James Woods, Mike Pence, and the Hamilton Cast

  

Image source: Celebrity of the Year

This is the story of how James Woods held a door for me (okay, the story is not really about that)... Several years ago, I was with a group of people at an Olive Garden near Providence, Rhode Island. As we were leaving the restaurant, a gentleman coming in held the door for us. Instantly, I recognized his face: James Woods, a RI native celebrity. But I was the only one in my group who recognized him. After he walked in, I turned to my party and said, "Oh my gosh, that was James Woods!" One of my dining companions was excited but a little incredulous. "Are you sure it was him?!" I was sure. After all, I had watched "Shark" regularly back then. I knew what he looked like.

A part of me wanted to follow him back into Olive Garden and get an autograph or picture. But it was late - we had already finished our dinner - and here he was just going in to eat his. It didn't feel right to accost him, though I suppose celebrities are used to such interactions. But that dining companion of mine who doubted me wanted to go back in to speak to him, and did. I wouldn't call that rude. It wasn't the choice I made, delaying his meal for a minute, but the person I was with intended no rudeness or disrespect by taking up a moment of his time.

I was remembering this encounter today in light of the discussions of the Hamilton/Pence controversy. Some feel the actual substance of what was said was rude and disrespectful which I'm not even going to address because the amount of mental gymnastics required to twist their words into something rude is just beyond my ability to even deconstruct. What has resonated with me is the suggestion that the theater was not an appropriate time or place for these words to be spoken, for him to be addressed as the future Vice President. That's why I'm mulling over my celebrity encounter and the choice I made to not insert myself into his personal space.

I'm wondering, can celebrities like James Woods really expect the public to ignore them in public or does being a celebrity mean you've accepted that you will constantly be recognized wherever you go? Our paid entertainers don't seem to mind, they just accept it as part of the job. But really, actors and musicians don't work for us. They don't owe us their time or attention. They don't serve the public.

But Mike Pence is not an entertainer. He is a public servant. He signed up for the job of working for us, representing us, and yes, listening to us. I can't quite get on board with the idea that he is entitled to go out in public and leave his job behind. He's our Vice President-elect and will be serving us for at least four years. He doesn't get to clock out of that role. Speaking to him should not be considered "off-limits" nor should there be any concerns about the public nature of addressing him. This is the job he has willingly chosen, a public position. He deserves respect, certainly, and I believe the cast of Hamilton gave him that in their words. But I don't believe respect means that he deserves to step outside of his role and move through society as a regular citizen when he simply is not a regular citizen. He now answers to an entire nation. And it is our responsibility to treat his position with both respect and accountability.

Marriage Equality, Hypocrisy, and Fanaticism

  

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

It's been quite the week.  Before we have even recovered from last week's controversial news stories, another one is hot on its heels.  By now, unless you live under an actual rock, you've no doubt heard the news that this morning, the Supreme Court of the United States issued a landmark ruling extending marriage rights to same-gendered couples.  As a somewhat conservative Christian with somewhat liberal social views (yes, its possible), this leaves me in the awkward position of not fully agreeing with either side in this debate.  So naturally, I decided to write this post to articulate my feelings which may just end up ticking off everybody though I really hope it won't.

Here's the thing, I believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible and believe that homosexual sex is forbidden. That's where I'm not on the pro-LGBT side fully.  But that's pretty much where it ends. I also believe that unmarried heterosexual sex is forbidden, as well as some (though certainly not all) divorces and remarriages, so I really dislike how homosexuality has become the "whipping boy" of Christianity while these other issues get mostly a pass.   It's fairly obvious, to me anyway, why this is the case.  We all need a way to make ourselves feel better about our own sins.  I mean, Jesus even said that we like to point to the speck in our brother's eye rather than deal with the plank in our own eye.  And it's a lot easier to point fingers at a gay man than at ourselves, while we're hitting the buffet like gluttonous pigs.  But hey, being prideful and overeating is not as bad as being gay, right? No, actually, even the most literal reading of the Bible can't point to a place that tells us that the acceptable evangelical sins are less serious to God than everybody's favorite biggie: "the gays."

While we're talking about hypocrisy, I couldn't help but note how ironic it was that on the eve of this marriage ruling, conservative darling Bristol Palin announced her second pregnancy.  Just to recap who Bristol is: she is the daughter of former vice-presidential hopeful Sarah Palin, an abstinence advocate, and outspoken against same-sex marriage and families.  Yet the thrice-engaged yet never married Ms. Palin has now conceived her second child outside of the bonds of holy matrimony.  Bristol is receiving a tremendous outpouring of support from her conservative fan base, if her Facebook page comments are an accurate indicator.  And I am really happy to see that - shaming single mothers is detestable.  She needs and deserves support and I am glad conservatives aren't turning on her, even though she's kinda turned on them. After all, she has gone on record saying, in a rant against President Obama and his support of same-sex marriage: "we know that in general kids do better growing up in a mother/father home." I actually personally agree that it is ideal for kids to grow up with both a mother and a father in the home, or at least two parental figures in the home (but that's only if they're actually good parents). It's just ironic, though, that conservatives in general tend to be very vocal about how children of same-sex couples are disadvantaged by not being raised by opposite-gendered parents...and then rush to support Bristol as she brings yet another life into a fatherless home. (Granted, Bristol's firstborn does have an actual father though he has no custody rights to his son and only sees him on a visitation basis.) It puzzles me that they can with a straight face (haha) argue that two women should not raise a child, but apparently its okay for just one woman to raise a child?

This highlights the very huge problem American Christians face in their rabid opposition to marriage equality.  In order to consistently judge LGBT couples, we also should be judging any and all deviations from the intact traditional family.  If we're being fair and logical, I mean.  But despite conservatives' best efforts to paint gay couples as the reason for the decline in the nation's morality, homosexuality as an assault on the institution of marriage, and same-sex couples as unfit parents for children...some of us know the truth.  We know that 4 out of 10 live births are to unwed parents (a number that has increased roughly 25% since 2000).¹  We know that nearly 40% of marriages end in divorce.²  And we know that plenty of heterosexual couples are raising children in broken homes, either with split parenting or one parent entirely absent.  In fact, less than half of American children (a mere 46%) are being raised in a home with two married parents in their first marriage.³  So please, conservative evangelicals, do us a favor.  Stop pointing fingers at LGBT people and blaming them for the decline of the traditional family. Perhaps instead take a good hard look at the way heterosexuals aren't exactly modelling how to uphold the institution of marriage or have intact traditional families.

That brings me to another thing: letting same-sex couples marry is not persecution of Christians.  Mike Huckabee made the irrational claim today that marriage equality is a serious blow to religious liberty.  Seriously? So according to him, my religious freedom is impinged upon if a cohabitating LGBT couple down the street from me is granted a marriage license.  I'm having difficulty processing exactly which religious liberty of mine is affected by this.  Is it my religious liberty to disagree with their lifestyle?  Doesn't appear to be since Huckabee has certainly been vocal about his disagreement and no one is restricting his voice.  Please. This persecution paranoia needs to stop.  It is completely out of control.  Newsflash Americans: religious liberty does not mean you can impose your religious standards on everyone else.   And speaking of imposing on everyone else, the Civil War has been on a lot of people's minds lately due to the recent Confederate flag controversy (I may blog on that next week actually, so stay tuned!) but did you know that civil war is also related to the marriage controversy?  That's right, earlier this year James Dobson made the statement (or perhaps "threat" would be a more accurate word) that if the Supreme Court rules in favor of marriage equality, it could lead to another civil war.

Let's just pause a moment to let that sink in.

Okay. So the Civil War is kind of my thing; I've had this weird fascination with it for over 15 years. But even if you don't know much about it, you probably realize it was a pretty devastating event for this nation. It is baffling that anyone would bandy that phrase around so lightly. Civil. War. Think about what that means. Brother fighting against brother. Friends killing each other.  Unimaginable destruction of resources, homes, property, and livelihoods.  Do we get that this happened on our own soil and was caused by our own citizens against one another?  It was an unspeakable horror.

But aside from that, it is astonishing that anyone would feel strongly enough about stopping marriage equality that they would entertain the idea, even for a second, of killing over it.  Killing any person at all, let alone their fellow countrymen and women!  This begs the question, does the god Dobson claims to follow really want us to kill people over a piece of paper?  And if he does, is that really a god and religion worth following? (Its definitely not the god I believe in.)   The sheer lunacy of this should be obvious yet James Dobson is not some fringe freak like Fred Phelps whom everyone writes off.  No, he is well-respected and followed by many, many evangelical Christians.

I made the statement in a Facebook discussion a few months ago, without knowing about Dobson's absurd threat, that conservatives would practically die trying to stop marriage equality.  I meant it metaphorically then. It's such a cliche phrase: "That's a hill they are willing to die on."  At the time, if someone had challenged me and asked if I thought people would literally be willing to die over this, I would have responded, "Of course not!" without any hesitation. But now...now we know that some appear willing to actually sacrifice human life on this altar of religious fanaticism.  At least, that's what Dobson's words suggest and the apparent support he gets from his fellow marriage equality opponents. Whether he really means what he said or is just throwing around inflammatory rhetoric is debatable, but either way he should be ashamed of his statement.  And we should be appalled that a man who claims to represent our faith is defaming the name of Christ by trivializing the value of human life. By disregarding what Jesus said when He told us the second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself.  By sending the message that Christians are willing to wage a holy war against those who don't comply with our beliefs.

Honestly, its during times like these that I think evangelical Christianity has become a joke to a watching world. It's one thing to be personally opposed to same-sex marriage. I'm personally opposed to many things, like getting drunk. (Fun fact, never have been!  But I am not interesting in legislating away anyone else's right to get drunk.) Where did we get this idea that we as Christians are supposed to police our fellow citizens' personal morality? There seems to be a disturbing trend among Christians in going to one extreme end or the other on any controversial spectrum, as though if we don't actually manage to stop marriage equality, we are by default guilty of supporting it. How about considering the idea that we can just sit back and let people get married or get drunk or practice another religion or no religion at all, if that is what they desire? And leave the judgment up to God? And don't try to tell me that we have a moral obligation to stop people from sinning. Until I see Christians out fighting against divorce with the same passion that they've fought against marriage equality, I'm going to call bullshit on that one.

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Notes:
1. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/08/13/birth-rate-for-unmarried-women-declining-for-first-time-in-decades/
2. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/marriage_divorce_tables.htm
3. http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/22/less-than-half-of-u-s-kids-today-live-in-a-traditional-family/

Hobby Lobby: Ethical or Confused?

Amidst the many frenzied, pro-Hobby Lobby statements swirling around the internet lately, Janaury 5th is now being called "Hobby Lobby Shopping Day."   Suddenly, if you want to be a good Christian, you should be taking a moral stand on Saturday by buying some craft supplies!  Well before rushing out to buy stuff that you probably don't even need, have you considered that the Hobby Lobby case is not as cut-and-dried as it appears to be?

But first, a few disclaimers:  

1. As a Libertarian, I'm not a fan of government imposing health insurance regulations on private businesses.
2. I believe that the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution is quite clear that any and all powers that are not delegated to the Federal government, elsewhere in the Constitution, are reserved to the States. Thus the health insurance issue being handled at the Federal level is a clear Constitutional violation, and would be more appropriately handled at the state level.
3. I am pro-life.

So it sounds like I should be totally supportive of Hobby Lobby's "brave moral stand," right?

No actually - the more I've read about it, the more it seems to me that their stand is illogical, hypocritical, and actually not pro-life at all - according to their own definitions, anyway.

Hobby Lobby has gone to court over their moral objection to emergency contraceptive drugs, labeling them as "abortion-inducing." But emergency contraception is, as the name suggests, simply contraception.  Contraception = preventing conception.  The primary mechanism of these drugs, like regular birth control pills, is simply to inhibit ovulation which would obviously prevent fertilization.  This may be confusing as many lack a fundamental understanding of how conception actually works and do not understand how a pill taken hours or even days after sex could possibly prevent conception.   And that's okay, you're not supposed to be an expert on these things unless you're a nerd (*cough* like me) who researches stuff like this.  However, that Hobby Lobby is either unaware or pretends to be unaware of the similarities between regular hormonal birth control pills and emergency birth control pills is irresponsible at best and dishonest at worst. 

First, let's look at how normal hormonal contraceptives are designed to work, such as in the commonly used "Pill."  The combined pill is taken once daily: for the first 3 weeks a pill providing synthetic estrogen and progestin is taken; for the final week an inactive placebo pill is taken.   In oversimplified terms, during the first 3 weeks, the hormones in the Pill primarily work to prevent the ovulation process from taking place.  If the ovaries do not release an ovum (egg), then it is impossible to conceive. In the last week, the inactive pill serves no purpose other than to reinforce the daily habit of taking a pill.  During this time since she is no longer receiving any hormones, the woman sheds the uterine lining, like a normal menstrual period.

A second type of birth control pill is the progestin-only pill, also known as the mini pill.  Because it does not contain estrogen, it does not consistently prevent ovulation and relies more on thickening cervical mucous to prevent sperm from reaching an ovum.

During a woman's normal cycle (ie, when not using hormonal pills), the uterine lining begins slowly building up again after the end of menstruation.  This processed might be altered while taking hormonal pill; because of the synthetic hormones inhibiting the natural ovulation cycle, it is possible that the thickening process is affected resulting in a thinner endometrium (uterine lining).  This is only a problem if ovulation does take place (a greater possibility with the progestin-only pill), making conception possible.  If this happens, the fertilized egg (zygote) may reach the uterus to find the endometrium is not thick enough for successful implantation.   Many brand names like Alesse, Loestrin, Ortho-Cyclen, Yasmin, and Ortho Micronor clearly acknowledge this possibility in their drug facts.      

But Hobby Lobby is not concerned about the possibility of these drugs interfering with implantation.  In a statement released by their attorney group in September 2012:

The Green family has no moral objection to the use of preventive contraceptives and will continue its longstanding practice of covering these preventive contraceptives for its employees. 

In other words, the Hobby Lobby owners feel that regular hormonal pills, patches, implants, etc, are preventive contraceptives that raise no moral issues for them.  

The statement continues by specifying which hormonal drugs that they do object to:

However, the Green family cannot provide or pay for two specific abortion-inducing drugs. These drugs are Plan B and Ella, the so-called morning-after pill and the week-after pill.

So let's look at the implied claim that these drugs are abortion-inducing in a way that regular hormonal contraceptives are not.  First, the Plan B pill: according to the manufacturer, Plan B works similarly to regular hormonal contraceptives.  How is this possible, since it is used after the fact?  The answer lies in the simple fact that conception can take place several days after sexual intercourse.  That's right, sperm can live in a woman's body for up to 5 days before actually fertilizing an ovum.  This is why the Plan B can be effective at preventing conception even taken 72 hours after intercourse.  Like regular contraceptive pills, the primary mechanism of Plan B is to inhibit ovulation.  It can also alter transport of sperm and/or ova in the fallopian tube prior to fertilization (this would decrease the likelihood of conception if ovulation does take place).

The charge of Plan B being an "abortion-inducing drug" seems to based on the drug's potential to thin the uterine lining, which could possibly interfere with implantation in the event of both ovulation and conception taking place.  Go back a few paragraphs...this is exactly what can happen with regular hormonal birth control too.  And breaking this down logically: taking a pill every day for 3 weeks that can interfere with your uterine lining is probably going to affect that lining a lot more than a pill you take once (or twice) mid-cycle.  At least a woman who is not on regular pills will have had her uterine lining thickening normally, without any hormonal interference, ever since the end of her last period.  Taking Plan B may affect its continuing thickening but will not have had any affect on the entirety of her cycle the way the daily Pill might.  

The other pill mentioned in Hobby Lobby's statement is Ella, which is also a morning-after pill, not the "week-after pill" as they incorrectly suggest.  It can be taken up to 5 days after intercourse, while Plan B can be taken up to 3 days after intercourse.  Ella is a synthetic progesterone agonist/antagonist which is intended to either prevent or postpone ovulation.  It differs from other hormonal methods because in clinical trials, it was shown to be effective at delaying ovulation even once the ovulation process had started [for the nerds: it delays ovulation by 5-9 days even if the LH (lutenizing hormone) peak that triggers ovulation has taken place].   As with the other hormonal methods we've already examined, Ella can also have an affect on the thickness of the uterine lining and implantation. 

The bottom line is, because both Plan B and Ella have the potential to thin the uterine lining and interfere with implantation, if their primary mechanism of preventing/delaying ovulation fails, it is perfectly reasonable for Hobby Lobby to have a moral objection to these drugs.  However, since regular hormonal birth control has just as great a (and perhaps even greater) chance of affecting the uterus and implantation, Hobby Lobby's position of support for regular hormonal contraceptive violates the very beliefs they are supposedly upholding.  It is strangely ironic that people will be turning out on January 5th to applaud Hobby Lobby for taking a stand against "abortion-inducing drugs" when the company has also inconsistently announced their financial support and moral approval of other drugs that are equally "abortion-inducing."