One of my pet peeves in gay activism is when people fail to understand that the fight for reproductive rights/health and the fight for LGBT equality are the same damned fight. It’s about people who are not straight, white, Christian men having access to full freedom and equality in this country, over our bodies, our sex lives, our access to the same Constitutional rights as everyone else — in short, it’s about all of our lives. When one fight suffers, the other fight suffers.

Here’s a real life example of that! The Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center has offered a pioneering HIV testing program for several years, which is open to all, regardless of sexual orientation. Until tonight, that is:

Memphis, TN, February 8, 2012: Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center (MGLCC) will be unable to offer Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) testing tonight and for the foreseeable future. For more than three years, MGLCC has collaborated with Planned Parenthood to provide the only regularly-scheduled, after-hours HIV testing in the Mid-South. This afternoon, Planned Parenthood representatives informed MGLCC that they do not have the funds necessary to provide the HIV testing for the foreseeable future because the State of Tennessee has denied Planned Parenthood access to grants for HIV prevention. The cut in funding for Planned Parenthood has put MGLCC’s model HIV testing program in jeopardy.

Despite MGLCC’s core mission to focus on the needs of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) community, the HIV testing program offered at MGLCC has always been open to anyone needing a test. MGLCC does not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. MGLCC believes that helping clients find out their HIV status and find access to appropriate HIV care is an essential service not only for the individual, but for the health and well-being of our entire city. More than 500 individuals have been tested by the HIV testing program offered by MGLCC since the program’s inception in 2008. Will Batts, Executive Director of MGLCC, says “Our strong collaboration with Planned Parenthood to provide HIV testing has improved the lives of hundreds of people every year. Losing this vital program will put the health and well-being of many Memphians at risk. MGLCC considers the setback to our HIV testing program a great tragedy, but we hope the setback will be only a temporary one.”

You see, organizations like Planned Parenthood, as well as local LGBT community centers, offer programs and services that benefit entire communities. Planned Parenthood does a hell of a lot more than just “abortion,” though that is one important thing they do. The Memphis Gay & Lesbian Community Center offers programs that benefit people far beyond the local LGBT community. And now the jihad against Planned Parenthood is directly affecting the center’s ability to serve people.

Wake up, people. If you’re not involved in both of these fights, you’re missing the big picture.

A former president of Botswana, Festus Mogae, is openly calling on his countrymen to stop treating homosexuality as a crime (as at present it is). Similarly, Zimbabwe’s prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai told the BBC that his country’s constitution ought to protect gays and lesbians–quite a turnabout, considering his homophobic public comments in the past and his coalition government with homophobe Robert Mugabe of “dogs and pigs” fame . Mogae’s reasons are more practical than tolerant; he says he doesn’t “understand” homosexuality, but cites the spread of HIV/AIDS as a key reason to work openly with LGBTQ people.

“We can preach about behavioural change, but as long as we confine gays and lesbians into dark corners because of our inflexibility to accommodate them, the battle on HIV and AIDS can never be won,” said Mogae at the time.

Nor the battle for civil equality, of course, but in countries this conservative, a forthright recognition of the realities of public health is a welcome start.

Health care providers are much more savvy these days about picking up on abuse in patients than they used to be. Physicians, particularly those practicing primary care, are trained to screen patients for physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. When it comes to child abuse, along with other professionals in positions of public trust like teachers and social workers, they are mandated in every state to notify the authorities if we even suspect it. Many states have similar laws covering the reporting of elder abuse and domestic violence.

What’s not showing up on their radar is spiritual abuse.

What is it? For a vivid description, read the memoir Ex-Gay No Way, in which Jallen Rix EdD writes with great insight about the religious abuse [his term] that he endured for years as a gay man born into a conservative Protestant family. “Spiritual abuse” comes up in religious contexts. The term seems to have made an early appearance in the medical literature in 1998:

Spiritual abuse is the act of making people believe–whether by stating or merely implying–that they are going to be punished in this life and/or tormented in hell-fire forever for failure to live life good enough to please God and thus earn admission to heaven. Spiritual terrorism is the most extreme form of spiritual abuse and may cause serious mental health problems. Those people who have not been spiritually terrorized have not necessarily been spared from spiritual abuse and therefore may still be in need of competent, spiritual counseling. Spiritual abuse, which may be active or passive, can best be conceptualized on a continuum from terroristic to zero abuse. Severity is determined by intensity, age of onset, duration, and individual reaction. The underlying issue in all forms of abuse is control.

“Serious mental health problems”–like suicide.

Such abuse is a daily fact of life for many LGBTQ people. This study interviewed a group of them living in the Bible Belt:

In the Bible Belt, Christianity is not confined to Sunday worship. Christian crosses, messages, paraphernalia, music, news, and attitudes permeate everyday settings. Consequently, Christian fundamentalist dogma about homosexuality-that homosexuals are bad, diseased, perverse, sinful, other, and inferior-is cumulatively bolstered within a variety of other social institutions and environments in the Bible Belt. Of the 46 lesbians and gay men interviewed for this study (age 18-74 years), most describe living through spirit-crushing experiences of isolation, abuse, and self-loathing. This article argues that the geographic region of the Bible Belt intersects with religious-based homophobia. Informants explained that negative social attitudes about homosexuality caused a range of harmful consequences in their lives including the fear of going to hell, depression, low self-esteem, and feelings of worthlessness.

And suicide.

There are very, very few articles on spiritual abuse in the medical literature–the 1998 articles on the topic by a West Virginia hospice worker did not provoke a flurry of follow-up research. There is a small body of work in the psychology literature, mostly in studies of people involved in cults. But I daresay there’s hardly a primary-care doctor in the land who thinks about this problem or looks for it in her patients. This is a grave oversight. The medical profession should study the health effects of this distinct type of emotional abuse [it may well also be a distinct type of domestic violence]. I suspect research will quickly demonstrate what we already intuitively grasp–that it is not only a risk factor for disease, but also a potentially lethal public health issue. Like secondhand smoke, it harms at least two parties at once. Like malaria, it’s more common and more dangerous in certain regions. Like obesity, there may well be a lower prevalence among people with more education. In short, if spiritual abuse affects health, as seems likely, then we can and should study it.

Doctors are trained to warn parents about guns in the home, no matter what their private convictions about gun ownership may be. They routinely look for signs of physical and emotional abuse in their patients and refer them to sources of help. Courts have allowed physicians to give blood transfusions to the children of transfusion-averse Jehovah’s Witnesses over the parents’ strenous objections, based on the argument that to do otherwise would allow parental religious belief to kill a child. So why not teach providers to screen for spiritual abuse?

After all, if a religious, closeted gay patient is convinced he’s worthless and headed for hell because of his sexuality, that belief is overwhelmingly likely to harm that patient’s mental health, and could quite possibly end his life. That this is a common plight among children makes the problem even more urgent. These points ought to be all the justification physicians need to study spiritual abuse, look for it, and think about ethical ways to intervene.

Massachusetts Department of Public Health official Alison Brill lent the department’s name late last year to an ex-gay activist program which offered to teach evangelicals how to “love and care” for suicidal gay teen-agers — by giving their families “hope.”

A PDF flyer for the project invited evangelicals to an event that was free of input from mainstream psychiatrists or psychologists. The event was sponsored by Massachusetts ex-gay activist Bill J. Henson Jr., who heads FOTOS Ministries, an ex-gay advocacy group.

Brill is the only presenter who appeared in a non-religious, professional capacity. She is a community suicide prevention coordinator, and her position with the state is used by the ex-gay organization to imply state approval of its ex-gay ideology and its potentially harmful advice to parents and churches regarding suicidal youth.

Instead of referring families and evangelical clergy to reputable mental-health professionals, the ex-gay event flyer boasted:

FOTOS Ministries helps the evangelical community love and care for gay people in the church. Many teens struggling through sexual and gender identity issues wrestle with suicidal thoughts. Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death for all 10-14 year olds and the 2nd leading cause of death for all 15-24 year olds. Gay teens make up a sizable portion of these deaths. What can you do? Join us for this FREE seminar to learn more…

The flyer boldly promised attendees that they will witness “Personal Stories of Those Who Suffer” — presumably persons who identify as “ex-gay.”

The location of the seminar was kept secret.

Tom Lang of Know Thy Neighbor, a Massachusetts-based pro-equality organization, says that when he called Brill about her involvement, “she refused to discuss this with me. Evidently no one from the LGBT community knew about this AND she says ‘at least Henson does it with love.’ I told her, ‘Same message, different packaging.’”

The same flyer promised additional two ex-gay events for evangelicals in January:

Family Care: Helping evangelical families of GLBT loved ones transition from helpless to hopeful. We must love our GLBT family members where they are today. Gain biblical insights that will equip you for effective care. You are not alone…

Relational Orientation Counseling: Healing the relational “orientation” between parents and gay teens. Learn how to transform your church counseling. Stop demanding change and start healing relationships…

The events follow a typical “ex-gay” activist pattern of talking TO evangelicals ABOUT LGBT people — never allowing healthy LGBT people to speak for themselves and never acknowledging that LGBT people are qualified to lead religious, political, and professional communities.

Since then, Henson has expanded his media outreach, receiving free publicity from Associated Press “news” articles such as this one dated May 12. The article leaves Henson’s ridiculous claim about his own orientation undisputed: that he is no longer gay, even though his wife is the only woman in the world whom he is attracted to.

We have yet to see Henson or his events tell families that change does not happen; that most ex-gay activists later admit they had never changed; that ex-gay ministries’ claims about the “cause” of sexual orientation have been discredited; that LGBT people are entitled to be religious leaders, not followers; and that every mainstream U.S. mental-health organization agrees that ex-gay therapy is harmful.

Instead, we see someone who prolongs the suffering of youths by misleading their families and churches.