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diggFocus on gender politics: Seeing hate where there is none
When a homosexual person is the victim of a crime the law should not jump to conclusions.
The Democrat party, now the majority in the United States Congress, has responded to the demands one of its key constituencies --"sexual minorities" -- with legislation adding people who are subject to violence because of their "sexual orientation and gender identity" to the categories of persons covered by federal hate crime law. The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2007 has passed the House of Representatives and is on its way to the Senate, but President Bush has promised to veto it.
One of the problems with the legislation is that the new categories are not clearly defined. For example, the reference to "actual or perceived…gender identity" in the legislation is an effort to cover persons classified as transgender, transsexual, and transvestite, conditions that have been classified as psychological disorders.
Those pushing for the addition of sexual orientation and gender identity to protected categories insist that they are normal variants -- part of human sexual diversity. Others see these "variants" as deviations from the normal and evidence of underlying psychological disorders.
It is true that the American Psychiatric Association decided that "homosexuality per se" is not a sign of mental illness; however, subsequent research has found that persons with same-sex attractions (SSA) are more likely than the general public to suffer from a host of psychological problems. Four large well designed studies* found significantly higher rates of diagnosed psychological disorders among persons with SSA.
No one should be mean to the mentally ill, but when people suffer from mental illness they often interpret ordinary differences of opinion as personal attacks. By including sexual orientation and gender identity in the hate crimes legislation Congress would open the door for mentally ill persons to claim they are victims of intimidation or "hate" every time someone disagrees with them or opposes their political demands.
Gay activists consistently accuse their opponents of bigotry, discrimination, homophobia, heterosexism and hate. While it is possible that this is merely a tactic, it is also possible that at least some gay activists sincerely believe that those who uphold traditional religious teachings do have hatred in their hearts. The promotion of such thinking by federal legislation would only encourage those with psychological disorders to feel threatened even when no real threat exists.
There have already been instance of persons with SSA faking attacks and claiming they were victims of hate crimes. Consider the following cases:
• A Tamalpais High School student claimed she was pelted with eggs, had her locker and car vandalized, and has been flooded with handmade hate messages. The words "Die Fag" were spray painted on her school's wall. The school's students, teachers, and administrators responded with for an anti-hate vigil. Later the lesbian "victim" admitted to police that she faked the incidents to garner attention.
• Alex McGillis, a homosexual Boise State University (BSU) student told police in January an unidentified man beat him from behind with an object while shouting anti-"gay" epithets. Student and administration organizations organized a ‘No Oppression Tolerated, Not on Our Campus’ rally. He later confessed that his "hate crime" was a hoax and that he had used a stick and his own fists to injure himself.
• In introducing the hate crimes legislation Rep. John Conyer’s (D-Mich.) cited the death of 72-year-old homosexual Andrew Anthos in Detroit. Homosexual activists asserted that an unidentified African-American man called Anthos a "faggot" and struck him in the back of the head with a metal pipe, ultimately killing him. Investigators later determined that Anthos’ death was the result of an accidental fall brought on by severe arthritis in his neck. Anthos had also been diagnosed with mental illness and originally told police that he did not know how he was injured. He changed his story a week later to suggest that he was the victim of a "hate crime".
• At the University of Georgia in 1998, the door of resident advisor Jerry Kennedy was set on fire three times. Of the 15 hate crimes reported since 1995 at the school, Kennedy had reported 9, including the three fires, threatening phone calls and incidents of criminal trespassing. After a police investigation, Kennedy was arrested and charged with two counts of arson and four false reports of a crime, and a student who had been suspected of setting one of the fires was exonerated.
The kindest construction one can put on these episodes is that the perpetrators are suffering from a mental illness which impaired their judgment.
There are other problems with hate crime legislation. Persons with SSA are more likely to abuse alcohol, use illegal drugs, have sexual relations with strangers and/or in public places, and engage in prostitution. Those who choose these behaviors are more likely to be victims of crime than those who do not do these things. That does not mean that criminals hate persons with SSA, only that certain behaviors make a person more vulnerable to crime than others.
The tragic death of Matthew Shepard in 1998 is often cited as the reason for extending "hate crimes" protection to sexual minorities. He was a homosexual at the University of Wyoming who was savagely beaten and left to die by two thugs. However, his killers insist that they held no particular prejudice toward gays; rather they were high on methamphetamine and their aim was robbery.
Legislation which not only asks law enforcement to determine if a crime was committed, but which requires them to launch a separate investigation if the victim felt "hate" opens the proverbial can of worms. As Michael Bailey informs us in his book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, pre and post-operative transsexual males who are sexually attracted to men, frequently engage in prostitution, often without informing their clients that they are male. This can lead to a violent confrontation. Is this a "hate" crime? A man on crystal meth goes off with a stranger to have sex and the stranger robs him. Is this a "hate" crime?
Isn’t it better simply to prosecute the crime and not worry about what the perpetrator was thinking?
Dale O'Leary is a writer with a special interest in psycho-sexual issues. She is author of a soon-to-be-published book from Sophia Institute Press on marriage.
Notes
* David Ferguson et al, "Is sexual orientation related to mental health problems and suicidality in young people?" Archives of General Psychiatry, 1999, 56 (10), 876-888; Richard Herrell et al, "A co-twin control study in adult men: Sexual orientation and suicidality." Archives of general Psychiatry, 1999, 56 (10), 867-874; Susan Cochran & Vicki Mays, "Lifetime prevalence of suicide symptoms and affective disorders among men reporting same-sex sexual partners: Results from NHANES III," American Journal of Public Health, 2000, Vol.90 (4), 537-578; Theo Sandfort et al, "Same-sex Sexual Behaviour and Psychiatric Disorders: Findings from the Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study (Nemisis)," Archives of General Psychiatry, 2001, 58, 85-91.
“And my advice to all sexual deviants is simple, read the Word of God, God determines what is right and what isn’t, if God says homophilia and its variants are wrong, then it is wrong, biological or not, period.”
Homophilia? LOL. Spell check is there for a reason....
“For God is the first last and only arbiter of Objective Moral Truth.”
Really? Here’s a challenge, do as Elijah did, and call your God down from the heavens to smite me. Until then, spare me the god talk.
“Please stop trying to usurp that which solely belongs to God.”
Please stop trying to dictate what I do with my own body, using a tall tale as your reason for doing so.
Dear friends, this is a very emotive issue and unfortunately we suffer the temptation to descend into an unfortunate sort of name calling rather than discuss actual issues. This happens all the time. We become charged with emotion and shift the focus away from the issues and on to personalities. Sadly, in much of my research I have found that most of the actual hostility emanates from the “GLBTQ community”.
Now, If this is what passes for actual debate little will be achieved aside from a hardening of hearts and a kind of digging in of the heels.
Personally, and for reasons I will not explain here, I have little time for political correctness. Therefore I will put it like this - Homosexual behaviour is unnatural; that is to say that during homosexual sex persons use body parts to accomplish functions for which those body parts were not designed. For example, there is complete consensus in the medical community that the ailimentary system and the reproductive system are two completely separate systems. The rectum is physiologically designed to expel matter only, not to provide entrance. The structure of the rectum and the vagina are so radically different in terms of musculature, lubricative secretions, cell thickness, durability and so on that penile/rectal penetration makes no biological sense. None. Medically speaking, we can say that homosexual sex is not a biologically authentic expression of human sexual complementarity.
Hence . . . unnatural.
To those of you who read this and wish to believe that I must be driven by hate to write such things I say this.
You don’t know me. You know nothing about me. My age, career, family status, religious affiliations, likes or dislikes. My sexual orientation. For authentic debate we need only one thing. Honesty.
Regarding hate speech, there should be no disagreement that the homosexual lobby wants to eleminate free speech, which is the main impedinent to their agenda. The only thing needed for them to succeed is our silence. Guy Adams, Dir., ValuesUSA [.net]
When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.
“That’s why we have this wacky thing called the CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM. It ferrets out those whose claims hold no validity.”
A criminal justice system is pretty useless where is is asked to not only define crime, but read hearts and minds as well. Hate crimes are stupid.
But then again, nobody has ever accused the homosexual community of intelligence…
“Just admit your hatred and bigotry, and move on. Sheesh.”
Look who talking, its is those who cry tolerance and disversity the most, who are the most intolerance hateful and bigoted against those who have diverse and dissenting opinions.
Just admit your hypocrisy and move on, sheesh.
“My advice to unprogressive Human Beings is to become increasingly more educated on what it is like being transsexual and then take a good, hard, intellectual look from an open-minded perspective to know that it is that is not a choice, but an in utero, biological phenomenon”
And my advice to all sexual deviants is simple, read the Word of God, God determines what is right and what isn’t, if God says homophilia and its variants are wrong, then it is wrong, biological or not, period.
For God is the first last and only arbiter of Objective Moral Truth.
Please stop trying to usurp that which solely belongs to God.
Most of the responses are exactly correct.The attempts to show the murder of Matthew Shepard as not being a hate crime ; in and of itself , was an act of profound and reprehensible bigotry. The endless attempts to intellectualize hatred and discrimination are indicative of the desperation of the conservative mind in its need to cling to some form of apartheid. To rely on statements and supposed data from social scientists with no regard for truth and that have been uniformly discredited by mainstream academia ; many of whom exhibit serious mental health problems ; undermines all arguments against liberty and equality for all. To suggest , with breathtaking stupidity ; that conservative opposition to homosexuals doesn’t indicate hatred , emplys the same logic that would accept the presence of a branch office of the Waffen SS existing peacefully in downtown Tel Aviv. It must be enormously difficult for people of faith ; trapped in a world they refuse to understand .
“By including sexual orientation and gender identity in the hate crimes legislation Congress would open the door for mentally ill persons to claim they are victims of intimidation or “hate” every time someone disagrees with them or opposes their political demands.”
That’s why we have this wacky thing called the CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM. It ferrets out those whose claims hold no validity.
“As Michael Bailey informs us in his book, The Man Who Would Be Queen, pre and post-operative transsexual males who are sexually attracted to men, frequently engage in prostitution, often without informing their clients that they are male. This can lead to a violent confrontation. Is this a “hate” crime?”
Pretty amusing that you use Bailey’s book. He’s been roundly discredited. Among his other wacky assertions are that bisexuals and lesbians DON’T exist!
Just admit your hatred and bigotry, and move on. Sheesh.
It’s why I prefer Fred Phelps to people that think like you. They admit their hatred freely and don’t try to use flawed logic and distortion.
A person’s dignity goes far beyond his “sexual orientation”. Homosexual are human beings, and as such they have inalienable rights.
However, their sexual behavior does not entitle them to any kind of additional rights nor to any privileges. It is illegal to murder someone, no matter whether the victim is gay or not.
I’ve found it exceedingly easy to offend hypocrites, and thus shake them from their stoic perches.
It just takes a little bit of truth to power, and the courage to be unpopular.
~Mekah Gordon, PhD, L. E.
Dale O’Leary, needs to do some very serious in depth research, as opposed to just skimming the surface of judgmental opinions, based on hearsay.
She apparently has absolutely no idea, or conception of what it is like to be a member of the GLBTIQ Community, who are often subjected to hate & discrimination.
Her “Theories” that being classified in one or more of the GLBTIQ categories, subjugates one to a “Mental Illness,” is absurd.
I would be very “Leary” in believing anything she regurgitates from her apparent inexperience, & from those others, who know, and hold as much credibility concerning GLBTIQ issues, as a sieve.
Anyone who has been diagnosed with GID, and whose congruity of brain & body needs to be incinque with each other, including myself, was never “Reassigned” anything.
The term more accurately associated with Post-Op Surgery is more commonly referred to as, Gender Corrective Surgery.
When Ms. O’Leary sites examples of Hate Crimes, she seems to be spinning her ill referenced “Mental Illness” theories, into a tapestry of discrimination, bias, and unprogressive cognitive thinking.
When you need Surgery, you rely on a Doctor, not an Electrician.
The subliminal fear that O’Leary, and others like her, try to perpetuate toward those who listen to this unprogressive, and false apotheosizing nonsense, is without merit, or common sense.
My persona as a “Male, was only perceived from the exterior, by everyone who saw me.
However, when one looked just below the surface within Heart, Mind, & Soul, there was a Female, desperately trying to get out!
For 45 years, I carried on this “Charade” in silence, as if put into solitary confinement, or exiled to some other planet.
I had absolutely no one to talk to, or confide in, about how I felt, and just had to carry on as if everything was “Normal.”
Meanwhile, the tumultuous duality of self, raged inside my mind, and at times was very evident, when my anger seethed as if in a pressure cooker, exploding more often than I care to remember.
When individuals like O’Leary, put pen to paper, and try to categorize anyone who is “Different,” based on her very obvious alternative agenda, I suggest she resolve her uneducated, & discriminatory point of view, and resort to extensive, proven scientific research.
I had a Golden Reputation with my students, who I adored, and would go to the Moon & back for them if I had too.
Their parents knew of my sincere dedication to their children as well as the School District, and welcomed me back with the same Love, & Confidence they had, before I left.
I think it’s about time, that Ms. O’Leary, as well as all the other head in the sand theorists, give themselves a “Mental Enigma,” and begin to open their minds by Sensitizing, Understanding, & Respecting the lives of others, through Diversity Education.
Anyone, who instigates others through fear and prejudice, utilizing this as a political tool, for a discriminatory agenda, abandoning any humanistic approach toward Diversity Sensitivity, Understanding, & the Respect of others, apparently lacks any sense of human compassion, and embrace’s, a dictatorial, arrogant, & virulent mentality.
Sincerely in Peace, & Unequivocal Equality~
~Mekah Gordon, PhD, L. E.~
Human Rights Advocate/Activist - Consummate Optimist & Visionary - Educator/Consultant - Freelance Writer-TG Issues - Santa Fe Regional Editor & Board Member/For The Normal Heart Newspaper - Board Member of the NMSPC {New Mexico Suicide Prevention Coalition}, Recipient, of the prestige’s, “2007 Commitment to Care Award” from the Alliance for Gender Awareness - Full membership World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Formerly known as the Harry Benjamin Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA) - Pioneering, Frontier Renaissance Woman.
Founder/Director ~
S. U. R. E. Foundation®
22 Juego Rd.
Santa Fe, NM 87508-4298
USA
505-466-4277
*In order to achieve the same rights, without compromise, there are NO other options, than Unequivocal Equality.
~ Mekah Gordon
*The word, “Tolerance,” no matter how you bend it, twist it, or turn it inside out,"Reeks" of Discrimination.
“RESPECT,” however, eradicates implicitness for bigotry, hate, bias, & prejudice.
~Mekah Gordon
*No One on this planet, should ever have, or be granted the power, right, nor stand in judgment, of anyone’s Basic Human Civil Rights, by enforcing through Constitutional Decree, or otherwise, whom one should love, and marry, NO ONE!
~Mekah Gordon
*It’s the Tenacity, Persistence, Fortitude, & Faith, that’s perennial, in those of us, who refuse to give up, in our pursuit for Unequivocal Equality, & Basic Human Civil Rights.
~Mekah Gordon
*Transitionally Speaking: Quotes, From a Pioneering, Frontier Renaissance Woman
© 2007 Mekah Gordon, All Rights Reserved
I’ve found it exceedingly easy to offend hypocrites, and thus shake them from their stoic perches.
It just takes a little bit of truth to power, and the courage to be unpopular.
~Mekah Gordon, PhD, L. E.
© 2007 Mekah Gordon, All Rights Reserved
Be open-minded on transgender phenomenon
The technology and scientific studies, here in the United States and abroad, confirm the existence of a multivariable distribution of male and female hormones, in a fetus’ brain resulting in numerous anomalies of the human genome in nature.
As a researcher, activist and advocate in all aspects of transgender education, I have spent a good part of my life trying to figure out just what happened to me. The overwhelming desire in wanting to dress, and live full time as the opposite gender has been an extraordinarily tumultuous journey since I was seven years of age.
Skeptics concerning this incredible anomaly of nature need to further their education through continuous extensive research worldwide. Being transgender has been a part of this planet for millions of years.
When a human being who is transgender tries to exist in a society of bigots, religious fanatics, and agenda-seeking judgmental persons, their attempts at survival within these confines can be drastically devastating to mind, body, and soul.
My advice to unprogressive Human Beings is to become increasingly more educated on what it is like being transsexual and then take a good, hard, intellectual look from an open-minded perspective to know that it is that is not a choice, but an in utero, biological phenomenon.
© 2007 Mekah Gordon, All Rights Reserved
Peace, & Unequivocal Equality ~
~Mekah Gordon, PhD, L. E.~
Human Rights Advocate/Activist - Consummate Optimist & Visionary - Educator/Consultant - Freelance Writer-TG Issues - Santa Fe Regional Editor & Board Member/For The Normal Heart Newspaper - Board Member of the NMSPC {New Mexico Suicide Prevention Coalition}, Recipient, of the prestige’s, “2007 Commitment to Care Award” from the Alliance for Gender Awareness - Full membership World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) Formerly known as the Harry Benjamin Gender Dysphoria Association (HBIGDA) - Pioneering, Frontier Renaissance Woman.
Founder/Director ~
S. U. R. E. Foundation®
22 Juego Rd.
Santa Fe, NM 87508-4298
USA
*In order to achieve the same rights, without compromise, there are NO other options, than Unequivocal Equality.
~ Mekah Gordon
*The word, “Tolerance,” no matter how you bend it, twist it, or turn it inside out,"Reeks" of Discrimination.
“RESPECT,” however, eradicates implicitness for bigotry, hate, bias, & prejudice.
~Mekah Gordon
*No One on this planet, should ever have, or be granted the power, right, nor stand in judgment, of anyone’s Basic Human Civil Rights, by enforcing through Constitutional Decree, or otherwise, whom one should love, and marry, NO ONE!
~Mekah Gordon
*It’s the Tenacity, Persistence, Fortitude, & Faith, that’s perennial, in those of us, who refuse to give up, in our pursuit for Unequivocal Equality, & Basic Human Civil Rights.
~Mekah Gordon
*Transitionally Speaking: Quotes, From a Pioneering, Frontier Renaissance Woman
© 2007 Mekah Gordon, All Rights Reserved
I believe that every individual has the right to gain respect regardless of their sexual preference,,.but I also that before you gain it,,you should be deserving to acquire it.I don’t say that I really hate homosexuals or gays,,,or whatever we wanna call them,,,but basing on the article above...They might be really real cases of homosexual abuse( 9n any form) but it would not also be right for them to be tolerated in a way that they’re using this issue to gain power,attention and defense.
Yes to freedom of speech.
Yes to freedom of religion.
Yes to freedom of conscience.
No to homophilia.
No to hate crimes legislation.
No to thought crimes legislation.
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