There have been a couple of important articles this week about the ongoing struggle for LGBTQ young people in Minnesota, specifically in Michelle Bachmann's district.  One appeared in Rolling Stone, and one in The American Independent.   I  encourage you to read both of the articles - though they are infuriating. 

The Anoka-Hennepin school district has a policy that says that teachers and school officials may not discuss homosexuality in positive terms; they must remain "neutral" on the issue. Students participating in a lawsuit against the district say this so-called "neutrality" has led to a harmful atmosphere in which gay students are bullied, but adults can say nothing:

‎"So maybe she was a fat dyke, Brittany thought morosely; maybe she deserved the teasing. She would have been shocked to know the truth behind the adults' inaction: No one would come to her aid for fear of violating the districtwide policy requiring school personnel to stay "neutral" on issues of homosexuality."

Today, The American Indepndent's columnist Andy Birkey published the history of the so-called "no promo homo" policy, how it was softened to a "neutrality" policy, and how it is being driven by a radically anti-gay group:

For almost two decades, Anderson has worked to ban books that she considered to be “pro-homosexual.” She even managed to remove posters for support hotlines for LGBT youth. In early 2002, Anderson spotted a poster hanging in Champlin Park High School that offered “a toll-free resource, referral and counseling service” to LGBT students. The poster included a number, 1-877-GLBT-543, and was paid for by the state of Minnesota and the U.S. Department of Justice....
 

[Anderson] has referred to herself as a spokesperson for the Parents Action League, a group of conservative Christian parents who have been testifying at school board meetings for the last two years, urging them not only to keep the “neutrality” policy but to beef it up to include so-called “ex-gay” programming and information about “gay-related immune deficiencies.”

The article goes on to describe how the community is fighting back against the policy, and how these types of policies have played out in other states.  

It is truly shocking and deeply angering that LGBT teens in any part of the country should have to learn homophobic lies or suffer homophobic bullying in their school - in this era when the suicide of LGBT young people is all too common.  No-promo-homo laws are terrible, but so-called "neutrality" laws are not the solution.  The Department of Education has made it clear that homophobic bullying is not just immoral, it's illegal - you can't be neutral on it because it's illegal.  

On Monday the school district responded strongly to the Rolling Stone article, claiming it " “presents a grossly distorted portrayal of the Anoka-Hennepin School District, its schools, and its communities.”  As yet they have not responded to the American Independent article.  And it's important to note that while everything in their response may be true, it does not address the involvement of overtly anti-gay groups in crafting district policy, nor does it address either the "no promo homo" policy or the "neutrality" policy. 

The Independent article notes that the board is leaning toward passing a new policy, and I hope that they do.   They have the responsibility to protect all of the young people in the district, including LGBT youth. 

 

Great news today! The 9th Circuit Court has declared California's Proposition 8, which outlawed same-sex marriage in the state, unconstitutional.

In May of 2008, California's Supreme Court ruled that California law restricting same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Proposition 8 was a ballot measure and a constitutional amendment that overruled the court's decision.  It passed with 52% of the vote, after heavy lobbying from religious conservatives, especially the Mormon church. 

In 2010 Judge Vaughan Walker overturned the decision, finding it unconstitutional. Today's decision upholds Judge Walker's decision.

The decision will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court, but nevertheless today's ruling is an important victory for proponents of equal marriage. 

Read the decision here >>

You may recall that Jamie Lynn Spears, child actress and sister of Britney Spears, shocked her fans in 2007 when she announced that she was pregnant.  This week, Jamie Lynn has an essay in Glamour Magazine describing her experiences, and it's really worth reading.  Even though she leads a fairly privileged life, her experience is in many ways similar to many teens' experiences and speaks to a lot of sad truths about our culture.

Right up front Spears says:

Casey was my first love. Since the day I saw him, I just wanted to marry him and be with him forever and ever. I believe in safety and birth control as prevention. But like many young girls...I was really scared to go to the doctor.

1) Teens aren't "hormonal monsters" or whatever:  most have their first sex with someone they're in a relationship with.  Like the rest of us, they feel love and affection, and want to express that affection romantically.

2) Many know about birth control and believe in it as prevention.  But something stops them from seeking it out - fear.  Fear of lack of confidentiality and of judgement.  Fear of being found out - because being found out as sexually active would be shameful.   It's a direct line from shame about sexuality, to unintended pregnancy. 

Later, after learning she was pregnant:

I did feel responsible for the young girls and the mothers who I probably confused and let down. I apologize for that. But I wasn't trying to glamorize teen pregnancy. I hated when [the tabloids] said that.

She's not lying about being villainized.  Everyone had something to say about the matter.  But tell me, how would becoming pregnant let American girls and mothers down?  And what does "glamorizing teen pregnancy,"  a charge that seems to be repeated whenever a pregnant  teen expresses excitement about motherhood, has a baby shower, or is seen smiling at any time, mean?  Jamie Lynn had sex with someone she loved and with whom she was in a long term relationship, and became pregnant accidentally.   She decided to become a mother. What was she supposed to do, dress in black and parade the streets crying "Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa"?    The very notion of "shaming" or  "glamorizing"  a person's pregnancy is absurd and offensive. Unintended pregnancy, while not ideal, happens - in fact, it happens 50 percent of the time, so I'm not sure what folks are on their high horses about.  

Later, commenting on her daugher Maddie, she says:

It'd be dumb to sit here and say that Maddie isn't going to like a boy one day and she isn't going to have a boyfriend. I'll just have to handle that the best way that I can. Both her daddy and me will caution her [about having sex], and I would hope that she would not want to do that at all, but I have to make sure that I'm realistic too. I've got to figure out a way to communicate to her to make smart choices and make the best decisions she can.

I find this passage is a little bittersweet. "I would hope that she would not want to do that at all" :  denial springs eternal.  The culture that shaped Jamie Lynn as a teen will shape her as a parent, and like all too many parents in America, she will probably bring shame and denial about sex to the table, when as we know, honesty and acceptance leads to better outcomes.  By talking about realism, at least she's acknowledging that empowering teens to protect themselves from pregnancy and HIV/STIs should be a priority for parents.  But that's really not enough.  We can't keep living with this culture of shame and fear around teen sexuality, we can't keep framing sex as "this terrible thing that God forbid you do, though if you do it be sure to use condoms."  And then we can't keep vilifying teen mothers.  As a culture we need to start embracing pragmatic attitudes and policies - from comprehensive sex education, to youth friendly clinics and services, to programs which support all teens, including teen parents.  

Huh. So, Komen said they ended their relationship with Planned Parenthood because it was under investigation, and their new policy says they can't  give grants to organizations under investigation. 

Mother Jones points out: Penn State is also under investigation — for improperly handling reports of the rape of multiple children. Yet Komen has taken no steps toward revoking their grants.

Guys, it's almost starting to seem like Komen's whole "under investigation" policy was only a pretext for punishing Planned Parenthood — like Komen has an anti-abortion agenda of some kind! 

We stand with Planned Parenthood. Click here to add your name to the Declaration of Support.

Does it make sense for the world's largest breast cancer charity to stop giving money to the world's largest reproductive health care system?  

It doesn't to me.  But as reproductive health care advocates and many others were shocked to learn yesterday, the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation has announced that it will stop giving breast cancer screening and prevention grants to Planned Parenthood.

Anti-abortion activists had been lobbying the Komen Foundation for some time, saying that Komen shouldn't give money to an organization that provides abortion services.  Never mind that Komen's money was funding 170,000 breast exams and 6,400 mammograms a year (and no abortions).  Never mind that abortion is a legal and safe procedure which one in three women will experience in her lifetime. It's the anti-abortion party line that if a place performs abortions it should stop receiving any money from anywhere, even if that means fewer women will be screened and more women will be at risk for breast cancer.  Another example of that movement's fabled concern for women's health. 

But what is one to make of the Komen Foundation's cravenness?

It looks like they ran the odds and decided that they'd make or save more money by cutting off Planned Parenthood than by continuing to fund them.  Isn't that really the only conclusion - that concern for donations rather than concern for needy women's health drove the decision? 

As Amanda Marcotte notes in Slate, Komen's cheery pink veneer has been chipping away this last year, when we learned they've been taking legal actions against other charities that use the word "cure."    They've been under fire for the commercialism of their "everything pink" campaigns, which Barbara Ehrenreich famously attacked as bullying and sexist over a decade ago.  They also increasingly face the accusation that their focus on screening is misguided.  This latest announcement is another black mark on the charity, and a potential game-changer in a nation where a majority of people believe abortion should be not only legal but available. 

Most people who "race for the cure" have been impacted by breast cancer and simply want to help keep other women from getting breast cancer.  They want to help women who need help - women who, for instance, get their medical care from Planned Parenthood because they're uninsured and/or can't afford other care.  I think a reproductive health activist has to conclude that there is a better place for your donation dollars than Komen; for instance, the Planned Parenthood Breast Health Fund, created as a response to Komen's fund withdrawal.  

In Friday's Washington Post, Christina Hoff ommers questioned CDC findings on sexual violence.  Calling the study "careless" and saying it relies on "the familiar jargon of feminist theory," Sommers even puts the word sexism in distasteful air quotes, as in, "the report also called for more research on 'sexism.'"

Sommers takes issue with the phasing of the CDC's question about sexual assault:

In a telephone survey with a 30 percent response rate, interviewers did not ask participants whether they had been raped. Instead of such straightforward questions....[the sample was asked]  “When you were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent, how many people ever had vaginal sex with you?” A majority of the 1.3 million women (61.5 percent) the CDC projected as rape victims in 2010 experienced this sort of “alcohol or drug facilitated penetration.”  

What does that mean? If a woman was unconscious or severely incapacitated, everyone would call it rape. But what about sex while inebriated? Few people would say that intoxicated sex alone constitutes rape. 

So, first of all, I don't think the CDC was unclear in its phrasing.  It's asking sample participatns if they were too drunk or high to consent.  Only they can answer that.  And in its sexual violence toolkit, the CDC is again quite clear on the topic:  

What is meant by “alcohol/drug facilitated penetration”?
This represents times when a victim was sexually penetrated but they were unable to consent to it because they were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out from alcohol or drugs. This includes times when a perpetrator intentionally drugged or spiked the drink of a victim but without the victim’s knowledge, and cases where the victim may have voluntarily used alcohol or drugs, but the perpetrator took advantage of the victim when they were too intoxicated, high, or passed out to consent to sex.  (Emphasis mine)

But it's this comment from Sommers that I'm more troubled by:

The CDC effectively set a stage where each step of physical intimacy required a notarized testament of sober consent.

No, they don't set that stage, and Sommers knows they don't.  What the CDC has done is ask women if they were raped.  They include "Someone had sex with you when you were too inebriated to consent" as a definition of rape.  

But what Sommers is really attacking isn't a specific CDC question, it's attempts to normalize enthusiastic consent - a culture where what "sex" means is that both parties discussed what would happen ahead of time, and communicated throughout the experience, changing what they were doing as needed - including stopping if they weren't totally sure the other person wanted it.  

I've heard snide comments like hers many times -- beginning in 1993, with Antioch College's famous dating policy.  At the time it was greeted with mockery.  The very notion of having to ask each time you did anything!  In 2006, Gettysburg College's sexual misconduct policy (in short, "Effective consent is informed, freely and actively given, using mutually understandable words or actions which indicate a willingness to participate in mutually agreed upon sexual activity") was also met with indignation.   

But what is so funny, what is so absurd, about requiring mutual consent?  In this article about good sex education, Al Vernacchio brings up a "pizza metaphor" to encourage good communication around sex:

“If you’re gonna have pizza with someone else, what do you have to do?” he continued. “You gotta talk about what you want. Even if you’re going to have the same pizza you always have, you say, ‘We getting the usual?’ Just a check in. And square, round, thick, thin, stuffed crust, pepperoni, stromboli, pineapple — none of those are wrong; variety in the pizza model doesn’t come with judgment."

He's talking about decision-making around sex, but it extends to mutual consent as well:  before you get a pizza, you both have to agree you want pizza.  And you have to discuss several other points as well.  You have to check in.  

When people make that "Better call a lawyer before you make out with someone these days" joke, what I hear is "Having to ask someone before you do something sexual with them is silly/burdensome/wrong."  Tell me this:  How does spreading that attitude help the "real victims of sexual violence" Sommers is so concerned about?  

I think people mock "enthusiastic consent" model because they liked the old way, where boys insisted and girls resisted.  Where you teach that both parties must enthusiastically consent, you are saying that women have to say what they want or do not want out of sex.  And if there's one thing social conservatives can't handle, it's a sexually empowered woman.  

This week Tony Perkins of the anti-gay hate group Family Research Council denounced the BioWare video game company's decision to allow same-sex relationships in the new online role-playing game Star Wars:The Old Republic.
Said Perkins:

In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists! [Ed. note:  Vomit]  The new video game, Star Wars: The Old Republic, has added a special feature: gay relationships. Bioware, the company that developed the game, said it's launching a same-sex romance component to satisfy some complaints. 

He later goes on to observe that "homosexual activists" are celebrating the news.

The complaints had come when BioWare claimed that there was no such thing as gay in Star Wars, and that therefore, those words would be censored out of forum discussions of the Star Wars games.  I'm sure someone more familiar with the Star Wars canon could say how true this is, but the fact is that an unknown percentage of human players certainly are LGBT.  If there are going to be romantic relationships in any game, it's weird to restrict these to heterosexual ones.

But let's step back a second and think about Tony Perkins' call to parents to flood BioWare with homophobic email.

In SWTOR, which is rated T for teen, you can:

 - "possess a morality at any point along the light/dark spectrum"
 - engage in bloody combat
 - lie, steal, cheat
 - have multiple romantic partners who do not know about one another
 - choose to identify as entirely evil and committed to world domination
 - be a professional assassin - that is, murder people for money

You can do this stuff in a lot of games.  The "moral spectrum" is a major component of many highly rated games.  Yet what has the Family Research Council elected to complain about?

That a boy can date a boy or a girl can date a girl.  Priorities, people.  Every hate group has theirs. 

Even though Rick Santorum's recent comments about abstinence lessons in education have been roundly denounced as false, even by the head of one of the programs he was referring to, he's still sticking to that whole "Obama hates abstinence" line.  

As ThinkProgress and Jezebel report, last night Santorum upped the ante, observing that Obama hates abstinence because he hates poor people.  

I've addressed before how profoundly untrue it is the claim that comprehensive sex education doesn't teach abstinence. (The new National Sexuality Education Standards name it as an necessary component of the lesson at 17 different points of a child's education!).

I don't particularly understand the comment that not having abstinence-only programs leads people into poverty, not just because I don't think sex automatically leads to poverty, but because abstinence-only programs don't work, not even at helping teens remain abstinent. As to the President hating poor people, well, I'm not in his head, but it seems unlikely.

I'm still not sure where Santorum is trying to go with all these claims, but rest assured that it comes down to a deep fear of sexuality.  Some people on the far right would simply rather have teens receive programs that don't help them at all, than have them receive programs that do work and also empower them to control their own sexuality.    

Watching the State of the Union Address last night, we didn't hear too much about young people, but what we heard was good: more assistance with college tuition, and an endorsement of a path to citizenship for young people who want to "staff our labs, start new businesses, defend this country."  Much of the speech focused on the economy and how to create jobs and ease the burden of unemployment and income inequity, while the President also touched on energy reform and the his achievements while in office. Here's a roundup of reactions to the speech from media and the blogosphere: 

State of the Union: Obama appeals — again — for unity (Washington Post)

In this election year, it might be too much to hope that the spirit Obama invoked in the House chamber tonight will stay. But the nation depends on it happening. The 535 members of the House and Senate were sent to Washington to get things done on the voters’ behalf. It’s about time they got to work.

President Obama officially starts campaigning with the State of the Union (Feministing)

President Obama spoke with a level confidence and command I haven’t seen in a long while. It seems that this speech marks the official start to his 2012 re-election campaign.

Obama To Congress: Make College Affordable, Invest in Worker Training (Campus Progress)

During the address, Obama called on members of Congress to prioritize the middle class, including by making college more affordable and investing in worker training. And he put colleges and universities “on notice” to ensure Americans can afford degrees.

Obama’s Big Shift: Let’s Truly Investigate the Banking Sector’s Crimes (Colorlines)

Obama grabbed hold of the debate over taxes and reframed it as a debate over opportunity and fairness. That’ll be a welcome change for the broad swath of communities from which Democrats are seeking support, not just for Obama, but for congressional races as well.

Obama's And Daniels' Speeches Follow Classic Party Lines (NPR)

There were appeals to what unites Americans, and even to what may unite the warring parties in Washington. But the spirit and bite of the address were not found in these moments, but in the throwing down of the gauntlet.

The State of the Union’s Most Memorable Moments (Jezebel)

A slide show of interesting visuals from the broadcast.

If you're interested in reading ongoing commentary about the speech, its impact, and what it means for the 2012 election, check out Slate, Salon, and DailyKos.   And share your own thoughts about what it means for youth activism and reproductive and sexual health and rights, right here! 

A study has come out this week that contradicts one of the anti-abortion movement's attempts to mislead the public:  the common claim that abortion is bad for a woman's health.

Not so, says a study out this week in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology. 

From Reuters:

Researchers [in the United States] found that women were about 14 times more likely to die during or after giving birth to a live baby than to die from complications of an abortion.

It's not that surprising, since abortion procedures are very safe.   

Just two months ago, another study found that abortion does not cause women to have mental health problems.  In fact, notes the leader of the research team:

Kendall said mental health problems seemed to be linked specifically to unwanted pregnancies rather than abortion.

Being pregnant when you're not ready leads to a heightened risk of depression.  That's not an argument against abortion, but it is a good argument for contraception.

Yet 14 states require women seeking abortion to be counseled on the physical or mental health risks of the procedure.  These requirements aren't to support the health of women.  They're to mislead, scare, and instill guilt. 

We've also recently learned that legislating against abortion only renders it more likely to be unsafe, and puts women at risk for bad injury and death.

So don't be fooled when the anti-abortion movement tells you they "care about" women. They should TRUST women instead.  Join the Trust Women Week Virtual March today.