Senator Plett Reprises His Complaints on Bill C-16

Whether we are talking about Bill C-16, Bill C-279 or Bill C-389, there has been one consistent thing in the Senate - the voice of Senator Plett droning on about how terrible this legislation is.  This week, second reading of Bill C-16 happened in the Senate, and sure enough Senator Plett had to stick his oar into the waters (audio here ... if you can stomach it).

I'm not going to dwell overly much on the whining note that Senator Plett starts off with:

When Is A Policy A Non-Policy?

When it involves the Catholic Independent Schools of Vancouver Archdiocese making a policy on "accommodating" transgender students.

At first glance, this almost seems like a reasonable document.  There are lots of "The schools shall do this" and "shall provide that" statements, and it almost looks as though they made reasonably well informed effort.

Almost?  Why do I say "almost"?  Like most documents, you have to read it through a couple of times before you see the gotchas in it.

Creating Hierarchies of Rights

Recently, we have had a series of stories where there have been arguments put forth that there should be "exemptions" in non-discrimination laws for religious beliefs.

Yesterday's column by Licia Corbella in the Calgary Herald positively oozed with a smug sense of religious entitlement, and attempted to hold atheists responsible for the acts of some truly vile members of humanity's past.  The column ended with a claim that Christianity has been discriminated against.

Then, on Huffington Post, we find the owners of a bakery in Oregon shutting their doors in the wake of refusing to provide a cake to a lesbian wedding.

"I think [the state labor commissioner] is going to have decide what's more important: The Oregon State Constitution, or the statute that was passed in 2007," he said at the time. "They dropped the ball by not putting in any exemption for religious beliefs."

Which leads very nicely into the issue that I want to address.  Non-discrimination statutes usually end up existing because identifiable groups are being marginalized routinely by overt discrimination.

When someone makes a call for "religious beliefs exemption", what they are actually calling for is the right to continue imposing their religious beliefs on everybody around them.  This creates a false hierarchy of rights.

The point of civil rights is that they are equal across the board.  In order for this to be true, we must acknowledge them as clearly individual rights.  The notion of "Freedom of Religion" grants every person the free right to believe and worship as they see fit.  No problem.  What it does not grant anyone is the right to impose their religious beliefs on others who do not share them.

Similarly, non-discrimination laws, which often are based on gender or race but more recently have been written to include members of the LGBT community as well, essentially put into the language of law explicit protections for those who are often treated as second class citizens or have historically been denied full rights under law.

The problem that arises here is obvious.  The minute that there is an explicit exemption for one particular kind of right over another right, the law has created a hierarchy of rights where the very notion of equality itself precludes a hierarchy.

What is truly unfortunate is that so often religion is used as an excuse by those who engage in blatant discrimination.  Consider the following from the Oregon bakery incident.

In response to the complaint, Melissa Klein argued that turning away the couple was "definitely not discrimination at all." 

"We don't have anything against lesbians or homosexuals," she said in August. "It has to do with our morals and beliefs. It's so frustrating because we went through all of this in January, when it all came out."

Let me be utterly clear about this:  refusing service to someone based on a grounds such as the other person's sexuality is discriminatory.  Period.  It doesn't matter one iota that the refusal has its roots in that person's religion - especially when that person is running a business that serves the general public.  A bakery serves the general public, as does a florist.  The only way that I can see such a business getting away with such discrimination is if they structured themselves as some kind of "society" with restricted membership.  (How they would do that _and_ be a sustainable business is beyond me, but I suppose they could try)

The minute that laws are written which give "exemptions" based on other rights, we create an environment where Orwell's "Animal Farm comes to life, and some are more equal than others.

Book Review: Sex Change - It's Suicide by Walt Heyer

I have spent the last few days wading through Walt Heyer's latest self-publish book entitled "Sex Change - It's Suicide".

I'd like to say that it brings something new to the table.  It doesn't.

Frankly, this book is a mess.  It consists largely of the author pounding on the table and blaming the high suicide ideation/attempt rate identified in the 2010 NTEC study on the treatment community.

He doesn't really make any new arguments relative to what he argued in "Paper Genders".

Heyer has tried to make the case that the current treatment for transsexuals is horribly flawed.  This is largely predicated on his own disastrous attempt to transition in the early 1980s.  More or less, his claim is that because he transitioned while suffering from an undiagnosed dissociative disorder that everybody else who attempts transition is suffering from something other than what they think.

Unfortunately, Heyer makes enormous leaps of inference and asserts his position as fact without substantiating his position.  The majority of his evidence is anecdotal, or it is made in reference to deeply flawed research which has been largely debunked.

Heyer is no friend of the transgender community.  Although he speaks the words of compassion and advocacy for appropriate treatment, his underlying agenda is to prevent transgender people from having access to the treatment programs that are known to be effective.

[Update 16/08/13]
Heyer seems to have pulled the original Sex Change - It's Suicide title, and re-released under the title "Gender Lies and Suicide"

The summary of the book appears to be more or less identical to "Sex Change - It's Suicide" version, so I doubt there's anything particularly new other than a change of title.
[/Update]

[More after the jump]

More Religious Bigotry

In New Brunswick this time. Florist Refuses To Sell Flowers To Lesbian Couple

After agreeing to provide the flowers for a wedding, Kim Evans of Petals and Promises Wedding Flowers sent an email last month to the couple, saying she didn't know it was a same-sex wedding and would have no part of the ceremony.

"I am choosing to decline your business. As a born-again Christian, I must respect my conscience before God and have no part in this matter," the email said.

Yet another case of someone dredging up their religious beliefs and demanding that everybody else live by their moral code.

... and like a certain case involving one Scott Brockie, the business is declined after agreeing to do the work in the first place. Apparently "christianists" have forgotten the very real persecution their forebears experienced at the hands of the Romans, because they are practicing more or less the same kind of oppression against GLBT people. Worse yet, they express their bigotry after making a business agreement.

The question for the denizens of places like "No Apologies" is clear enough in my mind - how is the couple supposed to know that this - or any other - business is run by some narrow-minded christianist who will deny them service? ... and just why should someone's faith be an excuse for denying service to someone else?

... and these are the same people who question the "necessity" of Bill C-389? Seems to me that they are the best argument for that bill being passed into law.

WhereIn NoApologies Shows Us Why Church And State Must Be Kept Apart

If you ever needed more concrete reasons why Canadians should be diligent about ensuring that radical religiosity needs to be kept as far from the reins of state as possible, consider the oh-so-rational thinking of the erstwhile Tim Bloedow in his post Thinking rightly about homosexuality and Christian B&B owners.

That being said, human rights is hostile to Christianity and justice. And we see that born out again in this case. Human rights is the law order for socialism – for affirmative action, group rights, “substantive equality,” which has nothing to do with genuine equality. We see this in human rights legislation: It protects people not as individuals, but based on their participation in groups, and not any group, only politically protected groups, such as people defined by ethnicity, sex/gender, “sexual orientation” and marital status. Human rights law doesn’t protect firemen, those with eyebrow piercings or dairy farmers.

Of course, what Mr. Bloedow is asserting here is actually quite ludicrous. Essentially, he is arguing that because human rights laws typically specifically address common grounds on which discrimination takes place. Whether that is race, religion, sexual orientation is irrelevant - these are all common grounds which have been used historically to limit the full participation of an individual in society.

Apparently, Mr. Bloedow doesn't understand the notion of individual rights as they are expressed in law. I will point to Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms as an example of how flawed his logic is:

Equality before and under law and equal protection and benefit of law

15. (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

I don't know how this could be more abundantly clear about the fact that these rights apply to individuals.

What Mr. Bloedow seems to want is some kind of hierarchy of rights, which would put his "Christian Rights" ahead of all other rights - in particular his right to discriminate against others based on the projection of his faith onto others.

But the question is more fundamental than that. Christian activists should be asking: “How can businessmen live out their faith if they are legally required to support with their time, their labor, their goods, and their services behaviors that are offensive to them?”

Yes, we’re concerned about freedom of religion and conscience. Yes, we are concerned about Christian businessmen. But the real bahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifttleground is far more fundamental.

Really? So, you want to make it legal for businesses to practice "we don't serve your kind" discrimination? We've seen that before - it used to take place in the US before segregation was outlawed. Sadly, there are still those who would practice such vile forms of discrimination. Whether you apply on the basis of someone's ethnic characteristics, or on the basis of that person's sexuality is irrelevant - the consequences to the individual are still the same. You end up restricting their ability to participate fully in society on the basis of values that you are projecting outwards and insisting that they abide by.

These two views are incompatible. The erosion of Christianity and the rise of Humanism has been moving us from an environment of liberty – self-government under God – to state-ism. Many of us have only personally experienced state-ism so we don’t know what liberty feels or looks like. But that is ultimately what we’re arguing for when we say that businesses, such as these Christian B&B owners, should be free to operate their businesses as they see fit.

I always find this line of reasoning to be just a little too convenient. It always seems to crop up when we are talking about situations where so-calTo argue that operating a business should not be bounded by law is more than a little ridiculous. Businesses have always been subject to the law of the land, and rightly so.

What Bloedow is really arguing for here is either a form of extreme libertarianism, or if you read the rest of his writing he's really talking about rewriting Canada's laws to his particular interpretation of the Bible.

We posted a story about a Montreal-area trucking company that was ordered by Quebec’s human rights tribunal to pay $10,000 to a female truck driver who was not considered for a job because she is a woman. The business owner was apparently quite upfront about refusing to consider her for employment because she was a woman. We titled the post, “QC human rights trump business owner’s prerogative.”

Apparently, Mr. Bloedow wants to dial rights back to the late 17th Century. He obviously fails to understand that there is a fairly serious problem with refusing someone a job on the basis of the fact they are female - especially when they hold all of the requisite qualifications otherwise. Of course, I've seen other commentary on No Apologies where they've whined about how we should mourn a woman's "loss of purity" as a result of a sexual assault. The underlying misogyny of such a strategy is pretty offensive as it supposes that the only thing a woman brings to a relationship is her "purity" - and it is ironic that they never seem to talk about the same notion of "purity" for males, isn't it?

This has become a much longer commentary than I intended, but 1) it is absolutely necessary to drive home the importance to Christians of embracing Christianity as a worldview and not simply as a religion that provides a moral code to justify our antipathy to sexual perversion. 2) We need to champion morality at a foundational level that embraces justice for all Canadians, not simply for Christians, and 3) we need to understand where the true antithesis lies between Christianity and Humanism so that we don’t waste our time with losing battles, championing human rights and other anti-Christian concepts when we should, instead, be advancing the law of God and the lordship of Christ as relevant and applicable for 21st Century Canada.

Here is where Bloedow's obsession with all things to do with "homosexuals". He wants his right to discriminate against GLBT people - and women - enshrined in law. In effect, creating a hierarchy of rights.

The reality is that Mr. Bloedow's rights are already well established. What he has is a problem with comprehending the idea that individual rights exist with respect to the individual, and do not provide for the individual to project their beliefs onto others - especially in a way that limits their right to live a full life in society.

Dehumanizing ...

Over at No Apologies, we find one of the usual suspects wringing their hands over how a gay teen's suicide is going to be "used against" christianists.

... If the storyline is correct, however, we must assume that Tyler killed himself out of shame over his lifestyle and behaviour. If this is the case, he will – courtesy of the media – be forever remembered as the gay kid who killed himself after a video of the embarrassing act became public. The victimization of Tyler Clementi and the Christian community has only begun. Tyler’s choice has been warped into a weapon and planted in the hands of those the media likes to tarnish with the sobriquet “homophobe”.

Yes, someone who commits suicide makes a choice. No question about it. But to claim that such a choice occurs in a vacuum is an attempt at dissociation - especially coming from the denizens of "No Apologies".

Here's why. GLBT youth suicides are more often than not a result of continuous harassment at the hands of others. Often their tormentors are other youth, but not always - it's not unusual for GLBT folk (youth and adult) to be harassed by adults as well.

One might want to begin by asking just where youth get the idea that it's acceptable to be abusive of GLBT people in the first place? Much less how they justify carrying such behaviours forward into their adult lives.

The short answer is that there is a very vocal, if marginal, population that is vehemently opposed to GLBT people having any rights at all in society. Whether you look at postings on No Apologies, Lifesite News, One News Now or the frothing insanity of Peter LaBarbera's Americans For Truth Against Homosexuality (AKA "AFTAH"), there are lots of sources spewing a constant message that GLBT people don't deserve to be equals in society.

The messages themselves are nothing new - it's the usual moralizing drivel derived from a flawed understanding of scripture; accusation of mental or physical illness, licentiousness and so on.

However, when these messages are out in the public sphere for all to see, it doesn't exactly take a lot to understand that youth pick up on the underlying themes and act out on them. Youth, in general, will tend to act out in a much more visceral manner than adults will for a variety of reasons.

Combine this with the fact that teenagers will generally torment the hell out of anyone who is different - visibly or behaviourally, and you have an unsurprising reality that GLBT people end up on the receiving end of some pretty vicious bullying.

Whether we are talking about the events around Tyler Clementi's suicide, Chloe Lacey, Stacy Lee or Angie Zapata it doesn't matter. All of these cases have their roots in a constant message that being GLBT is "wrong", and therefore these people are disposable.

So, where does this leave the hard-line christianists that continue to perpetuate a hostile message in society? With a shared responsibility. Individually, none of them can be held directly responsible in these situations. However, they have an indirect responsibility because it is their teachings which contribute to the atmosphere that allows for bullying and violence to be done to GLBT people in the first place.

Borrowing from a propaganda tactic that the Nazis perfected in the lead-up to WWII, the language used is designed to render an entire population of people as "the Other" - removing from them any vestiges of being human. Replacing individual humanity with a shared "evilness" makes it very easy to justify mistreating individuals.

GLBT people have an immense struggle to come to terms with themselves simply because their sexual and gender identities fall outside the normative status that the majority fall into naturally. When we combine this with a social environment where harassment is encouraged (sometimes tacitly, sometimes explicitly), it is no real surprise that some give up hope entirely and take their own lives.

While we cannot hold the christianists wholly responsible in these tragedies, like the bystander in a beating who cheers on the thugs, they hold a certain degree of culpability. Theirs is the repeated message of hostility and dehumanization aimed at GLBT people, and the implications and impact of those messages cannot be overlooked.

Note: I use the term "christianist" not as a broad reference to all who profess to be Christian, but as an explicit reference to those whose persistent distortion and misrepresentation of others is used as a political argument for denying legitimate rights, freedoms and protections in law for people.

Public Religion

This article in the G&M was brought to my attention in an e-mail last night. In the email, a comment to the effect of "my fear is that one of these groups will try to claim that their rights supercede everybody else's.

Unfortunately, they already do. People like Charles McVety come to mind almost immediately as examples of people who argues that his rights as a christianist take precedence over others:

Charles McVety, who heads up the right-wing Institute of Canadian Values, issued a statement Friday saying Delic's invitation to speak is an insult to the Canadian Forces soldiers who have died in Afghanistan.

"This will shock the conscience of Canadians of good faith, dismay military families whose children have made the supreme sacrifice, and undermine the credibility and morale of our armed services in the eyes of allies and enemies alike," McVety said in the statement on the association's website.

(By the way, here is the text of the cancelled speech ... it's just so inflammatory, isn't it?)

But, as the GLBT community has known for decades now, it goes much, much further than that. So-called "christians" regularly try to hide behind the skirts of "religious freedom" to justify discriminating against GLBT people. Consider the relatively recent case of William Goertzen - a landlord in Yellowknife who cancelled a lease agreement and stole the damage deposit from a gay couple once he learned that they were homosexual.

However, the details of Goertzen's case are pretty basic - GLBT people have encountered them many times before. It's what the extreme "christianists" argue about these cases that says so much.

Those who advocate “fixing” Canada’s human rights commissions and tribunals rather than abolishing them, do so because they believe the original purpose of these agencies was legitimate.

What was the original purpose? To provide recourse for tenants, employees and consumers who believed they were being discriminated against on the basis of the politically-defined criteria for which “discrimination” was banned. “Sexual orientation” was later added to that list of politically defined groups.

This complaint against Mr. Goertzen fits within the framework of this original purpose for Canada’s HRCs. All those who support simply “fixing” the HRCs, including various Christian groups, have to take a position against Mr. Goertzen.

ChristianGovernance calls for the complete abolition of these discriminatory, anti-democratic institutions. Their original purpose was wholly illegitimate for a free and democratic society. It was an expression of socialism – strident group rights theory. It was predicated on Marxist class warfare theory.

Mr. Bloedow is so dead wrong here it's not even funny.

The irony here is that what he's really arguing for is a 'tyranny of the majority' scenario where minority groups who have at best limited voices in the public sphere. Apparently he has long ago forgotten the violations that early Christians experienced at the hands of the Roman majority of the day.

o when the Northwest Territories HRT ruled against Mr. Goertzen, they awarded the complainants $13,400. Now, of that $13,400, only $1,500 was for punitive damages. The other $12,000 – $6,000 to each complainant – was an expression of Daddy-Mommy-surrogacy – it was for hurt feelings: “injury to the men’s ‘dignity, feelings and self-respect’,” to be specific. This kind of decision bears witness to the effeminization of our culture. The injustice of this kind of typical HRT decision is also stunning. Well, it should be!

No, Mr. Bloedow, those are punitive damages - it's an economic expression of the impact of Goertzen's discrimination and theft. Mr. Goertzen did offend the dignity of those individuals - quite directly. Mr. Bloedow seems to not understand that discrimination issues often have impacts that are difficult to measure explicitly. However, it so often seems that violators do not understand anything that doesn't affect their pocket book.

Contrary to Mr. Bloedow's assertion that we are talking about 'hurt feelings', the fact is that it goes far beyond hurt feelings, and extends into the very ability of minority populations to be full participants in society. Superficially, Goertzen did little more than refuse to rent a property to a gay couple. Implicitly, he sent a much deeper message - namely that his personal problems with the idea of homosexuality give him the right to not only judge others negatively, but to arbitrarily deny them access to goods and services in the commercial arena.

Whether we are to examine it from the perspective of situations like Goertzen's actions, or McVety's bleating about a (*gasp*) Muslim Imam addressing the Armed Forces, it comes down to the argument being made is always fundamentally about "Christians" (more appropriately, "christianists") demanding that their religious beliefs be sufficient justification for limiting the participation of others in society.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - Rights and Freedoms in this country live in a state of mutual tension. So far, it seems to me that it is not an unreasonable limitation on the exercise of any freedom that it not be used to arbitrarily limit the freedoms and rights others.

How The Religious Right Misrepresents Sexual Assault Statistics

Repeating the "gays are evil" mantra that the right wing likes to push, we find a study published entitled Homosexuals In Military Three Times More Likely to Sexually Assault Than Straights: Survey.

Superficially these kinds of statistical analysis almost seem convincing:

a review of the "case synopses" of all 1,643 reports of sexual assault reported by the four branches of the military for Fiscal Year 2009 (October 1, 2008 through September 30, 2009) found that over eight percent (8.2%) of all military sexual assault cases were homosexual in nature. Yet homosexual activist groups themselves have stated that less than three percent of Americans (2.8% of men and 1.4% of women) are homosexual or bisexual.

The inference is clear enough - if the population ratio is correct, then there's a huge disproportion of gays committing sexual assaults, after all look at the rate of "homosexual assaults".

Well ... it's not quite so clear cut as all that.

First of all, they are making the inference that a male who commits sexual assault on another male is homosexual. This is a highly contentious inference - and one that deserves some more careful examination.

Sexual assaults, especially in the context of rape, are about power not sexuality. To assume that the offender who commits rape is straight or gay based on the target of their rape is apt as not to lead you to incorrect conclusions.

In an environment like the military, where men still substantially outnumber women, it's not at all surprising that there are a significant number of male-male sexual assaults. In such an ultra-masculine environment, the power play fact cannot be overlooked. To be a "submissive" male is to fall immediately to the bottom of the power hierarchy socially - even if the rank says otherwise. There are a hundred reasons why someone with the right psychopathology would choose to commit a sexual assault against someone of the same sex in such an environment.

A similar bit of logical fallacy has been propagated in the Catholic abuse scandals, where many have tried to label the pedophile priests as "homosexuals", when in fact the gender of the victim has very little to do with the perpetrator's motives.

The best examples of this come out of prison environments (although similar issues have historically been reported in naval contexts too) where male prisoners may well participate in homosexual acts during the period of their incarceration. Once they are released from prison, they return to heterosexual activity as had been their pre-incarceration norm.

In short, male on male sexual violence doesn't say anything about the perpetrator's sexual orientation - especially not in substantially closed environments such as the military or the priesthood.

The Family Research Council's recent bit of pseudo science incorrectly associates sexual identity with the nature of a sexual assault, and conveniently doesn't examine any dimensions of the assailant's motives in the assault or their sexual identity. In terms of science, this is like claiming that fairies paint leaves green at night because we observe that the leaf is green.

A Little Example

GLBT folk are often targets for discrimination and persecution - especially in this era of increased travel security.

It is a sad statement that TSA staff are creating their own little games based on other people's lives and appearances.

The board, resembling the TV game show "Jeopardy," includes categories such as "pickle smokers," "our gang" and "creatures," which sources said were names used by managers for gay men, African-Americans and lesbians.

This is nothing more than an invitation to TSA staff to engage in increased harassment of GLBT and coloured people - for no better reason than the amusement of TSA staff.

As an example of systemic discrimination and bigotry, this is an exceptionally blatant form, and it is an example of what is wrong with the paranoid mentality that has evolved since 9/11. I see this as a symptom of the resurrection of the same kinds of irrationality that gave us McArthy's 'better dead than red' anti-communist propaganda. Anyone who is 'different' is immediately a target.

A Positive Change

While I'm not in love with everything I see Obama doing, I have to give him credit for appointing Amanda Simpson to a post in the US Department of Commerce.

It's not the appointment itself that warrants recognition - it's the fact that she was appointed at all. Amanda Simpson is a transwoman, and in the last decade or so (especially under the NeoCons of GWB, transsexuals found themselves fired from government jobs more often than hired. So it is a positive thing that under Obama, Ms. Simpson has been hired, and it apparently has little to do with her gender status at all.

Of course, the right-wing commenters here and here show us once again the ugly underbelly of bigotry that transpeople face.

This Is Interesting ...

Okay, the Alberta Human Rights Commission has quite a few human rights complaints from transsexuals sitting on its desk now. Fair enough.

However, if the writer over at the UofC's Law School Faculty blog "ABlawg" is any indication, Blackett may have tipped his hand:

Lindsay Blackett (Minister of Culture and Community Spirit) is said to have made the following comment: “We have a slightly different process, and we have slightly different value systems and a way of thinking in Alberta, and since most of the people on our commission are from Alberta, they may look at it a little differently then Ontarians do.”

The post's author then goes on to speculate on the various ways that Blackett could attempt to interfere in the process of the AHRC:

For example, will members of the Human Rights and Citizenship Commission be fearful that their salaries will be in jeopardy if they permit these complaints to proceed to a hearing, given that remuneration for the chief commissioner and other members of the Commission are prescribed by the Minister (see s. 15(4) HRCMA))?

What does Blackett’s statement portend for the Alberta government’s current review of our human rights legislation, and the argument that discrimination on the basis of being transgendered should be included in proposed amendments to the HRCMA?

Second, Blackett’s comment suggests that there is a “different value system” and “way of thinking” in Alberta. This suggestion of some sort of monolithic Alberta value system runs contrary to the HRCMA itself, ...

Third, even if there is a relatively conservative mindset in this province compared to some others (like Ontario), this is precisely why we have human rights legislation. Individuals who belong to minority or disadvantaged groups, such as the transgendered (who, it must be said, are not themselves a monolithic group), require the protection of human rights legislation to ensure that they are not subjected to the tyranny of the majority. Again, the preamble of the HRCMA is instructive ...

If the author's speculations are true, then transsexuals in Alberta are going to be fighting a long, ugly battle with the government. (Repeat of Vriend, perhaps?)

This Is Why It's Called "Systemic Discrimination"

I see yet another bright bulb in the Stelmach cabinet has just demonstrated the utter cluelessness that seems to pervade this bunch of politicians when it comes to treating other people with respect.

There is no reason to change the definition of spouse in the benefit plan for government employees, an Alberta cabinet minister in charge of human resources said Monday.

"I don't see the problem," Treasury Board president Lloyd Snelgrove said.

A booklet distributed to civil servants last spring defined a spouse as someone of the opposite sex. Gay and lesbian couples who are married are called "benefit partners" in the same document, even though same-sex marriage has been legal in Alberta since July 2005.

But Snelgrove said the government gives all employees equal coverage, so he has no intention of changing the definition of spouse to include people in same-sex marriages.

"Now if the government as a whole decides that they want to review terminology around a spouse, that's a little bigger thing because I would imagine there's more departments [like] justice that would use that same definition," he said.

You don't see the problem, Snelgrove? You are either blind, have never actually looked at the wording, or your brain is still paralyzed from the cabinet session where Liepert convinced to cut funding for GRS in this province!

Legally, those two people are married. The term spouse applies to them just as much as it does to Mr. Snelgrove and his wife. Assuming, of course, that Mr. Snelgrove is married.

The fact that "benefits partner" implicitly creates a second class of benefit management is one problem; the fact that it will be seen as an implicit form of hostility by any GLBT members of the civil service is another.

That an Alberta politician from the current governing party doesn't understand this is no surprise. It's not like reality bothers them much at all.

Systemic Discrimination - A Textbook Example

One of my sore points about delisting GRS in Alberta is that it further exposes transsexuals to all kinds of systemic discrimination - whether that is additional scrutiny at a traffic stop because the gender marker on the license doesn't match the appearance, or passing through customs when travelling doesn't matter. This is a source of additional stress in a form that only compounds the stresses (internal and external) that a transsexual experiences during transition.

Well, it seems that even though Alberta has been forced to recognize same sex marriages, within the government there is still considerable denial.

Scott Mair, who used to work for Children's Services, says that according to a booklet he received in May 2008, Mair's husband is not his spouse, he is his "benefit partner."

"This is what our government has put out for its own employees," Mair said. "Clearly discriminatory. Absolutely disgusting, and they're telling me that my marriage doesn't mean anything.

"To me it was systematic bullying and hatred that we've seen consistently through the Alberta government."

It may seem at first that I am conflating two unrealted issues. However, I am not doing so. Systemic discrimination is often subtle, delivered in terms of words and subtext messages. The fact that the Alberta Government is still using different language when it talks about same-sex spouses in communicating with its employees is neither surprising, nor is it acceptable. It sends a message that a same-sex spouse is "different" than an opposite sex spouse, yet in law (which is what matters here), there is no difference in Canada. This duality of language is unnecessary.

Again, as with delisting GRS recently, this sends a message to those it is aimed at - "The government doesn't value you, go live elsewhere".

Congratulations To Susan Stanton

Remember Susan Stanton? She was fired from her job as a city manager in Florida for daring to transition on the job.

Well, it's been a long two years for her since, but She has just landed a new job with the city of Lake Worth, FL.

I hope that the city of Largo Fl is hanging its head in shame today.

Why Non-Discrimination Laws Are Needed - Reason #2,354,931

I've ranted about the kind of nastiness that can be levelled at people for being different many times on this blog. In the last couple of weeks, there has been a surprising amount of vileness in the news: a lesbian couple gets assaulted, another couple is denied housing, and a transwoman was shot to death.

Then we have the latest whining out of Peter Labarbera based on a non-discrimination clause in the Obama transition team hiring application page:

The Obama-Biden Transition Project does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, age, national origin, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or any other basis of discrimination prohibited by law.

Whines The Peter:

Will big-boned men in dresses and high heels like this fellow be allowed to use women’s restrooms in federal buildings under the Obama Administration? That’s what Obama’s plan to create “rights” based on gender confusion might bring.

I won't even begin to tear apart the errors in LaBarbera's ignorant tirade. Suffice it to say, that it is the insane rantings of people like him that make it abundantly clear that broadly inclusive non-discrimination laws are absolutely necessary. As are harsher remedial laws like S. 318 of the Canadian Criminal Code.

Ironically, religion is so often the root source of discrimination against marginalized groups, and it is one of the first rights to be recognized and protected in law. (and rightly, it should be) As long as people like LaBarbera cloak themselves in religiosity, the good that many faiths do will be masked by the blunt nastiness and ignorance.

Human Rights, Discrimination and Sexual Identity

In itself, this story is the usual story of a gay couple being denied rental accommodations because they are gay.

However, the following reader comment speaks to the degree of ignorance people have about such matters:

Oh Hello?

I think it is their home they have the right to rent to who they want.

B.C. Human Rights Tribunal better have their thinking caps on straight on this one!

This makes me furious beyond belief. The reality is described in considerable clarity in S. 8 of the BC Human Rights Code:

Discrimination in accommodation, service and facility
8. (1) A person must not, without a bona fide and reasonable justification,
(a) deny to a person or class of persons any accommodation, service or facility customarily available to the public, or
(b) discriminate against a person or class of persons regarding any accommodation, service or facility customarily available to the public because of the race, colour, ancestry, place of origin, religion, marital status, family status, physical or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation or age of that person or class of persons.

(2) A person does not contravene this section by discriminating
(a) on the basis of sex, if the discrimination relates to the maintenance of public decency or to the determination of premiums or benefits under contracts of life or health insurance, or
(b) on the basis of physical or mental disability or age, if the discrimination relates to the determination of premiums or benefits under contracts of life or health insurance.

So...once again, someone claims "religious grounds" to justify their discriminatory practices - in the context of a commercial transaction - after having already reached an agreement.

Don't get me wrong, I don't have a huge amount of trouble with the fact that the couple renting out their basement suite are Christian. What I take exception to is the seeming demand that their tenants must abide by the moral codes of the landlord. I can just see the next round of "instant martyr, just add persecution" - after all, they were only being 'Good Christians', right?

McVety's Moralizing on the Arts

Remember Bill C-10 - and more specifically McVety bragging about his influence in it?.

Well, take a read through this little turdgem that he plopped onto the "Christian Government" website.

Following the October 14th vote, Canada’s representative of the Queen will conduct the ceremony inaugurating the nation’s next Government Representatives, Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers. This official ceremony will be conducted with the backdrop of a large homosexual mural called "Androgyny", which means being both male and female.

Huh? Since when was androgyny even remotely related to homosexuality? My goodness, but McVety's reaching here...but wait, it gets better:

The homosexual lobby group EGALE, has pushed this issue for years. During the 2004 election they circulated a questionnaire to all federal candidates asking the question, "will you commit to fighting the discriminatory practice of labeling children male or female at birth?

Ummm...actually, this is a very real problem for Intersex individuals. The real problem is not assigning a gender role to the child, but the common practice of doing "corrective" surgery on the child which they may well choose quite differently when they are older.

However, it is not McVety's ludicrous attempt to tie Intersex and homosexuality together that is most disappointing, it is his statements about the picture's backstory itself:

The Governor General’s website describes the giant 20 foot mural as follows: "In the Okanagan, as in many Native tribes, the order of life learning is that you are born without sex and as a child, through learning, you move toward full capacity as either male or female. Only when appropriately prepared for the role do you become a man or woman. The natural progression into parenthood provides immense learning from each other, the love, compassion and cooperation necessary to maintain family and community. Finally as an elder you emerge as both male and female, a complete human, with all skills and capacities complete." Does the Governor General actually believe that in order to be a complete human you must be both male and female?

So, the painting itself is based not upon themes of sexuality at all. It is in fact a reflection of spirituality of some of Canada's First Nations.

McVety's whining because that spirituality doesn't align with his precious "Christianity". I don't know what notion of Christianity McVety subscribes to, but I do know it's a nasty, small-minded worldview when he cannot even find it in his heart to honor the spirituality of those who occupied this land so long before his ancestors took up residence in the early colonies.

McVety is, essentially, a cultural imperialist - as long as it is his particular notion of "Christian". What a drab world we would live in with he and his ilk dictating what is "culturally acceptable". How many voices filled with beauty would he silence? One can only imagine.

(Oh yes, just to verify that the article on "Christian Government" wasn't a forgery in McVety's name, I went over to Word.ca and looked there to verify that he was splattering the same spewage all over websites he controls directly. Sure enough.)

Academic Standards ... Followup

A little while ago, I commented on California Christian schools whining about how the University of California was rejecting their courses as college prep.

Well, it turns out that the case has been thrown out:

In March, Otero threw out the Christian school's broader claims that UC policies were unconstitutional on their face. Friday's ruling concerned Calvary's claims that the policies were also unconstitutional as they were applied in the review of several classes.

Otero wrote that Calvary "provided no evidence of animus" on the part of university officials, whom he said had a "rational basis" for determining that the proposed Calvary courses would not meet the UC college preparatory requirements.

For instance, a UC professor who reviewed Calvary's proposed Christianity's Influence on America class said the course used a textbook that "instructs that the Bible is the unerring source for analysis of historical events," "attributes historical events to divine providence rather than analyzing human action," and "contains inadequate treatment of several major ethnic groups, women and non-Christian religious groups."

Somehow anytime you start trying to interpret history through a religious lens, things go awry - quite badly.

University officials have said they approved 43 courses from Calvary Chapel, which Tyler said Calvary students have used to gain admission to UC schools. There are other ways to be admitted, such as high test scores. However, Tyler said he fears schools will become afraid to teach from a Christian perspective.

Ah, remember how the previous articles on this subject were trying paint the situation as if all of their courses were being rejected? Reality check, please!

I find it both intriguing and worrisome that 'teaching from a Christian perspective' seems to mean bending reality and ignoring established facts - and perhaps most disturbing is the idea that one should attribute to the divine rather than thinking about situations critically.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that this ruling will be appealed - so the fun isn't over yet.

H/T: Pharyngula

I Think The Correct Term is 'Standards'...

Apparently, in Outer Wingnuttia, they think that the University of California is discriminating against "Christian" courses.

As WND reported earlier, the University of California system adopted a policy last year that basic science, history, and literature textbooks by major Christian book publishers wouldn't qualify for core admissions requirements because of the inclusion of Christian perspectives.

Yeah, well if the books they are talking about are as horrendously badly written as Darwin's Black Box, I'm not surprised.

"Christian schools will have to decide: teach from a Christian worldview and eliminate your student's ability to attend a UC school, or teach from a secular worldview, so that the kids can enter the UC school system," he explained.

"Essentially what's happening is the UC has to pre-approve courses taught in high school," Tyler said. "It's pretty shocking, because in depositions UC reps made it clear: whether it be English, history or science, the addition of a religious viewpoint makes it unacceptable."

Ummm...not quite. There's a couple of points to be considered here. Public school curriculum is visible to the University structure, and they know what they are getting. Many of the so-called "Christian" private schools are quite deliberately off the accreditation radar so they don't have to be accountable for their courses.

I don't know about you, but anytime someone says that they refuse to participate in the formal structures established for inter-college credit sharing, I have to be somewhat skeptical of both their motives as well as the veracity of their academic courses.

After reviewing textbooks from major Christian publishers Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Book, UC officials deemed them insufficient, specifically because the books supplemented the basic material with a Christian perspective.

Burt Carney, an executive with the Association of Christian Schools International, said he's met with officials for the university system, and was told that there was no problem with the actual facts in a BJU physics textbook that was disallowed.

The question I would have to ask is just how much of that book presented the facts, but then couched them in scriptural terms or contexts that made the resulting presentation sound like the science was incomplete or otherwise ambiguous - the usual half-baked horse apples that are often used to justify the "debate" around evolution.

It may well be that the facts were fine - there just weren't enough of them to constitute an adequate text in the field.

"Here's the very university that talks about academic freedom," Carney said. "It's very discriminating. They don't rule against Muslim or Hindu or Jewish (themes) or so forth, only those with a definite Christian theme."

I don't know about anyone else, but I've never encountered science texts with religious themes except for cases where 'Christianists' pop up and start trying to spin the facts to match their scriptural interpretation.

Digging around, I found a few interesting bits and pieces on this lawsuit. First is a PDF from the Calvary school that is one of the plaintiffs, which provides some more concise insight into why some of the courses were rejected.

The second is an article published in a UC Berkely publication on the subject.

UC also disallows science courses that rely solely on BJU and A Beka Books textbooks. At issue, the fact sheet says, "is not whether they have religious content, but whether they provide a comprehensive view of the relevant subject matter...." In the BJU Press and A Beka Books science textbooks, it goes on, "the publishers themselves acknowledge that the primary goal is to teach religious doctrine rather than the scholarship that is generally accepted in the relevant fields of study."

The introduction to Biology for Christian Schools (2nd Edition, BJU Press) clearly states, for instance, that students' conclusions must conform to the Bible and that scientific material and methods are secondary: "The people who have prepared this book have tried consistently to put the Word of God first and science second.

Somehow, I think I can understand why the UC organization is hesitant to accept these books and courses as valid foundations for study in established fields. This isn't discrimination against Christianity - it's called academic standards - UC has a right to insist that its students enter their courses with a reasonably known and consistent foundation. If you want to teach a course on biology and derive it from scriptures, that's fine, but call it that (e.g. 'Scriptural Biology' or some such) and admit that outside of a very limited subset of the world, very few people are going to accept the course as being representative of modern science.