Massachusetts at the Cutting Edge?

The following is the text of an e-mail message I sent to Boston Globe columnist Lawrence HArmon, who wrote in his column how he was enrsaged by a court's decision to allow convicted murderer Robert Kosilek, sho is serving a life sentence without possibility of parole for killing her wife, to have GRS at state expense:

Mr. Harmon:


In your September 7, 2012 column, Judge goes too far in sex change ruling which I read at:

http://articles.boston.com/2012-09-07/opinion/33713842_1_reassignment-surgery-gender-identity-disorder-michelle-kosilek ,


you described the judge's decision to mandate that the government provide GRS to imprisoned felon Kosilek as "enraging."

I have to disagree - I think of it as an encouraging sign of the change in the societal perception of trans people that has been taking place in the past decade or so.

What enrages me is the fact that medical insurance, medicare, medicaid, etc. don't all cover trans medical needs in the same way that they treat diabetes, atherosclerosis or any other medical issue. GRS is far from experimental - it is the standard method of treatment for transsexual people.

You describe inadequate treatment as being "more moderate" - it's not "more moderate," it's cruel and unusual. or should be unusual.

It is not that Kosilek should be denied treatment, it's that everyone else who needs it should have it available - whether they are privately insured or on a government medical program.

Societal understanding has been improving over the years. In the 1960's the best medical experts considered trans people to be delusional members of their initiallya ssigned sex, for whom any treatment would be merely "palliative."

Today we know that trans people have brains that develop physiologically along the gendered lines associated with the sex not associated with their genital duct development. Scientists have found at least two kinds of genetic predisposition for embryological development along these lines, where the developing body "zigs" along one path for the developigng brain, and "zags" along the other path for the development of the reproductive system.

At one time, people thought the earth was flat and the sun traveled around the earth. Galileo was condemned by the Inquisition for advancing the Copernican theory - but we now know the earth is round and the earth orbits the sun.

In 1818, a New York court ignored the testimony of the leading natural scientist of the day, in favor of the testimony of sea captains and clergymembers, to hold that whales are fish. But whales are still mammals - and the state legislature recognized that shortly thereafter.

I'd recommend you read a little of Umberto Eco's works on semiotics. What our society is experiencing in connection with the understanding of the trans phenomena is much like the way society has experienced changes in the understanding of other things.

Your column represents the resistance of ignorance - perhaps out of ignorance, but I'd think you, as a journalist, should be educable, or I wouldn;t have bothered with this message to you.

I'd suggest you do some research on your own. Perhaps you might read my occasional blog. (And I think I am going to take this message and post it there . . . at www.trans-cendence.blogspot.com )


Regards,

Joann Prinzivalli

Our friends still need a little education, sometimes

Professor Randolph McLaughlin gives me a "teaching moment."

This evening I attended the New York Civil Liberty Union Lower Hudson Valley chapter's annual dinner, at which we honored our retiring Executive Director, Linda Berns, and awarded the Myron Isaacs Community Service Award to two sisters, Joanne Robinson-Boettcher and Roberta Robinson Frazier, for their lifelong work in community activism across a broad spectrum of causes.

The evening's principal speaker was Randolph McLaughlin, Esq., who is a civil rights lawyer, a professor at Pace Law School, and who is currently a member of the legal team representing the Chamberlain family's interests in connection with the shooting death of retired corrections officer and Marine veteran, 68 year old Kenneth Chamberlain, killed by a White Plains police officer in his own home for no reason except for the fact that he was an African American male who did not shuffle and say "yassuh" when the police came to his door, ostensibly to help him because his life alert pendant had triggered an alarm.

Professor McLaughlin's speech was inspiring and outstanding.  He even cited one of my favorite quotes about the law, from the play A Man for All Seasons.

His speech was marred by a different reference, one I realized was rooted in an innocent ignorance.

In a portion of his speech, he compared the police refusal to allow Mr. Chamberlain's niece, who had arrived in the hallway, an opportunity to speak to him to try to get him calmed down, to the situation police offered to the character played by Al Pacino in the movie Dog Day Afternoon, when he was allowed to speak to his pre-op transsexual girlfriend (in the real-life bank robbery the movie was loosely based on, this character's inspiration was Elizabeth Eden). . .

.  . . except Professor McLaughlin referred to the person on the other end of the phone, as the bank robber's boyfriend.

I realized that the factual inaccuracy was secondary to the point that was being made, but I did find it disturbing enough that I had to broach it to Professor McLaughlin afterward.  And I did.

It was an opportunity for education, and I took it.

I explained the inaccuracy in the reference to him - and I pointed out the fact that the purpose of the bank robbery in both the film and in the real life situation, was to obtain the funds for Elizabeth's surgery (or surgery for the character based on Elizabeth).

When I finished explaining, Professor McLaughlin asked me to repeat the phrase "pre-operative transsexual woman."  I realize that he was trying to commit the phrase to memory - and I am sure that the next time he gives a speech on the subject, and makes that reference, that he will be more respectful of the identity of the character based on Elizabeth's life.

My suspicion that the gaffe was based on an innocent ignorance that led to the initial reference was conformed by the respectfulness and attentiveness that Professor McLaughlin gave me when I spoke to him after his speech.

Monsignor Pope, and the Pope, not only cherry-pick scripture, they misinterpret it.

Over at the Joe.My.God blog this morning, Joe shares with us a quote from Monsignor Charles Pope, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Washington.

Monsignor Pope's reliance on authority emanating from the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church is utterly misplaced.  I grant that he is a spokesman for that apparatus, but the moral evil that his quoted statement reflects must not be left unchallenged.

Let's start with this:

"We cannot pick and choose the books of the Bible, we cannot tear out pages, or cross out lines. Orthodoxy is to accept the whole of the Sacred Text, and to consider its claims with reference to the whole of Scripture and in keeping with its trajectory."

Monsignor Pope, in his essay, is addressing President Obama's non-Catholic Christianity as expressed in an interview he gave to ABC News about his conversation with his daughters about marriage.

Okay, Monsignor, if we're talking about "picking and choosing," - how about 1 Samuel 18:1-4, when David and Jonathan get married (become "one soul.") - How about the complete and total misrepresentation made by the then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in an official 1975 document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Persona Humana:

"In the pastoral field, these homosexuals must certainly be treated with understanding and sustained in the hope of overcoming their personal difficulties and their inability to fit into society. Their culpability will be judged with prudence. But no pastoral method can be employed which would give moral justification to these acts on the grounds that they would be consonant with the condition of such people. For according to the objective moral order, homosexual relations are acts which lack an essential and indispensable finality. In Sacred Scripture they are condemned as a serious depravity and even presented as the sad consequence of rejecting God.[ Rom 1:24-27 ] This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and can in no case be approved of."

In the 1983 document Homosexualitatis Problema, Ratzinger's theological ignorance and deeply-seated and disordered bigotry comes out with this misinterepretive gem:

"Thus, in Genesis 19:1-11, the deterioration due to sin continues in the story of the men of Sodom. There can be no doubt of the moral judgement made there against homosexual relations. In Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, in the course of describing the conditions necessary for belonging to the Chosen People, the author excludes from the People of God those who behave in a homosexual fashion."

The actual fact is that the patriarchal misogyny that is at the root of the moral theology of the Roman Catholic Church is the root cause of the evil which is preached from the pulpits, and from the Thone of Peter.  But let's leave the Pope's own moral failures, and return to return to Monsignor Pope's: 

"For a Catholic, of course this is done in union with the Magisterium and Sacred Tradition."

But the problem with this is that the Magisterium is so morally corrupt and evil that it cannot be a moral compass.  Tradition was corrupted from the time Augustine of Hippo cemented the Manichaean and Gnostic debasing of the body and elevation of the "spirit" that informs much of Roman Catholic theology.

"Many supporters of homosexual behavior adopt this heresy by saying, 'Jesus never said a word about or against Homosexuality.'"

But Jesus DID talk about transgender people, and some theologians believe that this same quote also actually addresses those who are hard-wired gay - all covered under the term "eunuch."  It is Matthew 19:12, which refers back to Isaiah 56 and forward to Acts 8 - so it's not an isolated passage.  It is misused by the RCC as a principal biblical argument in favor of priestly celibacy, which involves a clear misinterpretation of the passage.  However, let's face it, most gay people who have been hounded out of churches aren't scripture scholars, so the meme that "Jesus never said anything against gay people" is at least easy to state - what they don;t realize is that it is likely the Jesus did say at least one gay-positive thing.

"True, but he also never said a word about a lot of things: drinking to excess, beating one’s wife, he never forbade ethnic humor, or said people should wear clothes, He never declared how big and how much money should be spent on the military etc, whether Government should provide welfare etc. Since Jesus did not say out of his own mouth we cannot beat our wives then it must be okay to beat them? Of course not. An argument from silence is very poor and unhelpful." 

Monsignor Pope, Jesus never spoke out against the marriage of David and Jonathan as described in 1 Samuel 18:1-4.  So from your analysis, we can imply that this particular silence involves a implicit approval of gender-neutral connubium.  Isn't that special?

Of course, Monsignor Pope serves as a flack for the Magisterium in the Archdiocese of Washington, so it is no surprise that he spouts the evil party line, particularly of he wants to keep his job.

Now let’s turn to the source for Joe.My.God’s quote of Monsignor Pope, as there is much more to analyze:

Monsignor accuses President Obama of cherry-picking a simplistic portrait of Jesus Christ (as distinguished from the likely historical man, Yeshua ben Miriam, an itinerant preacher of a Jewish religious movement that became known as “The Way” after his death, who was crucified after he moved from preaching a message of non-violent resistance to starting a riot in Jerusalem during the Passover Season by driving the money-changers out of the Temple pricincts).

When President Obama talks about the genuine central message of the Good news, Monsignor Pope chooses to focus on matters that relate to the cultural assumptions of the times in which Yeshua lived.

The biggest problem with Pope’s “orthodoxy” is the fact that it relies on all the encrustations that the writers of scripture (including added passages by others than the original authors), and early scriptural analysts and Church Fathers added, in order to deify Yeshua and turn a message of non-violent resistance to oppression, of speaking Truth to Power, and involving the relationship between Love and Power to achieve Justice, into one that is centered on the myth of the resurrection.  I grant that most Christians are resurrection-focused, which obfuscates the real message – one that is not unique or exclusive to Christianity but can be found in many other paths.

So the path that Monsignor Pope takes is to rely on this orthodoxy that is the principal source of the bigotry and prejudice that has corrupted Roman Catholic “moral” theology.

MOnsignor Pope himself heretically “picks and chooses” scripture – and he and the Magisterium intentionally choose to misstate and misinterpret much of what is actually there – just go and reread  what Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict) once wrote as authoritative scriptural interpretation, as quoted above.  

Ratzinger ignored the message of Romans 1, which was Paul’s disrespect for the sacramental sex of the religious competition from the other mystery religions that were all the rage in first century Rome.  Ratzinger ignored the message of the story of Sodom – which is strangely not a moral condemnation against homosexuality, as he states it is, but is rather a moral condemnation of macho, misogynistic, disrespectful prejudice against strangers, foreigners and people who are different – a condemnation that should be seen as aimed squarely against the institutional Roman Catholic Church’s patriarchal misogyny. (Take as just one example, the insistence on patriarchal male pronouns for their trinity in the formula for baptism, and the invalidation of baptisms that used any gender-neutral formulation.)

So much of Monsignor Pope’s essay is filled with arrant nonsense similar to that that emanates from his top boss in Rome – he and the Magisterium not only "heretically" pick and choose their scripture, they consistently misinterpret that which they pick and choose in order to magnify the depth of the evil to which they have stooped.

The fact is that there is not a single bit of Christian sacred scripture that actually condemns homosexuality – and some that describes a marriage between David and Jonathan.  There is not a bit of scripture that condemns trans people – and three interrelated citations that show how special we are in the eyes of God – and which some theologians believe include gay people as well.

Monsignor Pope writes that:

“Thus orthodoxy, which holds to the whole and does not pick and choose Scripture, must in every way accept and announce that these are sinful acts, sinful enough to exclude one from the Kingdom if they are not repented of (e.g. 1 Cor 6:9)”

What Monsignor Pope conveniently ignores in citing to 1 Cor. 6:9 is the fact that the English translations are mostly incorrect, and even Jerome, who was notoriously heterosexist, misogynistic and cissexist, took pains to mistranslate some key passages when he produced the Vulgate.  

The Greek word arsenokoitai does not mean homosexuality – but rather was most likely to be related to the practice of adult sexual relations with children – a practice which is almost universally condemned, and with which many Roman Catholic priests are familiar, either as eager participants, or with their heads stuck in the sand trying to ignore it,  or even diligently trying to root out the practice despite the obfuscations of others among them (though going after gays as a means to eradicating the problem is an error, the root problem is mandatory priestly celibacy, which is unnatural except for those few form whom abstinence is possible without psychological harm).  Certainly, the term arsenokoitai has no connection with the modern understanding of adult gay relationships.

Similarly, malakoi is a term that refers to the indolent who take no risk, sit on the fence and go with the flow – to give it the correct flavor, “the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of crisis, maintain their neutrality.”  Those people are the malakoi.  Nothing gay about them, either.

Given Monsignor Pope's clear misunderstanding of his scriptures in the pursuit of bigotry and intolerance for strangers and people who are different, a teaching that is consistent with what his masters in the Vatican want him to teach, it is clear that the only way to save Christianity is for it to reform.  It must abandon the barbarism and immoral teachings that have no place in a civilized society. 

The Roman Catholic Church has failed to address its deeply rooted patriarchal misogyny which is at the root of its anti-woman, anti-gay and anti-trans teachings, and as a result, it has lost any shred of moral authority it may have once commanded among people who are possessed of an informed conscience and a working moral compass.  The Church is wrong about women, it is wrong about gays, it is wrong about trans people, it is even wrong about masturbation – simply put, the entire structure of Roman Catholic moral theology is like a house of playing cards set up on a beach in the face of a gale-driven incoming tide.

The actions and statements of Monsignor Pope, as well as those of the Pope in Rome, are just more examples of the misguided teachings of a Church that has been losing its way for many centuries, and has never bothered to abandon its barbarism and become civilized, beyond the small movement forward when Aquinas and the Scholastics brought the Church up to the level of science that was taught many centuries earlier by the Greek philosopher Aristotle.

I continue to mount a call for all Roman Catholics of good will to break with the Roman Catholic Church, which has long abandoned the authentic teachings of Yeshua ben Miriam in so many ways.  Find some other spiritual home - one that is not so intrinsically bound up with evil counsellors.  There are even Catholic alternatives, such as the Catholic Apostolic Church in North America and the Old Catholics.  There are main line Protestant churches that are evolving their theological approaches to become more civilized - even though they are having pains at getting there.  Then there are the paths that take one farther afield from more traditional Catholicism, including United Church of Christ, Metropolitan Community Church, Unitarian/Universalism, the Society of Friends, Ethical Culture, Buddhism, Wicca, and others.

The bottom line - there are many paths, but not all paths lead to the top of the mountain.  The Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church pushes a path that leads to the depths of the swamp.  It's time to leave - stop contributing time, talent and treasure to the churches run by evil counselors and their ilk.

One last note - to be fair, I have to point out that Monsignor Pope, like anyone else, is not totally and completely evil.  Some of his blog essays are even pretty good!  To get the bad taste of his bigotry out of one's mind, I suggest something inspirational like his May 9th essay, Just an ordinary, daily word, yet a word that mystically reaches for the stars.

 I grant that it is a Catholic perspective, and thus doesn't speak to those of different traditions - but if only, when it comes to LGBT people and the theologies that relate to is, Monsignor Pope, and the Pope, could just consider opening up their minds to a better-grounded theological approach to those of us who are not intolerant and wicked Men of Sodom like them. Our natures, even acting on them, come from the same God who created them - and God does not create junk.  Neither their natures, nor ours, are intrinsically wrong - cis, het, trans and gay, we are all loved (even though Isaiah 56 makes trans people really special, as we get a special place in God's House, but don;t ask the Pope about that, he thinks that we're more dangerous than the destruction of the rain forest.)

N.C. church sign unwittingly admits wickedness

Pastor Rondell Lance of the Center Pigeon Baptist Church of Canton, North Carolina (or whomever the church chose for the purpose of setting up their church sign), appears to have admitted the wickedness that was the basis for the church's blatant open support of North Carolina's anti-marriage Amendment One effort, which enshrines anti-gay bigotry into that state's constitution, making N.C. the last state in a now solidly wicked South to do so by a "popular" vote.

For anyone who has actually read the Genesis story about the actions and punishment of the Men of Sodom, the story is not a condemnation of homosexuality (a lying misinterpretation that is taught by Christianists ranging from this backwoods independent Baptist preacher Rondell Lance from his pulpit in the mountains of Western North Carolina, a few miles south of I-40 and not terribly far east of the possibly even more backwards State of Tennessee, all the way up to Pope Benedict XVI,spiritual leader of over a billion Roman Catholics (many of whom thankfully ignore him) from the papal throne at the Vatican in Rome).  It is about inhospitable intolerance for strangers and people who are different, by macho misogynistic people.  It's all pretty much clear from a reading of Genesis 19, unless it's a bizarro reading.

The right-wing conservative Christianist base of the Republican Party is truly inspired by the macho misogynistic wickedness and intolerance of their heroes, the Men of Sodom. Pastor Rondell Lance is perhaps the rare one who is willing to actually admit it on a church sign.

So, thanks to Pastor Rondell Lance and his church sign, we can understand that the exceedingly wicked Men of Sodom are the inspiration for the Republican War on LGBT people, because we are strangers in their midst, different from their cissexist and heterosexist selves. Because we are different from them, they hate, fear and despise us.

Bit it isn't just us - and it appears that this deep spiritual evil root of this right-wing conservative Christianist Republican politics - the inspiration of the exceeding wickedness of the Men of Sodom - is also responsible for so many of the deeply-held positions of the Republican Party, such as:

The Republican War on Women.  Needless to say, the Men of Sodom were macho misogynists.  Their whole rationale for wanting to show their disrespect for Lot's visitors had nothing to do with sexual orientation, and everything to do with the fact that they believed women were lesser creatures than men.  By extension, their intent to rape the strangers in their midst would, in their way of thinking, prove that the Men of Sodom were the real "he-men," and that the strangers, who would have been "used" in the same way that the Men of Sodom "used" their women, were debased and "less than women."  It almost goes without saying that the attitude of the womb-controllers in the Republican Party is modeled on the misogyny of the exceedingly wicked Men of Sodom.

The Republican War on Immigrants. Like Lot's visitors, immigrants come from somewhere else.  They are strangers in our midst.  Republicans want to treat them disrespectfully.  That is just like their spiritual ancestors, the exceedingly wicked Men of Sodom.

The Republican War on Islam. They're different, they worship what seems to Republicans to be a different god (A classic example of this is that of the thankfully now-retired U.S. Army general, William G. Boykin, a Christianist who ridiculed the faith of Muslims, in a 2003 NBC interview, stating about an Islamic terrorist he hunted down in Mogadishu, "He went on CNN and he laughed at us, and he said, 'They'll never get me because Allah will protect me. Allah will protect me.' Well, you know what? I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."  For that matter, during the Republican primaries, one of the reasons many Christianist GOPers were looking to "Anyone But Romney" was because his LDS faith marks him as being different, a stranger in our midst (and they were even willing to flock to Rick Santorum, A Roman Catholic who, just a few decades ago, would have been viewed as a stranger as well).  Again, the Republican position is just like that of their spiritual inspiration, the exceedingly wicked Men of Sodom.

The Republican War on Racial Minorities.  People who are not white are different, strangers in the midst of the community.  This also passes the "inspired by the Men of Sodom" sniff test.

I could go on.

The thing is, that church sign in Canton, North Carolina says in truth what the inspiration of the Republican Christianist forces of Darkness really is - a deeply held distrust, revulsion and hatred for people who are different from themselves.

The exceedingly wicked Pastor Rondell Lance, with his bizarro Orwellian-Newspeaky brand of Christianist theology, likely does not realize the truth of the admission of wickedness on his church sign.  After all, he mistakenly believes that gay men are the ones who are like the Men of Sodom, rather than being more like Lot's visitors, the strangers in the midst of the community because they are different from the heterosexist majority of voters.

But I know what the true meaning of the sign is.  And now, if you've actually read this whole blog post, so do you, if you didn't know it already.

Spread the word.