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Using scripture to rationalize slavery by the one percent

I grew up in a Pentecostal church, so I remember the beginnings of some of the dominionist doctrines that characterize far right faith groups today. There was never any one principal compendium of theology that every church got behind (just as there’s no single denomination in the dominionist movement, and divisions exist), but rather there were different streams of thought that flowed in and gradually changed the course of the river of belief teachings. It filtered in through books by C. Peter Wagner, sermons by Oral Roberts, through Maranatha Ministries publications, through Youth For Christ media, and various other influences that made up the charismatic movement. So I remember when “abundant life” teachings became the new dogma.

Abundant life teachings were a loose offshoot of faith-healing, in which congregations were told to put their finances and trust in God and he would consequently bless them exponentially, in return. If you had only a dollar to your name, you give that dollar to God and he’ll find a way to give you much more in return — a twisting of the parable of the widow’s mite (Mark 12:41-44), changing the valuing of the poor that Jesus-the-man intended into a give-everything ideal that could be taken advantage of in the name of Jesus-the-legend. There could be no excuse, then, for holding back the amount one tithed, in order to do things like pay the rent and bills, or to buy groceries.

Heads, we were right; tails, you were wrong.

It became another weapon in the shame machine, too. Abundant life teachings implied that the poor were poor because they were sinners, were irresponsible, lazy. And if you as a Christian gave abundantly to the church but saw no reward in return, then you needed to search your heart, because it meant that you were holding something back. It meant that there was some sin, some doubt, some laziness, some guilty pleasure, some impure thought that held you back, and that God therefore would not reward you until it was flushed out and addressed. And in this way, you were to give everything, and if you saw no return on it, it was your own fault. A shyster’s dream.

Abundant life philosophy became a part of charismatic philosophy, one of the foundations for what is called the New Apostolic Reformation, or Seven Mountains Dominionism, a kind of roadmap for the Evangelical extreme, fundamentalist Catholicism and other allies to try to achieve theological-based governance. And this is where it becomes necessary to parse things once again, because I’m referring to narrow branches of philosophy within a faith, and not the whole faith itself. This becomes blurred, because many of these leaders pass themselves off as speaking for their faith authoritatively, and few actually challenge them on that. I say this repeatedly in my blog because I believe it’s important that the specific abusive exploitations of Christianity that I single out not be conflated with Christianity itself, and by extension, with all Christians.

Abundant life teachings became a boon to some in the corporate sector, and had a lot to do with the growing together of dominionist doctrine and the Ayn Rand survival-of-the-fittest beliefs of the corporate class. Abundant life philosophy taught that the rich were rich because they were worthy in the sight of God, and blessed accordingly… a self-aggrandizing patronization that was easy to believe, reflecting the self-important self-image of many financial elites. And it absolved those who subscribed to abundant life teachings of feeling any social responsibility toward the poor. Poverty was for the weak, the unworthy, the lazy, the irresponsible… for those who deserved it. It fit the belief among the rich that anyone could be rich if they simply worked hard enough at it, or believed in God enough — something that fails to take into account the lack of opportunity and constant obstacles faced by the poor.

In case it’s not clear in my writing, I’m not talking about a conspiracy. There might be another name for it out there, but I call it “coinciding interest opportunism,” the tendency of self-interested parties to move toward policies, beliefs and tactics that suit those interests, resulting in the merger we’re seeing between the top one percent of wage earners and dominionist religion. The latter provides not only an affirmation of the growing class divide as though it’s pre-ordained by Christ, it also provides a mechanism to devalue the poor, perpetuate shame and keep adherents submissive and believing in the rightness of that submission.

And using abundant life -style teachings, even something as evil as slavery can be rationalized.

Easier for a rich man to pass through the eye of a needle than for the meek to inherit the earth… or something like that.

Vyckie at RH Reality Check pointed to a video today that vividly illustrates the convergence between far-right religious fundamentalism and the Any Rand -style corporate opportunism of the upper upper upper class. It’s a sermon posted online, which expounds on Proverbs 11:29, which reads:

He who troubles his own house will inherit the wind,
And the fool will be servant to the wise of heart.

On the basis of this scripture, Joe Morecraft of Chalcedon Presbyterian Church teaches his congregation that in godly cultures, slavery is God’s chosen fate for the morally deficient:

“There IS a place for slavery, then, in godly cultures. It’s the only place you can keep a fool under wraps. It’s the only way you can keep a man from ruining other peoples’ families…”

Morecraft’s church is located in Cumming, Georgia, so there’s quite likely an undercurrent of racism throughout the sermon. But race isn’t addressed directly at all; only through dog whistles and appealing to parishoners’ assumptions about those he defines as fools. Interestingly, the language he uses is more often the language used to target LGBT people (i.e. about family) than racial groups.

The video clocks in at 5:50 long, and provides a stunning lesson in the way evil can be rationalized through the use of scripture. It’s worth watching in full:

How prevalent is this kind of belief? Well, if you look at all of Christianity, then not very. But if you look within the narrow, vocal stream of North America’s far right Evangelicals in particular, it’s probably a lot more common than most would want to believe. Morecraft is hardly a major name among theocrats, although his church is apparently the progenitor of an offshoot of Presbyterianism that now encompasses 12 churches. His sermon is notable, though, as an example of the ideas that pervade pulpits in average neighbourhood churches — at least in southern states. While theocrats aren’t usually as blunt and bold as, say, Bryan Fischer, the attitude that equates poverty with sinfulness has become pervasive in the increasingly consolidated far right.

And it’s helped to make religion a tool in the arsenal of corporate social engineers.

(Crossposted to The Bilerico Project Dented Blue Mercedes)

2013: 04/09
CATEGORY: Decolonialism
Dissecting Spin
Social Justice
Theocracy Watch
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Canadian Evangelical audio program comes out in favour of Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill. Sort of.

Well, perhaps it isn’t a coming out per-se, since it’s questionable as to whether they were ever “in.” But RoadKill Radio commentators Kari Simpson and Ron Gray have more or less made their position known on Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill during an interview with Christian Heritage Party leader Jim Hnatiuk, who tacitly agreed. The interview highlighted the growing antipathy among Canadian Evangelicals toward Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Office of Religious Freedom, which will be a topic for another post. But here’s what they said (starts at 4:54 in the video):

SIMPSON: The Minister responsible for this Office of Religious Freedom is Minister Baird, am I not right? And Minister Baird has recently been in the news for two important issues. Wasn’t he the one who condemned and vilified a Christian organization that received $500,000 in funding to help drill wells in… a third-world country… because they had issues related to Biblical truths on homosexuality on their website? And is this same Minister Baird who’s responsible for this Office of Religious Freedom that I believe gave $200,000 to a group in Uganda to fight Christians that were trying to bring in laws that would help curb the epidemic of death as related to AIDS and HIV in that country…

GRAY: And the only country in sub-Saharan Africa that has succeeded in reducing the rate of AIDS in…

SIMPSON: Oh well, minor details, there you go Ron, the truth, again, that’s not allowed…

The first organization Simpson referred to was Crossroads, of course, and the issue about Crossroads’ website statement on homosexuality was that those kinds of views have been fueling the anti-gay hatred that led to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill, and an intensified environment of homophobic hatred and violence in Uganda. The second group referenced is an initiative to counter the anti-gay fear and hatred pervading that nation.

The Anti-Homosexuality Bill has been more commonly referred to as the “Kill the Gays” bill, although there is some debate about whether the death penalty will still be in the final draft. Here are the other things it contains:

A definition of “homosexuality” which is so vague that almost anyone could be convicted of it;

A definition of “aggravated homosexuality” which is overly-broad. If the death sentence remains in the bill, then aggravated homosexuality is the charge to which it would apply. Proponents of the bill represent aggravated homosexuality as referring to pedophilia, but it actually also includes people who are afflicted with HIV (whether they were aware of it or not), who have sex with a person who has a disability (whether the act was consensual or not), and “serial” commission of any of the included and overly-vague offenses) — having gay sex more than once would be included;

A weird “intent to commit” clause that could open any physical contact to interpretation;

A financial incentive for people to accuse others of trying to seduce them;

The targeting of friends, family and landowners for aiding / abetting LGBT people, for failing to report LGBT people, and for renting a room to LGBT people (via a strange reinterpretation of the word “brothel”);

A 3-year sentence for officiating a same-sex marriage, and a life sentence for being in a same-sex marriage or presenting a same-sex partner as a spouse (it’s not specified whether said marriage needs to occur in Uganda, but keep reading…);

The criminalization of advocacy for (or even defending) an LGBT person, with a sentence of 5 – 7 years;

The criminalization of anyone who fails to report in under 24 hours anyone who is gay, who witnessed a same-sex wedding, who rents a room to a gay person, who advocates for LGBT people, or who commits any of the other above acts, with a sentence of up to 3 years;

The criminalization of any of the above offences regardless of whether or not they occur in Uganda, provided they involve a Ugandan citizen, or a portion of the offense occurs within Uganda (i.e. the “failure to report” part). Extradition demands are also included;

The nullification of any treaties or portions of agreements which run contrary to the Anti-Homosexuality Bill; and

The granting of wide, sweeping powers to the Minister of Ethics and Integrity Minister to enforce the act, effectively giving the power to initiate a witch hunt.

Male homosexuality has been illegal in Uganda since colonial British rule in the 19th Century, and is already punishable by up to life imprisonment. In 2000, wording was amended so that lesbianism could be criminalized as “gross indecency between two persons of the same sex,” which carries a term of seven years’ imprisonment. So all of the above are in addition to this status quo.

So that’s the bill that Kari Simpson and Ron Gray are cheering on. While it’s possible that they are unaware of some or all of the things in that bill, I’d consider it unlikely, given their converations with Scott Lively, who has been an occasional interviewee at RKR and who advocates for things like total criminalization of LGBT advocacy.

Incidentally, Gray is wrong about Uganda’s progress in the fight against AIDS. From the UNAIDS World AIDS Day Report, 2012:

In West and Central Africa, Ghana was at the top of the list with a drop of 66% followed by Burkina Faso at 60% and Djibouti at 58%. The Central African Republic, Gabon, Rwanda and Togo, achieved significant declines of more than 50%. Other countries with significant declines in the region include Burundi, Cameroon, Mali and Sierra Leone where the decline was more than one third. Ethiopia achieved a 90% reduction in the rate of new HIV infections in the last decade. Despite a 25% reduction in sub-Saharan Africa, the region accounted for 72% of all new HIV infections worldwide in 2011.

In fact, the report has indicated that Uganda’s problem with HIV has been getting worse, and attributes it to declining condom use.

Ron Gray is a former leader of the Christian Heritage Party. Kari Simpson is a Vancouver-based activist with Culture Guard, a group that has influenced Parents’ Voice and other groups across Canada that are fighting against LGBT-inclusive anti-bullying education.

2013: 03/27
CATEGORY: Canadian Politics
Dissecting Spin
International
Social Justice
Theocracy Watch
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C-279 Committee Roundup: The Necessity of Inclusion

On Tuesday November 27th, the Standing Committee for Justice and Human Rights (JUST) met for a second of three meetings to examine the trans human rights bill, C-279. I’ll be discussing the filibuster that occurred in the third, shortly. However, it’s worth paying attention to the discussion on the bill’s necessity in the second meeting, as it was one of the Conservatives’ key arguments for opposing the bill.

In the first hour, it heard from representatives from the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC), Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT), and a representative from R.E.A.L. Women of Canada, Diane Watts. Which, if you were listening to the webcast, was something like listening to Peter Mansbridge, Pamela Wallin, and then this person:

Watts made news because rather than speaking much about trans people and human rights issues, she mostly ranted at length about pedophiles. Then, when she was cut off and told her remarks were offensive, the floor was turned over to a member of the committee, Robert Goguen, who bade her to continue in the same vein for another five minutes.

A lot was said about Watts testimony, although the coverage glossed over some things. R.E.A.L.’s “lead researcher” tried to frighten the committee about inclusion leading to the correctional system having “to provide treatment for those inmates,” even though Canada already has a ruling on that in Kavanaugh v. Canada (2001). Committee members referred to it several times in that meeting, in fact. Watts also cited the American College of Pediatricians, which is an organization founded by reparative therapists and has been repudiated by the American Academy of Pediatrics, which is the actual recognized authority in ACP’s field.

But the overlooked testimony of the CHRC and CHRT representatives is far more significant.

The Conservative Party argument against Bill C-279 has long been that they believed the bill was not necessary, and that the terms were not defined. And yet, after the second meeting of the Standing Committee for Justice and Human Rights to discuss the bill, some of the opponents of trans human rights inclusion switched tactics by dropping the argument about necessity, and focused emphatically on defining the terms narrowly, such as by tying them to a diagnosis. The use of the “not necessary” argument came to an end. So what happened during the meeting?

The anti-gay spin machine LifeSiteNews has deliberately distorted the testimony of the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Canadian Human Rights Tribunal folks in order to validate the idea that clear human rights inclusion is unnecessary. But it only works if you cherry-pick little snippets from Canadian Human Rights Commission acting secretary general, Ian Fine, and Canadian Human Rights Tribunal acting chairperson and chief executive officer, Susheel Gupta, out of context:

Fine, responding to Goguen, admitted that “strictly speaking, I suppose the legislation isn’t necessary…”

Gupta was more adamant about not taking a position either way, but here are full quotes from Ian Fine from the transcript. See if you come to the same conclusion that LSN did:

“To answer your question, as I said at the outset, we currently accept complaints—and have forever—from transgendered individuals under the ground of sex, and sometimes under the ground of disability, and we will continue to do so. To answer your question, strictly speaking, I suppose the legislation isn’t necessary, but we see other reasons why it would be important to include these two grounds under our act, and we do support them.

“For one thing, it would provide the clarity that I think we believe is missing at this point, because as much as it’s true that the commission and tribunals and courts do accept transgender issues as falling under the ground of sex, parties still debate that issue before those very tribunals and courts and question whether or not transgender issues fall under sex. In one case I know of, an issue was raised as to whether or not you could even raise the issue under sex and instead should raise it under disability.

“There continue to be these debates, so for clarity reasons, we believe it would be a good thing to add these two grounds. Also, as I said at the outset, it would be a recognition of the discrimination that this group faces: the sometimes hostile and violent acts that this group faces in our society. So it would recognize the vulnerability of this group, of these individuals.

“…

“It is true that the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal certainly has held that these matters fall within the existing prohibited grounds. There’s no doubt about that. Other courts and tribunals across the land have done so. As I have said, we receive complaints on transgender issues under the ground of sex and sometimes disability.

“But the reality is that even though the courts have accepted that and we accept that, parties still go before those tribunals and courts and raise arguments about whether or not they are included. So clearly there are some Canadians who aren’t in agreement with that notion, who are still fighting about it, who feel that the protection is not explicit or shouldn’t be covered by one of the other grounds.

“We’re simply suggesting to add these grounds to provide more clarity to all Canadians, to make it explicit, and then there’s no doubt.”

Spin attempts to the contrary, Conservatives can’t justifiably call clear trans human rights inclusion unnecessary, anymore.

2012: 12/12
CATEGORY: Canadian Politics
Dissecting Spin
Gender Diversity
Trans
Transsexual
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Defining human rights.

Next week or in the week following, Canada’s Parliamentary Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights (JUST) will be reviewing the trans human rights Bill C-279, to approve or amend it before deciding whether to forward it on to Third Reading.

Following federal Member of Parliament Rob Anders’ disastrous attempt to lobby Canadians against the bill by conflating trans people with sexual predators, Conservative MPs have appear to have become more careful about their approach to opposing the bill. Brent Rathgeber recently blogged that “These are complicated and sensitive matters and my opposition to this Bill is based entirely upon legal analysis, not on any particular bias.”

Like I said, more careful. His main point:

The flaw in Bill C-279 is that the terms “gender identity” and “gender expression” are not defined.

The “undefined” argument was used in the previous attempt to pass human rights inclusion for trans people. That bill passed, but died awaiting review by the Senate when 2011 last federal election was called. At that time, the lack-of-clarity argument was paired with the idea that explicit inclusion was unnecessary (something that Rathgeber touches on also), based on the fact that most legal precedents have tended to support transsexual people, and that Canadian human rights commissions consider us to be a subcategory of sex and/or gender. But precedents can be overturned if there are enough people with a will to do so. The bathroom fearmongering put forward by Anders and a few other MPs, along with far-right leaders such as Charles McVety and Jim Hughes, demonstrates clearly that such a will exists, and it is rather intense. In light of the persistent will of powerful people to work actively against trans inclusion, “unnecessary” has become an unbelievable argument.

So Rathgeber is focusing on complaining that the terms “gender identity” and “gender expression” are undefined. Never mind that he more or less defined them in his own blog post without a problem. Never mind that none of the other terms in human rights legislation are defined. Never mind that human rights classes are by intention open-ended, and meant to apply to people on all sides of the equation. Never mind that one of them (“gender identity”) has been in use in medical arenas since the late 1960s and in legal ones since the 1980s, and that the other is relatively self-explanatory. Never mind that once you start defining terms specifically, you risk carving out areas where people can fall through the cracks in a way that excludes people from human rights protections (which defeats the whole purpose of all people being considered equal).

Because you wouldn’t want the right to live, be employed, access services and be free from discrimination to be given to just anybody.

We don’t define classes to exclude. We wouldn’t, for example, define disability in a way that excludes psychiatric conditions, under the pretext that doing so would be scary. And in return, including those in human rights law does not confer a get-out-of-jail-free card if an individual commits an illegal act — although it might be taken into consideration when the court hears the context of a particular case.

Even more telling is Rathgeber’s next jump, to say that the terms shouldn’t be included in legislation because they’re chosen traits, rather than inborn. He doesn’t use that phraseology, though, because the public is starting to realize that there is much more of an inherent nature to gender identity (and sexual orientation, for that matter) than people who are fundamentally opposed to the existence of trans people would like to admit. No, he uses the argument that gender identity and gender expression are not “ascriptive” (i.e. inborn, not earned, not chosen) traits, and that protecting chosen traits somehow violates the spirit of human rights legislation. Then he shoots his own argument down in the next breath (emphasis mine):

But a more philosophical objection to the Bill is the attempt to expand “Human Rights Code” Protection beyond the traditional ascriptive criteria. Generally, the Code’s aim is to protect characteristics that are ascriptive rather than chosen. These are matters defined by birth and/or over which one has no control: race, national or ethnic origin, colour, age, sex, sexual orientation and disability all fall neatly into the category of ascriptive criteria. Admittedly, “religion, marital status, family status and pardoned conviction” are tricky because one does have considerable control over all of these matters…

I’m not big on the “born this way” argument. I think that people should be judged by what we do rather than what we are or are seen to be. But I do know that I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide that risking alienating my friends, family, job, anonymity and ability to travel with ease in society would be a fun thing to do. I spent most of my life hiding and fighting who I was, and then finally accepted myself as a woman. The only aspect of that struggle that I had any significant degree of control over was in deciding the moment that I stopped fighting it, and whether that end-to-struggle came in the form of transition or emotional collapse. In terms of “gender identity,” painting transsexuality as “choice” is something that doesn’t ring true to the experiences of transsexed individuals.

But that’s besides the point. The basic principle of human rights is that people should not be unduly judged by who they are, but rather on their individual merits or faults. That is why we do include descriptive criteria such as religion, family status and pardoned conviction. Indeed, individuals’ actions would appear to be the dividing line between pardoned conviction and any conviction, and shed light on why we would make such a distinction. Even if gender expression is a choice, mere expression is still a problematic basis for casting judgement on a person, and reveals nothing conclusive about an individual’s actions or behaviour.

The fear of including trans people in human rights legislation is often rooted in a fear of rights conflicting with rights. Very often, the examples given can be boiled down to a false equivalence — of one’s right to live, work or access services infringing on another’s right to deny them exactly that. But on occasion, rights do genuinely conflict, and Canadian human rights legislation already provides a mechanism by which conflicting rights are balanced. Rights are granted up to the limit of undue hardship. This has allowed courts to consider cases in context, considering the balanced needs of both parties, and addressing when there is an actual harm.

There is a case that was recently filed with the Ontario Human Rights Commission after a woman was denied a haircut by a Toronto barber shop because of her gender. The stylists explained that their faith forbids them from cutting a woman’s hair (unless she’s a spouse). This is a genuine conflict of rights, and at that point needs to be assessed for context, to determine which party is potentially faced with the greater harm (and if there are other remedies available, which is one of the strengths of a human rights commission). It’s important that the legal system be able to take that context into account, rather than to try to pre-emptively define classes in a way that creates a rigid hierarchy of rights. Terms in law may be defined, but classes in human rights legislation are typically left open-ended and non-specific deliberately, so that the courts can take context into account.

Rathgeber’s choice of terminology in his argument is interesting, though. Usually, when I hear opposition to trans human rights protections, I can point to where those arguments have been made before, where they failed, and what the intent was behind those arguments. Rathgeber’s argument is unique in that respect. Almost.

The only person who typically uses “ascriptive vs. descriptive” terminology to invalidate trans people on any kind of regular basis is Paul McHugh, a former Director of Psychology at the Johns Hopkins Medical Center, in Maryland. McHugh’s expertise has been neuropsychology, the study of neurological factors affecting behaviour. McHugh doesn’t appear to have had any background on trans patients prior to closing the Johns Hopkins gender clinic in 1979, and essentially admits in his article, “Psychiatric Misadventures,” that he accepted his post at Johns Hopkins partly so he could close that clinic, due to McHugh’s own pre-existing biases, assumptions (which he then proceeds to expound upon) and moral indignation at its existence.

McHugh also made the same argument in the court case spawned by California’s Proposition 8, against same-sex marriage. He also elaborated this to say that because no consistent definition of sexual orientation exists, it is also too scary a concept to justify the extension of human rights protections to gays and lesbians. So it’s probably noteworthy that Rathgeber includes sexual orientation in his list of ascriptive criteria. As a society, Canada has come to clearly recognize that there is more to sexual orientation than whim. All indications are that the nation is doing the same regarding trans people, and that the “ascriptive vs. descriptive” argument is simply an outmoded way of thinking — but one that even a conscientious legislator might still at times see as justification for denying human rights inclusion. Again, the fact that such a denial might occur demonstrates the necessity of explicit human rights inclusion.

As carefully reasoned as the argument may appear to be, it falls apart at several points.

In fact, the whole fear of vagueness is reminiscent of far-right groups who fret that the existence of trans people might redefine gender. Yet trans people exist nonetheless. It’s all again reminiscent of the same-sex marriage battle, which happened here and is still taking place south of our border. Those arguments were that marriage might be redefined if we let gay men and lesbians do it, and yet it was never adequately explained how doing so might damage or implode the institution of marriage.

But what is notable is that Brent Rathgeber is a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights (JUST), which will be hearing and amending the bill. He and Stephen Woodworth were the “no” votes when JUST heard the same bill in the previous session of Parliament, although the bill did pass through JUST and Parliament without changes.

I don’t know what Mr. Rathgeber’s motives are in writing his editorial, and I don’t want to project assumptions on him. But it is disappointing that someone who should have a deeper understanding of the bill would still not be able to better explain why he considers it scary or dangerous. Being careful apparently doesn’t help one clearly make one’s point.

That’s why it’s refreshing in contrast, when people who are clearly transphobic, using terms like “deviant behaviour” and “sexually confused” without reservation, still openly acknowledge what the bill will do, and explain why it frightens them. From a June 5th press release from REAL Women of Canada:

“Please ASAP fax, email or phone your MP to ask that he or she oppose Bill C-279, with or without amendments. The major effect of this bill is that transgendered, transsexual and sexually confused individuals will be given full protection re employment, services, housing, etc in public institutions under federal jurisdiction. These behaviors will be “normalized”, accepted and protected…”

The fear is that with explicit protections, trans people might eventually become overtly accepted in Canadian society, and integrate into the social fabric. Because you wouldn’t want the ability to live, be employed, access services and be free from discrimination to be given to just anybody.

REAL does understand that much at least, and considers that a scary concept.

So what consequences frighten Mr. Rathgeber?

(Crossposted to Rabble.ca)

2012: 11/14
CATEGORY: Alberta Politics
Canadian Politics
Dissecting Spin
Gender Diversity
Trans
Transsexual
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MP’s trans predator fearmongering escalates.

On Friday, Sun News commentator Brian Lilley interviewed Rob Anders, the Member of Parliament who has drawn condemnation for conflating transsexual and transgender people with sexual predators in a petition he has been circulating on his website, and to at least one church in his riding. In “Children’s bathroom bill reaches Parliament Hill,” both doubled down on conflating trans people with sexual predators, and suggested that granting human rights inclusion will somehow enable and legally absolve predatory acts. Anders claims there is “all sorts of examples of this going on.” Which is news to anybody else.

Lilley introduced the interview by once again calling for the defunding and privatization of CBC, the network which first broke the Anders story, and which Lilley has tried to portray as ludicrous for taking note of the petition. During this time, though, Lilley has also been taking note of a Toronto District School Board (TDSB) policy that accommodates trans kids. Like fellow Sun News Network commentators Michael Coren and Faith Goldy, he’s made that all about washrooms. While discussing the TDSB policy with Anders, they arrive at this exchange:

LILLEY: We are going and changing all kinds of things that… I agree with you, could put people at risk of being exposed to perverts to fix something that is, what, one percent of one percent of one percent of a subset of a subset?

ANDERS: Yeah. You know, why would we lower peoples’ natural defenses of a man going into a woman’s bathroom in order to “accommodate” [scare quotes added because at this, Anders appears to grin mockingly or suggestively] this very very small, you know, part of the population. In order to expose all sorts of women and girls to this…?

At that point, Rob Anders relates a phone call that told an anecdotal story of a crossdressed peeping tom who allegedly peered over stalls in the Canterra building in downtown Calgary four years ago. Searching various media online, there appears to be no corroboration that it even occurred, let alone that it happened as related. The network sensationalistically underscores this story with staged photos that are supposed to be representative of trans people in restrooms, including one featuring a urinal covered in police tape, and another showing someone with a long wig and a dress standing at a urinal. Or at least I’m assuming they’re staged, because it would be concerning if someone is snapping candids in washrooms.

At an earlier point in this interview, Brian Lilley also points to one of the men accused of chaining and abusing a Nova Scotia teen — the attacker was said to have occasionally dressed in womens’ clothing.

Most Canadians either don’t know someone who is transsexual or transgender, or else aren’t aware that an acquaintance is trans (and given my experience as a community advocate, I suspect it’s more often the latter). For this reason, Anders and Lilley float these examples as being representative of all trans people, and as justification for excluding those entire characteristic classes from basic human rights protections.

LILLEY: “Then he’s free and clear.”

Enter Bill C-279, An Act to Amend the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code (Gender Identity and Gender Expression), which is a human rights bill addressing employment, housing, access to services and discrimination.

The bill says nothing about washrooms, which Lilley briefly acknowledges before calling washrooms a side effect of the bill, and then continuing to focus on them at the expense of all else. C-279 also wouldn’t change the fact that trans people have already been using washrooms appropriate to their gender identity for decades. But it’s at this point that Lilley and Anders claim that the bill would somehow essentially absolve the people in their examples of any culpability for their actions.

ANDERS: “Then he’s free and clear, that’s right.”

Readers are invited to find any example in which rape, molestation and other illegal and inappropriate behaviours were suddenly excused because the perpetrator was a member of a class listed in human rights legislation. As equal human beings, we are all still responsible for behaving ethically and respectfully toward our fellow human beings, and to face the legal consequences if we don’t.

We also don’t exclude entire groups of people from public washrooms (let alone human rights) on the off-chance that one of them might be a sexual predator.

When I wrote about the history of the “Bathroom Bill” meme, one thing I didn’t mention is how opponents of trans rights initiatives tended to conflate trans people with predators, and then when called on it, would habitually backtrack to say it wasn’t trans people they were worried about, but that they thought trans-inclusive legislation could provide cover for actual predators to commit acts of sexual predation. And then they’d go on talking about “transgenders” with hairy legs and skirts stalking children and doing unmentionable things in washroom stalls, as a reason to block human rights legislation.

But with the way Lilley’s interview is presented, there’s visibly no effort at all to make any kind of distinction.

And all of this, of course, completely overlooks the dangers to safety of going the opposite direction and forcing transsexual women to use a men’s room. Or whether women would be happy having trans men in theirs.

Which brings us to Brian Lilley’s bottom line:

LILLEY: “Why do we have all these groups mentioned to get special treatment in the Human Rights Act, in the Criminal Code? I thought we believed in treat all people equally and fairly in this country. And why don’t we just get rid of all this nonsense and say all people are equal ~~above and beyond~~ [sic] before the law?”

Overlooking the fact that you just referred to equality as “special treatment,” Mr. Lilley, it is most likely because there is ample evidence that there are clearly bigoted attitudes and beliefs about entire groups of people, conflating them with abhorrent actions and behaviours — even to the point of circulating petitions, making comments on the floor of the House of Commons, and reporting them on television as fact — in ways that make discrimination against those groups likely or even inevitable.

Sun Media’s Brian Lilley interviews Rob Anders

(Crossposted to Rabble.ca)

2012: 10/08
CATEGORY: Alberta Politics
Canadian Politics
Dissecting Spin
Gender Diversity
Trans
Transsexual
2 comments

Stephen Woodworth’s “science,” and why Canada’s far-right isn’t really interested in it.

Stephen Woodworth’s Motion M-312 is scheduled for its second hour of debate this Friday, and the vote on the following Wednesday. And over summer’s Parliamentary break, there has been an interesting change of direction from the Canadian far-right backers of Woodworth’s action. In a way, there’s some obvious desire to parlay M-312 into a personhood amendment — but along the way, it also reveals a likelihood that they could undermine his efforts, if the direction that Woodworth’s plan goes ends up being anything but. And more than anything, it shows something interesting about Stephen Woodworth’s “science,” and why Canada’s far right isn’t particularly interested in it.

First, a brief recap is in order. Even major mainstream media have displayed some lack of clarity at times about what the Motion actually proposes to do.

Motion M-312 is sometimes portrayed as an effort to ban abortion, but the motion itself is designed to appear more innocent — it tries to look like an effort simply to strike up a committee to study it further. It boldly declares that birth is an outdated benchmark for when one becomes a legal person, and that Parliament needs to investigate how far back that benchmark should be moved. Of course, the implicit mandate it provides to this committee is the presumption that Canada’s laws about when one becomes a person are inadequate, and that it’s necessary to backdate legal personhood to the fertilization of the embryo or some stage thereafter. And the committee he’s proposing to lob the question to – the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (PROC) — is at least half composed of MPs with anti-abortion voting records, with many known or suspected members or former members of the Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus. So the Motion is also a veiled attempt to stack the deck a little.

The Motion also removes women from the equation entirely, even though the fate of a woman and the foetus she carries are inextricably linked, as the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada recently reminded us:

“This motion would challenge and change the fundamental principle of women’s autonomy. It could suggest that a pregnant woman serves as a mere carrier for another person with full legal rights. As a result, her treatment would require care-givers and institutions to seek protection for the foetus’ rights through the intervention of a third party separate from, and other than, the pregnant woman herself. Any decision about her treatment would have to take into account the new legal rights of the foetus in her womb. Her own interests, needs, or choices would be considered in treatment decisions, but these would be subject to the rights of the foetus she is carrying. The foetus’ unexpressed wishes would be interpreted by proxy by courts and legislators...”

Stephen Woodworth has relied heavily on a couple talking points that he had hoped would go viral, including the dubious “toe in the birth canal” deflection. Among them, he keeps trying to co-opt “the science” as indicating that life begins prior to birth.

He doesn’t labor on the science too long, though, because the question then becomes “which science are you referring to, and which benchmark does it point to?” It’s easy enough for Woodworth to deflect this, right now: that’s the question, he replies, that he wants the ~~Parliamentary Pro-Life Caucus~~ Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (PROC) to answer for us, all behind closed doors, where none of us have to be burdened with the debate. Because if he delays on the science too long — what stage an independent heartbeat begins, when implantation happens (given that most fertilized ova are flushed from the body naturally, before this point), what stage the foetus detects sensation, what stage brain activity can be detected — we might start remembering that pregnancy is a process, and until birth, there will always be one form of dependence or another on the mother, even if isolated stages show different levels of autonomy.

That’s one of the reasons that many on the Canadian neo-conservative far-right aren’t terribly interested in the “science,” other than exploiting the idea that there is some science to back them.

Enter LifeSiteNews (LSN), vying to be Canada’s largest neo-con “news” site on social issues (perhaps in the vein of WorldNetDaily), and their parent organization, Campaign Life Coalition (CLC). When CLC declared unwavering support for Motion M-312, they were all jazzed about the “science”:

“It is time to bring the law into sync with the 21 century [sic] and modern science. We are able to view the child in the womb moving, sucking their thumb, yawning etc, in 3D ultrasound and real-time 4D ultrasound,” said Mary Ellen Douglas, National Organizer of CLC. “The denial of the child’s humanity comes from those who are ‘science deniers’ when it comes to the facts on human development.”

Because we know how LSN is so up on science.

Of course, it wouldn’t be the first time that LifeSiteNews was guilty of spin, omission or whatever else it takes to further the Campaign Life Coalition agenda. CLC has regularly used the LSN blog to trash Catholic organizations that don’t follow exactly the kind of path that CLC believes is proper and Catholic, bringing it into regular conflict with the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace. Another Quebec priest, Fr. Raymond Gravel, was the target of several articles (some dating back to 2003), and eventually filed suit against LSN for portraying him as a “pro-abortion and pro-gay marriage parish priest,” a “former homosexual prostitute” and a “so-called priest who supports abortion.” As a consequence of these and other conflicts, LSN was banned from the recent Canadian bishops’ annual plenary assembly, and has experienced decreasing cooperation from other far-right groups.

And their reputation issues haven’t been limited to behind-the-scenes skirmishes. In fact, there’s now a recurring adage that says that the moment LSN posts about all the wonderful work being done in any particular African nation, you can expect news to come out in the next week or so about some new law or toughening of existing laws penalizing homosexuality from that country (sometimes regardless of whether the death penalty is involved). And in the infamous Isabella Miller-Jenkins kidnapping case in the US — in which a Mennonite minister is accused of helping ex-lesbian Lisa Miller smuggle her daughter to Nicaragua so that she wouldn’t have to share custody with her still-lesbian former partner — LSN receives curious mention as a means for the minister to keep in touch with his Nicaraguan contact, although there’s no evidence that LSN was consciously complicit in the case.

Reputation aside, with CLC and LSN finding themselves unable to co-opt the banner of science, they chose to jettison it instead. In mid-July, the Campaign Life Coalition fired off a newsletter declaring opposition to gestational approaches to anti-abortion legislation, stating:

“Campaign Life was founded at a meeting in Winnipeg on May 25, 1978. In 1986, Campaign Life and the Coalition for the Protection of Human Life merged, mostly after those who supported a compromise position had left the Coalition. It is counterproductive and wrong to promote or accept abortion legislation that arbitrarily divides humans into protected and unprotected classes. Therefore, measures that create exceptions to abortion (rape, incest, health of the mother, genetic defects, and gestational) should be avoided.

“…

“We have always supported [incremental] measures and always will – with the proviso that we will continue to work for an outright ban.”

The newsletter was characterized at LSN as being “written in response to public criticisms and communications to Members of Parliament that Campaign Life Coalition has followed an ‘all or nothing’ approach,” which would imply that CLC’s competitors on the Canadian anti-abortion landscape are concerned that the organization has some inside influence with Parliament. Not long afterward, LSN published an article about UK anti-abortion group leader John Smeaton, in which the radical Society for the Protection of the Unborn (SPUC) leader expressed remorse for supporting a gestational ban. This cautionary tale to Canada’s far-right resulted in a survey conducted by The Interim in which they surveyed 15 far-right groups on whether they supported incremental or gestational approaches to banning abortion.

The distinction between gestational and incremental approaches is worth knowing. Gestational approaches look at the timeline of foetal development, and picks one stage or another as the new benchmark for when abortion can be restricted or banned outright. Gestational 20-week abortion bans are the tactic of choice in some regions, and one infamous Arizona 20-week ban redefined when pregnancy begins, to move the goal post back further. Incremental approaches look at creating new laws that hamper clinics’ ability to function and to impede womens’ ability to access their services, with a goal to cumulatively obstruct. The Interim clarified that “for the purpose of this survey, gestational limits means restricting abortion after a certain point, whether by trimester or some other time period.”

There is a third approach, personhood, which I wrote about before. Personhood approaches have far-reaching implications, and would ban in-vitro fertilization, since some fertilized ova are lost during implantation. They could also ban some forms of contraception, and there has already been the spectre of the state having to investigate miscarriages. It’s also not inconceivable that situations could arise in which the fetus’ life and well-being takes precedence over the mother’s (if the attending personnel want to avoid prosecution) in a medical emergency.

Stephen Woodworth’s apparent objective with Motion M-312 (and CLC’s objective for supporting it) is in hopes that personhood can be legally set at fertilization. But if his Motion were to succeed in directing the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to create a new benchmark, while PROC were to decline to go as far as complete personhood for the foetus, the inevitable resulting legislation would be gestational in nature. Because it directs PROC to interpret some stage of medical development as evidence — or as Woodworth and CLC are referring to it, “science” — of the beginning of life. Despite his intent to manufacture the (in CLC President Jim Hughes’ words) “perfect storm” on abortion in Canada, it appears that Hughes and Woodworth set themselves up for the perfect conundrum that was destined to fail even if it succeeded.

Back to the survey, though, of the 15 organizations surveyed on anti-abortion tactics, ten replied, and five of them supported gestational approaches, with five opposed (in the interest of clarity, three of those five opposed were CLC and/or affiliates, with a fourth being a frequent collaborator). Nine supported incremental legislation, including CLC — Jim Hnatiuk (leader of the Christian Heritage Party) declined to comment on incremental approaches, a possible indication that he might be further to the right than any of them, holding a “personhood or bust” viewpoint. Of them, Campaign Life Coalition Youth’s Alyssa Golob drops a hint of what might be next on the CLC agenda:

“I support incremental approaches such as parental notification, complete informed consent, defunding and ultrasound laws; basically any law that would make it extremely difficult for women to obtain abortions.”

Of course, CLC’s track to the right could be a matter of saving face. Canada’s neo-conservative far-right knows their chances of succeeding with M-312 are poor — even Woodworth has already conceded this. Even though groups have been trying to flood Parliament with petitions in support (LSN reports “hundreds,” with “nearly 19,000 different names,” even though the linked PDF shows 83 petitions, for a total of 6567 signatures as of the end of August — perhaps they’re mailing them to MPs in billionnuplicate?), barring some unexpected surprise, the Motion appears doomed. The far right is angling to land on its feet with cat-like “I meant to do that” pride, and try to harness whatever momentum they’ve received so far so that it can be channeled into the next effort.

Which appears likely to be one of incrementalism, probably targeting the funding for the procedure first, if ground chatter in Ontario and Alberta are any indication. As the history of reproductive justice, current events south of the border, and advocates like Joyce Arthur have reminded us, if the Motion goes to defeat on the 26th, that’s no reason to get complacent.

But in the meantime, it will be interesting to see whether Stephen Woodworth picks up on the message that LSN and CLC are inadvertently sending him: that he, too, is expendable in order to get exactly everything that they want… which judging by the kinds of articles LSN stirs up dissent with, ultimately includes fully banning abortion (with no exceptions), contraception, hormone therapy, in-vitro fertilization (IVF), feminism, organ donation, same-sex marriage, relationships of any type, LGBT parents, and far more.

Be careful how you choose your friends, Stephen.

Crossposted to Rabble.ca

2012: 09/18
CATEGORY: Canadian Politics
Dissecting Spin
Social Justice
Theocracy Watch
Women's Issues
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On Persecution Complexes and Rage

The interplay of rage and persecution complexes works to shape trans, LGB — and in fact all — struggles against oppression. It can become an eternal feedback loop that can stymie any attempt to move progressive causes forward, if it succeeds in establishing its circuitous pattern.

This translates to many struggles, so I’m going to speak generally and with varied examples — but I’m reminded of this most recently by the claims of persecution over a confrontation that happened at the New York dyke march, by Cathy Brennan, so will probably focus there most frequently.

(Oh dear god, I invoked the name. Now here come the bajillion bloody emails and the character assassination — it’s like goddamn Beetlejuice.)

Because I’ll be talking in generalities, I’ll be using terms like “oppressor / oppressed.” And because privilege is relative, and we all have some form of it or another relative to someone else, there are times when just about any group takes on the role of the oppressor — ourselves included. So if I jump around a bit, you’ll need to bear with me. The principle is what I’m focusing on, moreso than the many players. Rather than participate in the game, I’d rather dismantle it. Break the cycle, not perpetuate it. Read more

2012: 07/02
CATEGORY: Decolonialism
Dissecting Spin
Gender Diversity
LGBT
Sex and Gender Minorities
Social Justice
Theocracy Watch
Trans
Transsexual
Women's Issues
6 comments

M-312 Doublespeak Decoder: the “toe in the birth canal” argument.

The Canadian Centre for Bio-Ethical Reform has been sending its New Abortion Caravan from the B.C. coast to Ottawa — arriving in Toronto on Wednesday, where protesters attempted to deface the graphic posters on the truck using a coathanger. While the second hour of debate for Stephen Woodworth’s attempt to push Parliament to investigate ways to criminalize abortion (M-312) has been pushed back to the Fall, and looks destined to fail, that hasn’t stopped the far right from mobilizing efforts across the country to change the social conversation on the topic.

Others have definitively dissected Woodworth’s intentions and arguments, and I won’t dwell on that. Instead, it’s worth looking at the curious illustration that Woodworth hinges his argument on and fetishistically clings to: the “toe in the birth canal” argument.

As before, I write as someone who has never had to participate in this kind of life-changing decision, and not likely to in the future. Relatively speaking, that qualifies as a position of privilege, and needs to be deferential to those who have had those experiences. My intention in writing is to add my voice of support for reproductive freedom and justice plus encourage others to do the same, in hopes of helping to dismantling the fear and shame typically heaped upon those with experience when they speak up.

Woodworth’s trite argument is that a foetus doesn’t just magically become a person after it has completely emerged. It’s seductively simple, in a way.

And Stephen Woodworth’s “toe in the birth canal” argument is thing of beauty, if you’re interested solely in the fine art of framing an argument. It’s well-done spin. It focuses on a moment of birth that is seemingly inconsequential. To hear Woodworth tell it, an infant isn’t legally a baby until the very last toe has left the birth canal. Seems silly, doesn’t it? Makes the existing law seem totally baffling and nonsensical. Sure, abortions don’t typically take place that late in a pregnancy, unless there’s something particularly unusual happening that is threatening the life of the mother, so the point is technically moot, but there is actually a very specific reason that he has selected this particular moment to illustrate his argument.

It deflects attention from the fact that a foetus is wholly dependent upon a mother until birth, and that any rights and personhood conferred upon it take away the human rights of a living person with whom the foetus’ fate is intertwined. It erases another birth moment, which although is also not the legally pivotal moment of personhood, still emphatically illustrates this fundamental reality inherent in the existing legal status quo:

The cutting of the umbilical cord.

Moments after the last toe has left the birth canal, the umbilical cord is cut and the baby becomes an independently-living being. Until then, of course, his or her life and future potential is dependent on the mother… and her human rights must be factored into the equation. It is the first moment that a child’s fate can be symbolically seen as separated from the mother’s, and no longer transformatively impacts upon her already established legal rights.

These are all the things that are deflected from, by concentrating focus on that seemingly innocent, inconsequential “toe in the birth canal” moment. If you’ve ever worked in advertising, if you’ve ever been privy to behind-the-scenes political strategizing, and if you’ve been observing the far right spin machines, you’ll know that these things are never accidental.

The impact of personhood legislation (which, reading between the lines is what Woodworth is pushing Parliament to consider) upon the human rights of the mother cannot be overstated. South of the border, states that have enacted personhood laws have already used them to prioritize foetal care over the health of the mother, and to prosecute miscarriages and attempted suicides.

The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada recently issued a position statement on M-312 which speaks about the intertwined nature of pregnancy, and how it relates to how physicians perform their work. In it, they state:

Any change to the current definition of when life begins would fundamentally change current Canadian law and would have a substantial impact on the practice of medicine in Canada.

Current law makes it clear that a woman and her foetus in utero are treated legally as one person, not two – as one patient for a doctor, nurse, or midwife. To do otherwise would create very difficult medical and personal situations.

This motion would challenge and change the fundamental principle of women’s autonomy. It could suggest that a pregnant woman serves as a mere carrier for another person with full legal rights. As a result, her treatment would require care-givers and institutions to seek protection for the foetus’ rights through the intervention of a third party separate from, and other than, the pregnant woman herself. Any decision about her treatment would have to take into account the new legal rights of the foetus in her womb. Her own interests, needs, or choices would be considered in treatment decisions, but these would be subject to the rights of the foetus she is carrying. The foetus’ unexpressed wishes would be interpreted by proxy by courts and legislators.

…Every woman’s situation is unique. By placing these decisions in the hands of informed women and their health-care professionals, we get a system which is much more robust than a piece of “one-size-fits all” legislation ever could be.

But Woodworth doesn’t want you to notice that. He wants you to stay focused on a moment that seems inconsequential and makes the law — by extension — seem nonsensical. And as CCBR’s caravan rolls into Ottawa on Canada Day in an attempt to change the social conversation, keeping that attention diverted would suit them just fine.

(Crossposted to Rabble.ca)

2012: 06/29
CATEGORY: Canadian Politics
Dissecting Spin
Theocracy Watch
Women's Issues
1 comment

Hypocrisy on Free Speech and “Protecting Freedom.”

On June 6th (the same night that the trans human rights Bill C-279 advanced to committee) Conservative MP for Westlock – St. Paul, Brian Storseth’s Private Member’s Bill C-304, An Act to amend the Canadian Human Rights Act (protecting freedom), passed Third Reading in the House of Commons, and advanced to the Senate for ratification. Bill C-304 abolishes Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which pertains to electronic communication of hate speech.

Sun Media commentator Ezra Levant barely got through taking credit for the bill’s passage before taking advantage of a recent censure of comments he made on his television show to change focus and declare his intent to destroy the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council (CBSC) within the coming year, in the name of freedom of speech.

Both are the culmination of roughly ten years of media campaigning against speech-related laws and standards, and while the principle of freedom of speech is admirable, the application being upheld and idealized by speechies is already showing its proponents’ hypocrisy.

Bill C304 is one of several Private Members’ Bills that pundits have been watching, concerned that the procedure may be used by Conservatives to pass legislation that the party wants to maintain some plausible deniability about (another bill which has provoked concern is Blake Richards’ C-309, which proposes to ban masks at protests). And given the questionable Reform Party -era ties to hate groups, plausible deniability was probably a politically prudent approach for the Conservatives to take. Liberal and NDP Members of Parliament have previously spoken out against Storseth’s bill, but often expressed that they felt it was too contentious to pass.

Section 13 was one of the approaches used to defuse the inciting of racial hatred in Canada, and had been thought of as a way to keep neo-Nazis in check, although it’s historical use has been mixed and controversial. Ernst Zundel was the focus of several different actions against hate speech that he published in print and on his website, before he was finally deported to Germany, where they had no qualms about convicting him of 14 counts of inciting racial hatred. In December 1990, the Supreme Court of Canada also finally upheld a conviction against Jim Keegstra for a 1984 arrest after teaching Social Studies students that the Holocaust never happened.

But hate speech legislation began to lose popular support when it was used to target Macleans magazine and writer Mark Steyn for articles promoting what evolved into “Demographic Winter” lore (i.e. fears that Islamic Fundamentalists were outpopulating Western nations and would “win” by sheer numbers). It was also used against former Western Standard publisher turned Spin News Network commentator and entertainer Ezra Levant for publishing cartoons that portrayed the prophet Mohammad as a terrorist. Proceedings were later thrown out or dropped, but not without some personal cost to each, highlighting some concerns that call for some legitimate reform.

Personally, I’m not all that partial to speech legislation. I do agree that there needs to be something there to address the extremes of Zundel and Whatcott, but also that there has to be restraint on its use and the way it’s prosecuted. But at the same time, for as much as there are accusations of “fascist” motives from both left and right-wing pundits in our increasingly polarized political climate, the abolition of speech law does disarm a tool that could have provided a means to bring something of that nature about.

Free Speech and the Responsibility That Comes With It

I wrote about the subject earlier, when discussing Bill Whatcott’s Supreme Court trial, a proceeding which concerns a Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission ruling:

Hateful speech is never free. While an individual comment, or poster, or ad, or flier may be free speech, the weight of cumulative aggressions and microaggressions serve to demonize communities, alienate them, and discourage them from participating in society. As it becomes more common, accumulated hatefulness makes it seem acceptable or (to some) even necessary to act on that, and by knowing this, entire communities are terrorized in a way by each new onslaught.

And yet there is a danger in criminalizing speech. The same groups that hate is already designed to silence and intimidate into hiding could very easily become the same groups that society seeks to silence first, when given the tool of speech legislation.

Ideally, hateful speech should be answered, and called out. Hateful speech must be answered. It must be responded to. Freedom of speech is not simply a question of saying or publishing anything and everything that one might wish to say. It comes with a responsibility to answer to these things, and call them out as attitudes that need to change. The problem is that it typically isn’t answered to by the majority, and if sufficient inequality or disparate antipathy exists, the minority may either feel too disenfranchised to respond, or the channels that they need to respond in aren’t interested in giving them the opportunity.

Spin News Network personalities get particularly poor marks for positioning themselves as apparent free speech champions by promoting Islamophobes like Geert Wilders and trying to provoke hate speech complaints of their own, while at the same time making a point to run Charles McVety’s transphobic / homophobic ads without criticism or contrary opinion, calling to ban Islamic speakers, and justifying the barring of entry to people like Bill Ayers. If freedom of speech comes with a responsibility to counter those things that are hateful, then Sun Media has repeatedly shed that responsibility whenever it has been politically inconvenient to their editorial viewpoint, like skin of an embarrassing colour.

In addition to facilitating dialogue instead of squelching it, freedom of speech also comes with a responsibility to maintain some civility and decorum. Canada’s speechies often fail on that count as well. In the most recent example, Levant was condemned by the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council for an uncivil tirade last December, and his response was to flip CBSC the bird. Civility too, it seems, is no longer in fashion.

Broadcast Standards Under Fire

Levant took the opportunity to take up a campaign to destroy the CBSC:

“According to the Canadian Broadcast Stan- uh, Censors Council, that’s not actually what got me in trouble. What got me in trouble was my point of view. I wasn’t -quote- ‘balanced.’ Now, I have an opinion, that’s my job actually, to have an opinion. I don’t pretend to be a ‘neutral’ reporter here, my job is to put out my opinion forcefully….”

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council was set up at the initiative of Canadian television networks, for the purpose of establishing limits that would help immunize the industry against the kinds of complaints that could potentially result in a drive toward real censorship. It has allowed the actual government body in play — the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) — to refer complaints back to a body that champions the idea of media policing itself, rather than taking any binding action of its own. Spin News Network has been upset with the CRTC ever since the latter twice refused to make special exceptions for the station so that it could have preferred carrier status, which would put it near the top of the dial and make it mandatory for cable networks to provide it prominently. It’s not hard to guess who ~~foxnewsnorth~~‘s Sun TV’s endgame target will be, but for now, the buffer of the CBSC is in the way.

To that end, Ezra Levant has promised a 5-point campaign to destroy the Council within the coming year, by:

1. Systematically violating the CBSC’s standards on a daily basis, and inviting other censured people on his program for the purpose of reoffending;
2. Picking out what Levant describes as inconsistencies and phrasing the CBSC’s function as being outside the law — of course, the CBSC wasn’t set up as a legal body (and consequently, its rulings are non-binding), but as a voluntary code of practices that televised media in Canada decided to set for itself and abide by;
3. Mobilizing right-wingers to comment and blog incessantly on the subject;
4. Getting a bill started in Parliament — this could be interesting, since the CBSC is not a government body nor a legal body, but a voluntary media board (though to be fair, for a station to get a better placement on the dial, there is a CRTC requirement to abide by the code); and
5. Mobilizing viewers to flood MPs, the PM and the Heritage Minister with emails and letters

So, far from accepting the responsibilities that go with freedom of speech, Sun News Network and at least one commentator are dedicated to actively working against anything that encourages these responsibilities, however symbolic and voluntary it might be.

The Overton Window and Harper’s Stake

To be fair, Spin News Network and Sun Media are private corporations, and not under any obligation to provide air time or column space to dissenting voices, although arguing this point says something interesting about fair and unbiased media in Canada. For the Harper Conservatives, reaping the accolades from right-wing supporters over the passage of C-304 and acting as a government that is supposed to work on behalf of all Canadians, the same can’t be said.

The Harper Government has played both sides of the “free speech” equation by happily positioning themselves as free speech champions, while waging an economic stifling of speech through the defunding of environmental science, status of women groups, Aboriginal advocacy and human rights organizations and yet maintaining charitable status and even financial subsidies for partisan political supporters and think tanks that consistently produce convenient reports. At times, the government’s imbalanced treatment has led to intimidation tactics and accusations of terrorism in order to marginalize political opponents. The end result is a faux free speech environment in which state sanctioned speech is signal-boosted to the tune of millions of dollars, and dissent is economically marginalized to the point of having little to no avenue through which to counter spin.

Here’s why these responsibilities matter. Before his death in 2003, Joseph Overton, vice president of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy (a think tank devoted to free market ideology), proposed a political concept that has since become known as “The Overton Window.” At any given moment, the window of popular sentiment and political viability is in flux, and the key to achieving policy is to expand or shift the window to encompass it. This is done by changing the conversation through several means — including repetition, erasure and ridicule of opposition, manipulation and spin — until an idea shifts from being previously unthinkable and then radical to becoming acceptable, seemingly sensible and then popular… until it is inevitably established as policy.

If this resonates with the dramatic polarization that has been taking place in the past few years on political topics like environmentalism, abortion and birth control, government budgeting and austerity, LGBT rights, police powers, public health care, bullying, and social programs like EI and welfare, then you’ve obviously noticed the explosion of concerted campaigns to shift that window. And move, it clearly has. I’m betting that most of us in our lifetime never would have thought we’d be fighting for the availability of the Pill, watching neo-conservatives fight for the right to deny medical care, or expecting CNN to run a semi-sympathetic profile of a “kinder, gentler” Ku Klux Klan.

This happens not from free speech, but from abdicating the responsibilities that come with it — or, in the case of defunding and silencing unfavorable speech, making concerted efforts to control the conversation.

The free speech advocates in media and government are less interested in promoting diversity of speech, and more interested in shifting the window of where and how that speech occurs.

(Crossposted to Rabble.ca)

2012: 06/19
CATEGORY: Canadian Politics
Dissecting Spin
Social Justice
Theocracy Watch
1 comment

When even silence fails: On affirmation (part 3)

This is part of a 3-part series on LGBT-inclusive anti-bullying education, centering around the Day of Silence, which encourages students to take a vow of silence for the day, to bring attention to anti-LGBT bullying and harassment. It occurs on April 20th.

Part 1: When even silence offends: on the 2012 push from the North American far-right to subvert and antagonize Day of Silence participants.
and: When even silence “persecutes:” on the ongoing conflicts in Canada, and a new game of declaring “homophobia” a hate word.

Part 2: When even silence can be exploited: on how the far right’s “No Pro Homo” policy has been tried before.
and: When even silence “indoctrinates:” on why the failure of “No Pro Homo” doesn’t register as a failure in the mind of the far right.

Part 3: When even silence fails: on the need for affirmation.

It boils down to affirmation. Beneath all the rhetoric, the issue is not about speech or parental rights, but about fears that affirmation might enable or “encourage” someone to be gay or trans.

When I attended school, there was every reason for me to believe that the core of who I was would make me a target. At that time, we didn’t really understand what transsexuality was — I hadn’t even heard the word until I was around twelve, and when I did I ran to my bedroom and wept for hours at the realization that if there was a word for it, then I wasn’t the only one. The next day, I went to the library and sought out the “authority” on transsexualism… who at that time was Janice Raymond, so that messed me up for another several years.

Affirmation? Hell, I was alone in a school and a church that taught me that I and everyone like me was pure evil. As much as I tried to “man up” and hide, I was inevitably target — usually labeled a “fag” or a “gimp” or a “homo” rather than anything about being trans (hey, it was the mid-1980s), but a target nonetheless.

I won’t go into the effect it had on me, but do want to emphasize something. Getting pushed around, harassed, intimidated, terrorized, sometimes beaten up… none of these things were the worst part of the bullying. Bill Maher hit the nail on the head about what the worst part was:

“And there’s another way that I was bullied that I would like to mention, because I haven’t heard people talk about it, but I feel it’s just as bad as being beat up. Although that happened to me a couple of times too. And that is bullying by ostracism: when they separate you from the pack, and no one talks to you. And they give you the cold shoulder. And you’re suddenly not somebody who is welcome in the group. I remember that hurting me very much. To my core….”

It was the devastation of being so completely alone, isolated and incompatible with the rest of the planet that was the worst of it. Alone-ness. It’s the isolating effect of being targeted… and that, more than the bullying itself, is devastating. That’s what I couldn’t bear. If I had felt I wasn’t completely alone, the rest probably wouldn’t have mattered as much.

As we’ve already seen, the U.S. and Canadian far-right see being gay or trans as a choice, that kids aren’t any of those things to begin with and that affirmation and support simply encourage sinful decision-making. Yet my own experience showed me that being trans was present in my life right from the beginning, was never something I could switch on or off like a light, and knowing that it was some taboo subject that dare not speak its name was an incredibly isolating and suffocating experience. I wrote previously about the need to affirm LGBT students:

… kids absolutely do have a right to be affirmed as people, no matter how they might identify themselves. I say that as someone who recognizes that children and teens are complex but rational, far from the helpless victims we tend to see them as, and very often far more mature than we give them credit for. I personally do not subscribe to the “heads as empty vessels theory” that postulates that they just accept anything that we put in there. Underlying the fear of orientation and gender identity -inclusive sex education is a belief that kids are vulnerable to ”recruiting,” which is an argument that only works if you believe that kids have no will of their own and that one’s sexuality is entirely a choice – my experience tells me otherwise on both counts.

One thing I do know is that we experience life – and particularly emotion – much more intensely when we’re young. And in a society that is still so entirely pervasive with homophobic and transphobic attitudes, disenfranchisements and signals, the absence of affirmation of students’ right to seek identity and claim the one that fits them becomes a suffocating vacuum of fear of stepping outside the rules that police gender and orientation, thus inviting wrath. It’s a literal hell to live through.

The mere absence of bullying — assuming that any policy could actually guarantee it in real life — is not going to accomplish an environment where kids are able to live and breathe and find the freedom to become people functioning at their fullest potential.

That’s why support is vital. That’s why it’s crucial for LGBT and allied kids to be able to form Gay-Straight Alliances and form communities of their own without shame and without the educational institution sanctioning antagonism against their attempts to do so. Especially for those kids who don’t have that kind of lifeline at home. In enforcing that No Pro Homo environment, parents are isolating kids, forcing them to withdraw into themselves, instilling into them the belief that they are all alone in their struggles.

Parents will and do teach their kids. They will and do pass on their attitudes about homosexuality and transsexuality (contrary to claims that things like the Day of Silence will silence them). So be it. Speech isn’t the issue, here. The issue is whether parents have the right to ensure that their children are sheltered from any and all contradictory beliefs that might allow them to form their own opinions and develop critical thinking for themselves. The issue is whether those parents have the right to prevent school administration from providing safe haven or support from this kind of bullying for LGBT kids, in the name of their religious freedom and their rights as parents.

When even silent protest is seen as “indoctrination, just promoting homosexuality and transgenderism,” certainly anything that acknowledges that LGBT people exist and dares to affirm their right to be — rather than assailing them as aberrant abominations, “sexual deviants” and demon-possessed — is apparently unacceptable. And this is how the far right (again, not to be confused with all those of any particular faith) does its level best to enforce or at least shelter the practice of bullying LGBT youth, rather than end it.

Meanwhile

Meanwhile, the battles go on. In Altona, Manitoba, after parent protest, the teachers who had displayed the Ally cards in their classrooms were ordered to remove the Ally language and leave only the word Ally in a rainbow flag. This was still unacceptable, and with the assistance of Culture Guard / Roadkill Radio’s Kari Simpson, parents penned a letter threatening to sue, threatening to post photos and personal information of the teachers who were displaying the signs (and possibly the school board?) to some sort of “report a teacher” website. Says Manitoba parent Wes Martens of the Ally signs:

“…Then they replaced it with a statement that… it’s pretty good, it’s not perfect, but it says ‘As a teacher I am your ally and I support all the children in this classroom’ or something like that it said. We don’t like the word ‘ally’ in there and we’re gonna try and get that removed, but at least this is a major victory to get this, the flag and the Ally card are down.”

Because even the slightest silent implication of support for LGBT kids continues to offend.

(Crossposted to Rabble.ca)

2012: 04/17
CATEGORY: Dissecting Spin
LGBT
Theocracy Watch
Youth
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DBM is collection of theory, politics and advocacy for trans, LGBT, sex and gender minorities, and their place in a decolonial world. From Alberta-based writer Mercedes Allen and guests.

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