Christian School Denies Entry to Child of Same-Sex Couple

A Christian school in San Diego is not allowing a 5-year-old girl to attend kindergarten because she has two moms.

Via MSN:

"When asked by the news team if it was discrimination to stop the child from attending because of her mothers, a woman who described herself as the school's director, said, 'The Bible says homosexuality is a sin. We don't condone any sinful lifestyles.' 

KGTV got a copy of the school's parent and student handbook which was revised over the summer. Under the school's statement of nondiscrimination, the handbook declared the school's right to "refuse admission of an applicant or to discontinue enrollment of a student." 

'This includes, but is not necessarily limited to, living in, condoning or supporting sexual immorality; practicing homosexual lifestyle or alternative gender identity; promoting such practices; or otherwise having the inability to support the moral principles of the school,' the handbook continued, according to the news station."

I have two items of note here.

One, I highlight how the conservative National Review frames the situation only because it's indicative of a mindset held by many anti-LGBTs. There, David French asks, in a piece entitled, "Lesbian Parents Try to Force a Christian School to Educate Their Child":

"Here’s a question for the secular left — when religious liberty collides with the desires of LGBT citizens, is there any case where religious freedom should prevail? How about when a lesbian couple tries to force a private Christian school to educate their child?" (emphasis added)

Ah, note the use of the phrase "desires of LGBT citizens," a word that, oh, maybe suggests that a lesbian couples' simple, decent wish for their daughter to attend school is in some way related to sex.

But, more pertinently, notice how French centers the beliefs (and prejudices) of adults in this scenario when, in fact, it is the child who is actually most profoundly impacted by the discrimination. How different does it sound when we ask:

Here's a question for all - when religious "freedom to discriminate" collides with the rights of children to attend school, when should religious freedom to discriminate prevail?

This case isn't one of Christians v. LGBTs, or even the Christian right v. the secular left.  It's one of Christian anti-LGBTs v. children who happen to have same-sex parents. That is, grown-ass adults punishing a child because they disagree with the "lifestyle" of her parents.

Two, notice the moral code in the handbook which specifically calls out homosexuality.  Yet, does the school also prohibit children of divorced, adulterous, or single parents from attending the school?

Of course not. Nor should it.

But that's how it so often is with the Christian bigot crowd, isn't it?

In the debates about marriage, many opponents of allowing same-sex couples to marry held that marriage was about "procreation," yet they had no issue with allowing infertile heterosexuals to marry. It's LGBTs and same-sex couples who these sorts of folks so often single out for their special brand of entitled, discriminatory treatment that they rarely reserve for other groups.

Bigot Kim Davis doesn't deny marriage licenses to people on their third, fourth marriage. No, her hill to die on is same-sex marriage. For special lucky reasons, I guess.

Even as these folks wail that it's LGBT people who constantly seek "special rights," these are the folks who seek both the special right to discriminate against LGBT people without consequence and to in no way face public shaming (or being called a bigot) for doing so.

Serena Williams and the "Smile" Command

I first saw this via Sociological Images:

"Serena Williams, the winner of 21 Grand Slam titles and arguably the greatest living female athlete, was understandably exhausted after defeating her sister and best friend Venus Williams in the U.S. Open earlier this week. So she wasn’t having it when, during a post-match press conference on Tuesday, a reporter had the gall to ask why she wasn’t smiling. 

Williams looked down and gave an exasperated sigh before shelling out the best response an athlete has given in an interview since football player Marshawn Lynch’s “I’m just here so I won’t get fined” trademark phrase. 

"It’s 11:30. To be perfectly honest with you, I don’t want to be here. I just want to be in bed right now and I have to wake up early to practice and I don’t want to answer any of these questions. And you keep asking me the same questions. It’s not really … you’re not making it super enjoyable.""

Ha. Awesome.

Stonewall Movie and the Gay White Male Hero

Via Richard Lawson, in Vanity Fair:

"Stonewall is ultimately yet another cartoonish fantasy about white saviors and square-jawed heroes; it should be called Independence Gay. 

Maybe it’s asking too much to get a smart, accurate Stonewall movie. After all, a heck of a lot of straight history has been schmaltzified by Hollywood, neatly edited and tidied up, so why shouldn’t gay history get the same shitty treatment? But that this film was directed by a gay man, written by a gay man, with an obvious intent to educate, uplift, and inspire, in this particular political climate, and is still so maddeningly, stultifyingly bungled serves only to show us how ridiculous the concept of a monolithic “gay community” really is. Stonewall at least does that bit of good: it illustrates how systems of privilege and prejudice within a minority can be just as pervasive and ugly as anything imposed from the outside. And that’s an outrage. So how long until someone throws a brick through the screen?"

Isn't this movie, though, a mainstream narrative of the "LGBT community"?

Gay white men disproportionately put themselves in the highest-level, highest-paid positions in LGBT nonprofits, creating White Men's Clubs that alienate those who don't share their privileged identities.

To hear some of them talk, Andrew Sullivan practically invented same-sex marriage.

As I have written before, the most prominent national conversations about same-sex marriage have been, with the exception of Maggie Gallagher, largely also same-sex conversations among (white) men often talking to other (white) men, but sometimes also to the American public, about the topic. Jonathan Rauch. David Blankenhorn. Brian Brown. Evan Wolfson. Dale Carpenter. John Corvino. Robert George. Andrew Sullivan. Dan Savage. Peter LaBarbera.

All of this is true even though other people have also been doing important advocacy and writing work in less prominent ways that don't get them the same level of attention, recognition, and credit.

With the gay white male focus on "we're just like you" assimilation while presuming that they - and they alone - are the key protagonists in the LGBT struggle, I continue to suspect that the real goal for many is not a revolution, but merely "a change in management."

Women Pass Ranger Program: Internet Misogynists Flip Out

Perhaps you've read about the 2 Army lieutenants who have become the first women to graduate from the US Army's Ranger program, a physically- and mentally-intense training course from which women have historically been excluded.

I've read several articles about this and have of course noted the misogynistic whinging in various comment sections.  Hilariously, the US Army has addressed some of the misogyny directly to those oh-so--courageous purveyors of misogynistic attacks on Internet.

I've noted before that those who identify with toxic masculinity define themselves largely by what they are not: women. In their minds, women and men are "opposites" in which men are supreme and women are …. not.

They take great pride in the activities which are, they claim, "inherently" "male," and if women end up engaging in these activities, these men view the activities as having become  imbued with the taint femininity.  "Women ruin everything," they bawl, as they see women too showing interest in things like sports, military, science fiction, comedy, geekdom, and other interests and activities that some men try to stake out as No Girls Allowed Land.

Thus, the comments by such men, in relation to the Rangers issue, fall into predictable categories:

• The system was somehow rigged to help the women pass, because no woman could actually pass on the same terms as men. This claim allows the man to continue believing that there are still Important Things that men can do that women cannot (In truth, the women passed the same standards as the men); 
• If it is admitted that the women passed on the same terms as men, their femininity is called into question by mocking their appearance and calling them "manly." While the man may concede that the woman did the thing that men do, he implies that she's not a real woman and therefore it doesn't count;
• The man gripes about "political correctness" and "social experiments." By uttering these meaningless phrases, the man believes he can magically waive away the accomplishment as though it didn't happen and isn't a thing that exists in reality, but rather is Social Justice Warrior fabrication.

All of these attempt to preserve the man's masculine identity As A Man (and not a woman).

Although, then there's my personal favorite:

The man who was concern trolling about male Rangers having to share humvees with "menstruating females."  Dude,  I'm gonna stop you right there.  If a man isn't tough enough to be around a menstruating person, that guy probably isn't tough enough to be a fucking Army Ranger, which might also mean that the Army has bigger problems, yeah?

Equality Opponents Try to Keep Debate Alive

I haven't paid much attention to National Organization for [Male-Female] Marriage (NOM) since June's US Supreme Court marriage equality victory.

I keep the NOM blog in my newsfeed and occasionally scroll through its headlines, however.

Recently, I saw them promoting a new book by equality opponent Ryan T. Anderson, called Truth Overruled: The Future of Marriage and Religious Freedom (I'm not linking to it, but it can be found easily enough). Released July 14, it's touted as the "first book to respond to" the Obergefell decision.

From its description, the point of the book seems to be to keep the marriage equality debate alive by informing people about what marriage "really" is and, of course, the threats posed to society by the acceptance of same-sex marriage.

How sad.

First and foremost, I have no idea if Anderson truly wrote the book as a "response" to the Supreme Court decision. I'll just say that whipping out a book in a mere 2 weeks seems quite fast.  How much "new ground" has been covered?  For that matter, how much new ground can even be covered in the conversation any more anywhere?

One fawning review states:

It is simply a must read all around. Anderson presents a well-researched and well-rounded argument for the continued importance of both traditional marriage and the strong protection of religious liberty. And he does all of this while being eminently respectful to those on the opposite side of the issue. Anderson’s work is the polar opposite of “hateful,” “bigoted,” or “homophobic.” It is a prime example of the Christian imperative to “speak the truth in love.”

Oh boy. Here we go again.

The notion that we, supporters of equality, just haven't listened, really really listened, to the intellectual, un-bigoted, and civil reasons for opposing equality and that if we just give it an honest-to-goodness chance always strikes me as…. really insular.  Have new arguments against equality, that no one has ever heard before, been invented in a matter of 2 weeks?

I mean, the conversation has been public and prominent, particularly since it was used as a wedge issue in the 2004 US presidential election.  The "civil" arguments generally go along these lines:

• Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and the purpose of marriage is to unite these complementary beings;
• Marriage is for heterosexual "responsible procreation"; 
• Same-sex couples cannot procreate together, therefore there is no reason for them to marry;
• Marriage was created by "God" and/or is a thing that exists in nature like, say, a flower or a tree and it's not for "man" to define and change it;
• Calling same-sex marriage marriage devalues it for couples who are actually married;
• Every child needs a mother and a father;
• Same-sex marriage turns children into commodities;
• Children raised by their married heterosexual parents do best (insert discredited study);
• Acceptance of same-sex marriage will lead to acceptance of other forms of marriage and/or polyamorous relationships;
• Religious people shouldn't have to "participate" in "gay marriage" by baking them cakes or taking their photos; 
• The Gay Mob is oppressing people who don't agree with LGBT rights, therefore LGBT people should not have equal rights.
• Religious people in general don't like living in a society knowing that LGBT people have equal rights. It is oppressive to them.

That about cover it?

Unfortunately, a key strategic failing of the movement against equality is that it allowed some of the most obviously bigoted voices - including politicians, preachers, and lay folk -  to dominate for so long, as these voices spoke to the rank bigotry of many US homophobes.  Indeed, it has been only recently, with their loss imminent, that equality opponents have toned it down and begun trying to popularize their so-called civil reasons against marriage equality, with an early apparently-earnest attempt by David Blankenhorn's 2007 publication of The Future of Marriage.

I think what equality opponents keep overlooking is that their position cannot be made prettier by painting "civil" reasons over a fundamentally uncivil proposition.