Rights Act. Judging from PFOX’s eerily celebratory press release, this is kind of a big deal for them.
According to Ross’s decision, the Human Rights Act doesn’t only protect groups defined by “immutable characteristics,” as the Office of Human Rights’ decision claimed. The Act also protects groups defined by “preference or practice” —like people who previously “practiced” gayness, and now “prefer” to practice heterosexuality:
OHR’s determination that a characteristic must be immutable to be protected under the HRA is clearly erroneous as a matter of law. . . . Indeed, the HRA lists numerous protected categories such as religion, personal appearance, familial status, and source of income, which are subject to change. . . . Pertaining to sexual orientation, moreover, the HRA in §2-1401.02(28) defines sexual orientation as “male or female homosexuality, heterosexuality and bisexuality, by preference or practice.” Thus, the HRA’s intent and plain language eschews narrow interpretation.
But while the NEA can’t discriminate against “ex-gays,” it may legally discriminate against exhibits that are explicitly anti-gay:
The Court affirms OHR’s ultimate determination that PFOX’s application was denied legally. In NEA’s judgment, PFOX is a conversion group hostile toward gays and lesbians. Thus, even though PFOX vehemently disagrees with NEA’s characterization, it is within NEA’s right to exclude PFOX’s presence at NEA’s conventions. . . . Indeed, the HRA would not require NEA to accept an application from the Ku Klux Klan or a group viewed by the NEA as anti-labor union or racist. . . . Similarly, military organizations and the Boy Scotts of America are excluded from renting exhibit space at the NEA Annual Meetings because of the positions those organizations take with regard to gay and lesbian rights.
. . . Thus, PFOX’s arguments miss the point. The NEA did not reject its application because PFOX’s members include exgays, homosexuals, heterosexuals, or members of any other sexual orientation. Rather, NEA rejected PFOX’s application because PFOX’s message and policies were, in NEA’s opinion, contrary to NEA’s policies regarding sexual orientation.
In other words, the D.C. Human Rights Act may protect groups who identify as “ex-gay” based on their mutable, previous and current sexual “practices” but does not — contrary to PFOX’s wishes — protect ex-gay activist groups such as PFOX that seek to use other organizations as soapboxes to spread political opinions and policies that are contrary to those of the host organization.
Unfortunately, the D.C. court has also legitimized a ludicrous claim that sexual orientation can be defined by what one isn’t, rather than what one demonstrably is.
Addendum: Given a great deal of misreporting by various blogs, I wish to reiterate:
Blame for the court’s logic regarding sexual orientation lies with the D.C. Human Rights Act (HRA), which broadly defines orientation as a matter of either “preference” or “practice.” The court observed:
While [Office of Human Rights'] analysis and the Title VII cases cited by OHR speak in terms of immutable characteristics, the HRA clearly does not limit itself only to immutable characteristics. The premise of the HRA is simple: to end all discrimination based on anything other than individual merit. Numerous protected classes listed in the HRA include mutable traits. Furthermore, the definition of sexual orientation defines an individual’s sexuality as a “preference” or “practice.” D.C. Code §2-1401.01. OHR’s analysis posits that the immutability of a person’s preferred sexual orientation categorizes them as a member of a protected class. In focusing on federal discrimination cases, however, the OHR misses the broad scope of the HRA and the explicit inclusion of the term “practice” in the HRA’s definition of sexual orientation.
If PFOX truly affirms D.C.’s Human Rights Act, then it will not only respect the NEA’s right not to host hostile and discriminatory organizations such as PFOX, but also move to hire “practicing” gay people in accord with PFOX’s claim to represent both “ex-gays” and those who “practice” homosexuality.
It remains the responsibility of the D.C. Council and mayor to reconsider language in the Human Rights Act which misdefines sexual orientation as a matter of “practice” or lack thereof.
While couples in Washington, D.C., seek to share in the joy of marriage, Focus on the Family is battling projecting onto those couples its own desire to put marriage — in Focus’ words — “on the chopping block.”
Instead of allowing healthy, loving, mature, and committed couples to marry, Focus on the Family wants voters to decide — through an illegal referendum — who should or shouldn’t marry, based on voters’ prejudices against sexual and religious minorities.
The effort to put civil social institutions and the private lives of Americans up for a vote reflects Focus on the Family’s disturbing contempt for individual freedom, religious liberty, family values, and national unity.
Even if one agrees that individual and religious liberty, and family values, should be damaged or destroyed in order to preserve a conservative cookie-cutter model of marriage for all, Focus’ model for marriage is unsettling.
Frank Worthen is a sexually confused man living in a largely sexless marriage with Anita, a woman whose son (from a past boyfriend) is openly gay and living with AIDS.
For more than 20 years, both Worthens have made a living from selling the home remedy of religious conversion to so-called heterosexuality, despite Frank’s ongoing sexual confusion and the failure of Anita’s ex-gay ideology to convert her son.
Anita’s attitude is that her son is broken and requires fixing: She says, “I cannot fix your kid, but I know God can.” Anita ridicules parents who affirm their gay children; she asserts that the parental closet is healthier, saying: “The thing about Love Won Out that is so profound and wonderful is that there’s so many parents in pain. You can hide among the crowd. You don’t have to go and wear a big banner that says, ‘My son’s gay.’”
Meanwhile, Frank scapegoats a pastor in his teenage years for his homosexual attractions — even though friends and family were at least vaguely aware of his sexual orientation since kindergarten. Frank tells Focus on the Family that his own inept and sometimes irresponsible choices prior to age 44 are synonymous with “the gay life,” and he falsely claims to have “left homosexuality” regardless of his attractions.
While many gay Christians and their families choose a path of sexual honesty and religious integrity, the Worthens have chosen denial and obfuscation.
The Worthens, sadly, are Focus on the Family’s role models for Love Won Out conference attendees. And it is this kind of shallow ex-gay marriage-of-convenience that Exodus and Focus say is threatened by the prospect of gay people being allowed to marry.
Without wishing for any harm to come to the platonic friendship of the Worthens, I think their “marriage” serves as a warning of the price that heterosexual Christians may pay when they deny marriage to others — and then get stuck in arranged marriages to gay partners, marriages formed out of duty to one’s religious community and not marital love.
In just five days, leaders of Iowa, Vermont, and the District of Columbia have opted to protect marriage by ensuring that same-gender couples can marry.
Today, the District of Columbia’s City Council voted, 12-0, to recognize, in D.C., same-sex marriages, unions, and partnerships that are entered in other jurisdictions, according to The Washington Post. The vote is the first of several actions required before gay relationships entered elsewhere are recognized in the District.
The move follows the legalization of gay marriage by Vermont’s legislature, which today overrode a veto by Gov. Jim Douglas.
And it follows the nullification on Friday of Iowa’s religious-right law denying marriage to couples if they are homosexual.
The Des Moines Register reported on Saturday that some experts expect Iowa to benefit economically as well as socially from marriage equality due to Iowa’s isolation from the other states — Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont — to which gay couples, their families and friends may travel.
Meanwhile, Focus on the Family continues to promote mob rule, demanding that federal and state constitutional guarantees of equal protection to all citizens be sacrificed to the whims of angry mobs who seek to impose their own religious beliefs by force upon people who hold other religious perspectives.
Focus on the Family Action Senior Vice President Tom Minnery falsely stated that marriage equality permits polygamy; falsely assumes that socially conservative Iowa citizens enjoy a right to deny constitutional equality to fellow citizens; and insinuates that children are better off in orphanages or on the streets since there are not enough married heterosexual couples available to adopt American children:
The Iowa Supreme Court opened the door to all kinds of ‘marriage’ by using logic so broad and defective that the decision could well include polygamy. This ruling tramples on the will of Iowa citizens who enacted a law defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman in 1998 to help ensure every Iowan child had a chance to be raised in a household by a married mom and a dad.
Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst at Focus on the Family Action, implied that Iowa justices are wrong to protect all Iowans equally under the law, and that it is the proper role of justices to impose fundamentalist Christian social values upon all, rather than allowing individuals and couples the constitutional right to choose their own social values (whether they be liberal or conservative):
“The justices brazenly asserted that their role was not only to redefine marriage, but also to legislate whatever new social agenda they favored, ‘free from the influences’ of a society resistant to such change,” he said.
Antigay, anti-marriage activists Maggie Gallagher of the National Organization for Marriage, Doug Napier of the Alliance Defense Fund, and Peter LaBarbera all similarly argued that mobs of voters enjoy a special right to deny constitutional equality to fellow citizens who are members of minority demographics. LaBarbera went further, equating same-gender affection with “evil.”
