Holiday Greetings: What if Jesus was Gay?

"What if Jesus was gay? Would you still be afraid? Would you torture and tease? Would you open your mind? Would you make him cry? Would you beat him the alley? Would you tell him to burn and rot?"

This little gem of a song, by Bryan McPherson, was recorded at Club Passim in Cambridge around the time same-sex marriage became legal in the Commonwealth on May 17, 2004. It's worth a listen this holiday season.

In listening to Bryan's song, I can't help but to think about how so many people make the conscious effort to bring hate and sorrow into the world. The choice of how are you are in this world is totally up to you.

Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. 

-- Viktor Frankl

Choose wisely.

Happy Holidays.

The Human Costs of Reparative Therapy

Have you hear about the so-called reparative therapy, in which unethical therapists attempt to change the sexual orientation of a person? Check out here and here if you are outraged and want to stand up for love, compassion, and what is right.

To My Unborn Child

To read  more about the inspiration behind this clip, click here. 

Middle School is Rough

This morning I came across this clip of Jonah Mowry. In disembodied academic conversations about bullying, or in the disassociated way politicians often speak about it, we forget about the very real impact bullying has on real people. It's worth watching.

Here, by the way, is just one example of how politicians obscure the personal dimension of the impact of bullying to further a particular agenda.

Not Acceptable

Want to more? Check out their website here.

Forgotten History

I recently came across a link to the London Science Museum on the Mind Hacks blog. It lead to an interesting morning clicking around looking at all sorts of medical oddities. Where else would I be able to find a diorama of Dr. Lister's ward where he pioneered modern antiseptic techniques? Perhaps you are interested in something older? How about a different diorama depicting the removal of a cataract in 11th century Persia? If that one didn't make you flinch how about an antique dentist chair? There is the interesting (antique acupuncture needles) and the gory (a German amputation knife). Have more prurient interests? How about a reusable condom that needed to be washed, powdered, and dried flat? How about an electric "massager" circa 1913 that physicians used to treat "hysterical" women. Talk about forgotten history!

Of particular interest to me were two grave markers in the London Science Museum collection. These markers came from a place first opened in 1765 as the House of Industry for Looes and Wilford Incorporated Hundreds (a work house for the poor), named the Suffolk County Lunatic Asylum in 1827, renamed again the Suffolk District Asylum in 1906, and then called St. Audry's Hospital for Mental Diseases from 1917 until it closed in the 1990s. The grounds are rather pretty.

Some people spent most--if not their entire--lives in this hospital. They grew up, aged, and died on the grounds of this hospital. The only memory that remains of them are numbered metal grave markers. Recently even the markers were removed when workers came in to renovate the old asylum grounds into a golf course. The surviving buildings have been converted into residences.

There was no record left of these human beings. No mention of their hopes and dreams or their struggles and pains. Reduced to small rusted metal crosses with an embossed number, these people disappeared. I wish there was some way I could reach back in time and let the persons now known as #325 and #1587 know that they were valuable just because they were.

I can't do that. None of us can. We cannot travel back in time and we cannot right what has been made wrong. We can remember the past to honor those who were thrown away. For example, there is a website that collects and chronicles the experiences of workhouses in the United Kingdom.

We can treat each person like they matter--with dignity, respect, and honor. Can you try that today?

On the Inside

Stanley Milgram

As many do, I thought I new everything in college. It was 1991 and I was in the middle of my undergraduate education. Among other things, I was learning about the ethics of psychology. I remember hearing stories of stuff way back when--Stanley Milgram and his experiments about power and obedience, Phillip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison experiment, and John Watson's study with little Albert.

The essence of what I was taught was this: we've come a long way. Along that way we've learned about ethics, and the importance of protecting people who participate in research projects. In other words, we've gotten better at caring about people. I thought psychologists were so smart--so ethical. The world back then was dark, unethical, and filled with horrors. The world now was filled with compassion, thoughtfulness, and ethical behaviors.

At the same time I was learning this, Forest Haven Developmental Center (sometimes called Fuller State School and Hospital or Patuxent Mental Hospital) was shut down by the Federal Government after the center was successfully sued. This was not the first lawsuit: one was filed in 1978 about poor conditions and then another in the 1980s. I was so wrong about the world being filled with compassion, thoughtfulness, and ethical behaviors.

Who was in Forest Haven? Elroy was one resident. He grew up in Forrest Haven and was given a home in the community when the center was shut down. Here is what the Washington Post wrote about him in 1999 in an expose about the still damaged system for caring with people who have developmental disabilities:

Elroy lives here. Tiny, half-blind, mentally retarded, 39-year-old Elroy. To find him, go past the counselor flirting on the phone. Past the broken chairs, the roach-dappled kitchen and the housemates whose neglect in this group home has been chronicled for a decade in the files of city agencies. Head upstairs to Elroy's single bed.

"You're in good hands," reads the Allstate Insurance poster tacked above his mattress -- the mattress where the sexual predator would catch him sleeping. Catch him easily: The door between their rooms had fallen from its hinges. Catch him relentlessly -- so relentlessly that Elroy tried to commit suicide by running blindly into a busy Southeast Washington street.

These days, reconciled to living, Elroy has fashioned ways to cope. He keeps private amulets against a misery he doesn't fully grasp. There's the leatherette Bible he can't read; the Norman Rockwell calendar of family scenes he hasn't known.

And there's his strategy of groping his way down to the bare-bulbed basement again and again to wash the sheets from his violated bed, as if Tide could cleanse defilement. "God is a friend of mine," he says. But absent divine intervention, "you just gotta do what they say." Just got to add soap powder, and more soap powder, turn the dial to hot. "Gotta not let the worries pluck your nerves."

Here are a few images of what is left of this former state-of-the-art facility for the treatment of children and adolescents with developmental disabilities (and some children who were just discarded and thrown away by their parents for no apparent reason).

http://www.urbanatrophy.com/

http://www.urbanatrophy.com/

http://www.urbanatrophy.com/

http://www.opacity.us

I'd like to say that we've learned a lot since 1991 when this facility was shut down. In some ways we have. In the mid-1990s I spent some time working in upstate New York in a supervised apartment program for people with developmental disabilities that was exemplary. I learned some powerful lessons--lessons that have deeply influenced my work. Those lessons involve deeply appreciating the right of everyone--regardless of ability or disability--to make an informed choice and have the dignity of risk.

Sadly, we have a lot left to learn. One need only to look here in Massachusetts at the Judge Rotenberg Center for evidence of the work that needs to be done. In 2006 the Boston Globe released a report that detailed:

•  JRC employs a general use of Level III aversive behavioral interventions (electric shock devices, restraint chairs) to students with a broad range of disabilities, many without a clear history  of self-injurious behaviors. 
• JRC employs a general use of Level III aversive behavioral interventions to students for behaviors that are not aggressive, health dangerous or destructive, such as nagging, swearing and failing to maintain a neat appearance.   
•  The Contingent Food Program (withholding food as a behavioral conditioning tool) and Specialized Food Program may impose unnecessary risks affecting the normal growth and development and overall nutritional/health status of students subjected to this aversive behavior intervention

To my knowledge, the JRC hasn't changed. Regardless of whether their techniques work--or don't--are these ways in which we want to treat another human being? Are these ways in which we want to offer care to the hurt, lost, and forgotten?

In The Noonday Demon, Andrew Solomon writes "Most demons--most forms of anguish--rely on the cover of night; to see them clearly is to defeat them". Mistreatment is one demon that we can scatter with sunlight. We have a lot more to learn about how to care for those who are most vulnerable. We need to do better. We need to let the sunlight in.

The Day After

As was the case at Wellesley college, the academic year had just begun and my schedule was already full. I had been on campus for about a week as a doctoral level practicum student at the Stone Center Counseling Service. I had an 8:30, 9:30, and 10:30 client scheduled.

I had gotten my first appointment of the day, sat down with her, and went about the business of doing therapy. I walked her to the office, scheduled her next appointment, and heard from the secretary that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. I remember thinking that was sad, got my next client, and went back to the business of doing therapy. The thought of the plane crash was pushed far out of my mind. I repeated the previous process and walked my second patient to the office. I scheduled her appointment and said goodbye. Only then did I notice the ashen faces of those gathered in the office. "They are gone," she said. I asked "what is gone?". She said the buildings, the buildings are gone. I walked and got my 10:30 client and again put everything out of my mind.

It wasn't until 11:30, when I finally had a break, that my attention went back to the conversations held in the office and what meaning was held in those words.

That was nine years and one day ago. In some respects, and enormous amount of time has passed. Yet in other ways, the world has stayed exactly the same.

I was struck yesterday by a quote in the Boston Globe. A person protesting the Islamic Center that is to be built in a former Burlington Coat Factory Store carried a sign that said "It stops here" and "Never forgive, never forget, no WTC mosque."

Never forgive. Simple words really--simple words that are brimming over with unexpressed anger. Simple words that will forever prevent one protester, a country, and a world from moving forward. Without forgiveness, hate continues to reside in the heart. The day after never comes and one is forever trapped in a moment of pain and anguish.

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget--Thomas Szaz

Why is this? The forgiving isn't for the other--it's for us. Once we find a way to release ourselves through forgiveness, we can continue move forward with our life rather than being trapped in the past. The past becomes a memory--in it's proper place. Without forgiveness, the past remains trapped in our present and it is never the day after.

The Sparrow and the Hawk

A couple of days ago Maggie and I were out walking and we encountered two hawks. The two of us must have spent an hour watching them dive, swoop, and otherwise go about their hawk-like business. What really captured my interest (a mixture of curiosity, horror, and awe) was when the hawk settled in high up on a telephone pole. 

First I noticed the chatter of other birds. Then I saw a sparrow. One lone sparrow came swooping in on the hawk, fluttering around, then flying away. This process repeated over and over for twenty minutes. Sometimes the bird would flutter in the air. Sometimes the bird would get so close I was fairly sure it was pecking the hawk. 

For the most part the hawk stood still. Finally the hawk caught a gust of rising warm air and soared away, high up into the air.

It got me thinking about a quote that I've posted on Facebook and tweeted about in recent weeks. When the Temple Grandin bio-pic first came out I stopped it at a particular point to write down a quote. At various times I've tweeted that quote and posted it on facebook. I got to thinking about this quote while I was watching the sparrow and the hawk

Nature is cruel, but we don't have to be. -- Temple Grandin

I like this quote. I like it because it serves as a reminder that we have choices about our actions. Watching the sparrow and hawk I realized Temple got this a little wrong (assuming it was Temple who said this and not a script writer).

We often imbue nature with person-like qualities. Nature as mother, for example--or nature as cruel sadist, as another example. Nature however isn't a person--it just is. Neither the sparrow or the hawk were engaged in the very human activity of cruelty. Neither were seeking to harm the other for pleasure, or engaged in behavior devoid of humane emotions. The hawk and sparrow were doing what hawks and sparrows do: the hawk was looking for food, the sparrow was trying to keep the flock from being food. I have no evidence to suggest that either animal has the capacity to make another choice.

We humans--well that's a different story. That's the part Temple got right. By the nature of our cognitive abilities we have been afforded a certain amount of choices. We can choose to be cruel. We can choose not to be. The choices we humans have available to us are seemingly endless. 

This choice can lead to such freedom. History is replete with examples of how easy it is for us to make choices that lead away from freedom.

What kind of choices are you making today?

Greene vs. Sonoma County

In this past Friday's edition of the news roundup I wrote about the memorandum that President Obama signed directing the Department of Health and Human Services to make rules that make "clear that designated visitors, including individuals designated by legally valid advance directives (such has durable powers of attorney and health care proxies) should enjoy visitation privileges that are no more restrictive than those that immediate family members enjoy. You should also provide that participating hospitals may not deny visitation privileges on the basis of race, color national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability."

A great deal of press associated with this memorandum related to a legal case brought by Janice Langbehn, who, along with her children, were denied access to her dying partner while she was in a Florida hospital. Today I've been reading a lot about Green vs. Sonoma County (see here or here for two interesting commentaries). Here is a brief description borrowed from the NCLR website:

Clay and his partner of 20 years, Harold, lived in California. Clay and Harold made diligent efforts to protect their legal rights, and had their legal paperwork in place—wills, powers of attorney, and medical directives, all naming each other. Harold was 88 years old and in frail medical condition, but still living at home with Clay, 77, who was in good health. 

One evening, Harold fell down the front steps of their home and was taken to the hospital. Based on their medical directives alone, Clay should have been consulted in Harold’s care from the first moment. Tragically, county and health care workers instead refused to allow Clay to see Harold in the hospital. The county then ultimately went one step further by isolating the couple from each other, placing the men in separate nursing homes. 

Ignoring Clay’s significant role in Harold’s life, the county continued to treat Harold like he had no family and went to court seeking the power to make financial decisions on his behalf. Outrageously, the county represented to the judge that Clay was merely Harold’s “roommate.” The court denied their efforts, but did grant the county limited access to one of Harold’s bank accounts to pay for his care. 

What happened next is even more chilling: without authority, without determining the value of Clay and Harold’s possessions accumulated over the course of their 20 years together or making any effort to determine which items belonged to whom, the county took everything Harold and Clay owned and auctioned off all of their belongings. Adding further insult to grave injury, the county removed Clay from his home and confined him to a nursing home against his will. The county workers then terminated Clay and Harold's lease and surrendered the home they had shared for many years to the landlord. 

Three months after he was hospitalized, Harold died in the nursing home. Because of the county’s actions, Clay missed the final months he should have had with his partner of 20 years. Compounding this tragedy, Clay has literally nothing left of the home he had shared with Harold or the life he was living up until the day that Harold fell, because he has been unable to recover any of his property. The only memento Clay has is a photo album that Harold painstakingly put together for Clay during the last three months of his life. 

With the help of a dedicated and persistent court-appointed attorney, Anne Dennis of Santa Rosa, Clay was finally released from the nursing home. Ms. Dennis, along with Stephen O'Neill and Margaret Flynn of Tarkington, O'Neill, Barrack & Chong, now represent Clay in a lawsuit against the county, the auction company, and the nursing home, with technical assistance from NCLR. A trial date has been set for July 16, 2010 in the Superior Court for the County of Sonoma.

It's difficult for me to string together words to describe what I feel when reading about this. This isn't because a lack of words--or anger--but because there isn't much more in my mind beyond the horror of bearing wittiness to such unrelenting cruelty.

As I have been learning in my recent explorations into the nature of cruelty and how it has become woven nearly invisibly into the tapestry of our human experience, I think about the person and their experience. I'm thinking a lot this afternoon about Clay and how many people showed great cruelty by not thinking of his experience. I wonder what the voters of California were thinking when they voted for California Proposition 8? Where they thinking about people like Clay and Harold? Probably not as our modern public discourse has moved away from considering individual experiences and moved toward easily digestible slogans. I wonder what staff at the nursing homes, the hospitals,  or decision makers at the county level were thinking of? Where they thinking of the very real humans who were experiencing great pain and cruelty? Again, I'm guessing not.

I hope those of you who read about his story don't make that same mistake. I hope you think of the person's experience first. Always think of the person first. It can guide us toward a place of compassion and slowly help us each dismantle the cruelty we ignore or don't notice on a daily basis.