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nerdygaymormon · 2 months

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Meghan Decker & BYU's 2020 Honor Code changes

Meghan Decker is a lesbian member of the LDS Church who was in a mixed-orientation marriage and is now a grandma and author of the book Tender Leaves of Hope: Finding Belonging as LGBTQ Latter-day Saint Women. In 2020 she wrote a biweekly column for an LDS-friendly online publication. She wrote about the changes in February 2020 to the BYU Honor Code which removed prohibitions against same-sex relationships. Just before she submitted her article on the changes, the Church Educational System "clarified" that the previous restrictions were still in effect even if no longer included in the Honor Code.

It's been 4 years, and Meghan has decided to share the article that was never published as a way to recognize what might have been. I'm including some quotes below:

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Coinciding with changes to the General Handbook, the Honor Code is less prescriptive and more principle-based. Rather than defining what specific behaviors are or are not allowed, especially concerning students attracted to their own gender, the Honor Code asks us to stretch and learn. Like the new temple recommend questions, the Honor Code invites students to consider what it means to live a chaste and virtuous life. This is especially important for LGBTQ students, whose path forward may not follow the standard pattern of marriage and family that our young women and men are taught. How do they balance the realities of their experience with the covenants they have made and their desire to live a chaste and virtuous life?

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I'm grateful that the Honor Code seems to allow space for people to ask questions about what their sexual orientation means for their future in a safe and nurturing environment, and without having to hide until graduation.

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In addition, we are inviting other BYU students to live a higher law which asks them to withhold judgment and to allow each other space to learn. It fulfills BYU’s slogan “Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve.” Learning on a campus in which diversity is tolerated and accepted prepares students to work and serve alongside people who are different from them. It invites them to learn about others’ life experiences and to expand their own understanding of how God works in the lives of all of His children.

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This is messy, I know. And it may feel frightening. It may feel dangerous. It may feel the Church is caving into social pressure (no change in doctrine here, just to be clear). But this whole come-to-mortality-to-learn-from-our-experience plan is messy. It is frightening. It is dangerous. God invites us to turn to Him in our confusion and fear and let Him show us the way forward.

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Unfortunately, all those possible lessons were undone. Homophobia was emphasized and people with queerphobic prejudices continued to feel justified in their bigotry. Fear and confusion and anger and sadness was expressed by many queer students at the reversal.

#queerstake #byu

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vox · 7 years

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Why Bill Maher’s use of the n-word finally crossed the line

It was a seemingly innocuous conversation about Nebraska. Suddenly, it took an uncomfortable turn.

Real Time host Bill Maher and Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) were at first talking about Maher visiting the senator’s home state. Sasse quipped, “We’d love to have you work in the fields with us.” Maher then made his move, saying, “Work in the fields? Senator, I’m a house n*****.”

Maher immediately clarified that this was “a joke,” but the moment exploded on social media nonetheless. Black Lives Matter activist DeRay Mckesson said Maher “has got to go.” Sasse later acknowledged that he should have confronted Maher for his use of the n-word. HBO called what Maher did “completely inexcusable,” although it stopped short of firing him. And Maher himself later said, “The word was offensive and I regret saying it and am very sorry.”

This isn’t the first controversy Maher has been embroiled in. But Maher has generally gotten a pass for intolerant statements — perhaps because he’s on the left, because his shtick is in part about making offensive remarks, or because his remarks are often more subtle and come from the kinds of prejudice that many Americans are seemingly okay with. This time, it’s different.

What Maher actually said, and why it blew up in his face

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Here is the full exchange between Maher and Sasse:

MAHER: Your book is so right about how we have actually kind of lost the thread of what adults are anymore in this country. Adults: They wear shorts everywhere, they have cereal for dinner, and they treat comic books like they’re literature. What is your prescription for this problem?

SASSE: More cereal for dinner. First of all, let’s not disagree about everything. So this is a constructive project, right? I’m not trying to beat up on millennials. But there’s something weird in human history if you can’t tell 10- and 15- and 20- and 25-year-olds apart, ’cause that’s new. Adolescence is a gift—

MAHER: Halloween used to be a kid thing.

SASSE: It’s not anymore?

MAHER: Not out here. No. Adults dress up for Halloween. They don’t do that in Nebraska?

SASSE: It’s frowned upon. Yeah. We don’t do that quite as much.

MAHER: I gotta get to Nebraska more.

SASSE: You’re welcome. We’d love to have you work in the fields with us.

MAHER: Work in the fields? Senator, I’m a house n*****.

Maher immediately clarified that this was supposed to be a joke — to laughs, cheers, and applause from the crowd.

That Maher immediately had to explain this was a joke shows that he, at that moment, must have known he crossed a line: After centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, and all sorts of racism in the US, white people in particular are simply not supposed to use the n-word.

As Wesley Morris wrote in the New York Times, “He didn’t commit a hate crime. He overstepped his privilege as a famous comedian. That’s all. But if he crossed a line, it’s one that, for white people, has never moved.”

Morris explained: “For a long time, black people have deployed slavery-derived hierarchies as a social and psycho-political sorting mechanism. A house assignment might have won a slave less arduous work but more suspicion and contempt from her counterparts in the fields. No one self-identifies as a house Negro — unless that person is making a joke. And even then that person probably shouldn’t be Bill Maher.”

The problem is further punctuated by Maher’s history, Morris wrote: “His track record inspires too much doubt to give any benefit.”

Maher has a long history of offensive comments

Muslim and Arab people in particular have long been the target of Maher’s ire, as shown by a video that made the rounds after former CNN host Larry King declared that “there’s not a racist bone in [Maher’s] body.”

Here is just a sampling of some of the comments Maher has made:

“Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas.”

“Just tell me two things, [former One Direction member] Zayn [Malik]. Which one in the band were you? And where were you during the Boston Marathon?”

“The most popular name in the United Kingdom, Great Britain — this was in the news this week — for babies this year was Muhammad. Am I racist to feel I’m alarmed by that? Because I am.”

“Talk to women who’ve ever dated an Arab man. The reviews are not good.”

“Most Muslim people in the world do condone violence.”

“[Islam is] the only religion that acts like the mafia.”

Earlier this year, Maher also invited former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos, who has repeatedly made Islamophobic and transphobic comments, to his show. The invitation drew criticism, since it gave Yiannopoulos a megaphone to spout his bigoted views. But Maher argued that the move was necessary to air out and challenge Yiannopoulos’s views in the free market of ideas. (Later, video surfaced of Yiannopoulos seemingly endorsing pedophilia, leading the ultra-conservative Breitbart to fire him.)

In that episode, when Yiannopoulos referred to the myth that trans women pose a danger to other women in the bathroom, Maher suggested, “That’s not unreasonable.” When he moved to another guest on the panel, Maher referred to trans people as “weirdos,” saying, “Where do you stand on weirdos peeing?” (Maher said he did it “just to fuck with him,” referring to the other guest, Republican Jack Kingston.)

The bathroom myth has been repeatedly used against trans people to push back against their civil rights. The argument, in short, is that if trans people are allowed to use the bathroom for their gender identity, either trans women or men who pose as trans women will sexually assault or harass women in bathrooms. There is literally zero evidence for this, as I have repeatedly explained. But the myth has been used to bar trans people from using the bathroom for their gender identity, with several states passing laws or considering bills to that effect.

Gavin Grimm, a trans teenager who’s sued his school for access to the right bathroom, best captured why these anti-trans policies are a big problem: “This wasn’t just about bathrooms. It was about the right to exist in public spaces for trans people,” he told me, quoting trans actress Laverne Cox. “Without the access to appropriate bathrooms, there’s so much that you’re limited in doing. If you try to imagine what your day would be like if you had absolutely no restrooms to use other than the home, it would take planning. You would probably find yourself avoiding liquids, probably avoiding eating, maybe [avoiding] going out in public for too long at a time.”

But in calling Yiannopoulos’s view reasonable and calling trans people “weirdos,” Maher perpetuated the myth, suggesting it’s okay to keep trans people out of bathrooms for their gender identity.

This is just one incident involving trans people. Maher, who identifies as a supporter of LGBTQ rights, mocked Caitlyn Jenner shortly after she came out as trans in 2015. In one segment, he called Jenner “a white man” and suggested she should go on a date with Rachel Dolezal, the former NAACP official who was accused of posing as black. The “jokes” denied Jenner’s identity and suggested her identity as a woman is on equal grounds with Dolezal’s claim to blackness.

It’s not just Islamophobia and transphobia. When Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2008, Maher said, while playing clips of Clinton on the campaign trail:

I’m not trying to be sexist here, but I’m just saying that women try a lot of different tacks when they’re in arguments … I’m not being sexist, I’m just saying that men, when we argue, we’re kind of a one-trick pony — we try our thing, and then we sulk when we don’t get our way. … But look at Hillary Clinton … Because the first thing a woman does, of course, is cry … and then they go to sweet talking … and then they throw an anger fit totally unrelated to anything. … And when it doesn’t work, they bring out the sarcasm.

As a general rule of thumb, starting any statement with “I’m not trying to be sexist here, but…” is probably a sign you shouldn’t complete that sentence.

Maher’s comments exemplify why: He said he wasn’t trying to be sexist, but then he went on to make a bunch of sweeping comments about men and women by using the experiences and actions of a single woman. This is simply sexism by definition.

Some kinds of bigotry are often overlooked in the US

Maher’s shtick has long been controversy — in what he often characterizes as a battle against political correctness.

Maher, after all, lost his show on ABC, Politically Incorrect, when he characterized the US military as “cowards” and the terrorists who hijacked planes on 9/11 as brave. “We have been the cowards, lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away,” Maher said. “That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly.”

Maher went to HBO in part so he could get away with comments like this. It’s part of his brand to make over-the-top remarks for laughs, even if they contribute little to the ongoing conversation or are offensive. In his view, it’s part of an important battle against censorship.

He elaborated on his philosophy in his interview with Milo Yiannopoulos. “I think you’re colossally wrong on a number of things. But if I banned everyone from my show who I thought was colossally wrong, I would be talking to myself,” Maher told Yiannopoulos. He later added, “You are so, let’s say, helped by the fact that liberals just always take the bait.”

It took Maher literally using the n-word to finally get some media outlets to hold him accountable. Perhaps that’s because Maher is a liberal, putting him on the side of most of the people who would be quick to condemn his bigotry, particularly against Muslim, Arab, and transgender Americans.

But part of the issue here is what counts as actual bigotry in America, and whether Islamophobia, transphobia, and certain kinds of sexism and misogyny really do cross the line for a large chunk of the population.

A Pew Research Center survey measured Americans’ “warmth” toward different religious groups, with Christians and Jews ranking the highest and atheists and Muslims ranking the lowest. And in studies conducted by Northwestern University psychologist Nour Kteily, researchers had participants rank different groups based on how evolved they are; among the set of groups provided, Muslims ranked the lowest.

Similarly, many Americans don’t quite understand why trans people should be allowed to use the bathroom for their gender identity. Many Americans really do hold sexist or misogynistic views about how women debate, argue, or otherwise assert themselves.

But many Americans are told that the n-word is inexcusable; it’s the one word almost anyone who’s even a little bit woke to racism knows is not allowed.

That helps explain why Maher’s past offenses didn’t cross the line for a lot of people, while his use of the n-word got HBO and him to apologize.

#race #racism #sexism #sexist #Bill Maher #television #news #media #culture

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ladystylestores · 4 years

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U.K. Sanctions, Facebook, Jair Bolsonaro: Your Tuesday Briefing

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good morning.

We’re covering Britain’s new sanctions on human rights abuses, discrimination against Europe’s Roma and a revival of Italy’s pawnshops.

They are the first sanctions that Britain has imposed since leaving the European Union in January — a move officials hope will cast the country as a human rights defender.

Among the 47 people who face travel bans and frozen assets in Britain: Russians accused of having involvement in the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, and Saudis accused of assassinating the Saudi columnist Jamal Khashoggi. The list did not include any Chinese officials.

What it means: Being blacklisted will probably not change the lives of those named and many are already blacklisted by the U.S. But sanctions are a weapon that Britain could use in the future on Chinese officials who are involved in Uighur internment or the crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong.

Officials cite medical risks. But for many Roma, the lockdown exemplifies a centuries-old bigotry that has deepened in parts of Europe during the pandemic. Other places with similar caseloads in Bulgaria, they say, have not had such restrictions.

Quote of note: “It’s pure prejudice,” said Angel Iliev who tried to collect water at a spring beyond a checkpoint but was turned away by the police. “The discrimination was already bad, but now it’s even worse because of the pandemic.”

In other coronavirus news:

The U.S. is still in the pandemic’s first wave, its top infectious disease expert warned on Monday, with more than 250,000 new cases announced nationwide in the first five days of July alone. Deaths have surpassed 130,000.

Jair Bolsonaro, the Brazilian president and noted coronavirus skeptic, said Monday that he would take a new test for the virus after developing symptoms of Covid-19.

Israel closed bars, gyms and pools and curtailed gatherings as positive test results reached new heights.

New up-and-coming coronavirus tests, like the gene-editing tool Crispr, can spot the virus in less than an hour. But it will most likely be months before these tests hit clinics.

For millions of low-paid workers from Asia and Africa running Arab households, the pandemic has exacerbated the dangers of conditions that rights groups say can lead to exploitation and abuse.

The coronavirus is accelerating the shift to cashless transactions, with governments in India, Kenya, Sweden and other countries promoting digital payment for public health reasons.

Here are the latest coronavirus updates and maps of the outbreaks.

Facebook won’t turn over Hong Kong user data

Facebook and its messaging service WhatsApp will temporarily stop processing Hong Kong government requests for user data while it reviews the national security law imposed by China.

The company said it would consult human rights experts to assess the law. The decision is a rare questioning of Chinese policy by an American internet company, and targets the question of how the security law will apply online.

Telegram, another popular messaging app, said on Sunday that it would refuse requests from the Hong Kong authorities for user data until an international consensus was reached on the new law.

What’s next: Facebook’s move puts pressure on other tech giants, like Apple, Google and Twitter, to clarify how they will deal with the Hong Kong security law.

Related: Xu Zhangrun, a Chinese professor at the prestigious Tsinghua University, was arrested on Monday in Beijing — one of the few academics in China who have harshly criticized the ruling Communist Party.

Russia: A Russian military court on Monday convicted a freelance journalist on charges of “justifying terrorism” in a 2018 text critical of the security services. It tightened the screws on free speech, and even the Kremlin’s human rights council denounced the charges.

If you have 8 minutes, this is worth it

A pawnshop revival in Italy

Italians are turning to a safety net they have relied on for centuries through plagues, sieges, wars and downturns: putting up their valuables as collateral for loans. Pawnshops, above, an official part of the Italian banking system, saw activity increase from 20 to 30 percent immediately after the country’s lockdown because of the coronavirus.

“When things are going well, you can buy your stuff back,” said Claudio Lorenzo, who had pawned his and his wife’s wedding rings. “When things are going bad, you can’t.”

Snapshot: Above, a conductor on the Tshiuetin line, the first railroad in North America owned and operated by First Nations people, that runs through rural Quebec. Named after the Innu word for “wind of the north,” it is a symbol of reclamation.

Gentrification fight: When a developer tried to evict Nour Cash & Carry, a beloved grocer in south London, customers organized to save the store, saying its fate symbolized broader changes in the lower-income neighborhood.

What we’re listening to: The “Floodlines” podcast from The Atlantic about Hurricane Katrina. It “traces the racism-driven response to the Big One with the clarity of 15 years of hindsight,” writes Shaila Dewan, a national reporter and editor covering criminal justice issues.

Now, a break from the news

Cook: This mayo-marinated chicken with chimichurri is perfect for cooking on the grill or in a cast-iron skillet indoors.

Watch: “Grand Designs” is a bit like “The Great British Baking Show,” but in this series, the goal is to build dream homes, not frangipani and iced buns. It’s also deeply human.

Read: “Too Much and Never Enough,” an exposé about President Trump written by his niece, and a memoir from the poet Natasha Trethewey are among the 16 books to watch for in July.

Staying safe at home is easier when you have plenty of things to read, cook, watch and do. At Home has our full collection of ideas.

And now for the Back Story on …

Teaching about racism

Jane Elliott, now 87, came up with a lesson in 1968 to force children to experience prejudice firsthand. She split up her class into two groups based on an arbitrary characteristic: eye color. Those with blue eyes were superior to those with brown eyes, and were entitled to perks, like more recess time and access to the water fountain. Quickly, the children turned on one another. She reversed the roles and saw the same thing.

The anti-racism educator spoke with our In Her Words newsletter about how things have and have not evolved since 1968.

For the past few decades, you’ve been giving anti-racism lectures and workshops around the country. Have you noticed a shift in how they have been received?

I’ve been doing the exercise with adults for about 35 years. But in the last few years, I’ve only been doing speeches about it because we now live in a situation where people turn off immediately if they think they’re going to learn something counter to their beliefs, and I don’t want to be threatened with death anymore. I’m tired of receiving death threats.

Where did you grow up, and when did you come to truly understand the problem of racism in this country?

I was raised on a farm in northeast Iowa. When I went to school, I started to learn the standard elementary curriculum, which is that white men did all the inventing and discovering and civilizing.

Then I went to college, and in my first social studies education class, the white professor stood up in front of that group of students and said, “When you get into the classroom, you must not teach in opposition to local mores.”

A lot of white people are trying to reassess their own biases. Based on the work you’ve done, what can white people do to actually help in this moment?

First of all, you have to realize what I do isn’t hard work. What Black people do is hard work. I get paid for the work that I do.

And second, white people need to stop referring to themselves as “allies” — as if we can make it all right. They need to educate away the ignorance that was poured into them when they were in school and realize that they are the reason everyone is so angry.

That’s it for this briefing. Tips I needed for keeping good habits post-lockdown. See you tomorrow.

— Isabella

Thank you Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh provided the break from the news. You can reach the team at [email protected].

P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” Our latest episode is about new insights on how the virus takes hold in the body. • Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Guacamole ingredient (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • Kim Perry, who has worked on major digital initiatives in the Times newsroom, has been named director for international strategy and operations.

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