Proposition 8 on Trial

For any who may be unaware and for those interested, the Federal trial challenging California's Proposition 8 is now in its third week and resources are available on line.

Live Blogging from the court room: By those supporting Prop 8, and by those against Prop 8.

Court hearing transcripts are here.

Dramatic reenactments will be available on video here.

The Gay Agenda Redux

Meanwhile, over the weekend.... Behold the power of Prop 8.

LGBT Religious Freedom Threatens LDS Religious Freedom

In his 13 October, 2009 speech to BYU-Idaho, Elder Dallin H. Oaks warned of two forces that could have the potential to erode religious freedoms--1) increasing atheism in society and 2)the rise of LGBT civil rights. Oaks focused primarily on the latter.

The crux of his concern with gay rights seems to be expressed in this passage from the speech:

The so-called “Yogyakarta Principles,” published by an international human rights group, call for governments to assure that all persons have the right to practice their religious beliefs regardless of sexual orientation or identity. This apparently proposes that governments require church practices and their doctrines to ignore gender differences. Any such effort to have governments invade religion to override religious doctrines or practices should be resisted by all believers. [Emphasis added]

Elder Oaks suggests that "apparently" measures to eliminate discrimination and harm unto LGBT people, and in this case specifically religious freedoms for gays and lesbians, may actually advocate governments to force religions to "override religious doctrines and practices."

The Yogyakarta Principles is a set of 29 international principles launched as a global charter for gay rights in Geneva, March, 2007 and presented to the United Nations in November, 2007. The Principles, intended to address documented evidence of human and civil rights abuse of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, was influential in a declaration on sexual orientation and gender identity presented to, but not officially adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December, 2008.

Some of the rights declared in the Yogyakarta Principles include:

The Right to the Universal Enjoyment of Human Rights
The Rights to Equality and Non-discrimination
The Right to recognition before the law
The Right to Life
The Right to Privacy
The Right to a Fair Trial
The Right to Freedom from Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
The right to Work
The Right to Adequate Housing
The Right to Education
Protection from Medical Abuses
The Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression
The Right to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association
The Right to Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion
The Right to Freedom of Movement
The Right to participate in public life
The Right to Participate in Cultural Life

Here is the actual passage in the English version of the Yogyakarta Principles that Elder Oaks referenced:

PRINCIPLE 21. The Right to Freedom of Thought, Conscience and Religion

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. These rights may not be invoked by the State to justify laws, policies or practices which deny equal protection of the law, or discriminate, on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

States shall:
a) Take all necessary legislative, administrative and other measures to ensure the right of persons, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, to hold and practise religious and non-religious beliefs, alone or in association with others, to be free from interference with their beliefs and to be free from coercion or the imposition of beliefs;
b) Ensure that the expression, practice and promotion of different opinions, convictions and beliefs with regard to issues of sexual orientation or gender identity is not undertaken in a manner incompatible with human rights.

The Yogyakarta Principles in general, and Principle 21 in particular, seem to be reasonable expressions of human rights that should be extended to all people. Why should they not be also extended to gays? Do LDS religious freedoms trump LGBT religious freedoms?

One critic of the Yogyakarta Principles, Piero A. Tozzi, from the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, sees a sinister intent in Principle 21 to undermine religious freedom (PDF):

Under the guise of affirming “the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion” without regard to sexual orientation or gender identity, the Principles undermine religious liberty. Principle 21 explicitly states that such rights “may not be invoked by the State to justify laws, policies or practices which deny equal protection of the law, or discriminate, on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.” . . . What would be the practical application of such a Principle, for example, with respect to a church, mosque or synagogue whose “practice” was to refuse to perform same-sex weddings or commitment ceremonies? [Emphasis added]

Elder Oaks obviously has the same concern as the above critic, yet neither provides any substantive argument why governments would be forced to impinge upon the religious freedoms of one group over the other. Piero A. Tozzi merely throws out a question based on fear and Elder Oaks suggests that such governmental mandates "apparently" will happen. Such fearful logic provides a fragile foundation upon which to build a case for denying basic human rights to LGBT people.

The Yogyakarta Principles are aspirational visualizations of global human rights policy designed to help bring an end to "violence, harassment, discrimination, exclusion, stigmatisation and prejudice . . . directed against persons in all regions of the world because of their sexual orientation or gender identity." But it is important to note that they are not binding in any way, nor has the UN adopted any similar measures. The Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute notes that:

. . . the Principles reflect only the views of a narrow group of self-identified “experts” and are not binding in international law: The Principles have not been negotiated nor agreed to by member states of the United Nations – indeed, not a single UN human rights treaty mentions sexual orientation and repeated attempts to pass resolutions promoting broad homosexual rights has been repeatedly rejected by UN member states. Insofar as they represent an attempt by activists to present an aspirational, radical social policy vision as a binding norm, however, the Principles merit closer scrutiny.

Is this aspirational vision of "freedom of thought, conscience and religion, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity" the frightening boogyman that precipitated the LDS involvement in Proposition 8 and which may ultimately destroy our collective religious liberty?

The Rhetoric of Elder Hafen's Evergreen Address

The thing that really struck me, when reading Elder Hafen's September 19 address to Evergreen International, was his choice of words.

On being gay

When discussing the homosexual condition he used negative words that paint a picture of tragedy, sorrow, and suffering:

. . . I learned that the operative word for him really was “suffer.”

and

Sometimes you may feel frustration or anger or simply a deep sadness about yourself.

Other terms Hafen employs: Daily struggles, victims, challenges, difficult, miserable, angry dog, immoral behavior, imperfection, mortal bitterness, estranged from God, afflictions, confused, disturbed. He also twice compares the same-sex attracted to those who have been abused as children (more about that below).

The Church's Response

So, through his rhetoric, Hafen paints the gay person as one who suffers a terrible situation. Consequently, he tells us that the church's response to this tragic condition, is, or should be, one of glowing compassion:

Remember President Hinckley’s confidence in you: “Our hearts reach out to [you]. We remember you before the Lord, we sympathize with you, we regard you as our brothers and sisters.” And President Packer has echoed, “We do not reject you… We cannot reject you… We will not reject you, because we love you.” With that kind of leadership, I pray that all Church members are learning to be more compassionate and understanding.

Only once does Hafen suggest that the culture contributes to the hardship of being gay. But only to say it is because of "increasing cultural confusion that now swirls around the topic of homosexuality," by which he means that society is becoming more accepting and tolerant which makes it harder for gay LDS members to live the strict moral code the theology requires!

On the Atonement

When Hafen discusses the effect of the Atonement, he must first set up a condition to be remedied. Given that church leaders now emphasize that being attracted to those of the same sex is not itself a sinful condition, what is it that the Atonement needs to reconcile? Without evidence, Hafen posits that gay people "feel" estranged and separated from God. Apparently Elder Hafen has not read the accounts of LDS suicides, where knees were worn from lengthy prayer or where one chose the temple grounds to die so as to be more quickly received by God's angels. Still, Hafen has described being gay in such tragic terms that surely gay people must feel estranged. It is one of the blessings of the Atonement to heal this "sense" of separation from God:

Even though same-gender attraction is by itself not a sin, its presence can make us feel estranged from God. That sense of separation arises from our knowing that this attraction runs counter to our eternal nature as a son or daughter of god.
. . .
I classify same-gender attraction within the category of “adversity,” because typically you haven’t brought it upon yourselves. It has consequences similar to being harmed by the sins of others, such as the separation from God felt so commonly by the victims of childhood sexual abuse.

Here again, gays are compared to victims of "childhood" sexual abuse, because, according to Elder Hafen, both commonly feel separated from God.

The Atonement, then, gives those gays who feel estranged from God a sense of being "more at-one with God even while still overcoming the attraction."

Hafen all but admits that gays won't necessarily be "healed" or changed into heterosexuals in this life. So he describes a second blessing of the Atonement as one where Christ "helps us bear the burden of our afflictions." Therefore, he instructs the Evergreen attendees that if Christ "doesn’t deliver you right now, for whatever reason, you[r faith must run so deep that you] will not give up on Him or on yourself. There truly is light at the end of your tunnel, no matter how long it is."

The language of Reparative Therapy

Although the footnotes include several works by Dean Byrd and one by David Pruden, there are clues in the text of Elder Hafen's address that convince me that LDS church leaders have drunk the Kool-Aid and aligned themselves with the theories and therapy of Joseph Nicolosi and those at NARTH.

Stop focusing so much on yourself, including hating yourself, and spend more energy caring about other people. Build good associations with people of your gender. Find a therapist who can help you identify the unmet emotional needs that you are tempted to satisfy in false sexual ways.

The self-loathing gays who seek support from groups like Evergreen and Exodus International are taught that they are gay because of bad parenting. The thesis is that homosexuals suffered a developmental deficit in early childhood which can be "repaired" through safe, appropriate same-sex bonding experiences later in life. Elements of this theory go back to Freud, but the entire model was developed by Elizabeth Moberly in her 1983 popular work Homosexuality: A New Christian Ethic, and extended by Joseph Nicolosi in his 1991 book Reparative Therapy of Male Homosexuality.

Hence, Hafen admonishes Evergreen participants to "Build good associations with people of your gender" and "Find a therapist who can help you identify the unmet emotional needs." This advice is a direct reference to the so-called "reparative therapy" developed by Nicolosi. It is “reparative therapy” speak. The phrase “false sexual ways” refers to the thinking that gay people unconsciously seek to fulfill unmet childhood same-sex parent-bonding needs through same-sex sexual activity.

The other link to Nicolosi's NARTH organization is the comparisons by Hafen to childhood sexual abuse. A frequent assertion by NARTH and the Focus on the Family's Love Won Out ex-gay roadshow is the claim that most women become gay due to childhood sexual abuse. So I found it revealing that Elder Hafen would insert indirect references to childhood sexual abuse in his address. Hafen even offers Evergreen Executive Director and NARTH Vice-President of Operations, David Pruden's wild assertion that:

. . . we know from the research that among women up to 80% who have same-gender attraction were abused in some way as children. (David Pruden, Lead My People, Audio CD, 2005)

Hafen's alignment with NARTH, whose major focus is that therapy can help gays become straight, furthers the LDS credibility problem among progressive society because it appears, by nearly all accounts, that the therapy just isn't working.

Gay Brains - A New Study

New research, utilizing brain scans of 90 volunteers, is being described as the "most robust measure" made of differences in brain structure and activity between gay and straight people.

The scans reveal that in gay people, key structures of the brain governing emotion, mood, anxiety and aggressiveness resemble those in straight people of the opposite sex.

U.S. News reports:

MRI and PET scan studies are showing remarkable similarities between the brains of gay men and straight women, and between those of lesbians and straight men.

For example, the brains of straight men and of gay women share certain common features: both are slightly asymmetric, with the right hemisphere larger than the left, say the Swedish researchers.

On the other hand, the brains of gay men and straight women are both symmetrical.

Similar trends emerged when scientists tracked connectivity in the amygdala, the region of the brain involved in emotional learning and in activating the fight-or-flight response. They noted strong similarities between gay men and straight women, and lesbians and straight men.

This significant study adds to the growing evidence pointing to a biological connection with homosexual orientation. For Latter-day Saints, the findings of this new research give us all the more reason to reject the view that homosexuality consists merely of what a person does. It points us toward the understanding, long advanced by gay people themselves, that it's "who you are."

Photo showing connectivity in the amygdala from New Scientist.

The 1968 Revolution You Never Heard Of

In a Los Angeles Times opinion piece, Nancy Polikoff, law professor at American University and author of "Beyond (Straight and Gay) Marriage: Valuing All Families under the Law," discusses the impact of a little-known U.S. Supreme Court ruling from 1968. She calls it the "1968 revolution you never heard of." In the case, the court "repudiated centuries of settled law by granting constitutional recognition and protection to a previously outcast group: children born outside of marriage and their parents."

The case had to do with the rights of parents and children in unwed unions.

Under common law, a child born outside marriage used to be fillius nullius, the child of no one. In the Middle Ages, it was even a lesser crime to kill a person who had been born to an unmarried woman. In the U.S., well into the 1960s, such a child's birth certificate might be stamped "bastard."

The State of Louisiana maintained to the court that it was "not trying to punish or discriminate against anyone":

Louisiana's purposes ... are positive ones: the encouragement of marriage as one of the most important institutions known to law, the preservation of the legitimate family as the preferred environment for socializing the child. ... Since marriage as an institution is fundamental to our existence as a free nation, it is the duty of ... Louisiana to encourage it. One method of encouraging marriage is granting greater rights to legitimate offspring."

Polikoff notes that the Supreme Court rejected that reasoning and refused to penalize the unwed parents or the children born out of wedlock:

Encouraging marriage and expressing disapproval of nonmarital sex were no longer constitutionally sufficient reasons to deny equal rights to children or to their parents.

Citing last week's California Supreme Court ruling allowing same-sex couples to marry, Polikoff, remarks that those who argue against rights for non-traditional families "may assert that they do not intend to punish or discriminate but simply want to promote marriage. It's an argument that rings as hollow in 2008 as it did in 1968."

From a Latter-day Saint point of view, is it better for families to suffer financially and emotionally so as to uphold the LDS doctrine of sexual purity, or should we be more concerned with the welfare of the individual families themselves? Did the U.S. Supreme Court in 1968 contribute to the disintegration of the Family?