Category: sexual orientation

Common Sense on Treatment of Gender Dysphoria

Given the controversial nature of the subject matter, I think this Globe and Mail article does a good job of representing the type of treatment offered at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto.
According to this article, gender identity clinic director Ken Zucker is not allowed to speak to the media. However, clinic founder Susan Bradley gave her views along with parents of children treated by the clinic. Quite appropriately, the clinic evaluates each situation and creates an individualized treatment plan. Some kids later transition and some don’t.
The writer, Margaret Wente, provides several illustrative cases. Here’s one:

“They never tried to force my son into something he wasn’t,” one mother told me. Her son had been a hyper-anxious child since birth. In kindergarten he became obsessed with dressing like a girl. The CAMH therapists determined that anxiety, not gender, was the key issue, and advised the parents to discourage their son’s obsession with girls’ clothing. Today, he is a well-adjusted young adult with a girlfriend and no interest in women’s clothes. The mother, who describes herself as “quite liberal” says she would have supported gender change if that had been the right thing to do.

This fits my experience working with such children. In some cases, it is very clear that gender is not the primary issue. Clinical response should not be “one size fits all.”
I hope the legislative effort to stop the work of the clinic is not successful.
For prior posts on Zucker and gender issues in children, see:
Gender identity disorder research: Q & A with Kenneth Zucker
Two families, two approaches to gender identity
60 Minutes Science of Sexual Orientation: An Update from a Mother of Twins
60 Minutes Science of Sexual Orientation: An Update from a Mother of Twins, Part 2
 

Desire, Faith & Therapy: Sexual Orientation and Orthodox Jews; Rabbinical Council Rejects JONAH

Desire Conf ColumbiaOn Sunday, I participated in a conference titled Desire, Faith and Therapy at the Kraft Jewish Student Center at Columbia University on appropriate therapeutic responses to sexual orientation. The conference was designed for therapists, rabbis and other interested members of the Orthodox Jewish community.
From the brochure:
 

“Desire, Faith and Psychotherapy” presents a Psychoanalytic perspective on sexual orientation and gender identity in the Orthodox Jewish community. We will explore the intersection of psychological, religious and communal issues that present with LGBT people from Orthodox & Hasidic communities. The program features experts in the field and professionals with experience working with this population. They will review the latest research and develop a conceptual framework in which therapists and Orthodox rabbis can work together to offer the best care.

I didn’t let the organizers know in time to make the brochure but I spoke as a part of a panel with Jack Drescher and Rabbi Mark Dratch. Drescher covered research and history of sexual orientation change efforts, Rabbi Dratch covered the position of the Rabbinical Council of America and I described the sexual identity therapy framework.
Rabbinical Council of America Repudiates Reparative Therapy and JONAH
The framework seemed to fit the audience well in that affirming and non-affirming members of the Orthodox community were present and interested in working together for best practices. I was pleased to hear Rabbi Dratch describe the Rabbinical Council’s repudiation of JONAH, and reparative therapy in general. Dratch told the crowd that the Rabbinical Council asked JONAH numerous times to remove the 2004 letter recommending JONAH. In fact, even after the Council issued their repudiation of JONAH, the 2004 endorsement remains up on JONAH’s website. JONAH advertises falsely in more ways than one.
The lawsuit against JONAH will be a test of the consumer protection laws in New Jersey. JONAH continues to claim efficacy from the strange practices used to try to change sexual orientation. With a couple of exceptions, the crowd at the conference seemed to join the sentiment expressed by the Rabbinical Council concerning JONAH.
My powerpoint can be viewed here.

Salon on Mixed Orientation Marriages in the Middle of Same-Sex Marriage Case

digitalcoupleimageYesterday, Salon’s Tracy Clark-Flory examined mixed orientation marriages as a possible new political statement against same-sex marriage. The article was triggered by the amicus brief filed by a Utah attorney on behalf of some people in mixed orientation marriages. She also interviewed me for the article and I am quoted extensively.
While my survey results are still unpublished (I keep getting distracted), the study has helped inform my views on the subject. Some essentially same-sex attracted men and women fall in love with a member of the other sex. While most of these marriages deal with issues other couples don’t have to address, there are many who are quite satisfied with the arrangement. They are not of necessity loveless, passionless marriages. However, the vast majority of these people don’t develop attraction to the other sex in any general sense. The baseline attractions remain about the same. On average, the people I surveyed demonstrated more same-sex attraction, not less.
In my opinion, there is no political benefit for any side in these results and I hope “mixed orientation marriage” doesn’t become the new “ex-gay.” Ex-gay became a political weapon and the political demands turned ex-gay into a caricature. In my view, the experiences of these couples have no relevance to the Supreme Court’s deliberations.

Should Discrimination Ever Be Permitted In the Name of Religious Freedom?

The saga of Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act has intensified the conversation about religious reasons for discrimination. Are there ever any defensible religiously based reasons for discriminating against a protected class?

One source I consulted on this was the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidance on religious discrimination. The following section seems relevant to the matter of competing discrimination claims (religious v. something else):

Thus, a religious organization is not permitted to engage in racially discriminatory hiring by asserting that a tenet of its religious beliefs is not associating with people of other races.  Similarly, a religious organization is not permitted to deny fringe benefits to married women but not to married men by asserting a religiously based view that only men can be the head of a household.

EXAMPLE 7
Sex Discrimination Not Excused

Justina works at Tots Day Care Center.  Tots is run by a religious organization that believes that, while women may work outside of the home if they are single or have their husband’s permission, men should be the heads of their households and the primary providers for their families.  Believing that men shoulder a greater financial responsibility than women, the organization pays female teachers less than male teachers.  The organization’s practice of unequal pay based on sex constitutes unlawful discrimination.[49]

The footnote for the case of Justina goes to the following court decision:

EEOC v. Fremont Christian Sch., 781 F.2d 1362 (9th Cir. 1986) (religious school violated Title VII and the Equal Pay Act when it provided “head of household” health insurance benefits only to single persons and married men).

Think about it. There may be bakers and florists and photographers who still believe miscegenation is wrong for religious reasons. Should a photographer’s religious objection to taking pictures at a wedding of two people of different races be protected? Should the act of refusing to take pictures be protected behavior? The EEOC suggest that the answer would be no.
To the example above. If owners of a daycare are forced to pay equal wages to men and women in violation of their religious beliefs, do the owners suffer religious discrimination? According to EEOC v. Fremont Christian, the Christian school engaged in unlawful discrimination by failing to treat married women the same as married men. Thus, sex discrimination trumps religious freedom.
The open question is does the government’s interest in non-discrimination override religious reasons for such discrimination. If so, what set of facts could lead a court to say certain religious objections trump the government’s interest in equal treatment?

Commentary on Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act – Some Good, Some Not so Good

I have been reading a lot about the Religious Freedom Restoration Acts in Indiana and Arkansas. In addition, I have been reading background materials to the bills. The material is inherently interesting and I want to firm up my thinking on the matter.
In doing so, I have run across helpful and unhelpful op-eds and commentary. This post annotates some of those sources. I plan to post some additional information and commentary through the week.
First, I want to post the articles which appear to me to be accurate and are therefore helpful. I may not agree with every conclusion but as far as I can tell the information is right.
What Will the Indiana Religious Freedom Law Really Do? by Jonathan Adler – The accurate articles I present at this point (I may add more) mostly come from the Volokh Conspiracy, a legal blog published by the Washington Post. I think this is the best blog to follow on this issue. Adler’s article refers the reader to an earlier Volokh post about how the RFRA is supposed to work.

Therefore, the rule now is that there is a religious exemption regime as to federal statutes (under the federal RFRA), and as to state statutes in the about half the states that have state RFRAs or state constitutional exemption regimes. Religious objectors in those jurisdictions may demand exemptions from generally applicable laws that substantially burden the objectors’ practice, which the government must grant unless it can show that applying the laws is the least restrictive means of serving a compelling government interest.

In the Indiana case, bakers who don’t want to bake a gay wedding cake may demand an exemption from a jurisdiction law (some cities in Indiana added sexual orientation to their non-discrimination ordinances) which requires non-discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Unless the government in the jurisdiction can show a compelling government interest in enforcement of the non-discrimination ordinance as the least restrictive means of enforcing fair and equal treatment.
Those who say they want religious freedom but don’t want discrimination aren’t playing fair with the language. At times, religious freedom to some means discrimination against others.
Indiana to Exempt Civil Rights Protections in Religious Freedom Restoration Act by Dale Carpenter – Carpenter breaks down how Indiana’s amendments to the RFRA will work. Carpenter wrote:

Overall, if it passes and is signed, the amendment is a significant carve-out from the state RFRA, the first recognition by the state that sexual orientation and gender identity are matters of legitimate anti-discrimination concern, and an important first step toward a comprehensive anti-discrimination law in the state.

Common sense, a little respect about now might calm the religious waters by Barry Hankins – Hankins, an historian at Baylor University gives a good background on the RFRA controversy. In the end, the RFRA doesn’t guarantee discrimination against gays on religious grounds will prevail in court. According to Hankins:

It’s worth noting that New Mexico has an RFRA and a Human Rights Act that protects gay people. When a photographer there tried to use RFRA to refuse service at a gay commitment ceremony, she lost. The government showed successfully in court that there existed a compelling interest for the state’s anti-discrimination protections. That case has a lot to do with why Arizona, Arkansas and Indiana have now passed their own RFRAs.

Supporters in those states hope their RFRAs will be tougher than New Mexico’s. But be clear, RFRA laws do not give people the right to discriminate against gays. Rather, they say in part that if someone violates an anti-discrimination law on religious grounds, in a court proceeding the burden of proof will fall on the government to show a compelling interest for why the law should trump religious freedom.

The following articles seem less than helpful because they are either inaccurate or make conclusions which can’t be supported by the facts presented.

Intellectual Dishonesty is Winning Every Time by David Carlin – Dr. Carlin is depressed because things aren’t going his way. Carlin accuses the left of intellectual dishonesty when he engages in some of his own. Carlin said that the RFRA

…simply allowed religious believers not to be coerced by government into doing things forbidden by their conscience. Nothing more. Just the way we have always allowed Quakers and other conscientious objectors to refuse to participate in war. It wasn’t that we agreed with the pacifists; we did not. But we used to think that an honest conscience was such a precious thing that it should be respected even when erroneous.

Legal history is filled with decisions where an honest conscience has not been respected if the result is discrimination against a protected class. In some cases (the Quakers, the Amish), conscience has been respected, however in others (leaders of many Southern churches, business owners who want to pay women less than men) conscience has given way to a government interest in fair treatment of all citizens.
RFRA Not Like Jim Crow Laws at All by Jonah Goldberg – Goldberg may be correct that the RFRA is not like Jim Crow but he doesn’t help much by his simplified explanation of Jim Crow laws.  Goldberg argues that segregation laws were primarily economic constructions enforced by the government to forbid tolerant business owners from desegregating. He gives lip service to the pervasive segregation of the laws but then summarizes the situation:

Comparing RFRA laws to Jim Crow laws turns all of this on its head. Jim Crow laws forced tolerant businesses to be intolerant of blacks. No one, anywhere, is suggesting that people who want to do business with same-sex couples should be barred from doing so. The argument is whether the government should force a few ardent Christians (or Jews or Muslims) to participate in a ceremony that violates their faith.

While I think the RFRA law is not like a Jim Crow law, I don’t think Goldberg helps himself or his argument by misleading people about the pervasive nature of segregation in the post-Civil War South.