Not the First; Not the Last

Savita Hallappanavar is a name everyone should know. A few weeks before the election, a representative from my neighboring district here in Illinois proclaimed that he did not believe that abortions were ever necessary to the life of the mother.

In 2009, abortion doctor George Tiller was shot in the lobby of his church for performing just those kinds of abortions.

And a few days ago, in a hospital in Galway, Ireland, Savita Hallappanavar died, in immense pain, after suffering for days from a preventable infection, an infection that resulted from a miscarried 17 week old pregnancy.

Savita Hallappanavar was 31 years old.

She was a married woman. She worked as a dentist. She and her husband wanted this baby and were looking forward to having a child. But when they came to the hospital because she was experiencing severe back pain, the doctors told her she was miscarrying and would likely lose the pregnancy. Her cervix was dilating and she was losing fluid. Their baby would die. She began to show signs of infection – feverish, she collapsed in the bathroom of her hospital room.

She asked the doctors to terminate. Her husband asked the doctors to terminate. They both wanted to end this doomed pregnancy in the effort to save her life.

The doctors said no.

Whether this was because of Ireland’s strict anti-abortion laws or because of malpractice on the part of a zealous doctor, what we do know is that they were told “This is a Catholic country.”

Translation: “we do not perform abortions.”

Pro-lifers now have Savita Hallappanavar to answer for. And not just her. 47,000 women around the world die each year because of illegal, unsafe abortions. Before Roe v. Wade, entire wings of hospitals were dedicated to women recovering from illnesses resulting from illegal abortions. Women who received these abortions worried about whether they would survive, but knew that a pregnancy may also kill them.

When Roe v. Wade passed, those hospital wings were empty.

I have a good friend who was able to obtain a lifesaving D&E operation a few years ago. Today, she has a lovely daughter, a loving husband, and most importantly, a life. Savita Hallappanavar will never have the opportunity that my friend had, because a doctor’s opinion and a country’s laws trumped her right to be alive.

Savita Hallappanavar’s death is not just another unfortunate circumstance, another unfortunate statistic to be explained away. It has everything to do with life – her life. Her husband’s life. Her right to live was trumped by someone else’s values, someone who had no business making those decisions for her.

There are unnamed thousands across the globe upon whose lives other people’s values are etched, chiseled into the stones of their graves. They are mothers. Sisters. Grandmothers. Family and friends. Graves filled because another person’s values, another person’s god, trumped their life, their medical care, their rights.

Pro-life?

Don't make me gag.

__________________

*Note: Abortion and reproductive health services apply to all people with uteruses, not all of whom identify as women.

Slutty Sluts Vote Sluttily

(Note: I wrote the majority of this in the Amsterdam International Airport waiting for a flight on three hours of sleep, so my apologies for typos/incoherence.) So, apparently, I’m a slut. I’m a single, suburban, Planned Parenthood using, serial-dating white girl who voted for Obama. According to BSkillet of the “Christian Men’s Defense League,” I am a slut.

There have been a lot of jokes made about this now-pulled (though still available via Google Cache) post, and it is, indeed, an exercise in absurdity. While a friend got all ragey over it, I had issues stifling laughter as I read the post in the middle of a meeting (sorry, guys!). Illogical to the point of absurdity, BSkillet is hardly worth responding to.

Hardly, but not entirely useless. BSkillet expresses some extreme views, to be sure and commits numerous logical fallacies – straw man, generalization, ad homeniem, red herrings…pick your poison. It’s very easy to respond to such absurdity with equal absurdity (and some Hipster Sexism to boot, which is so fun*).

But BSkillet’s absurd misogyny serves to mask some views he actually shares with many evangelical Christians in America. Defense of sexually active women and “sluts” was actually a large factor in the election. To some extent, BSkillet is, well, right. I mean that, of course, in the most qualified sense of the term – his point, that women – particularly women of color – have made a large impact in the electoral process and changed the face of this election is undeniable.

How he arrives at his point, however, is reprehensible, misogynistic, and racist. That goes without saying.

But, as a woman with a lifetime of experience in the evangelical American church, his views on women did not surprise me. His thoughts, indeed, resemble in a more bald-faced fashion, teachings I absorbed as a member of the church. Whether it is black or white women, sexual purity is the end-all-be-all, and women as a whole are not highly regarded even if they do remain pure (BSkillet proclaims as much when he opens by saying “this is why women shouldn’t be in government” before he ever reaches the “slut vote” point).

BSkillet’s extreme point is in fact symptomatic of a larger culture that thinks women’s sexual choices and agencies are/should be up for a popular vote. It is unsurprising, then, that a culture in which the purity of women is everything would give rise to a man and a movement (The Christian Men’s Defense Network) in which women are discounted and even reviled for failing to live up to a man’s definition of pure.

Keep in mind that BSkillet is not just one extreme outlier, but is actually part of a larger movement in society. His writing is shocking only in the baldness of the misogyny, not in its views. The larger evangelical culture as a whole does, in fact, believe that a woman’s sexual activities are reason enough to discount her opinion in the public sphere.

The larger evangelical culture does, in fact, think that my dating life is reason enough to discount my work and my opinions in entire. I cannot tell you how much criticism has been levied at me simply for the fact that I am unmarried and childfree. Simply existing as a woman in the world of the church makes our opinions dependent upon the choices we make with our bodies, rather than independent of them. My decision not to change my name if/when I get married is, because I exist as a woman in the church, a political and declarative one.

It is not hard to leap from the evangelical church’s teachings to “the slut vote” and “what are those slutty women thinking.” In fact, I would say they make quite the bridge.

*Sarcasm font.

One for the Women

Being separated from the East Coast of America by a 5 hour time difference, I went to bed at 1AM last night not knowing who had won or even a small inkling of which way the United States elections were swinging. ITV1 here in the UK was reporting Romney having 33 Electoral votes to Obama's 3, which made it hard to fall asleep - it's no secret that I'm an Obama supporter and was worried about the results of this election. Happily, though, I received a text from a friend at 4:21AM informing me that the election had been called and Barack Obama would be my president for the next four years. "OH THANK GOD!" I wrote back, rolled over, and fell asleep. This election by and large was about women. Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, had presented some very off-putting and downright scary views about women and our rights - not only dealing with the reproductive right of abortion, but support for personhood amendments that would outlaw basic birth control (birth control I need to function), and objections to acts specifically aimed at supporting survivors of domestic violence and redefinitions of rape.

But, this morning, as I researched election results across the country, I realized that women made the difference. We got out and voted, and we supported, in much of the US, the rights not only of white, middle-class women, but of people of diverse identities and sexual orientations.

In my state, Illinois, we elected Tammy Duckworth to replace Joe "YOU LIE" Walsh. Duckworth is a disabled veteran who is biracial. She is a tireless advocate for women and for progressive causes, and I couldn't be happier to see her representing my neighboring district in Congress.

In Hawaii, Mazie Hirono became the first Asian-American woman in the US Senate.

In Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin became the first openly gay senator.

In Texas (!!!), Mary Gonzalez became the first openly pansexual (attracted to all genders on the spectrum) senator.

In Massachusetts, progressive darling Elizabeth Warren replaced Scott Brown.

While there are only 19 women in the Senate, this is a record number.

And those rape-defending GOP'ers Mourdock and Akin? Both lost their seats. Akin lost his to a woman - a woman he compared to a dog.

There is still a lot of progress to make where women are concerned - it is on the state level that much of our fight will continue, especially if 2010-2011 is any indication. The fight for equality is far from over, but we can take a moment to be happy about what we accomplished last night. Pat yourselves on the back, ladies. You deserve it.

Theodicy, Eschatology, and Rape as a Gift

It was disappointing, but not surprising, to see that yet another GOP politician had said something ignorant and stupid about rape this week. Richard Mourdock, a Republican candidate for senate in my neighbor state of Indiana had this to say about pregnancy that results from rape:

"I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God," Mourdock said. "And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen."

“Sigh,” I thought to myself as I watched my feminist friends on my Twitter feed go nuts over this comment. “Another one?” Then I reached over to the white board that exists in my mind, scrubbed it clean and wrote a ZERO above “days since a GOP politician said something stupid about rape.” I figured I didn’t need to say much because everyone else was already saying more than enough.

Then Christianity Today got in on the act, proclaiming (emphasis mine):

Many media outlets are expressing shock, unable to concieve of a God or a world in which God might actually make something good from something horrid, that the child of rape or incest could be considered a divine gift. Note the tone and disgust of the Atlantic Wire summary of the story.

It's hard to believe that anyone would really believe what Mourdock seemed to say, that rape itself is intended by God. And in fact, even he doesn't believe it. He later clarified: "What I said was, in answering the question form my position of faith, I said I believe that God creates life. I believe that as wholly and as fully as I can believe it. That God creates life. Are you trying to suggest that somehow I think that God pre-ordained rape? No, I don't think that. That's sick. Twisted. That's not even close to what I said. What I said is that God creates life."

Though a prime example of gotcha-politics, this incident raises other issues, issues weighted with glory even. It almost goes without saying that for Christians, while rape is a terrible thing, in the providence of God, this too can be redeemed, a tragic event from which love can emerge. And yet we live in a society in which many find this view intolerable, outside the bounds—anathema. This is a delicate conversation we're a part of in America, one that requires us to eschew the cheap advice or platitudes of Job's counselors, to be sure. Then again, it may be even more "disrespectful to the survivors of rape" to fail to tell them about the wondrous redeeming power of God, even in the most horrible circumstances.

And I sighed again, because I knew that this meant I now had to respond. And now I was angry.

Part of me just wants to yell and kick and scream.

And another part of me just wants to curl into a ball until the election’s over (but then, I’d miss my flight to England).

Here’s the thing: I know there are massive, theodicy style problems with the idea of pregnancy from rape. It invokes the philosophical problem of evil – if we believe children are a gift from God always, universally so, then rape that creates a child, quid pro quo, becomes a gift from God. It’s not that I don’t understand the thinking or that it needs to be explained again – I know and like eschatology, I know and like theologies of redemption, and I understand the struggle to understand why sin and evil and violent crimes like rape exist.

But here’s the other thing: rape victims are not players in your narratives of redemption. People suffering through some of the worst, most traumatic events of their lives aren’t interested in going through more pain just so you can point to it as a redemptive show of God.

Rape victims are not a sermon illustration. They are human beings.

In orthodox eschatology, do we believe that God will eventually redeem the bad in the world? Yes. But we warp and destroy the beauty of that eventual redemption when we insist that those who are suffering in the here and now play the part we want them to play, just so God’s eschatology will look nice.

God’s eschatology doesn’t need you to persuade a rape victim to keep their pregnancy. What God does need you for is to understand and support the suffering, no matter what decision they may make. What God does need you to do is shut up and listen. This is not your battle to fight, except insofar as you can come alongside the one who is suffering. This is not yours to explain. This is not your area and God doesn't need you to persuade a person to suffer more just so They could eventually redeem. It is disrespectful to God to presume to be someone else's Holy Spirit in a decision that has nothing to do with you.

In one of my favorite songs, David Bazan (performing as Pedro the Lion), says a line that keeps popping into my head this election season:

“You were too busy steering the conversation toward the Lord to hear the voice of the Spirit begging you to shut the fuck up."

I cannot be your Holy Spirit, but I can be myself, and I can say this: if you’re going to open your mouth and explain why a rape victim should keep her pregnancy because you believe that in the eschatological scheme of things, that that pregnancy exists to be redeemed … take a minute, think about it, and then shut the fuck up.

No is a Complete Sentence

[This is part 3 of a three part series on privilege. See parts ONE and TWO here. I also apologize for the delay - I was attending the STORY CHICAGO conference for work and it wiped me out.] When I posted Wednesday's post about how you should react to people calling you out on privilege, I got the expected pushback - that privileged people can't learn if the oppressed don't educate them! (this commenter had a much more creative way of phrasing it, but that's what it boils down to).

This isn't true. The oppressed are not obligated to educate you on what you did wrong. To invoke the common analogy: if you're standing on my foot, I'm allowed to tell you to get off my foot, and you should get off my foot! It doesn't matter if I say it nicely, tell you why, or educate you on how not to stand on other people's feet. The immediate, pressing need for the oppressed person in that situation is to stop being hurt. End of. Everything else about where the conversation may go from there is superfluous.

But, that doesn't mean that said commenter's words didn't make me think about all the different ways we try to police the oppressed into catering toward the privileged. We tell women that if they'd just say their argument in a nicer way, we'd be more inclined to listen (an idea my own experience and the experience of others has proven to be utterly false). We tell the oppressed that it's just a joke, ignoring the interplay between power and oppression that makes a joke about their plight not just bad, but downright scary.

This is the world in which the oppressed function. So, today, I wanted to put forward a few encouraging words to those who are doing the calling out.

First, there are a lot of people telling you not to. A lot of people (like the commenter) will try to gaslight you into thinking it's not that big of a deal and that you must cater to their needs over and above their own. This is false. It is only ever your decision to call something out, and how you do so is your choice.

Additionally, there are days I simply don't have the spoons (or energy) to call out the microaggressions of oppression that I encounter. Even a "hey, that's not cool," is sometimes too much to muster in light of what the damage control would entail. That's okay - you don't have to do everything. There's an odd pressure that you must call everything bad out all the time - I definitely felt it when I first got involved in social justice writing and online activism - but, first and foremost, self-care is important. If you are not up to the task that day, it is okay. It is okay to not be okay.

This doesn't mean you're letting things slide or that you're a bad activist. You are placing your mental and emotional health over and above an obligation to some larger force, and that, ultimately, will help you be a better activist - in other words, you'll learn to choose your battles wisely.

Second, there's no right way to do it. You don't have to fit within a narrow kind tone to let someone know that what they just did is not cool. Each situation is different, and, often, an angry, "HEY GTFO!" is all you need. Only you can judge based on your relationship to that person.

Remember that your feelings are valid. The first thing the privileged will try to do is say, "It's not that bad. Get over it." I've been tempted to say that myself as a privileged person. But your feelings of hurt and anger are valid and important.

Now, in a related strain, the privileged person may, too, feel hurt and offended. After all, as I said, it sucks to be told that something you did hurt someone else. And it sucks to realize that your world is shifting under your feet and you no longer have the expected power that you had before. But there is a difference between the distressing growing pains that the privileged experience as their privilege recedes, and your immediate, constant pain as an oppressed person, one upon whom aspersions have been hurled since day one. It is an interplay between power and pain - the pain the powerful experience as their power recedes is nothing compared to the pain they inflict upon others as they grapple for that power again.

Everything in the world tells us to prize the pain of the privileged over the pain of the oppressed. And calling out reverses that - it prizes the oppressed's pain, elevates the experience of the downtrodden, over the temporary growing pain of the privileged. But when you call out, everything in you will push back to acquiescence, to falling back in line to the hierarchy in which your pain is sublimated and ignored. But it is much more freeing and healing to realize that your pain is valid, too, and deserves respect too.

And if the person learns (hallelujah!), they may ask you to forgive them. Indeed, in the church, this call may come before any actual learning has occurred. As the wronged one, forgiveness is in your hands. No one else can make you forgive or push you to forgive. You may not want to, and that's okay, too. Things don't heal overnight and you don't have to heal on their timetable.

I wrote my notes for this entry while listening to writer Anne Lamott speak on Thursday night (I was exhausted and my mind was whirring in different directions), and was taken away from my note-taking when she said this: "No is a complete sentence." There is power in realizing that you have the ability to say no, and to have that be all you say. When a privileged person comes in and says something privilege, you have the power and the ability to simply say, "No."

And that, truly, is a great thing, though it may not feel like it at the time.

Privilege: Invisible Advantages

I’ve had a lot of uncomfortable conversations in my life. I’m the type of person who hates being told when I’m wrong (like 99% of the rest of humanity) and it’s taken me a lot of time and work to get to a point where I'm not so stubborn about it. It’s hard work, and it’s not something I expect people to learn how to do in a day. But, in my line of work, I also do a lot of telling other people that they’re wrong. Indeed, I end up throwing around the word “privilege” in these conversations a bit more than I would like, and it is usually about the time that “privilege” surfaces that things escalate beyond control and become utterly useless.

You see, people hate the word privilege. It can be a discussion-ender. But understanding our implicit privileges and the ways they cloud our thinking is vital for a discussion in social justice to actually get anywhere. So I’m starting a short series on calling out and being called out, in three parts.

Today, we discuss the concept of privilege. Tomorrow, on being called out on privilege. And the day after, on calling others out.

Part One: What is Privilege?

Most people think of “privilege” as Mitt Romney or Prince William type privilege. No one (well, almost no one) denies that those who are born with every monetary and familial advantage are privileged. But when I try to apply that label to Joe Schmo at the grocery store, people bristle. “I’m not privileged!” they cry. “I worked for everything I got!”

But that’s not what I or many others mean by privilege.

Privilege is an advantage I have but am not always aware of. It is something inherent to my self that has the ability to affect how easy or difficult my life is.

For example, I am a heterosexual white woman raised by a mother and a father in the breadbasket of the United States. I grew up in an area where most of the people I encountered on a daily basis looked like me and had similar experiences to myself.

I did not, for example, have to worry when I applied for jobs that I would be expected to make extra effort to disprove a stereotype or possibly be outright rejected because of my race. I did not have to worry that people might follow me around a store because of how I looked. I did not even have to worry that people would ask me to be representative of my race during a class discussion.

As a white person, I had the advantage of not having to worry about how my actions reflected on members of my own race. I could count, mostly, on being seen as an individual and not a representative member of a group. My minority friends do not have such a luxury.

That is a privilege I have.

Now, let me discuss a privilege I do not have. I am a cisgender woman. This means I have to think about a lot of things that my cisgender male friends and family do not worry about. For example, I do a lot of online dating. I always meet in a public place and leave a note at my home with the man’s name and phone number, just in case something goes wrong.

I highly doubt that my name is on a post-it on my date’s desk at home.

I make plans for things mostly during daylight hours if I can, and if I have to return home late at night, I walk into my building with my cell phone out and my keys in a position to swing at a potential attacker.

I know of no men who take the same precautions.

Not thinking about your safety and being able to go for a walk at midnight without concern: that is privilege.

There are myriad different ways that privilege affects a person's life, and I could not possibly catalog them all. But I urge you to spend a little time thinking - especially if you're white or a man (or both) - of ways in which you don't have to spend time worrying about your race or your gender affecting the outcome of something. That will give you a pretty good grasp on what your privileges are.

Privilege is not something you can necessarily control (except in the case of religious privilege in the United States). And I want to make this absolutely clear, because it is important for the subsequent discussion: Having privilege does not make you a bad person.

Saying that you have privilege is merely a statement of fact, not a value judgment.

For example, in American society, I have the privileges of being white, cisgender, straight, and Christian. I also am mostly neurotypical (minus an anxious-depressive disorder, which is managed with hormonal birth control). I am average height and relatively skinny, and above average in terms of education and intelligence.

These are just some of my privileges and they affect my life in varying degrees. Realization and acceptance that there are some things in your life that might function to make your life easier is vital to work in social justice and progressive movements.

Tomorrow, we’ll learn about what to do (and, more importantly, what NOT to do) when called on your privilege – which will, inevitably, happen.

____________

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Quit Your Job

Because of my recent bout of being internetless, I’ve missed a lot of important news – I didn’t hear about the attack in Libya until this morning, and had to do a lot of reading back over things to gain context. The attack was a tragedy and not just because an American state official died. The inevitable and heavily disappointing part of any such tragedy is, of course, the immediate jumps toward politicization and spin. Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney is currently taking a lot of heat for tone deaf and politicized comments in the wake of the tragedy, as is to be expected.

But I’m not here to write about that. I honestly don’t know enough context for what happened or for Romney’s remarks to comment adequately on that particular situation. What I am here to comment on is the layperson’s assessment, particularly that of people in the church.

There is a disturbing, intensely vocal portion of the American evangelical church that seems to take its cue for Godliness and Christian service much more from nationalism than from Biblical precedent. And this is no more apparent than when engaged in a discussion about “the Muslims” and issues in the Middle East. All too often, Islam – a religion comprised of literally millions of people across the globe – will be first discussed as a monolith, and then railed against as “violent” and “savage.” There is a faction of the American church will react with little surprise to attacks like the ones in Libya, saying things like, “Well, what did you expect from such people?”

For some reason unbeknownst to even myself, I usually react to such comments with a sigh and a resignation of “Okay, never talking to that person.” I think, quite often, it has been easier for me to write off this section of the American Christian population as “fringe,” as those whom it is better to ignore than attempt to engage in good faith.

But then, today, my friend Alan Noble who writes for Christ and Pop Culture posted a link on Facebook to an analysis of the Libya attacks, prompting the following comment from a person on his friend list:

I say...bring ALL our troops home and let those savage people do what they do best. KILL one another. There are not a million Muslims worth the life of one American soldier.

Upon clicking on this person’s profile, one discovers that he is the pastor of a Baptist church in Arkansas.

Something within me broke.

Up until this point, I could reasonably (though unjustifiably) go on in pretending ignorance that the anti-Muslim sector of Christians in America were just laypeople, uneducated and fringe. But no, here was irrefutable proof that some pastors – shepherds of the flock, people who are supposed to be held to higher standard – were espousing the same racist, Islamophobic trash that I was seeing from commenters on The National Review Online. I suppose that this tripe had to be coming from somewhere, but now I had a pastor saying, directly, in a public forum, that some lives are worth more than others.

And that makes me angry. Very angry.

I have a message to every pastor and pastor-in-training out there: if you think that some lives are worth more than others, you need to quit your job. Immediately.

Don’t take a day to pray about it; don’t spend time waffling about whether or not it’s God’s will. If you, in any inkling in the back of your brain, can possibly think that some lives in this world are worth more than others – because of their skin color, religious beliefs, clothing, or country of origin – you are not fit to be leading God’s flock.

Quit. Now.

You are the malignant tumor on the Body of Christ. If you can possibly say that God cares about some people more than others – which is what you are saying when you say that someone’s life is “worth more” – you are not fit for the role you are in. Take your severance pay, contact your deacons, and turn in your resignation.

In orthodox Christianity, we preach a Jesus who died for ALL. We preach a Jesus who spoke to the lowest of society and welcomed them in before those who most “deserved” his attention – the Pharisees and religious leaders. We worship a Jesus who preached about the goodness of those outside his religious traditions – the Good Samaritan, for example.

If you as a pastor can claim that Jesus with one breath on a Sunday morning, and then say that Muslims are not worth the life of an American soldier on Wednesday, you have failed, utterly and completely to fulfill your duty as a Christian leader. There is no grace and mercy in the claim that some lives are worth more than others; there is no love there, and love, grace, and mercy are essential to Christian leadership. You are damaging people and  you are damaging the Word of God if you can possibly say what this pastor said.

I have hope that you will learn and change and see that the grace, love and mercy of God extends beyond your circle of "people who look like you." But I refuse to tolerate this possible change and growth as a reason to allow you to keep a pastorate. This is a change and growth that must be done away and outside of a leadership position. Asking you to step down is the most gracious thing I can think of right now, as I believe your views can change. But I will not have you wreaking havoc on the trusting people of your church and spreading malignant, terrible lies in the process.

So here is your pink slip. You're done.

On Romney and Gay Bashing

This morning, a story came out on the Washington Post about Mitt Romney as an 18 year old, attacking a fellow prep school student and forcibly cutting his hair because, as a former friend reported, “He can’t look like that! It’s just wrong!” When I saw fellow liberal Twitter friends tweeting the story with barely contained glee, I hesitated. It read, initially, to me like another Aqua Buddha story, or possibly another “Bush Pulled Over For DUI!” Politically, it was too well-timed – North Carolina and Maine voted to ban same-sex marriage this week, and Obama came out in an interview on ABC News as a supporter of same-sex marriage, becoming the first sitting president to do so. It read like the Washington Post was striking while the iron was hot on the narrative that that GOP is viciously homophobic and commits hate crimes for fun.

As I was processing all this, I tweeted the following: “On this #MittRomney debacle, I have a couple comments: 1. If anyone held me to ridiculous insults/things I did at 18...whoo boy. … 2. Which is it, blogosphere, is he notoriously homophobic anti-gay, or is he secretly a supporter of LGBT who flip-flopped for politics? There are two competing narratives surrounding Romney, and to me, this entire thing rings of Aqua Buddha again. And I'm not excusing what Romney did - that action was far more horrific than anything I did at 18 - but do we believe people can change?”

That was a mistake.

In expressing my hesitancy to jump on Romney for something he’d done as a young adult, I ended up sounding just like those who ask the abused to forgive their abuser, and just like people at Relevant Magazine who told me that I need to believe in grace for Hugo Schwyzer and let him have a platform.

I’m sorry for that.

And I recognize that this means people may not wish to listen to me further, but, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to explain a little bit of what I meant.

There’s a popular narrative in the liberal blogosphere that Romney is a flip-flop. That is essentially without question – he used to be pro-choice, and now he supports personhood measures that would ban birth control. His state – under his governorship – was the template for the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act of 2010, and now he pledges to repeal it. He was against the bailout of the auto industry – even writing an op-ed entitled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” - and came out this week saying that he always supported the bailouts.

And, according to statements he made in the 1990s, he was a supporter of same-sex marriage rights … back before it had popular support. Now, as we all know, he’s opposed. The flip-flop narrative one is extremely troublesome – it gives, at best, an inconsistent picture of what Romney believes, and at worst, paints him as yet another sleazy politician who will say what he needs to in order to get votes.

But then, with this new story, we seem to be taking a different tack: “SEE! He’s a homophobic bigot and we knew it all along!” This undermines the flip-flop narrative, which just makes us look as inconsistent as the person we’re criticizing. That was my main point with what I tweeted, and it was expressed incredibly poorly. I partook in an abuse culture that is heavily problematic and something I want nothing to do with – for that, I apologize.

On the “people can change” aspect of my tweets: I absolutely regret my sentiment there. I tweeted that before I’d had the chance to read Romney’s apologetic-sounding non-apology, which is quoted below (via Mother Jones):

“Back in high school I did some dumb things and if anybody was hurt by that or offended by that I apologize,” he told reporters. “I certainly don’t believe that I thought the fellow was homosexual. That was the furthest thing from our minds back in the 1960s.”

He also told Brian Kilmeade of Fox News (via The Washington Post):

“I participated in a lot of hijinks and pranks during high school and some might have gone too far and for that, I apologize,” Romney told radio host Brian Kilmeade this morning. As far the specific allegation regarding cutting the boy’s hair, Romney said: “I don’t remember that incident.”

This is the problem with this whole thing.

Everyone does shitty, stupid stuff when they’re 18. This is an attack more vicious than most. I don’t deny that this was a horrific, terrible thing – to attack someone for not conforming to gender norms is vicious, wrong, and terrible. I want there to be no mistake that I believe this sort of attack to be wrong. To refer to it as "hijinks" reveals a failure to understand the horror of the incident.

But – and this is a hesitant, quietly said, calmly intoned “but” – I don’t believe what is essentially at issue is what he did. I did shitty stuff at 18 that I have (I hope) since atoned for. The problem with this attack is that Romney shows no willingness to atone for it, and, even today, no recognition that it is wrong - again, he called it "hijinks."

But in covering the story, the narrative has been, “Did you hear what Romney did 40 years ago????” rather than, “Did you hear that Romney has not shown any signs of repentance of this thing he did?”

The horror here is in both parts of the story: that Romney committed such a horrific attack (an attack that would be considered assault if it happened in 2012) and that he has not shown repentance of that act.

I believe that people can change. I like to think that, having repented and made attempts at making amends, I will not be continued to be dragged over the coals for stupid things I did and said when I was 18 – and there were a lot of those (hell, I've done stupid stuff NOW). But had I not repented of those things, had I not shown remorse, had I not attempted to make or made amends, you would be well within your rights to call me on it now. And if I did not respond with anything but the utmost contrition, you would be correct to hold that against me.

(Let me apologize once again for what I said this morning. It rang very close to the attitudes that perpetuate abusive culture, and re-victimize victims. I regret that I became a part of that.)

In criticizing the Republican presidential nominee, we should be careful to concentrate on the fact that Romney is unrepentant of his actions, that he refuses to recognize that what he did was wrong, and that much of his base has no problem with what he did in the first place. This is a complex issue, but rather than simply using this incident to paint Romney as a “gay basher” – which opens the debate up to objections that we’re simply digging up dirt on his past and gets the debate embroiled in what is or is not "fair game" – we need to point out that Romney has not admitted wrongdoing, and that is what sets this apart from average teenage antics. That is a nuance the conversation is lacking.

After all, isn't it rather important to have a Presidential candidate who can express remorse rather than one who obfuscates and claims not to remember viciously attacking another human being?

BJU and Injustice

This morning, I was contacted by a good friend of mine (wishing to remain anonymous, so we’ll just call her S) about some troubles going on at Bob Jones University. For those of you not familiar, Bob Jones U is a very, very conservative Christian college known for having highly legalistic rules – to the point that students can be put on something called “spiritual probation.” My friend, S., in fact, is a former student of Bob Jones who was expelled for having sex with her boyfriend – who is now her husband. And now they have unjustly expelled another student – Christopher Peterman – for exercising his first amendment right to protest, though, to hear them tell it, that’s not the case at all.

But before we get there, we have to go back up the injustice chain.

This all started with a girl named Tina Anderson. I heard about Tina a couple of years ago, back when this whole thing actually happened – it was a small story that appeared on Change.org, though it took another year or two for the national media to cotton on. Tina was 15 when she was raped by a 40-year-old member of her church. She became pregnant from this rape. She was forced – by the pastor of the church, Charles “Chuck” Phelps – to “confess” and apologize to the whole congregation for getting pregnant outside of marriage and for “being in a compromising situation” that led to getting pregnant. At the same time, the man was forced to confess to “adultery,” though no connection between the two cases was made for the congregation, and no criminal charges were brought (even though, at the very least, this was statutory rape).

Anderson was forced to move to Colorado from New Hampshire for the duration of her pregnancy, to the home of a family friend of the pastor's, and forced to give up her child for adoption when she gave birth. Last year, Tina was finally contacted by the NH police, and her rapist was charged, convicted, and sentenced (which is when the story made national headlines).

How does this connect to BJU and Chris Peterman?

Chuck Phelps, Tina’s pastor at the time who helped cover up her rape and could, reasonably, be an accomplice to a criminal act, was a board member in good standing at BJU.

Peterman, rightly, thought this was a very bad idea. My friend S writes:

A student at the school, Christopher Peterman, learned about both the case and Chuck's position as a board member, and organized a movement called Do Right, BJU (named after a famous saying from the founder of the school, "Do right until the stars fall!"). The movement was designed to pressure BJU to remove Chuck Phelps from his position on the board as well as to encourage them to start reporting sexual abuse cases as required by law, since the school has a horrendous history of covering up abuse and victim-blaming. Part of this movement culminated in the first-ever student and alumni led protest held at BJU. The administration threatened Chris with expulsion for his "insubordination," but when the media was alerted to the protest, a spokesman for the school stated that no one involved would suffer any administrative repercussions. Chuck Phelps resigned his position a few days before the protest (supposedly unrelated to the DR-BJU movement, protest, and a petition with over 1,000 signatures demanding his removal). This all happened towards the close of the fall semester of 2011

But things didn’t end there for Peterman. Even though BJU couldn’t really expel him for protesting – after all, that’s a first amendment right, and they’d had their hands tied by their own words to the media – they put him on watch.

You see, at BJU, students function on a system of demerits. You get a certain number of demerits based on infractions of the rules - 150 demerits, and you get expelled. These rules are detailed in the student handbook (PDF). The handbook itself is a piece of work, and well worth a gander – there are several sections reinforcing the idea that BJU students must submit to “God-given human authorities” (read: the BJU administration). You’re also expected to attend church twice a week in addition to Monday-Thursday chapel services (if you’re interested, you can check twitter for the hashtag #BJUHandbook, where I tweeted many of the rules).

BJU used this system of demerits to exact a punishment on Chris for protesting against Phelps. They monitored his FB and twitter feeds carefully, they placed an extra RA in his dorm to keep an eye on him. People started following him both on and off campus to look for him breaking the rules. S writes:

The dean of men would email, call, and text him at all hours, demanding to meet with him to discuss his spiritual status. I believe that he was technically on spiritual probation (meaning he had to meet regularly with an uncertified counselor for nouthetic counseling).

He went into this spring semester (2012) with 70 demerits on his record already. And it didn’t take long – of course, with all the careful watching, it’s not surprising – for him to chalk up to 145.

These violations?

He went off campus and watched an episode of Glee – 50 demerits. It’s not technically banned in the rulebook, but they did it anyway.

He posted the lyrics to Matthew West’s “Only Grace” on his Facebook – 50 demerits that were then rescinded.

Posting a FB status or a Tweet – they never explained which – during class – 25 demerits.

10 days before his graduation, BJU expelled Christopher Peterman. He only had 145 demerits, but because he had contacted the organization that oversees BJU’s accreditation – assuming, at the time, that he was going to be expelled and wanting to see what recourse he had – he was summarily accused by BJU of attempting to “intimidate” the administration.

This is a bad situation turned worse. This is misuse and abuse of authority. And this is wrong. The only way we can continue to stand up against these injustices is if we do not keep silent on the matter.

You can view Chris’ statement here, and you can sign a petition asking BJU to let him graduate here.

The Freedom to Choose

This week, there’s been a faux-controversy about some comments made by Democratic political consultant Hilary Rosen, saying that Ann Romney, as a stay at home mom, has “never worked a day in her life.” Naturally, this stoked a lot of the fires of stereotypes about feminist leftists in that, evidently, we view SAHMs as lazy, good for nothings, who just sit at home and eat bon-bons all day.

Unfortunately, this view is complete fiction, on multiple levels. It’s a fiction that this is how feminists view SAHMs – made almost funny by the fact that I know quite a few feminists who are the stay at home parent. And it’s a fiction that Rosen’s comments were a dig at stay at home mom’s in general. And it's a fiction that stay at home moms don't work hard.

Here’s the full context of Rosen’s statement:

What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues. And when I listen to my wife, that’s what I’m hearing.

Guess what, his wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school and how do we—why do we worry about their future? [emphasis mine]

Rosen’s point is a political one – the Romneys are very well off.* Everyone knows that. We’ve been laughing for months at how Romney is so rich he’s unable to relate to the average middle class person he’s representing. And Ann Romney – who “drives a couple of Cadillacs” – is, as Rosen was pointing out, in a situation that allows her to be a stay at home mom without worry about finances, job loss, or how to pay for day care if she chose to work. Fundamentally, Ann Romney was lucky enough to have the choice about being a stay at home mom.

As a childfree person, happily so by choice, I fundamentally support the rights of mothers to have choices in how they parent and whether they work or not. Just as my hackles get raised when someone suggests that it’s my duty to stay at home and raise children, I understand that SAHMs feel like they get a negative rap, and feel the need to push back against the "working woman’s feminism."**

But here’s the thing: Feminism is fundamentally about choice. When we take away a woman’s choice to work or to be a stay at home mom - be it through economic or religious means - we take away a fundamental part of her dignity and humanity. The free will to say “This is what I want to do in my life” is a massive part of personal identity and personal dignity, and it is something that women all over the world are denied.

That’s why Ann Romney cannot relate to the single mother who has to work three jobs in order to make ends meet. That’s why Ann Romney cannot relate to the middle class teacher who would like to stay at home but can’t because her state doesn’t pay a high enough salary for her to do so. That’s why Ann Romney cannot relate to the economic woes facing most of middle class America. She’s never had to wonder if her next pay check would be enough to cover a bill. She’s never had an IRS mix up prevent her from taking time off work. She's never had to decide between formula and keeping the lights on another month.

Christopher Hayes is right when he calls the controversy over Rosen’s comments “substance-less idiocy.” No one is arguing that stay at home moms don’t work hard. What many current feminists contend and have contended for years is that there is a systemic problem in the way this government handles women’s issues that prevents women from being stay at home mothers by choice. We are frequently economically unable to choose to work at home because companies don’t offer paid maternity or parental leave, because there’s no security that we would be able to get a job when we return from mothering. Additionally, the wage gap favors men as breadwinners. Making the decision to leave the workforce or to have a baby impacts women much more negatively in terms of career advancement than it ever does men.

We live in a culture that values neither the career women nor the stay at home moms. Because women live lives that are considered public property, to be legislated and debated and discussed, rather than merely lived, there’s not a woman in the United States who is not facing criticism for her choices.

The point is neither here nor there when it comes to whether or not stay at home moms work. The point is that women need to have the choice – economically, socially, religiously, and physically – to be a stay at home mom if they want to be, and to be a childfree career woman if they want to be. The freedom to choose one's path in life is fundamentally American. To deny the economic reality that takes the choice away is to create a fiction of epic proportions.

_______

*Understatement of the century, I know.

**The reason many have this impression is because of second wave feminism of the 50s/60s, which pushed back against the idea that women should be housewives and that was our station in life. Last May, the NY Times had an interesting article explaining that part of the reason there was a backlash against housewifery and being a stay at home mom was not because feminists are secretly sexists who hate mothers. Rather, Coontz writes: “In the early 20th century, under the influence of Freudianism, Americans began to view public avowals of “Mother Love” as unmanly and redefine what used to be called “uplifting encouragement” as nagging. By the 1940s, educators, psychiatrists and popular opinion-makers were assailing the idealization of mothers; in their view, women should stop seeing themselves as guardians of societal and familial morality and content themselves with being, in the self-deprecating words of so many 1960s homemakers, ‘just a housewife.’” The entire article is worth a read.