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.

Yesterday, I spoke to college students at North Dakota State University in Fargo and Concordia College in neighboring Moorhead, Minnesota. I also spoke to a smaller group of engaging students training to be mental health professionals. Having talked to these youth, it was disturbing to read two articles in the local newspaper, The Forum, that discussed how ideologues in North Dakota were trying to essentially brainwash youth with religious propaganda disguised as science.

The first article I read was about North Dakota lawmakers’ efforts to pass House Bill 1229, which would require schools to lie to students about sex and force failed abstinence programs on them — at the expense of their health and reality. The laughably absurd bill would make schools across the state teach that abstinence is the expected standard and sexuality outside marriage is likely to have harmful psychological effects.

What a bunch of ridiculous fundamentalist talking points masquerading as research!  Contrary to what religious fanatics are pushing, there are no known harmful side effects to the out-of-wedlock orgasm. The harm usually comes when those having sex are not informed about birth control or engage in unsafe sexual activity because they were lied to about the effectiveness of condoms. In other words, the zealots are the cause of harm, not the solution, as they are disingenuously presenting themselves.

The foolish bill goes on to insult single parents by claiming that bearing children out of wedlock is likely to have harmful consequences for the child, the child’s parents, and society. Of course, two parents is preferable in that it takes pressure off one parent. However, there are countless examples of amazing children from single parent homes — as well as countless instances where children from two-parent homes turn out to be less than ideal.

For example, Tuscon shooter Jared Loughner came from a two-parent home. So did Seung-Hui Cho who perpetrated a massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007. Meanwhile, the president of the United States, Barack Obama, came from a single parent situation. Placing the blame for society’s ills on single parents is insulting and shows that promoters of this bill live in a “Leave it to Beaver” fantasy world.

The most comical part of the bill would have teachers tell students to attain “economic self-sufficiency” before engaging in sexual activity. Of course, we all know that in today’s “fair” America, students often leave universities with massive debts and do not achieve financial stability until much later in life.

Are those in favor of this bill really suggesting that North Dakota’s citizens abstain from sex into their thirties and forties when college loans are paid off and marriage is more affordable? What planet do these Bismarck Buffoons live on?

Now get ready for the biggest laugh of all:

“Students often tell me that they didn’t realize that saving sex for marriage was ever an option or that anybody ever did that,” said Rebecca Meidinger of Make a Sound Choice. “It’s a new idea to them. Nobody else is giving them this message.”

The extreme dishonesty of this woman is breathtaking. The idea of abstinence until marriage is age-old and  anybody with a set of ears and eyes is aware of it by the time they are eight. To repackage and present abstinence as new or revolutionary shows the chutzpah of these peddling this lie. These charlatans are all about public relations and really do not seem to care how backward public policies affect real people.

Of course, we know that abstinence programs do not work and are a huge waste of money. Here is the truth.

A 2008  study by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that “pro-life” abstinence-only programs — marketed by the religious right, funded by the Bush administration, and imposed upon public schools in conservative school districts across the United States — may achieve the opposite of their intended objectives. According to The Washington Post, the study focused on “virginity pledges,” a core element of abstinence-only education:

The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a “virginity pledge,” but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.

“Taking a pledge doesn’t seem to make any difference at all in any sexual behavior,” said Janet E. Rosenbaum of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, whose report appears in the January issue of the journal Pediatrics. “But it does seem to make a difference in condom use and other forms of birth control that is quite striking.”

The study is the latest in a series that have raised questions about programs that focus on encouraging abstinence until marriage, including those that specifically ask students to publicly declare their intention to remain virgins. The new analysis, however, goes beyond earlier analyses by focusing on teens who had similar values about sex and other issues before they took a virginity pledge.

The data on this matter is clear — and it defies logic and shows a shows a stunning lack of integrity to push programs that are a complete and utter failure. It seems that some so-called conservatives care more about deception than deficits and have no compunction about lavishing public money on social programs that are ineffective.

If the abstinence farce weren’t bad enough, the same “Bismarck Buffoons” are proposing a bill (SB 2367) that would make divorce much more difficult. If the bill becomes law, anyone wanting a divorce would have to wait one year and go through mandatory marriage counseling.

According to The Forum, “marriages with sustained allegations of of domestic abuse would be exempt. I’m not sure what to make of this provision. How many times does one have to batter his wife before it becomes “sustained”? Will the legislature empower bureaucrats to start counting bruises so abused wives can qualify as victims of “sustained” beatings?

This bill’s extraordinary overreach is a vivid example of Big Government gone awry. For example, within the one-year waiting period, couples would need to participate jointly or separately in at least 10 one-hour marriage counseling sessions.

And right wing conservatives call liberals socialists?

This busy-body bill has got to be the single biggest example of government intrusion and control of  citizens’ personal lives that I have ever seen.  This bill is something that one would expect to see in Iran, not North Dakota. Any voter that cares about individual freedom and liberty should throw the bums out of office that proposed this legislation.

It is clear that this campaign of control does not stop with gay people. We are simply their first target. The long overreach of this bill and the attempt to turn North Dakota into a big government Nanny State run by fundamentalist scolds proves my point. If we lose our rights, you will surely lose yours. The writing is on the wall, if you care to read it.

I met so many amazing people in Fargo and Moorhead. It is a shame that North Dakota ideologues are divorced from reality and abstaining from facts. The state’s youth will be the big losers if they succeed. I sure hope sanity will prevail.

This is so typical. Let’s get out our Right Wing Smear paint-by-numbers kit and see if this one fits:

1. Find honest statement by liberal.

2. Twist the meaning of the statement.

3. Repurpose the statement to make it look like an attack. Bonus points if you can add dogwhistles!

4. Raise a bunch of whining hell over nothing and try to draw blood. Bonus points for directly misquoting the liberal!

Yep, this fits! John Boehner, Brent Bozell, and some other minor figures are having a public sad over the fact that Harry Knox correctly stated that the Pope is hurting people in the name of Jesus by actively working against honest sex and contraception education in sub-Saharan Africa, and is thus contributing to the spread of HIV/AIDS on that continent: (Read More)

At The Daily Beast, Max Blumenthal calls the Obama administration on the carpet for affirming Rick Warren and allies’ efforts to deny access to condoms and prevent Africa’s heterosexual and LGBT people from protecting themselves against HIV/AIDS.

Blumenthal notes that Warren has never been required to prove the efficacy of his anti-condom program. Instead, independent investigation into Warren’ involvement in Africa revealed alliances with Christian Right clergy who sidelined science-based approaches to combating AIDS in favor of abstinence-only education.

These clergy sabotaged Uganda’s once highly successful initiative to combat HIV/AIDS. Comprehensive sex education — consisting of lessons in abstinence, monogamy, and condom use — slashed HIV infection rates during the 1990s and up until 2003, when Christian Rightists in the Bush State Department and Congress began to sabotage the initiative. By 2005, Blumenthal notes, federal aid was being redirected to deny access to condoms and to discourage their use. Progress against HIV infection rates then halted. (Read More)

New cases of sexually transmitted infections are rising among women and African-American heterosexuals, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

CNN reports:

The CDC began a national syphilis elimination program in the late 1990s, targeted at African-American heterosexuals, especially women and their babies. As a result, the condition was nearly eradicated as an ongoing health problem in the United States.

But in the last two years, the trend has reversed, said Dr. John Douglas, director of the CDC’s Division of STD Prevention.

“The success we’ve been experiencing for a number of years in African-American heterosexual populations, particularly women, is beginning to be eroded,” he said.

Syphilis resurfaced as a danger in 2001, and cases went up by 15.2 percent between 2006 and 2007, the CDC said.

Reported cases of chlamydia and gonorrhea together surpassed 1.4 million in 2007, the report said. Both of these conditions can cause infertility when left untreated. The CDC will address HIV rates in the United States in a later report.

The rise happens to coincide with the growth of federally funded, abstinence-only programs which claim to promote abstinence by denying teen-agers access to information about disease and pregnancy prevention. Instead, these programs result in unsafe sex and an increased risk of pregnancy and abortion.

Whatever the role of abstinence-only “education,” experts say shame surrounding sexual behavior appears to be contributing to an atmosphere of silence and ignorance among youths-at-risk, parents, and doctors.

According to Dr. John Douglas, director of the CDC’s Division of STD Prevention:

If the parents assume that’s the doctor’s business, or the teacher’s business, and don’t roll up their sleeves and get in there themselves, and if our schools aren’t giving comprehensive education, and if our clergy and other community leaders who are interested in youth well-being aren’t including sexual health on the agenda, we’re going to create missed opportunities.

Amid news of the widespread failure of antisex education and virginity pledges to reduce sexual activity and pregnancies, recent discussions have asked whether “abstinence-only” advocacy actually forces more teen-agers and young adults to have abortions than would have been necessary with comprehensive sex education.

Having suffered spikes in youth sexual activity and unwanted pregnancies as a result of “abstinence only” programs, at least 15 states now refuse federal funding to pay for outside groups to teach “abstinence only” in school.

But hard research into any correlation between abstinence-only advocacy and abortion is still lacking.

If the empty mantra, “Just Say No,” failed to keep teenagers off of drugs, it certainly is not going to work for sex. Yet, our government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on “abstinence only” programs that promote ignorance over education, while offering a warped view of sexuality. Like all programs steeped in religious extremism, these are fear-based, anti-science and prone to great exaggerations.

Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) released a report in 2004 that found 11 out of 13 curriculums that preached “abstinence only” were rampant with scientific errors. In another study, researchers found that those who took so-called “virginity pledges” refrained from sex merely eighteen months longer than those who had not made such a pledge. However, the pledge-takers were six times more likely to engage in oral sex. ” The Values Virgins” were also much less likely to engage in protected sex when they finally broke their pledge or to be tested for an STD. Disease rates between the two groups were similar.

Unfortunately, the New York Times Magazine reports that “condemn the condom” clubs are taking root at premier universities. As usual, they rely on breathless, overblown tales of breaking condoms, saying, “safe sex is not safe.” Well, actually, condoms are pretty effective for those of us who had comprehensive sex education and know how to use them. I’ve yet to find one Bible-waving fanatic who can show me an HIV epidemic that broke out among people consistently wearing condoms. (Read More)