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Obama “daughter tests” young women out of sexual privacy and responsibility

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A few months ago I wrote about Freakonomics author Steven Levitt’s “daughter test” for legality. Levitt didn’t invent the test; he just articulated it: “If I wouldn’t want my daughter to do it, I wouldn’t mind the government passing a law against it.” The inanity and offensiveness of this standard should be plain on its face, but I carefully unpacked it anyway because this rule is applied consciously or unconsciously in the thinking of many otherwise thoughtful, non-authoritarian people. People who just want things to turn out best for their daughters.

Such, I have to assume, was in the mind of President Obama when he used his own daughters as justification for overruling a recent FDA decision to allow the sale of emergency contraception pill Plan B over the counter to women of all ages:

President Barack Obama is defending his administration’s decision to stop plans to allow the Plan B morning-after pill to move onto drugstore shelves next to condoms. Obama says as a father of two daughters, the government should “apply some common sense” to rules when it comes to over-the-counter medication. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled scientists at the Food and Drug Administration, saying young girls shouldn’t be able to buy the pill on their own. Obama says Sebelius was concerned a 10- or 11-year-old could get the medication, which could have an adverse effect. Obama says “most parents would probably feel the same way.” For now, Plan B will stay behind pharmacy counters, available without a prescription only to those 17 and older who can prove their age.

So the FDA lacked “common sense” when they decided that there is no good reason to prohibit Plan B to women younger than that? Should we assume that none of them have daughters? I doubt it. More likely they refused to allow paternalism to affect their conclusions in light of the evidence that there is no legitimate health concern which could justify restricting the drug:

Emergency contraception is already available over the counter to women over 17; in response to a request from the drug’s manufacturer, the FDA researched safety and efficacy of OTC access for women under 17 and found that there is no reason not to lift the age limit. Studies found no adverse health effects with non-prescription use and that younger women were able to understand how to use the product, including, crucially, that it does not protect against sexually transmitted infections.

Here’s how you take Plan B: as soon as possible after unprotected sex or contraceptive failure, take one pill. A second pill is not necessary. Do not take it more than 72 hours (three days) after unprotected sex or contraceptive failure. That’s it. If a ten or eleven year old girl cannot grasp these instructions, we’re in trouble.

And of all people who might need an emergency contraceptive most in the world, ten or eleven year girls who might be pregnant seem like the best candidates! But really, they are not the ones most likely to lose out on the opportunity to have this pill when they need it. That honor will more likely go to older girls who are sexually active but not yet 17. As Katha Politt writes in The Nation,

Barack Obama says that as the father of two daughters, he wants the government to “apply common sense” to rules about over the counter medications. Well, I too have a daughter, and so many many pro-choice women. Who died and made Barack Obama daddy in charge of teenage girls? Would he really rather that Sasha and Malia get pregnant rather than buy Plan B One-Step at CVS? And excuse me, Mr. President, thanks to your HHS, acquiring Plan B is prescription-only not just for 11-year-olds but for the 30 percent of teenage girls between 15 and 17 who are sexually active, and is a cumbersome process for all women, who have to ask a pharmacist for it and, as many news stories have reported, be subjected to fundamentalist harangues and objections. Apparently, it’s okay with you if Michelle is treated like a sixth-grader. I’m trying to think if there are any laws or regulations affecting only men in which unfounded fears about middle-school boys deny all men normal adult privileges. Needless to say, no one suggests that underage boys get a prescription if they want to use condoms, or that grown men have to ask the pharmacist for them and maybe get a lecture about the evils of birth control and promiscuity.
This is politics. Pure politics.

It’s hard to disagree. If Obama doesn’t want to keep Plan B out of the hands of young women because he thinks they don’t have a right to sexual privacy and the ability to make their own reproductive decisions, his administration is certainly catering to people who do.

Wait a minute– a right to sexual privacy? Who says teenage girls should have that? Amanda Marcotte, very convincingly:

The only reason possible that condoms don’t come up is pure sexism; Plan B provokes anxiety about female sexuality, and the stereotypical (though not actual) image of who has condoms on their person in high school is male. Fill in jokes about the condom-shaped wear on the leather wallet, etc.  But most of all, the flaw is in assuming that there’s intrinsic value to outing a girl who is having sex to her parents, with the exception of abuse. But if you think about this argument, it assumes a lot that is not proved by a long shot. So, let’s walk through the standard, non-abuse discovery of sexual activity of a 15- or 16-year-old, which are the ages when the percentages of kids having sex grows rapidly. (Contrary to hysterical assumptions, younger teenagers just aren’t doing it that much.) People who are making the parental argument are literally assuming that a tearful girl comes forward to her parents and confesses shamefacedly that she’s been having sex with her boyfriend. Yelling, crying, and recriminations ensue. She gets her Plan B, but is perhaps grounded and her parents are very disappointed in her. They may or may not have a conversation about birth control going forward, but at every point in this process, her choice to have sex is considered less than ideal. What does this solve? How does this standard American situation improve life for anyone involved?  It doesn’t. The girl is highly unlikely to give up having sex, though now she may decide to be sneakier about it. She’ll probably be defiant and feel her parents don’t understand her; she will be right to think this. She may, correctly, see them as hypocrites, because they probably had sex as teenagers (that being what teenagers do), and it worked out well for them, but now they’re going to punish her for the same. She’s going to start counting the days when she can get out of the house with these unreasonable people and have a place of her own, where she can do what she wants. Meanwhile, the parents also have a worse go of it. If they really have absorbed prudish attitudes, they may think less of their daughter, even though she hasn’t actually done anything wrong. Even if they are just typical American hypocrites who remember their own sexual debuts fondly while enacting hostility towards their daughter in the same situation, they’re going to feel weird and out of sorts. They’ll always feel that there may be something else they should be doing to stop the sexual activity. They may worry that they failed somehow. They may want to offer advice, but it’s going to be filtered through the assumption that youthful sex is bad, and so it’s probably not going to be good advice.  Kids really do need their privacy, for the same reason that adults do. Even though I’m a grown ass adult and there’s no shame or recriminations there, I don’t talk about my sex life with my mom as a general rule. Because there’s no value in it. Everyone’s just happier minding their own damn business. I personally think there’s a lot of value in letting teenagers spend their high school years gradually gaining rights and responsibilities—including sexual privacy rights and responsibilities—instead of simply dumping them into adulthood at 18 and expecting them not to get overwhelmed.

In this case, the right is a responsibility. Opponents of reproductive choice complain that it allows women to escape the consequences of their actions. If this really isn’t just code for inflicting pregnancy and childbirth as punishment, then it needs to be acknowledged that a young woman who is sexually active and either makes a mistake or experiences an accident (or both) and wants to take Plan B is being responsible. She realizes that something potentially very bad has happened and is facing the consequence of needing to do something about it. And Obama’s administration does not want her to– at least, not on her own. That may seem like “common sense” to him, but playing Father Knows Best to the entire country makes unwilling daughters of us all.

The gay rights paradox

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There’s an interesting discussion going on at Dispatches about Michele Bachmann’s recent statement to some Iowa high school students about gay marriage:

JANE SCHMIDT: Then, why can’t same-sex couples get married?
BACHMANN: They can get married, but they abide by the same law as everyone else. They can marry a man if they’re a woman. Or they can marry a woman if they’re a man.
JANE SCHMIDT: Why can’t a man marry a man?
BACHMANN: Because that’s not the law of the land.
JANE SCHMIDT: So heterosexual couples have a privilege.
BACHMANN: No, they have the same opportunity under the law. There is no right to same-sex marriage.
JANE SCHMIDT: So you won’t support the LGBT community?
BACHMANN: No, I said that there are no special rights for people based upon your sex practices. There’s no special rights based upon what you do in your sex life. You’re an American citizen first and foremost and that’s it.

Except, of course, that Bachmann fails to note that the “law of the land” allows gay marriage in several states, including Iowa. That’s one important flaw in her tautology. The other is, as Schmidt alludes, that if marriage is really about having the opportunity to marry from a select body of people (men for women, women for men), then gay marriage doesn’t grant a special right to anyone– on the contrary, it grants greater rights for everyone. Currently gays can marry opposite sex partners if they want to (though they generally do not), and where same-sex marriage is legal it has become possible for straight people to marry partners of the same sex if they want to (though they generally do not). Nothing “special” about it.

The added irony is, of course, that one definition of “privilege” entails that those who have it are unaware that they have it, and unwilling to acknowledge when it is pointed out. To them, when others who are not privileged ask for something everyone else has, they are demanding a special right. This is because the privileged live in a tiny world where “something everyone else has” literally means everything that privileged person personally has and wants. Not the ability to fulfill a desire that everyone has, but in a different way. “Freedom to do X” means “Freedom to do X how I do it, and that’s it.” This is how, as a recent article in Slate points out, freedom has been defined by social conservatives as the freedom to obey their religious morality, not to do anything with diverges from it. If that makes your brain hurt, you’re not alone. That is very likely how the mortal enemy of social conservatives in America, the Muslim theocrat, defines it as well. It’s no wonder that the “freedoms” that they cherish are so remarkably similar to those of people like Michele Bachmann.

“In God We Trust” and the right not to speak

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The state of Georgia is considering a bill which requires that “In God We Trust” be on the license plates of all registered vehicles, unless the owner pays to have the slogan covered up:

Georgia SB 293 would amend current law to mandate that, starting next summer, all plates would be imprinted with the religious declaration. If someone does not wish to exhibit this statement of faith, they would be required to purchase a sticker from the state displaying the name of their county that could be used to cover “In God We Trust.”  The bill text currently available on the legislature’s website really drives home the dramatic change in attitudes by the Assembly, as you can clearly see what has been crossed out and changed. While displaying the county name is the current “default” choice for Georgia drivers and alternatively they may purchase an “In God We Trust” sticker, this bill would directly swap the two, making the religious motto the routine option.  Mandating that individuals pay money to the government in order to not flaunt religious views is absolutely ridiculous. As the website Georgia Politico aptly puts it, “In other words, if you feel the government should not be establishing a religion, you are going to have to pay to prove it.”

  …and if you do decide to prove it, it’s possible you might be targeting yourself for retaliation by anyone who considers a refusal to display the message to be an offense. Regardless of whether your reason is an actual disagreement with the sentiment or a disapproval of the requirement to display it, observers are invited to form their own interpretations and make judgments on that basis. Being forced to decide whether it’s appropriate to take this risk is particularly strange, as Secular News Daily points out, because the “In God We Trust” plate was already one of the options available to Georgia drivers.

Over at Dispatches, chaosof99 notes that even though the statement in question is the nation’s motto, a person could make a legitimate (in the eyes of the court) objection to the plates based on a violation of First Amendment rights:

Wooley v. Maynard. Came across that quite by coincidence because for a reason I no longer remember I looked up “Live free or die” on wikipedia.  Anyway, it’s unconstitutional to force people to display an opinion or sentiment against their will. The Wooley v. Maynard case is already a Supreme Court precedent for this, and also pertains to slogans on license plates.

I had not previously heard of Wooley v. Maynard, but it’s definitely a story of having courage of one’s convictions. A Jehovah’s Witness couple (the Maynards) were unwilling to display the New Hampshire state motto on their license plate and opted to cover it up. Since a New Hampshire statute deems it an offense to obscure any figures or letters on a plate, they were cited for it. George Maynard showed up in court in 1974, represented himself, and plead not guilty, citing religious objections to displaying the motto. He was found guilty but a $25 fine was suspended due to “good behavior.” The following year when he was cited again, Maynard again showed up in court and plead not guilty. He was fined $50 and given a six month sentence in the Grafton House of Corrections, which was also suspended although the court ordered him to pay $25 for the first offense. Maynard explained that he would not pay either fine as a matter of conscience, whereupon the court sentenced him to fifteen days in jail, which he served.

The following year, the Maynards sued in New Hampshire’s district court against enforcement of the original statute under which George had been cited, in response to which the judge issued a temporary restraining order against any further arrest or prosecution of them. Because the couple’s suit sought an injunction against the state of New Hampshire on the grounds of unconstitutionality, the case went to the Supreme Court, who agreed with the Maynards in a 6-to-3 decision:

New Hampshire’s statute in effect requires that appellees use their private property as a “mobile billboard” for the State’s ideological message – or suffer a penalty, as Maynard already has. As a condition to driving an automobile – a virtual necessity for most Americans – the Maynards must display “Live Free or Die” to hundreds of people each day. The fact that most individuals agree with the thrust of New Hampshire’s motto is not the test; most Americans also find the flag salute acceptable. The First Amendment protects the right of individuals to hold a point of view different from the majority and to refuse to foster, in the way New Hampshire commands, an idea they find morally objectionable.

Well said. Let’s hope that, if necessary, the same will apply to people made to display this ideological message.

Oh look, another reason not to patronize Chick-fil-A

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They’re suing a t-shirt artist for having the nerve to market shirts that say “Eat more kale”:

A folk artist expanding his home business built around the words “eat more kale” says he’s ready to fight root-to-feather to protect his phrase from what he sees as an assault by Chick-fil-A, which holds the trademark to the phrase “eat mor chikin.” Bo Muller-Moore uses a hand silkscreen machine to apply his phrase, which he calls an expression of the benefits of local agriculture, on T-shirts and sweatshirts. But his effort to protect his business from copycats drew the attention of Chick-fil-A, the Atlanta-based fast-food chain that uses ads with images of cows that can’t spell displaying their own phrase on message boards.  In a letter, a lawyer for Chick-fil-A said Muller-Moore’s effort to expand the use of his “eat more kale” message “is likely to cause confusion of the public and dilutes the distinctiveness of Chick-fil-A’s intellectual property and diminishes its value.”Chick-fil-A, which trails only Louisville, Ky.-based KFC in market share in the chicken restaurant chain industry, has a long history of guarding its trademark, and the letter listed 30 examples of attempts by others to co-opt the use of the “eat more” phrase that were withdrawn after Chick-fil-A protested. The Oct. 4 letter ordered Muller-Moore to stop using the phrase and turn over his website, eatmorekale.com, to Chick-fil-A. Muller-Moore, 38, of Montpelier, says he won’t do that. “Our plan is to not back down. This feels like David versus Goliath. I know what it’s like to protect what’s yours in business,” he said. So he has enlisted the help of Montpelier lawyer Daniel Richardson and the intellectual property clinic at the University of New Hampshire School of Law’s Intellectual Property and Transaction Clinic. “Bo’s is a very different statement. It’s more of a philosophical statement about local agriculture and community-supported farmers markets,” Richardson said. “At the end of the day, I don’t think anyone will step forward and say they bought an ‘eat more kale’ shirt thinking it was a Chick-fil-A product.”

Original reasons not to go to Chick-fil-A here and here.

Muller-Moore’s shirts can be found at eatmorekale.com

Hat tip to Dr. X

#heblowsalot update: the fallout

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Both the principal, Karl Krawitz, and Emma Sullivan are receiving all kinds of negative attention as result of the Brownback apology affair. Krawitz has apparently received some death threats from different parts of the country, while Sullivan is being bullied by peers who call her an attention whore, or just a whore, and demand that she be expelled from school

The bullying, much of which is taking place on Twitter, is part of the reason that Sullivan was staying home from school on Tuesday. “They’ve been sending me tweets, calling me an attention whore, saying this is all about fame and that I don’t deserve to be getting any of these interviews,” she said. A Twitter hashtag set up against her contains numerous expletives, including one user, @PoundShop_Zoe, who calls her a “whore” multiple times. “When Emma Comes back she should be forced to go to north #HopeYourHappy… Whore,” he writes. “Get Emma Sullivan out of East [Shawnee Mission East High School] please #teamkrawitz,” adds @megmms. In fact, students have organized a rally Tuesday afternoon in support of her principal, Karl Krawitz, and in opposition to her, said Sullivan.

I’m actually more surprised by this bullying than by the death threats. Death threats from far-off places have become a ubiquitous response to any bad behavior that is published on the internet. There never seems to be a shortage of people with web access who find it appropriate to express their displeasure with someone in the news for doing a bad thing by issuing threats against that person’s life, and that’s probably all that this is. I assume however that this knowledge, even if Dr. Krawitz has it, is of no particular comfort to him.

The behavior of Sullivan’s schoolmates is surprising only because they are easily identifiable and close. I imagine that they are jealous of her limelight, however unintentionally earned, and also convinced that the school principal is someone who must be respected at all costs. They are probably big “school spirit” types who believe that their collective reputation has been tarnished by a student saying rude things about the governor and drawing negative attention to the school as a whole…even though it was actually the principal’s demand for a letter of apology that thrust this situation into the news in the first place.

And they are incapable of recognizing that Krawitz might be a good principal who made a very bad decision, much less that believing he’s a good principal doesn’t require saying that Sullivan is a whore who should be expelled. That requires a level of nuance that appears to be quite beyond them. As is, ironically, an awareness of how public speech on the internet really can be– something Sullivan will now likely never forget.

If Sam Brownback really wanted to show that he “treasures” freedom of speech, he could send a message directly to these students in support of Sullivan and strongly condemning any harassment of her for her use of and defense of that freedom. Want to make any bets on whether something like that will happen?

#heblowsalot

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Ah, the power of Twitter. It can help organize protests, keep people in contact in the midst of tragedy, spread news like wildfire, and allow governors to become aware of the fact that teenagers are saying mean things about them. And then take action!

Emma Sullivan is an eighteen year old student at Shawnee Mission East high school in Kansas. While making a visit to the state capitol of Topeka as part of a Youth in Government program, she made the following tweet:

“Just made mean comments at gov. brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot.” 

She didn’t actually meet him– the tweet was a joke with friends. But that wasn’t a factor to Brownback staffers, who in scanning social media for mentions of him came across the tweet and proceeded to contact Sullivan’s school. The school’s principal, Karl Krawitz, called Sullivan into his office and proceeded to berate her for nearly an hour:

“I had no idea what it was about or why I was being called into the office,” she said. “I had never been in trouble before.”
Sullivan claimed that the principal “told me he needed to do damage control and was really upset.”
“He said I was an embarrassment to the school and the school district and that I had been disrespectful,” she added.

Krawitz followed this with a demand that Sullivan write a note of apology to Brownback for the tweet, to be turned in on Monday (today). Sullivan had decided by Sunday night, with the support of her parents, that she wasn’t going to do it. This became a non-issue today, however, when the school district decided it could not demand an apology:

“The district acknowledges a student’s right to freedom of speech and expression is constitutionally protected. The district has not censored Miss Sullivan nor infringed upon her freedom of speech,” said a statement. “She is not required to write a letter of apology to the Governor. Whether and to whom any apologies are issued will be left to the individuals involved.”

Sam Brownback himself responded by blaming his staff:

A statement issued by Brownback on Monday did not reference Sullivan by name or mention the prospect of any apology letter. He did emphasize his support for “freedom of speech,” while thanking “the thousands of Kansas educators who remind us daily of our liberties, as well as the values of civility and decorum.”
“My staff overreacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize,” the governor said. “Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms.”

Meanwhile Sullivan’s Twitter following has jumped from 63 to almost 11,000 (as of now). Brownback’s is at about 3,000. And the #heblowsalot hashtag is being used constantly by Sullivan’s supporters. A representative tweet:

It’s unusual, I think, not to have heard of Brownback before considering that he was a U.S. senator from 1996 until this year, and ran for president in 2008. Still, there’s no question that awareness of him is exploding because of this…and doubtless not in a way he would prefer. Like the enormously successful campaign to re-define Rick Santorum’s last name, “heblowsalot” might become the phrase that comes to most people’s minds when considering Governor Brownback.

Now, here’s the question: would that be a good thing? Does Sam Brownback, in fact, blow?

Maybe not literally. But as those of us from Kansas–especially women– who are not right-wingers are more than aware, figuratively he most certainly does. If you want a quick idea, imagine Rick Perry and take away some reasoning ability and restraint. As Amanda Marcotte notes over at Slate,

I suppose it’s not that big a surprise that someone like Brownback, who has a strong belief that women should not be in control of their own ladyparts, would also find the notion that teenage girls have the legal right to make fun of him deeply threatening. First he comes for your abortions, then your contraception, and next any fancy electronic devices that could be used to register displeasure with dudely authority figures. The freakout over a teenage girl having a less-than-flattering opinion of him was also predictable if you look at Brownback’s long history with the C Street Family, a religious-political group that specifically promotes patriarchy and disdains the idea of women holding political power. (Though they have been known to make exceptions for the occasional woman who has economic goals in common with them.) To a large extent, Brownback has created a bubble around him that has a pleasing 19th-century cast to it, where young people and women knew their place, and men of privilege are protected from the opinions of those who are most subject to social control. No wonder a juvenile bit of tweetage caused such an oversized reaction.

This is not an exaggeration. Brownback has spent his years in office, both as senator and governor, doing everything he can to restrict reproductive freedom for women. He is also not a fan of state funding for art, having eliminated Kansas’ arts commission this year making it the only state without such an agency. He denies evolution and supports the Discovery Institute (intelligent design think tank), is relentlessly pro-war (supporting the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the suspension of habeas corpus rights under the Military Commissions Act of 2007), and is so adamantly opposed to gay marriage that in 2006 he blocked confirmation of federal judicial nominee Janet Neff because she had attended a same-sex commitment ceremony. He believes that the Constitution does not carry any guarantee of a right to privacy. His record on civil rights is rated– this will shock you– 20 percent by the ACLU. Pretty dismal. As is, no doubt, the outlook of any Kansan who cares about civil rights since Brownback assumed governorship, which I’m guessing includes Emma Sullivan.

But regardless of why Sullivan thinks Brownback blows, specifically, I think her handling of the issue has been excellent. She seems quite level-headed:

Emma Sullivan said Sunday that she thought the tweet “has turned into a good starting point to open up dialogue about this … free speech and the power of social media and the power that people my age could potentially have, that people will listen to us.”

Indeed, indeed. Although it’s unfortunate that this dialogue would not have opened up in the first place had Brownback’s staff and Sullivan’s principal (any bets on whether she’ll get an apology from him?) both not wildly overreacted to something said in that context.

This whole event could result in a bully pulpit for Ms. Sullivan, should she choose to use it. She said that she’s interested in getting involved in politics, and judging from the coverage this is getting not only on Twitter but ABC, CNN, HuffPo, and so on, this seems like a good start! I hope she takes advantage of it to go out and do something. Whatever she finds most appropriate to do in terms of combating the many ways in which Sam Brownback sucks. And blows.

Quote of the day

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From Dr. X, discussing whether using “crazy” as a pejorative should be considered offensive to people with mental illnesses and therefore be stricken from the lexicon of a considerate person:

Political correctness most certainly is about passing tests of radicals who are more interested in group identity signifiers than substance and true decency. P.C is a greatly overused accusation by the right, but it’s a concept invented on the left to describe the use of signifiers as shackling rules that, IMO, are bristling with the narcissism of small differences.  Things aren’t much different on the right. Not using the signifier “God” in a Thanksgiving address can “offend” certain Christians. Signifiers divorced from awareness of common usages and context–from intent, from speaker, from audience, time, place, and attitude are really about identity politics. . .  Craziness and madness, one’s own and the insanity of the world, can render the best efforts to bring comforting coherence to our existence absolutely futile sometimes.  So despite not satisfying your club rules on the use of language, I will continue to refer to being driven mad with grief, crazy with rage, nuts, out of my mind with pain and whatever else I feel useful to explain that time in my life and my experience. Those words make flesh and blood out of the reality of a long period of unremitting agony. And I think those very frank words help people to empathize with the depth of suffering and disorientation I experienced. You don’t own those words. They have uses that help people know what the hell we’re talking about sometimes.  We live in a world that is often much more crazy than sane. We deal with people going nuts. We have crackpots in politics. I also won’t apologize for saying someone lacks a conscience or they’re a heartless bastard because it might offend psychopaths. They have a mental disorder too. So let’s not use any language that could offend them; they’re just victims of a brain disorder.  If you actually live an examined life, you’ll notice madness all around, in all the people who are deemed sane. There are no exceptions, only a certain amount of necessary denial to forge ahead in life, but crazy is on a continuum that is part of all humanity. 

“Muscular Christianity” and the Penn State scandal

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Cross-posted from State of Formation.

University of Nebraska Assistant Coach Ron Brown prayed on behalf of his football team and that of Penn State prior to their game on November 12th, in the wake of the latter university’s scandal regarding former head coach Joe Paterno. Which you already know about if you haven’t been living under a rock for roughly the past week and a half, so you don’t need any commentary on it from me. But Brown thought that God needed a comment on the matter, specifically regarding manhood and young boys:

“There are a lot of little boys around the country, today, who are watching this game. And they’re trying to figure out what the definition of manhood is all about. Father, this is it right here. I pray that this game will be a training ground of what manhood looks like. And we will compete with fierce intensity. With the honor, and the gifts, and the talents that you’ve given us. And may we be reminded, Lord, as it says in John 1:14, that Jesus is full of grace and truth. May the truth be known!”

Indeed– may the truth be known. And the truth is that a coach from a public university found it appropriate to use a scandal involving child molestation as an opportunity to teach little boys what manhood is, via a football and religious proclamations. I saw this  and thought “I can’t be the only person believes this to be very, very wrong.” And I’m not– it’s just that it’s hard to articulate all of the things wrong about it.
Hemant Mehta decided to re-write Brown’s statements to be something that is, in Mehta’s eyes, more useful:

“Here’s what Ron Brown could’ve said to the teams — and the crowd of over 100,000 — that would’ve made a real difference — instead of the worthless tripe that came out instead:

‘We’ve been through a lot this past week, but it’s nothing compared to what Jerry Sandusky’s victims have been through. We can never let something like this happen again.

If any of you ever sees abuse taking place — on the field, off the field, after you graduate — it doesn’t matter who the abuser is, go to the police immediately.

If you’re ever the victim of such abuse, please tell someone you trust what happened. It doesn’t matter what you think about the person who did it to you, and no one will ever think less of you for turning them in.

If you had nothing to do with the situation but you still want to help, well, we need more people like you. Please encourage your fans, friends, and family members to make a donation to a child abuse prevention organization.

That will do more for these children that our god ever can.’

That would’ve taken real courage to say, so I’m not surprised we didn’t hear anything even remotely resembling that before the game.”

I suppose it would have taken real courage to say, but only because of the last line– and that line should be left out. Everything else is not particularly courageous, but it is certainly important. It’s what people need to hear and know, valuable information. It doesn’t exactly take the place of what Brown said, though, because it’s not ceremonial. It doesn’t address the communal mood, the event that is about to take place. It’s a comment that should be made in addition to something else, and here’s the important thing…that “something else” should not be a prayer. This is something overlooked in Sean O’Neil’s essay concerning what he calls “muscular Christianity”:

“John Sandusky is an older man who used his prestige and power to abuse boys. Perhaps, then, Brown’s prayer about a redemptive display of masculinity merely reinforces a truism: that decent men would never abuse anyone. Since lines were transgressed in obviously horrific ways perhaps the boundaries of decency need to be reinforced in just as obvious a fashion. This still raises other questions, though: Who gets to re-draw these borders at such a sensitive time of (national) crisis? Also, what will young boys learn about gender from the dominant religious portrayals of manhood in muscular Christianity?

Muscular Christianity refers to the wedding of traditional conceptions of masculinity—such as bravery, chivalry, and athleticism—with evangelical Christian emphases on personal conversion and biblical devotion. Tim Tebow is perhaps the quintessential muscular Christian, combining religious and athletic vigor on the most visible athletic platform in the country: the National Football League.

Muscular Christianity is also developed in more pedestrian venues, on college campuses among groups such as the Fellowship for Christian Athletes. Evangelicals espousing some form of muscular Christianity (not a term that most would use) tend to interpret the Bible conservatively—especially with regards to sexual norms. Gay sex among consenting adults, for example, is usually labeled sinful in such evangelical contexts. There are few if any progressive religious voices in these settings. . .

If the only religious voices heard on the fields are the most conservative on issues of human sexuality, there may be few opportunities for athletes to combine vigorous athleticism, strong religious commitment, and fidelity to LGBT identities in the same breath.”

Here are the sticking points for me in this:  1) “traditional conceptions of masculinity” and 2) “religious voices heard on the fields.” Exclude them both, please.

Why? Let’s start with the former. I hate to point out the obvious, but “LGBT identities” often do not conform to “traditional concepts of masculinity.” Nor is there any reason why they should, considering that “traditionally masculine” people are often outright phobic or hateful of those who are non-traditional. Just as much or more than being brave, chivalrous (ugh) or athletic, traditional masculinity entails being straight.

And so far as I can tell, there is nothing about being non-straight, non-traditionally masculine, that inhibits one’s athleticism. So maybe when it comes to football or any other sport, it would be better to call a spade a spade and emphasize that. Those attributes of character that are desirable to have also– bravery, stalwartness, reliability, foresight, cunning, and so on– are by no means exclusive to the masculine. Especially not the traditional kind.

(I will also mention, though I hope it’s not necessary, the significance of focusing on how to tell/show young boys what it means to be a [traditional] man in the wake of scandal surrounding child rape. Just as with the scandals within the Catholic Church, there are plenty– perhaps Asst. Coach Brown is one of them– who interpret such an act as part and parcel of homosexuality. As something that gays just do, or that just gays do. This bigoted belief has no place on the football field or anywhere else.

Let it be emphasized: a decent person would not abuse anyone. Indecent people come in all sorts of gender and sexual configurations.)

As for religious voices on that field…why do we need those?

Even disregarding the question of whether it constitutes a church/state violation to have a coach for a public university’s football team to deliver a prayer before a game, O’Neil’s grievance above illustrates precisely the problem with having a religious invocation in the first place– it creates a debate about whether it’s the right religion. Whose beliefs should prevail.

Because for everyone who doesn’t worship Jesus and/or doesn’t appreciate the treatment of Jesus in the prayer given, the ritual becomes a period of discomfort rather than bolstering. And for many of those to whom the words about Jesus ring pure and true, any other religious message will seem either diluted or outright blasphemous. By all means, don’t prevent the players from practicing their faith as they see fit. But leading everyone in a massive group prayer such as this seems designed to be unnecessarily divisive and yet squelch any minority views.

I can’t help but wonder how many of those players kneeling around Assistant Coach Ron Brown feel resentful, silly, or confused. How many wish that a message acknowledging the situation but encouraging them to play a good game could be delivered without being wrapped in platitudes about what it means to be a real man and a real believer. How many of that group would never breathe a word about such sentiments, for fear that they would be ridiculed, hated, maybe even attacked by others.

How sad that is. And how completely unnecessary.

 

“Masculine Christianity” and the Penn State scandal

“Masculine Christianity” and the Penn State scandal published on 2 Comments on “Masculine Christianity” and the Penn State scandal

                                      . 

This is University of Nebraska Assistant Coach Ron Brown praying on behalf of his football team and that of Penn State prior to their game on November 12th, in the wake of the latter university’s scandal regarding former head coach Joe Paterno. Which you already know about if you haven’t been living under a rock for the past week and a half, so you don’t need any commentary on it from me. But Brown thought that God needed a comment on the matter, specifically regarding manhood and young boys:

There are a lot of little boys around the country, today, who are watching this game. And they’re trying to figure out what the definition of manhood is all about. Father, this is it right here. I pray that this game will be a training ground of what manhood looks like. And we will compete with fierce intensity. With the honor, and the gifts, and the talents that you’ve given us. And may we be reminded, Lord, as it says in John 1:14, that Jesus is full of grace and truth. May the truth be known!

Indeed– may the truth be known. And the truth is that a coach from a public university found it appropriate to use a scandal involving child molestation as an opportunity to teach little boys what manhood is, via a football and declarations about Jesus. I saw this, and thought “I can’t be the only person believes this to be very, very wrong.” And I’m not– it’s just that it’s hard to articulate all of the things wrong about it.

Hemant Mehta decided to re-write Brown’s statements to be something that is, in Mehta’s eyes, more useful:

Here’s what Ron Brown could’ve said to the teams — and the crowd of over 100,000 — that would’ve made a real difference — instead of the worthless tripe that came out instead:  

We’ve been through a lot this past week, but it’s nothing compared to what Jerry Sandusky’s victims have been through. We can never let something like this happen again.

 If any of you ever sees abuse taking place — on the field, off the field, after you graduate — it doesn’t matter who the abuser is, go to the police immediately.

If you’re ever the victim of such abuse, please tell someone you trust what happened. It doesn’t matter what you think about the person who did it to you, and no one will ever think less of you for turning them in.

If you had nothing to do with the situation but you still want to help, well, we need more people like you. Please encourage your fans, friends, and family members to make a donation to a child abuse prevention organization.

That will do more for these children that our god ever can. 

That would’ve taken real courage to say, so I’m not surprised we didn’t hear anything even remotely resembling that before the game.  

I suppose it would have taken real courage to say, but only because of the last line– and that line should be left out. Everything else is not particularly courageous, but it is certainly important. It’s what people need to hear and know, valuable information. It doesn’t exactly take the place of what Brown said, though, because it’s not ceremonial. It doesn’t address the communal mood, the event that is about to take place. It’s a comment that should be made in addition to something else, and here’s the important thing…that “something else” should not be a prayer. This is something overlooked in Sean O’Neil’s essay concerning what he calls “muscular Christianity”:

John Sandusky is an older man who used his prestige and power to abuse boys. Perhaps, then, Brown’s prayer about a redemptive display of masculinity merely reinforces a truism: that decent men would never abuse anyone. Since lines were transgressed in obviously horrific ways perhaps the boundaries of decency need to be reinforced in just as obvious a fashion. This still raises other questions, though: Who gets to re-draw these borders at such a sensitive time of (national) crisis? Also, what will young boys learn about gender from the dominant religious portrayals of manhood in muscular Christianity? Muscular Christianity refers to the wedding of traditional conceptions of masculinity—such as bravery, chivalry, and athleticism—with evangelical Christian emphases on personal conversion and biblical devotion. Tim Tebow is perhaps the quintessential muscular Christian, combining religious and athletic vigor on the most visible athletic platform in the country: the National Football League. Muscular Christianity is also developed in more pedestrian venues, on college campuses among groups such as the Fellowship for Christian Athletes. Evangelicals espousing some form of muscular Christianity (not a term that most would use) tend to interpret the Bible conservatively—especially with regards to sexual norms. Gay sex among consenting adults, for example, is usually labeled sinful in such evangelical contexts. There are few if any progressive religious voices in these settings. . .  If the only religious voices heard on the fields are the most conservative on issues of human sexuality, there may be few opportunities for athletes to combine vigorous athleticism, strong religious commitment, and fidelity to LGBT identities in the same breath.

Hoo boy. If you know me, you know what will be the sticking points here: 1) “traditional conceptions of masculinity” and 2) “religious voices heard on the fields.” Bin them both, please.

Why? Let’s start with the former. I hate to point out the obvious, but “LGBT identities” often do not conform to “traditional concepts of masculinity.” Nor is there any reason why they should, considering that “traditionally masculine” people are often outright phobic or hateful of those who are non-traditional. Just as much or more than being brave, chivalrous (ugh) or athletic, traditional masculinity entails being straight. And so far as I can tell, there is nothing about being non-straight, non-traditionally masculine, that inhibits one’s athleticism. So maybe when it comes to football or any other sport, it would be better to call a spade a spade and emphasize that. Those attributes of character that are desirable to have also– bravery, stalwartness, reliability, foresight, cunning, and so on– are by no means exclusive to the masculine. Especially not the traditional kind.

(I will also mention, though I hope it’s not necessary, the significance of focusing on how to tell/show young boys what it means to be a (traditional) man in the wake of scandal surrounding child rape. Just as with the scandals within the Catholic Church, there are plenty– perhaps Asst. Coach Brown is one of them– who interpret such an act as part and parcel of homosexuality. As something that gays just do, or that just gays do. This bigoted belief has no place on the football field or anywhere else.

Let it be emphasized: a decent person would not abuse anyone. Indecent people come in all sorts of gender and sexual configurations.)

As for religious voices on that field…why do we need those? Even disregarding the question of whether it constitutes a church/state violation to have a coach for a public university’s football team to deliver a prayer before a game, O’Neil’s grievance above illustrates precisely the problem with having a religious invocation in the first place– it creates a debate about whether it’s the right religion. Whose beliefs should prevail. Because for everyone who doesn’t worship Jesus and/or doesn’t appreciate the treatment of Jesus in the prayer given, the ritual becomes a period of discomfort rather than bolstering. And for many of those to whom the words about Jesus ring pure and true, any other religious message will seem either diluted or outright blasphemous. By all means, don’t prevent the players from practicing their faith as they see fit. But leading everyone in a massive group prayer such as this seems designed to be unnecessarily divisive and yet squelch any minority views.

I can’t help but wonder how many of those players kneeling around Assistant Coach Ron Brown feel resentful, silly, or confused. How many wish that a message acknowledging the situation but encouraging them to play a good game could be delivered without being wrapped in platitudes about what it means to be a real man and a real believer. How many of that group would never breathe a word about such sentiments, for fear that they would be ridiculed, hated, maybe even attacked by others.

How sad that is. And how completely unnecessary.

Pareidolia of the day: Cliff’s note

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This time on a cliff in Ireland, by a pilot called (appropriately) Sandra Clifford:

Clifford, a pilot fron San Francisco, spotted the figure recently while visiting the famous Cliffs of Moher in County Clare with her friend, Fiona Fay.  The two saw what Clifford thought looked like the image of Jesus on the side of one of the cliffs and she immediately snapped a photo on her digital camera.  “I definitely felt a divine presence,” Clifford told HuffPost Weird News. “To me, it was definitely a face, but I realize some people may interpret it differently.”  Clifford feels her training as a pilot has honed her vision and also taught her to be skeptical about what she sees, which is why she asked the folks around her their opinions of the cliffside Christ.  Clifford proceeded to ask a group of German men if they could see the outline, according to IrishCentral.com, and after looking at it closely, she says they too nodded their heads in agreement, and began taking photos.  “I am glad I asked strangers about what they saw,” she told HuffPost Weird News. “I hope they come forward with their pictures as well.”

This is interesting to me because how Clifford apparently defines skepticism: confirming that you are not the only person who interprets a thing you saw in a certain way. “I think I saw a face….did you see a face? Then it must have been a face!” Which, being an interpretation dependent on perception, is exactly like saying “I think the cannelloni at this restaurant is good…do you think it’s good? Then it must be good!”

The fact that some Germans agreed with her and might “come forward” with their pictures (doesn’t it sound like a criminal investigation?) provides corroborating evidence for the assertion “There are some rocks on a cliff in Ireland that look like a face.” It could not, however, provide any evidence at all for the assertion “This image indicates a divine presence,” Clifford’s feelings notwithstanding. I do wish she had asked the Germans if they also felt themselves to be in the presence of the divine, but their answer would not have affected the truth of her statement either way. The face in the rocks might actually have been that of Odin. Or Mohammad. Or Santa Claus. Or no one at all. It might be– and very likely is– simply an image that formed in the rocks naturally through erosion, with no intent by anyone to convey an impression of anything face-like. Cool, certainly, but not necessarily divine.

Most of us probably recall staring up at the sky as children, trying to identify shapes in the clouds. For some reason when we become adults, we tend to forget (if we ever realized in the first place) that the perception of the shapes comes from us, and not something inherent about the clouds themselves. Or the wood grain in a door, the gravel on a road, or the rocks in a cliff. Making patterns out of randomness is what humans do, and we’re very very good at it.