Today’s lesson in looking beyond your initial, perhaps, visceral reaction to a news story without seeing that a careful reading of an event or a statement might show that within it is the very thing that inadvertently supports an idea to which the principle players have been opposed, but closely examined shows many arguments are convenient and situational, comes courtesy of the Catholic Diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts, where the attempt to justify the support of a political opinion shows, if examined, to be a false, arbitrary, and insincere ruse.
The obvious, outward story is that after over a year of the Nativity School of Worcester, a Catholic school, flying a Black Lives Matter flag and a Pride flag according to flag etiquette below the American flag, the bishop told the school to remove them or face being removed from the roster of Catholic schools and lose the right to call itself one.
“Symbols can mean different things to different people. While the Catholic Church joins with our nation in teaching that all lives are equal before God and the law and that all lives demand our respect regardless of race, gender or ethnicity, the flag with the emblem Black Lives Matter has at times been coopted by some factions which also instill broad-brush distrust of police and those entrusted with enforcing our laws. We do not teach that in our schools. And, while we teach that everyone is created in the image and likeness of God, Gay Pride flags are often used to stand in contrast to consistent Catholic teaching that sacramental marriage is between a man and a woman. Is the school committing itself to ideologies which are contrary to Catholic teaching? If so, is it still a Catholic school? As the Bishop of this diocese, I must teach that it is imperative that a Catholic School use imagery and symbols which are reflective of that school’s values and principles so as to be clear with young people who are being spiritually and morally formed for the future. While our role in a school is not to convert those who are not Catholic, nor is it our role to deny our Catholic identity.”
Read the quote again, carefully, and look pass the main story.
According to the school’s president, Tom McKenney,
“Nativity School of Worcester is an accredited, independent, Jesuit middle school that provides a quality, tuition-free education to a highly diverse group of underserved boys of many faiths, races and cultures. The school is supported solely through the generosity of individuals, foundations and corporations. We proudly operate in the Diocese of Worcester but are not a Diocesan school as we are sponsored by the USA East Province of Jesuits. Drawing upon four pillars – strength, scholarship, character, and service – a Nativity education inspires self-discovery, responsibility, spiritual growth, and a lifelong dedication to learning. The school employs well-tested educational practices in a highly supportive and safe environment that sets the stage for success in high school, college and life. The Black Lives Matter and Pride flags fly below the American flag at our school to remind our young men, their families and Nativity Worcester staff that all are welcome here and that they are valued and safe in this place. It says to them that they, in fact, do matter and deserve to be respected as our Christian values teach us. That is the purpose of flying these flags.”
Seems a little more substantive in the reasons for flying the flag as opposed to removing either one or both for obviously political reasons.
So, the main components of the obvious story are the Jesuit school vs the bishop, the idea that if a bishop’s politics do not necessarily match yours you can lose the right to call yourself Catholic, and these symbols are only divisive because one new component of Catholicism seems to be rejecting people to keep the Pharisees happy.
This and all connected with that part of the story will be debated for some time now. We will leave it aside.
The other part of the story, the thing that caught my eye, is very important if not missed.
In an earlier blog I referred to a situation in which a judge is requiring more of the non-gestational parent in a same sex marriage beyond the name on the birth certificate than is required of the non-gestational parent in the same situation if the couple were straight. This difference in treatment would imply a bit of inequality between opposite sex and same sex marriages that the judge accepts in spite of it being called “Marriage Equality” for a reason.
The case involves a same sex legally married couple who had to have their relationship dissolved through the legal divorce process as opposed to one of them just moving out. The fact that the judge is even handling the case shows he knows that it is a legal marriage and therefore one equal to a straight one.
So, while attempting to reduce the value of the marriage, because he is hearing a divorce related case, equality is implied and should be recognized as such by the judge.
There are those who, in their opposition to same sex marriages, claim that the Bible has established one man and one woman as the only model recognized by most major religions.
Those in favor of same sex marriage do not see any requirement for any religious belief, cleric, or church to make a wedding legal as it is a civil arrangement between two people and the state.
For the latter group, the church can continue to have any requirements it wants for its faithful to get married according to its rules and to be considered so by other congregants. Beyond the civil license, an oath in front of a witness, and a signature on the legal papers that they must require of their congregants to make the church marriage legal in the eyes of the state, the church has no say in the civil marriage realm other than to follow the non-church rules.
Church doctrine should have no sway over marriages not performed under church rules.
Years ago, my Pre-Vatican II Catholic aunt married a Lutheran, and, although the church saw her as excommunicated for doing that, in the eyes of the state they were married and she, a Catholic, just went to the Lutheran church with her husband because they had no problem with an inter-faith marriage and followed their rules.
But, marriage is marriage and Jesus and all.
The bishop, however, has made a very clear distinction in his statement when he said,
“Catholic teaching that sacramental marriage is between a man and a woman.”
If marriage were just marriage, why would he say, “Sacramental marriage”, and not just “marriage”?
Because he knows that church and state marriages are not one and the same. Marriage in a church means nothing civilly until after the ceremony the couple sign the legal papers as they often do immediately in the sacristy, and not before as there could be a jilting, while getting married in City Hall requires no action related to the church.
A church wedding could mean nothing more to some couples than a fashion statement.
If you get married civilly, you get over 300 benefits involving income, taxes, property, legal rights, inheritance. Get married solely in a church you don’t get those. You get church stuff.
This being the case and, as the bishop so publicly stated, there is such a thing as sacramental marriage, then the churches should stick to dealing with that and not trying to change the legal and civil definition of marriage between two consenting adults.
Whenever the religious right goes after any type of marriage and demands the government change marriage for everyone to follow more closely their own church’s beliefs and rules, they must be reminded that no one is talking about “Sacramental Marriage”, but civil ones and they need to acknowledge that and leave those who are not members of their churches alone.
They can do whatever they want within their own religions, but, since they acknowledge the two types of marriage, they should “stay in their lanes”.
In light of the new adaptation of marriage instituted in Tennessee and Lauren Boebert’s demand that revealing one’s sexual Identity before 21 should be illegal, we have a conservative, bigot conundrum.
Under a new Tennessee law, since established civil marriage consists of a man and a woman or two people of the same sex, thus affording both all the civil benefits of a legal marriage, Common law marriages between people of the opposite sex that requires neither a church blessing or a legal contract are equal to those duly married. However, as it is not modifying existing marriage laws and requirements for marriage but instituting a new form of marriage, beyond that as is considered the only biblically and, therefore, legally recognized form, that is only available to heterosexual people.
Because there are no rules regarding age limits in shacking up as there are with marriage, these types of marriages do not have a minimum age for either the man or woman, so child marriages are now legal provided it is not the traditional legal marriages with at the restrictions.
Here is where Boebert clashes.
Lauren Boebert wants to put a minimum age limit for a person to acknowledge their gender.
“We require people to be 21 to purchase alcohol beverages, and 21 to purchase tobacco products. Why is it so unreasonable to require people to reach a certain level of maturity before making life-altering decisions about their sexuality and identity?”
if people can’t legally drink or buy tobacco products until 21, why not the same limit for mentioning your gender?
We could do the same with gun ownership.
This High School dropout left school because she was pregnant by the man she would marry and who had been arrested for waving his privates in front of some girls at a bowling alley. They now have four happy, gun toting children.
She was sexually active while still in high school and, obviously, was aware of her gender and let it be known publicly, or this was quite the way for her to find it out.
In Tennessee a person must be at least 17 to get married and there are requirements for parental consent for anyone younger.
In a Common Law marriage, there is no need for parental consent, although the conversations among family members at gatherings could be awkward, or not, after the moving in together.
But, again, this only applies to heterosexual, male/female couplings, and not same sex ones.
However, since anyone under 21 cannot announce their gender legally, how will the partners in a common law marriage know whether they get any benefits as their gender is Schrodinger’s cat until they both hit 21 and will only find out then if their common law marriages should finally get the benefits because it had been heterosexual one or won’t because at the 21 Birthday/Reveal party, the gender surprise could rule that out.
The default stance until then is gender-neutral.
Boebert has actually crossed wires with the other act of bigotry and may cancel that out in favor of her own ideas or at least cause a heck of a lot of confusion.
Boebert wants a federal law that would include Tennessee.
It will be interesting if that state rebels because gender reveal laws are state rights as are underage brides and grooms.
Right off the bat, let me offer an explanation so that, instead of going off on a tangent and missing the point as is often done on social media and in blog comments, the topic can be considered.
Quite often when the word “Homophobia” is used, self-appointed. Literal linguists who view things in tunnel-vision absolutes will point out that, although the “Homo’ part is correct, the “Phobia” part is the source of the claim the term is a misnomer. Phobia means fear, and as people do not fear Homosexuals, but pity them and hate them, their dislike should not be seen as fear, but the hatred it is.
However, just as with Christians, by their fruit you shall know them.
In all the recent anti-Gay legislation proposed, passed, and signed into law, the reasons for them generally deal with fear.
They fear that Trans girls will destroy sports, kids using the restroom that matches their correct gender, Gay teachers being visible might turn the good kids Gay.
In spite of the hundreds of books, poems, essays, short stories, movies, school activities, school staff with spouses and children and constant religious reminders, books are being moved out of school libraries because all the latter could be erased if a child reads a book where Heather Has Two Mommies.
They fear the innate power of people who cause tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, wild fires, all manner of natural disasters, and, most recently. the war in Ukraine.
Regardless of the claim you do not fear them, if all your laws concerning Homosexuals are based on the fear of what destruction we can wrought, then it is obviously a phobia.
They may not say they fear Homosexuals, but they certainly base their motivation on the fear of imagined horrors.
They are so concerned about the name as opposed the actions based on it, they can even confuse themselves.
If you only say negative and exaggeratedly so things about Gay people with never a positive word, you really cannot say you like someone and all the things you do and say should not influence people’s perception of that love, then you cannot say you like someone.
When it comes to the “Don’t Say Gay” legislation in various states, Marjorie Taylor Greene has stated that she intends to introduce a federal bill while referring to Gay men as predatorial, and because these bills apply to all those letters that represent people, by extension all of them too.
She has stated that the GLBT movement is “predatorial.
Previously she had called for violence against Transgender people.
At a recent white nationalist conference, she spoke against Trans people.
Getting desperate with her anti-Gay idiocies, she also attacked Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, totally showing her lack of understanding about what Gay actually is, advising Mayor Pete and his husband to “stay out of our girls’ bathrooms.”
They are Gay men. Why would that be a fear?
Years ago, as an openly and well-known Gay teacher in the Bible Belt, I was in the grocery store one day when a woman with a gold cross around her neck pulled her daughter closer to her and hissed that I better leave her daughter alone. I was, at the time, across the aisle reaching for a can of soup. I also had some parents remove their daughters from my classes to protect them from the Gay predator.
As far as their daughters were concerned in both situations, I was the safest person they could be with, unlike the Anti-Gay assistant principal who promoted the Gay predator trope, and was dismissed from his position losing his certification and his license to practice law that he had just earned after years of night school because he had sexually propositioned female students in his office.
Regarding the overpowering ability of Gay people to undo society as we know it, Greene has warned,
“Every single person needs to be all hands on deck and protecting our children and stopping this radical sexualization of children. They’re basically exploiting them, brainwashing them, indoctrinating them.”
“This is outrageous. We need to be willing to stop it. They have an agenda. And the agenda is very clear: It’s to sexualize children, and it’s to confuse them and make them think they can choose their gender, which absolutely they cannot. And I will stand on God’s truth every single time, there are two genders—male or female. … It’s in the Bible. It’s in Genesis.”
Greene went on to double down on her comments about Pete Buttigieg’s husband, suggesting he was exhibiting predatory behavior for expressing GLBT pride at a day camp for GLBT kids and letting the kids know they have more to be proud of than ashamed of.
“This is predatorial. Anyone who is against stopping this and is saying, ‘No, they should be allowed to indoctrinate children into wrong sexual immorality,’ you know what that means: that they are pro predatorial behavior.
“These are predators, these are absolutely child predators,” Greene said. “Not only are we talking about pedophiles, but were talking about anyone who is willing to coerce a child, indoctrinate a child about sex, about themselves and their own body—that is indoctrination, that his predatory behavior and it must to be stopped at all means necessary.”
The offending pledge was
“I pledge my heart to the rainbow of the not-so-typical gay camp. One camp, full of pride, indivisible, with affirmation and equal rights for all.”
Marjorie thought he should have said the Pledge of Allegiance because, well, just because.
“We’re not hateful, we’re not homophobic,” Greene added.
When asked what could be done, Greene called for legislation.
“There should be no federal funding for any school, any school anywhere that is indoctrinating children, that is teaching them to change their gender, that is teaching them anything sick and disgusting like this.”
When asked if she would write a bill or introduce a bill to this effect, she replied,
“Absolutely, 100 percent,” Greene I will meet with my team right after this interview and we will get to work on it.”
Interestingly her statements were made on InfoWars run by Alex Jones not known for caring about children
If you base legislative action on the fear that if children are exposed to Gay-positive information and people, and, in spite of their church, their family, the books, TV shows, movies, advertisements its being available in a school library but not mandatory will turn children, this is a fear, a Phobia.
It also brings into question how, if being heterosexual is the natural, ordained by an all- powerful, incapable of making mistakes deity sexual orientation, why would it be so easy to erase all that because of one book.
That is fear.
And, you cannot say when using the term “Homophobia” that you do not hate the Gays and then refer to them as predators and pedophiles by nature, and claim you like someone.
And you cannot base legislation on preventing what simply is just not there because you are afraid of the consequences and the people bringing them about without acknowledging it is based on fear.
So, in spite of reality and the experience of people who know Gay people, have worked with them, and who might be part of a loving generational family with Gay members, Greene and those like her are going back to the long-debunked claim that all Gay people are predators from who children must be protected.
For Greene, Gay is the New Cooties, and we must stop the Gay “radical sexualization of children.”
We can leave that to the sexual deviant politicians and church clerics and the GOP participants in coke fuel “Sexual Get Togethers.”
I was enjoying a drink or two on a recent Friday afternoon with the afterwork crowd. Good people, and a good mix of them. The crowd is not only mixed in regard to race, color, creed, national origin, and gender, but the bar having been a Women’s bar that gained a more inclusive clientele after an axe attack in the Gay bar a few blocks away, and this and the closure of one or two “straight bars” in the area caused a migration that settle in this one.
The only expectation is that as you are in a bar originally a safe haven for women, especially Lesbians, understand you are basically a guest in another’s space, so act respectfully.
Occasionally the situation arises where a Gay person might have to explain something to a straight patron who, in their innocence and not their malice, made a statement that needs to be addressed for clarification and the education of the person with the wrong impression or idea and sometimes just explaining things from the non-heterosexual side of the aisle.
One of the aspects of the dreaded “Homosexual Lifestyle” often overlooked is the continuing education component as Gay people are constantly teaching Straights what Gay is all about.
Such a “teachable moment” recently became necessary when in response to a news report on the bar’s television about Trans girls and laws banning them from high school sports teams and that these laws required that school personnel must “out” a student to the parents whether the child wants the parent to know or the parents aren’t ready for this news yet before the kid has even processed the whole thing, the patron next to me, a straight man who has grown a lot over the years but still needs some minor clarifications of residual misconception asked what is the objection to telling the parents.
Rather than cover the difficulties of coming out from a Gay person’s experience which would require additional explanations along the way, I went a more direct route and answered the question knowing this his wife’s job required she sign the legally binding statement that she would report any suspicions of child abuse or face dismissal, legal proceeding and decertification if she did not and it was found she hadn’t.
I related to him that at some point in my teaching career, in order to deal with child abuse and sexual molestation, a law was passed requiring that teachers report any suspicions of child abuse, physical or mental, erring on the side of caution, the requirement, judging from her age his wife had always had to do in her profession. information he was aware of because of his wife.
Once the teacher passed a suspicion into the main office, the teacher would be out of the loop as the suspicion was investigated further up the line until it was either proven or dismissed, and it would only be when a conclusion was reached requiring a hearing at which the teacher might have to testify that the teacher would be brought backed in.
Confidentiality and anonymity allowed for such reports to be made without the fear of harm to the staff member reporting the suspicion and/or the student who would most likely face some retribution from the abuser.
The teacher was protected by this because it eliminated the chance for the alleged perpetrator to take any retaliatory actions off school grounds.
If a teacher were to be found to have been in a position to pass on a suspicion and didn’t and if it turns out there was abuse, the teacher could lose certification and further harm could have been done to the student.
The choice between following the law and self-preservation is thus eliminated.
One year I had a student whose arms were often covered in black and blue bruised. He often wore long sleeve shirts to class or kept a coat or jacket on in class, but in gym other students could see the bruises that weren’t seen in the classroom, and some became concerned.
I would occasionally notice them when he would move in such a way his clothes did not move fast enough to cover the bruised when he would stand at the end of class.
Because of what I and his classmates noticed and mentioned, and with more than one essay written by the student hinting at unpleasantness at home, concerned for the student and required by law to report suspicions, I informed the principal of my suspicions and assumed, my part being done, he would follow the procedure that was required of him. The steps after my reporting would be taken with me knowing nothing until the conclusion of any investigation and the student and eventually the abuser unaware who filed the report.
The morning after I submitted my report, the student was not in class. During that class there was a knock on my door and when I opened it, there stood the principal, the student, and his grandfather with whom he lived, a man I had seen often as he lived near my neighborhood so we frequented the same local merchants and eateries and who I assumed knew me the same way.
The principal then asked me to explain to the grandfather what my suspicions were and upon what I based them.
Instead of the protection of anonymity, there I stood facing an angry man who, if the suspicions were found to be true, would be capable of objecting to my reporting suspected abuse in a very physical way.
Next to him was his visibly bruised grandson who would have to deal with his grandfather’s anger for purposely or by not being careful enough to hide the signs “turned him in” and would later face a physical response for that being confirmed by this hallway meeting.
The student, meanwhile, under these circumstances was angry with me because I had filed a report for which he would now pay without letting him know I intended to do that.
As things worked out, it was a good thing I had passed on my suspicions but breaking the anonymity and confidentiality could have resulted in an additional potential victim, the teacher, who could potentially become, along with the student, a victim of his grandfather’s anger.
What I told the principal was confidential, but his having passed this info on to the kid’s grandfather could have had long-lasting, life-threatening consequences with the breaking of the trust such a report relies on.
A trans student confiding in an adult because that person is trusted and safe, and, perhaps, as kids do, this was the teacher with whom they established rapport, is a serious thing. The student does not want or need the consequences that being out might produce before they are completely ready to face that
In exchange for a supportive ear.
And Trans student face consequences outside of school that should not be faced until ready.
I went to the principal in confidence. Who knows what damage and harm that kid faced from that hallway meeting which resulted only in the student being remove from my class because of my reporting and the grandfather not wanting me to see more of what I had seen, as he claimed I was exaggerating?
The gentleman next to me may not have grasped the full weight of a Trans student being outed to parents before the time is right, but he did recognize the danger in a confidence being broken and saw that school staff were being put in the position of having to act like that principal regardless of consequences. I know all analogies limp, but as this parable worked in this case, walk it off.
Ah, the Bonaventuran Trinitarian Aspect: Things tend to come in threes or in numbers divisible by it.
Although, because he was a monk his belief was Biblically based with examples like the three members of the Holy Family, three nails at the crucifixion, three days between death and resurrection, twelve Apostles, and the six days of creation, we might easily dismiss it, we do so while ignoring that these days the Trinitarian Aspect applies to celebrity deaths.
Regarding myself, my three major frustrations form my Trinitarian Aspect and they are connected by the common desire of people not wanting to know what is not already known, even as like Schrodinger’s cat, it is both useful and not until you look at it.
Although my 2009 Civil Court case was ostensibly about my claim that I had been wrongfully dismissed from my teaching position as it was based on fabricated evidence and documentation, it would have had a broader application to all teachers if the union leadership did not get mired in the Gay teacher getting fired part of it, but saw how the Gay teacher was fired and how the process, applied as it was to many teachers, had unfairly arrived at that conclusion.
Although by contract a teacher cannot be dismissed without just cause, which means any accusation upon which the dismissal is based must be accompanied by evidence to support that, what the contract does not cover is how this evidence is collected and how it is reviewed both in closed and open sessions of the school board.
The process had generally been that if for whatever reason beyond gross and obvious incompetence an administrator wanted a teacher dismissed be it political, religious, or personal differences, or the administrator would like the job open to someone with whom they have a bond such as a friend or relative, in lieu of real evidence, what they needed would be fabricated.
Meanwhile, after collecting what the administration considered evidence, the teachers would be shown the evidence and given the option to go before the board and deal with accusations and defenses in public, potentially losing their appeal, and being unable to get another job in the field because of the dismissal and the reasons for it on their record.
The popular option offered to teachers was to offer the chance for avoiding all that by simply accepting the dismissal quietly and leaving, maintaining control of the narrative until they left if their dismissal was not immediate, and gossip began. In exchange for this silent departure, all the documents except the good ones on file would be handed to the teacher to destroy and even really bad teachers could get employment elsewhere. .
Even if the evidence was so totally fabricated as to be obvious, this was usually the one chosen because the administration of the district controlled the hearing according to a process and that prevented a teacher from presenting evidence the administration thought might disprove their charges or answering questions about things that needed clarification. Prior to the hearing, all the teacher’s evidence had to be handed over to the administration’s attorney who would excise any evidence in favor of the teacher and return what remained to the teacher or the teacher’s representative, if there was one, and was the only evidence the teacher was allowed to present.
There were other procedural actions that were allowed and disallowed such as who could speak and who could answer questions during a dismissal hearing, but the application of the rules was dependent on how the situation would affect the mostly predetermined outcome.
With teachers quietly leaving, this system was never exposed until the Gay teacher decided not to go quietly and fought the dismissal in court where raw, unredacted evidence could be presented to the judge without administrative editing.
When the Gay teacher won both at the district and appellate court level, the union leadership was glad the Gay stuff was over, and they could move on. What they failed to see was that when the standard procedure was challenged, all that it was based on was exposed, and, therefore, being so exposed could be ended and a fairer and more just process would have to be devised that did not victimize teachers.
Because the School Board chose to appeal the appellate court’s decision to the state Supreme Court, and the principal at the school to which the Gay teacher had been assigned after his win had claimed to have evidence to show the teacher was actually incompetent, the union leadership decided the district court and the appellate court wins were pure luck, so they would not invest time or money in a case whose luck might run out at the Supreme Court level.
The teacher could not afford to pursue the case on his own and saw that this unnecessary prolongation of the case was a distraction from the actual issue—the safety of Gay kids in school—keeping attention on him rather than his goal.
A year later, after the teacher had left the system, the evidence he had accumulated since he had been assigned to his final school to which he was exiled for his winning the court case, showed that not only his evaluations and certain negative documents in his file were fabricated, but it was the same with any other teacher under that principal who the principal wanted to eliminate and, by having “weeded out” all the bad teachers, could polish his image as an effective educational leader who took no shortcuts in educating the children under his career. This evidence that union could have used at the Supreme Court level to show the continuance of the already revealed unfair practices of administrators when it came to teacher evaluations and dismissals was used in another case filed by other teachers and students against that principal that showed he was extremely creative with record keeping, changing grades and attendance records to serve his purposes, and had, indeed, fabricated the basis of his ridiculous number of teachers he put on Plans of Improvement and potential dismissal.
This principal lost his job and the chance of any future employment in his chosen career anywhere as the case had been public and would follow him wherever he went.
But, because it was a Gay Thing and thankfully over, the tunnel vision of union leadership was a betrayal of the teachers and support for the system used against them.
For their own comfort, the leadership chose to support the district and eventually that principal until with egg on their face, they had to admit they had been wrong in that case but carefully avoided any discussion of the effect of that on all teachers.
II
Teaching in various places in different states, I met people of many cultures that I had the privilege of experiencing and years of their families’ presence in this country and on this continent. Teaching Immigrant children and their families opened my eyes to the many more reasons people come to this country besides coming here for opportunity. Some came to stay alive. Some children had come here alone, sent in their desperation by their parents to a relative they barely knew in a place foreign to them on multiple levels.
I am generations away from being an immigrant, so, the interaction with my students and their parents was an education.
When I returned to Massachusetts, I did what I had found was something I just did over the years. I tried to get involved in my community, not just live in it.
During the Trump years when anti-immigrant words and deeds multiplied, living in a city with a large immigrant population, a city whose character was formed by refugees and immigrant for generations, I started attending meetings dealing with the political assaults on immigrants regardless of their status.
Accidentally, as opposed divine direction, as I was researching something, I came across a Massachusetts law from 1843 that was still on the books as it was never actively removed and is, like those weird laws on eating ice cream while walking backward, not whistling in certain places or any of those laws that were at one time necessary for some now obscure reason but are no longer, yet are still on the books and applicable when convenient.
Congress is an example of the Perry Mason aha move of surprising everyone by applying and unused, obscure, but still existing law or rule.
Granted it came at a certain time, but it is still there.
General laws: Part 1:Title XV: Section 102:
“(a) All persons within the Commonwealth regardless of sex, race, color, creed or national origin, shall have, except as is otherwise provided or permitted by law, the same rights enjoyed by white male citizens, to make and enforce contracts, to inherit, purchase, to lease, sell, hold and convey real and personal property, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property, and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, and to no other.
I have presented this law at many immigration meetings and have sent copies to immigrant and legal advocacy groups like the local ACLU with no or simply dismissive responses.
At an immigration ally forum, I took the opportunity to publicly present this law to a panel of immigrant and legal experts for their thoughts, but they instantaneously decided that because it was written in 1843 and refers to White men, it is obviously a dedicated law applying only to former slaves.
Nowhere in this law does it mention race other than white men who were at that time the benchmark of rights and generally still are considered to be. Without specifically mentioning former slaves, “All persons within the commonwealth” covers all races and women.
According to that law, women had the vote in Massachusetts since 1843, but because Susan B Anthony, in spite of having family in New Bedford and perhaps not aware of the law, hopefully not ignoring it, chose to vote in New York state, which had no such law, instead of the one where she could have applied that law and sealed the deal, making it clear the law applied equally to women.
This law was written not by Twentieth Century progressives, but by those from the first half of the Nineteenth when people making the laws were in the majority White men.
GLBT people and other groups should have never been forced to fight for their rights as they already had them.
If the law was not used in the past when it should have been, we can rectify this error of oversight by using it now and insisting it be followed.
As people are demanding the state institute some form of this law in whole, part, or in increments, they will not even consider looking at it, dismissing it without consideration, not answering phone calls or written inquiries, digital or hardcopy, regardless how many.
It might not be as useful as I might think it is in the skirmishes about social justice, but how will that be known if no one looks at this law or takes longer than the time between the last word of the law being read out loud and the response begun to consider it. There was no time for thought or any requests for the source from which I pulled the law.
III
Taken in its entirety, it was a 25-year process.
From 1997 to 2009, The Oklahoma City school district refused to broaden its policies on bullying, harassment, and nondiscrimination to include, at first, sexual orientation and then, also gender identity as people became more informed about gender. In justifying its reluctance, district spokespeople, individual administrators, and school board members employed the standard, unfounded, baseless, and theoretical tropes that such inclusion would result in the promotion of wild promiscuous sex, Gay students and their parents, seeing the chance for instant riches, would file an unending number of frivolous lawsuits and would attempt to take over and then seek revenge for all past transgressions, real or imagined, and Gay students would take over the school and make all school activities into Gay events with nonstop Gay Pride parades and decorations omnipresent in the schools.
Gay books would become required reading, and little children would be taught how to be Gay and unlike in other subject areas the kids might resist learning, in this case, they would demonstrate their eagerness to learn with their desire and follow up actions to give up their overriding, natural, God-given sexual orientation and become Gay. With the ability to actually do that in the classroom, any teacher who accomplishes that should be recognized for excellence in education.
However, in spite of the prophesies which were often accompanied with Bible verses to give them weight, the words “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” were finally added and none of the predictions have come true.
Because these words were added in December 2009, while seniors may have ended their school years with these protection in their final semester, the first graders beginning their education the following academic year, began their school years with those protections and in May 2022 will graduate as the first class in the city and the state to have had these protections in place with nothing negative or society destroying taking place during that time.
When Oklahoma, or any state legislatures for that matter, starts bringing up all the tropes about GLBT people, with an obsessive emphasis on the Ts, like books in school libraries and positive information in schools, this was a twelve year case study that shows that in those twelve years not only was it obvious the threats never materialized, but it was so obvious that this once reluctant school district with no prolonged advocacy added “gender expression” approximately halfway through those twelve years.
For twelve years so far,
“The Oklahoma City Public School District (OKCPS) does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, age, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, genetic information, alienage, veteran, parental, family and marital status in its programs and activities, or in its employment decisions, and provides equal access to the Boy Scouts of America and other designated youth groups.”
And the world still turns.
Those proposing anti-gay legislation are making the same claims from the past, just as theoretical and unfounded as then, but still have nothing observable or measurable to support their claims.
The Oklahoma City Public Schools is observable and measurable evidence to refute those claims.
They may attempt to lessen reality by saying that the problems have yet to materialize, but, when they originally made the claim they would happen, the claim was that they would happen instantly.
In spite of the present apoplectic rantings that allowing Transgender kids to play on a team or not making laws that do not allow them to play on teams that correspond with their actual gender will be unfair for girls, with the inclusion of Gender Identity during those twelve years where Trans kids were not forbidden to play on the appropriate team, none of what was supposed to have happened did in those twelve years.
Inclusion caused no harm.
Now that state’s governor has chosen to ignore this evidence from his own capitol city and pass bills to actively exclude Trans kids from playing sports to solve a problem already proven not to exist.
Since the middle of the first decade of the 21st Century, the OKC Public Schools have had the biography of Bayard Rustin and a book on the Stonewall Rebellion in their high school libraries, close to 18 years now. The books were donated during the time a State Representative, Sally Kern, started her crusade to remove “Homosexually themed” books out of the general collection of books in public libraries and placed in a separate area because people who read those books would either be shocked to their core with their religious beliefs assaulted, or would turn to a life of lewdness and promiscuity, and totally remove any such books from school libraries.
The arguments then are the same as those offered now as red states go after books in school libraries.
There has been no noticeable increase in student activity, no one has decided because of a book they want to be gay.
Those books have had no negative impact on the schools as they, like all, other books except those required in the curriculum, are available, not required, so no one is being forced against their will to read Gay stuff.
And, although some student may want to include Bayard Rustin on a Black History Month poster, that is not the same as the predicted threat that this would be an attempt to highjack the theme of the display and make it something Gay.
Placing the books in the libraries and the inclusive language in school district policies, case study if you will, did not take place in a liberal state, but in the Buckle of the Bible Belt, Oklahoma City, and spans 12 measurable and observable years.
That’s a long time for a study.
This info could be used, and any demand in OKC that this inclusion end cannot be justified when compared to the actual years 2009-2022.
The frustration is that, once again, pointing this out to the very people who could use it and, had they, might have prevented a foolish discriminatory law, fell on deaf ears.
It may be only one citable situation, but, unlike the bigots’ theoretical threats and predictions, it is observable, measurable, and real.
But reality is useless if it is never presented to offset fantasy, and it is rendered useless in this case by people just not seeing a bigger picture.
You know that Same-Sex Marriage is truly recognized under the law when, in order to dissolve the relationship, the court needs to be involved in a divorce proceeding.
you also know it is a Same-Sex Marriage because restrictions and requirements not demanded of heterosexual couples are of Gay couples.
When I lived in Oklahoma, I was privileged to have among my friends a young woman who was very dedicated to helping Gay youth make it through life in a very red state not simply by surviving but thriving.
She organized youth support groups, got kids the help they needed, physical and mental, and, where others may have failed in their attempt, organized a homeless shelter for Gay youth who would not be safe in other homeless shelters because of their sexual orientation in the land of Jesus.
In her personal life she fostered and adopted children, and at one point she and her wife decided to have a child of their own.
That meant it would be through some form of surrogacy with one or neither bearing the child, one or both donating eggs, and finding a donor they could trust. This was a serious and deep conversation.
They had made their decision after the Supreme Court recognized same sex marriages as constitutional and, therefore, legal, so there should have been no legal impediments placed on their parenting decision as it was one common among heterosexual couple in a similar situation where, perhaps, one could not supply their own egg or potent sperm.
I don’t know particulars of their discussion as it is their business and not mine, but one became the “gestational parent” and, to be a true family, my friend had her name on the birth certificate as the other parent.
Sadly, for their own reasons the couple separated and officially divorced, a very strange but strong evidence that same sex marriages are legal if to dissolve the relationship the process is a legal court procedure, not just packing your things and simply moving out.
The courts in Oklahoma are not all that kind to same sex parents.
When I first arrived there, a judge removed a gestational parent’s right to child custody based solely on her being a Lesbian, giving full custody to her ex-husband who had a criminal record, was known to be a town’s “Oh, God, it’s him again”, and was fond of drugs and drink. He was heterosexual, so these things were dismissible when compared to a woman who was a successful professional who could raise her child in a home safer than a house of booze, drugs, and shady characters, because her being a Lesbian, by default, made her a bad person in spite of observable evidence to the contrary.
The ex-husband professed Christianity and heterosexuality so that alone negated all the negatives the child would be raised with.
At that time, beyond not allowing Gay citizens of the state to adopt children, the state would not recognize a Gay adoptive parent from another state where such adoptions were allowed and legal, and this brought up that question that if a Gay couple from such a state were to move to Oklahoma voluntarily or by corporate transfer with the child having been carried to term by one of the couple, would the non-birth parent whose name was on the adoption papers lose all parental rights or would both lose parental rights if someone arbitrarily objected officially to their adopting in some sort of legal procedure.
The state could remove the child from both parents, or render one a stranger because the state did not recognize the adoption even, as I said, it was legal in the original state in which the adoption took place.
In my friend’s case, a temporary order was issued by a judge, blocking her custody rights because she is not the “gestational parent.”
The judge stated that as the non-gestational parent she could have pursued any legal remedy to establish parental rights and based the decision on her failure to do so and that, because the child was not a product of the marriage, i.e. not produced from sex between the two parents, the judge ruled that she could not apply for custody of the child.
In spite of the couple having planned together to have the child and their names both appearing on the birth certificate, the non-gestational parent, according to the judge, should have gone further than the birth certificate and gone through the red tape, lawyer and court fees, and additional legal paperwork to claim parentage something not required of heterosexual parents in the same position if neither their egg or sperm were involved in a surrogacy with both names on the birth certificate.
Oklahoma courts are not friendly toward Gay couples in a court system being as they are heavily influenced by Oklahoma’s version of Christianity and have a record like the earlier mentioned situation to back that up.
Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that non-biological parents in same-sex relationships can establish custody and visitation rights just as heterosexual parents do.
In the case producing this decision, after a divorce the birth parent had denied custody and visitation to her former partner. Although the non-birth parent lost her suit to be granted these things at the district court and Court of Civil Appeals, the Oklahoma Supreme Court reversed those rulings of the lower courts because the couple in the case were not married but in a domestic partnership.
In another case this same court ruled that the first ruling does not apply to legally married couples.
Unmarried Gay and heterosexual couples could establish legal co-parentage by adoption.
My friend was one half of a marriage.
Married heterosexuals’ co-parentage is established by the name on the birth certificate.
Under current law any child born within a marriage is legally parented by the married couple whose names appear on the birth certificate, but this judge is ignoring that in favor of requiring that same sex couples, unlike opposite sex couples, must go through additional steps that come with legal and court fees to solidify parental rights.
This is an additional burden placed on same sex couples that is not required of straight ones in a country with marriage equality, and the process could take months to years to finalize, requiring high legal and court costs to have the birth certificated respected or meet additional requirements not burdening opposite sex couples in the same position.
If the final decision is that the non-gestational parent has no right to claim custody and parenthood over her child, it could have an effect on all same-sex parents in that state. While the parents are not treated equally under the law, the child will have only one parent unless the other parent files for adoption and custody.
Once your name is on the birth certificate and it is filed as the law may require that should be the end of it.
If a heterosexual couple has a child by surrogacy, depending on the origin of the egg and sperm, are they held to this long costly procedure, or will some find out that because they did not fill out additional paperwork, they are actually legal strangers to their child as Gay couples are considered?
In spite of having done all the discussing, taking steps to make a house a home for the child, going through the pregnancy and all that is required, having their names on the birth certificate, and raising the child as the married couple they are, same-sex parents who are legally married, these parents and their relationships with their children are subject to court decisions in a state where the Oklahoma version of the Bible too often is used to arrive at civil law decisions.
A judge’s decision has control over marriage and parenting on a case by case basis it seems, and, as we all know, judges’ decision are not always consistent, nor agreed on universally by all judges.
The first case cited lost twice in the lower courts but prevailed in the State Supreme Court, but then this same court ruled in such a way that while, unmarried heterosexual couples have parental rights but legally married Gay ones don’t unless they take additional action not required of non-Gay people.
With all the present discussion of parental rights, these would be hard to establish if courts keep changing the rules of the parent game and like purging the voter rolls might move to purging the parent list
One person should not risk losing their child simply because they are not the gestational parent. Children and parents should have some degree of certainty that their rights and relationships won’t be rewritten by the court on a case-by-case basis, or the personal, political or religious beliefs of a judge.
Past cases show that when it comes to rulings dealing with Gay people, and in this case Gay parentage, Judges in Oklahoma tend to favor the heterosexual model and while leaving straight couples alone, come up with all kinds of legal modifications when it comes to a Gay couple’s being assigned additional burdens.
Non-gestational parents should be recognized as parents especially as both names on the birth certificate acknowledges that the gestational parent recognized the parentage role of the non- gestational one.
