The Anti-Bullying Caucus, a bipartisan caucus founded by Democratic Congressman Mike Honda and devoted to stopping bullying, will offically launch tomorrow. Honda and about three dozen other representatives are behind the new caucus, whose mission statement says that it is “committed to the belief that all communities deserve a safe environment to thrive, and that our nation is in urgent need of solutions that stop bullying.”

Honda released a message describing the importance of preventing bullying, saying:

Every year, millions of Americans are physically or psychologically attacked on the basis of their skin color, ethnicity, physical or mental abilities, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, religion, or age. Addressing the bullying epidemic – in our schools, in the workplace, in assisted-living facilities – is a concern very close to my heart. It is our responsibility as human beings to empower the individuals who are discriminated against, scapegoated, and silenced by society.

America is threatened by an epidemic where more than thirteen million children are teased, taunted, and physically assaulted by their peers each year—embodied in racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, or simply means of letting go of aggression and bottled emotions. This bullying is not confined to classroom walls; the fear and hurt that so many people feel in America today is an urgent call to action. As an educator of more than thirty years and a member of Congress who was bullied as a child, I am inspired to do my part. That’s why I founded the Congressional Anti-Bullying Caucus.

The bullying epidemic has reached national headlines in recent year, and growing support has been mounted for those targeted by bullies. The Obama administration, for its part, has endorsed two national anti-bullying bills, the Student Non-Discrimination Act (SNDA) and the Safe Schools Improvement Act (SSIA). SNDA adds sexual orientation and gender identity to federal education nondiscrimination law and prevents the bullying of LGBT youth. Likewise, the SSIA increases schools’ bullying and harassment prevention programs, including those focusing on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Honda’s own experience with bullying is only one of the many personal stories recounted in the caucus’ press release. The report features several personal stories from victims of bullying, and the caucus will be posting another story — meant to be a “call to action” — each day.

– Nina Liss-Schultz

Jennifer Keeton

A federal judge in Georgia has ruled that Jennifer Keeton’s constitutional rights were not violated when Augusta State University expelled her from its counseling program for her unwillingness to abide by its professional ethics. Keeton insisted that homosexuality is an “immoral personal choice” and refused to affirm a gay client’s behavior as “right or healthy.” The 11th Circuit previously dismissed Keeton’s appeal for a preliminary injunction, pointing out that “counselors must refrain from imposing their moral and religious values on their clients.” Judge J. Randal Hall, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, concurred in his decision last week dismissing her complaint:

Keeton’s conflation of personal and professional values, or at least her difficulty in discerning the difference, appears to have been rooted in her opinion that the immorality of homosexual relations is a matter of objective and absolute moral truth. The policies which govern the ethical conduct of counselors, however, with their focus on client welfare and self-determination, make clear that the counselor’s professional environs are not intended to be a crucible for counselors to test metaphysical or moral propositions. Plato’s Academy or a seminary the Counselor Program is not; that Keeton’s opinions were couched in absolute or ontological terms does not give her constitutional license to make it otherwise.

In his conclusion, Hall opined further that there are very clear limits to what extent individuals can impose their religious beliefs upon others in certain public settings:

One conspicuous and abiding theme of the American story is that individuals like Jennifer Keeton are free to choose their own spiritual path, and need brook no government trespass thereon. The Constitution guarantees that the heart may pulse to meters of its own design, deaf to public cadence. But when affairs of the conscience ripen into action – either speech or conduct – government is granted leave to regulate in behalf of certain public interests, including education and professional fitness. Boundaries drawn through decades of case law establish the whither and when of such regulation, and, after carefully considering the factual content of Keeton’s allegations, the Court concludes that Defendants acted within those bounds – there is no room to reasonably infer otherwise.

As the decision is careful to explain, at no point was Keeton asked to change her beliefs. She was merely expected to keep them to herself in compliance with professional counseling ethics. Not only did she refuse to do so, but she even expressed discomfort at the prospect of having to interact with LGBT people at all, objecting to the idea of attending a Pride parade for the sake of cultural immersion. Though she likely would not frame it this way, her intent was to harm gay clients, and the school had every right and responsibility to evaluate her performance in program accordingly.

The question of anti-gay Christian counseling students has also arisen in Michigan with the case of Julea Ward. A federal judge similarly dismissed Ward’s suit against Eastern Michigan University for her “refusal to change her behavior.” In an attempt to circumvent this ruling, the Michigan House recently passed a bill called the “Julea Ward Freedom of Conscience Act,” which would impose upon universities that counseling students essentially be free to refuse any aspect of their learning requirements that conflict with “a sincerely held religious belief.”

In the end, it is the professional ethics and scientific expertise that should dictate qualifications for counselors, not biased lawmakers or petulant students with insistent anti-gay agendas.

The executive and deputy directors of Alabama Public Television were fired this month after expressing their opposition to new programming priorities on the state-operated public TV network. The Alabama Educational Television Commission (AETC), whose Republican-led board oversees APT, has been pushing to schedule programming from the religious right that emphasizes conservative, anti-gay ideology.

At AETC’s March board meeting, commission members advocated for airing videotaped shows by a far-right evangelical Christian group called WallBuilders that pushes for a biblical view of U.S. history in its American Heritage Series. WallBuilders is headed up by psuedo-historian David Barton, a Religious Right activist who believes homosexuality should be illegal. Just a few of Barton’s anti-gay tirades have included:

– BARTON: When you find homosexuality in nature, it is an aberration, there is no homosexual group in nature that survives, it can’t, it simply can’t, in nature it happens but it’s always an aberration. What is normal is heterosexual, and that is a law of nature and it’s a law of nature’s God. [Right Wing Watch]

– BARTON: Based on the statutes, legal commentaries, and the writings of prominent military leaders, it is clear that any idea of homosexuals serving in the military was considered with repugnance; this is incontrovertible, with no room for differing interpretations. The thought of lifting this proscription is a modern phenomenon, and would have brought disbelief, disdain, and condemnation from those who established our Armed Forces. [WallBuilders]

– BARTON: Legislators around the country are considering banning sugar and fatty foods in schools, removing salt and butter from restaurants and want to control what temperature you can have in your own homes, because they fear the potential of health problems. Perhaps they should consider banning the promotion of a lifestyle that the Centers For Disease Control has determined actually causes HIV/AIDS. [Right Wing Watch]

Minutes from the March meeting suggest that the former executive director was resisting the pressure to add Barton’s religious programming to Alabama Public Television’s nine public TV stations.

The online organization Faithful America, a progressive faith-based activist group, has gathered over 10,000 signatures for a petition affirming that radically conservative religious propaganda has no place on a public television network. The petition states that people of faith reject AETC’s partisan agenda and demands that “the leaders of the Alabama Educational Television Commission to reinstate these staffers and keep Religious Right hate off their stations.”

The NBA has fined New York Knicks forward Amar’e Stoudemire $50,000 for calling a fan a “fag” on Twitter. The fan, who criticized Stoudemire’s performance in an earlier tweet, received a direct message response from Stoudemire containing the slur. Direct messages are meant to be seen by only the sender and the recipient, but the fan took a screenshot and made the offensive message public.

The NBA has seen its share of homophobic outbursts lately. Last year, Kobe Bryant was fined $100,000 for calling a referee a “fucking faggot” during a temper tantrum. Joakim Noah received a $50,000 fine for directing that same sentiment at a fan during a playoff game weeks later, pledging to “learn from it.”

And while professional sports have not historically been a bastion of gay rights, the NBA has used its economic power to communicate that homophobic remarks are unacceptable and unprofessional. In the wake of the Bryant scandal, the NBA launched a “Don’t Say Gay” campaign. The ad — which seems to reframe Kobe’s comment as a more innocuous slip of the word “gay” instead of the less TV-friendly “fucking faggot” — is indeed a step in the right direction.

That said, homophobia in sports will persist as a major issue as long as athletes see gay people as a distinct “other,” nowhere to be found in the team locker room. That there are gay athletes currently playing in the NBA is a statistical certainty. There are, however, no openly gay athletes currently on an NBA roster — or in any of the “big four” sports for that matter. And perhaps this is what it will take to truly turn the tide from fines to acceptance in professional sports. Put simply by Charles Barkley, “I’d rather have a gay guy who can play than a straight guy who can’t play.”

Stoudemire has since apologized for the offensive tweet. “I am a huge supporter of civil rights for all people. I am disappointed in myself for my statement to a fan,” he said. “I should have known better and there is no excuse.”

– Steven Perlberg

Exodus International's Alan Chambers with his wife, Leslie

Media outlets across the country have published an Associated Press story today claiming, “Christian group backs away from ex-gay therapy.” Exodus International, an umbrella organization for various ex-gay ministries, is rebranding itself by no longer trying to “cure” people of homosexuality. According to its president, Alan Chambers, the group will now simply focus on helping clients reconcile their anti-gay beliefs (internalized homophobia) by embracing celibacy or marrying an opposite-sex partner despite their same-sex orientation, like Chambers himself did:

CHAMBERS: I consider myself fortunate to be in the best marriage I know. It’s an amazing thing, yet I do have same-sex attractions. Those things don’t overwhelm me or my marriage; they are something that informs me like any other struggle I might bring to the table.

By so generously granting Chambers’ premise, the AP completely ignores the actual intention of ex-gay therapy. In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association decided that homosexuality was no longer a mental illness. This meant therapists were to no longer treat homosexuality as a problem itself, but to instead help people reconcile the reality of their innate sexual orientation. It was only after — and because of — this decision that the first ex-gay ministry, Love in Action, began. From its integration into Exodus International in 1976 to the first introduction of the term “ex-gay” in 1980, these ministries have always been founded in the dangerous idea that being gay is a problem to be addressed, repressed, or circumvented.

In this regard, nothing has changed at Exodus. At its core, the organization clearly still believes that homosexuality is the cause of a person’s struggles, not the anti-gay society in which they live. Regardless of how these therapists attempt to treat homosexuality, they are still causing harm by trying to treat it at all — in complete violation of all social science research and ethics. As Truth Wins Out’s Wayne Besen notes in the AP article, “The underlying belief is still that homosexuals are sexually broken, that something underlying is broken and needs to be fixed. That’s incredibly harmful, it scars people.”

This disingenuous rebranding of ex-gay therapy away from a “cure” is not unique to Exodus. The Mormon contingent of the ex-gay movement has similarly been suggesting that just because a person has same-sex attractions doesn’t mean they have to identify as gay. Focus on the Family is still encouraging gay people to “resist same-sex attraction.” Meanwhile, NARTH, the “professional” organization for ex-gay therapists, is eagerly siding with anti-gay hate groups to continue to spin the “dangers” of the “homosexual lifestyle.” It’s not an exaggeration to say they are all simply advocating that people lie to themselves to conform to heteronormativity.

To many, ex-gay therapy may be a fringe practice, or a difference of opinion that isn’t particularly risky to those who might choose it. The truth is that the false belief that sexual orientation is not innate is at the root of all anti-gay beliefs, and nothing can rebrand the harm caused by that ignorance.

Though an individual can choose to boycott a product, a boycott is, by definition, only effective if organized on a large scale. ABC News chose to ignore this distinction when it reported yesterday, “Oreo Pride: Rainbow-Stuffed Cookie Sparks Boycott.” The article highlighted the rainbow Oreo posted on Facebook this week, which was accompanied by the message, “Proudly support love!” Though the innocuously inclusive message has largely been praised, ABC News drew its conclusions solely from some negative comments posted on Facebook:

But while many of the comments were supportive, some Facebook users pledged to boycott the cookie because of the post.

“I’ll never buy Oreo again,” one commenter wrote.

“Disgusted with oreos,” wrote another. “Being gay is an abmonitation in GOd’s eyes i wont be buying them anymore.”

If such journalistic conclusions could be drawn from random typo-ridden comments on Internet content, news headlines would instantly lose all integrity. Two Facebook comments do not constitute a boycott, nor would 100 anti-gay comments even warrant calling the posting “controversial.” Culture wars have never merely been about a “difference of opinion.” Controversy is manufactured by such headlines that over-emphasize negative voices and draw false conclusions about their impact.

There are, of course, anti-gay boycotts, but none have been successful. The one-man operation known as the Florida Family Association has generated faux outrage about almost every LGBT-inclusive television program. The American Family Association has been boycotting Home Depot for its support of gay rights for years to no avail. Its subsidiary, One Million Moms, has whiningly railed against JC Penney for featuring Ellen DeGeneres and same-sex couples in advertisements. The National Organization for Marriage has been unsuccessfully “dumping” Starbucks and now General Mills. (Only a few dozen people showed up to protest General Mills yesterday, and the company actually boosted its dividends — thank General Mills here.) If NOM wants to retaliate against Oreos, it’ll have to add all of Kraft foods to its boycott, which would leave conservative kitchens with relatively empty pantries. To truly eschew all pro-LGBT companies, they’d also have to add Google, Microsoft, Nike, Time Warner Cable, Levi Strauss, CBS, and Xerox to their list, to name a few.

Businesses have realized that supporting equality and inclusion is good for their employees, good for their customers, and good for their bottom line, so it’s no surprise that pro-LGBT policies are quickly becoming ubiquitous throughout the corporate world. To try to upset this reality by highlighting a few negative reactions is not only irresponsible, it’s simply incorrect.