Archive for November, 2009
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, Health Care Disparities and Reform and Marijuana
I have been a member of the American Medical Association for thirty years, and I’ve never seen anything like this. At the meeting of the AMA’s House of Delegates in Houston, the members took some bold policy action focusing on social issues and governmental regulations that they say interfere with providing better care to patients, including members of the LGBT community. Long seen as a conservative organization in opposition to social policy change, they say these changes are to help doctors better help their patients.
The House of Delegates passed a resolution calling on the military to abandon its policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell because it hurts the health care of gays and lesbians. Their report said that the policy violates doctor-patient relationships because patients are encouraged to lie to their doctors. The DADT policy requires to report personnel’s sexual orientation to their superiors.
Another resolution criticizes bans on same-sex marriage because those bans contribute to disparities in health. The resolution commits the AMA to reduce these health care disparities among members of same-sex households including minor children, and supports measures to provide same-sex households with the same rights and privileges to health care, health insurance and survivor benefits afforded opposite-sex households.
The AMA report noted that marriage is a strong predictor of health insurance, particularly among women. Gay and lesbian couples account for 1% of U.S. households, and gays’ partners are typically excluded from health care benefits such as insurance. and family and medical leave.
In another action, the AMA came out in support of health care overhaul, endorsing (following some controversy) the House Democrats’ bill to re-structure the nation’s health care system. In the past, the AMA has opposed changing the health care system, calling it “socialized medicine.”
The AMA also passed a resolution to ask the federal government to revisit the classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug with the goal of facilitating the conduct of clinical research and the development of cannabinoid-based medicines and alternate delivery methods.
I am left to wonder if this softening of the AMA tradition opposition to social policy change is related to the growing numbers of women physicians and openly gay physicians, and their increasing role in the organization’s leadership. And perhaps a few of them have also smoked weed.
If Gay People Want to Marry, Move to Wyoming or Utah
If gay people want to marry, perhaps they should consider moving to Wyoming or Utah. A study just released by UCLA found that Utah and Wyoming were among the states with the highest percentages of gay spouses in 2008. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091103/ap_on_re_us/us_census_gay_marriage
This may seem surprising since Wyoming was the home of Matthew Shepard, one of the men for whom the hate crime bill recently signed into law by President Obama was named, and the Mormon Church played an extraordinary role in helping pass Proposition 8 banning same sex marriage in California. (The other man for whom it was named was James Byrd, who in a racist attack in Jasper, Texas, was chained to the back of a truck and decapitated as he was dragged through the streets.) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/us/politics/15marriage.html
One has to look very hard to find a gay bar in Wyoming, and in Utah, as one of my correspondents reported, the Mormons “emphasize marriage and family so heavily, and their children are indoctrinated to ‘family’ culture.”
About 15 years ago, with some apprehension, my partner and I moved to a town of 500 people in rural Iowa. Since a close friend of mine had been stabbed to death in Des Moines for being gay at the time I was first coming out, I fully expected to arrive home one day to see “Faggots” painted in big, white letters on our red barn. It never happened. But I do remember telling one of my friends, “I don’t think we’ll be marching in any parades with a rainbow flag.”
Until 2004, same-sex couples couldn’t marry anywhere in the country. Now, gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, Maine and most recently New Hampshire.
As I write this today, the voters in Maine are going to the polls. Officials elected by the Voters of Maine, passed bill legalizing same-sex marriage in Maine on May 6, 2009, and Gov. John Baldacci signed the bill, making Maine the fifth in the U.S. to allow gay and lesbian couples to marry. The Roman Catholic Church, although closing parishes in Maine because of financial hardship, has contributed $500,000 to the campaign to reverse this decision.
So why would Utah and Wyoming have the highest percentage of couples? My correspondent from Utah wrote, “I don’t know if the gay presence here is so necessarily underground. We are all over the place. But I will agree there are a multitude of gay activities that are on the DL (‘Down Low’). Mormon men are terrible at cheating on their wives. It is so sad.”
As one man from Wyoming wrote, “Being gay is all the rage now. I don’t even know any gay people.” Another wrote, “How you ride your horse and treat your livestock, and how dependable you are as a neighbor when help is needed (stuck vehicle, loose livestock, help to mend a fence, etc. are more important to us than how you choose your partner…there are 3 gay couples living out here close by on the prairie… and nobody seems to give a damn about it…It’s simply a non-issue unless you choose to make it one.” One of my friends who grew up in Wyoming moved back home and began being open about his being gay. He very quickly found himself isolated in the community; apparently being single, gay and open about it was “making an issue of it.” Perhaps it was the way he rode his horse
Now, following the Iowa Supreme Court ruling allowing gay marriage in Iowa, my partner and I are married. http://www.iowacourts.gov/Supreme_Court/Recent_Opinions/20090403/07-1499.pdf?search=gay+marriage#_1 We invited many of our neighbors whose vehicles we’d pulled out of the mud and whose livestock we had helped contain. Many of them came; some just couldn’t deal with it, and chose not to accept our invitation.
So the high percentage of gay couples in Wyoming, Utah — perhaps still in Iowa — makes sense. You can marry a woman in the “traditional” manner, and seek sexual contact with other men in underground venues while cheating on your wife, or you can live as a couple, quietly and not making waves. In either case, the community can close its eyes to the true nature of your sexuality.
When President Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, he said, “You understood that we must stand against crimes that are meant not only to break bones, but to break spirits — not only to inflict harm, but to instill fear. You understand that the rights afforded every citizen under our Constitution mean nothing if we do not protect those rights — both from unjust laws and violent acts.”
Opposition to the hate crimes bill came primarily from Republicans who opposed the amendment with an evolving series of reasons, citing its “chilling effects on religious freedoms and free speech.” http://coloradoindependent.com/39849/matthew-shepard-hate-crimes-act-passes-despite-gop-opposition
“Seventh-Gay Adventists: A film about love, sex and eternal life.”
Almost everyone who has same sex attractions and was raised with strong religious convictions has struggled with reconciling their religious beliefs with their sexual orientation. Most have worked and prayed hard that they might be changed, knowing how hard it would be for their families and their religious community to accept their sexuality. Filmmakers Daneen Akers and her husband Stephen Ever grew up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church have made a documentary film called, “Seventh-Gay Adventists: A film about love, sex and eternal life.”
Loren Olson
An interview November 1st, 2009 by Marcel Schwantes with the filmakers was featured in the Seventh-Day Adventist Today:
Filmmakers Daneen Akers and her husband Stephen Eyer are deep believers in the power of story telling. Daneen and Stephen, who are new parents, grew up in the Seventh-day Adventist Church, attended SDA schools and both taught at Pacific Union College. And now they make documentaries. Their current project is making news. They are traveling across the country for three months, gathering stories for a feature-length documentary film they’re calling “Seventh-Gay Adventists: A film about love, sex, and eternal life.”
The stated goal is to create an honest and open conversation about the issue of religion and homosexuality that leads to a more just and compassionate future. The stories in the making of this production so far are heartfelt and courageous. In Lincoln, Nebraska, they filmed gay Adventists talking about attempting suicide, about feeling alone and alienated and struggling hard to reconcile their faith with their sexuality. One 39-year-old man told them about his ongoing depression since he came out in 1997, and his fears of losing his family and his job. And his desire to change the church he grew up in–and misses.
To read the rest of this story, click here.
Seventh-GAY Adventists Documentary: An Interview with the Filmmakers | Adventist Today
What Do Homosexuality and Stem Cell Research Have in Common?
On the face of it, stem cell research and homosexuality really don’t have much in common, but in recent years, meaningful discourse on a variety of subjects has been drowned out by a distortion of facts. Stem cell research and homosexuality have both been condemned by those who lack an understanding of them.
These distorted arguments are then used to whip people who accept the arguments without questioning into a frenzy, and they then become the foot soldiers of the protest movement. Time and time we have seen it in discussions about gay marriage, gun control, abortion and stem cell research.
By following the link below, you can hear a very thoughtful and intelligent discussion with Dr. Doris Taylor who has done very innovative research with stem cells as it relates to aging; her work has been criticized by a misunderstanding about the nature of embryonic stem cells.
She was interviewed by Krista Tippet on NPR’s “Speaking of Faith.” The interview makes stem cell research understandable, and it includes a discussion of it from a moral and spiritual perspective.
To hear the discussion, click here. Stem Cells, Untold Stories [Speaking of Faith® from American Public Media]