The thing about the Wisconsin Republican gerrymandering, at least up to this point, was that it didn't really bother or disturb too many people. The total effect was bragging rights, but that was about it.
No longer. Maybe they took a while to totally understand their power, but Wisconsin Assembly Republicans are finally robbing the state of sanity in the name of religious obsession that fits their worldview.
To wit: A hearing took place yesterday in the chamber about reinstating ex-gay "conversion therapy" in the state. It had been banned for the last few years.
Conversion therapy exists under the presumption that gayness is pretense. Gay people just want to be gay, just want to have sex with people of their own gender, because--well, for a number of reasons. Many Republicans, especially those who are excessively religiously afflicted, believe that this is one of society's evils brought on by, well, loose morals and family deterioration and heaven knows (and they do think that heaven does know) what else.
In any event, gay people have apparently fallen astray. It's the height of condescension that someone would think that they've been sadly misled, that they have fallen off the rails, maybe unbeknownst to them, by hanging around with those of their professed, but phony, type.
So, you know--if we just take them aside and show them the one, honest truth, that men need to be with women and women with men, the false facts will finally dawn on them, they will slap their foreheads and berate their former detachment from the way the world really works and get with the program. They will start dating people of the other sex, maybe even have children, and honor and respect will, only because of the excessively religiously afflicted Republican Party, be restored. We can all go on secure and relieved to know that we won't even have to tacitly acknowledge gayness, even by admitting it, as Tim Michels tried to shove in our faces, without having them appear in public much less express themselves there.
That didn't just rub off just because of Michels' candidacy and outrageous TV political ads, which weren't as political as they were harkening to a past that existed only in their minds. Rather, just like the way ex-'s attacks on democracy have emerged and hung around, with follow-ups in the new, backward majority in Congress teeming to foist upon us, Michels' attacks on gay people have unearthed that which had always lurked not far beneath the surface. They were attitudes which the reigning milieu discouraged until ex- took over for that regrettable time period, which was just long enough for our living Neanderthals to look around, close off all that made sense, and retreat into the world they alone had concocted for themselves. The difference is that the country's mistake in electing the chief Neanderthal gave them permission to fantasize that perhaps their worldview could dominate.
That must have included Wisconsin Republican Assembly members, because now they are carrying forward that which should be considered nearly the ultimate in backwardness. But when a large number of people are being that absurd, we have no choice but to honor it--which is to say, we have to acknowledge that there are still plenty of folks out there who would rather not acknowledge what's always been true: that ten percent, give or take, of humanity has been born homosexual and it can't be "fixed" by anyone in any fashion.
I don't care what you say: ten percent's a lot, something like thirty-three million people in America, and some six hundred thousand here in this state. That would be a high hill to climb, even if they have a point, which they don't.
Oh, I'm quite sure that behind 'free expression,' and 'religious freedom,' the latter of which has been bastardized way beyond normal recognition by a supermajority of the Supreme Court, Assembly Republicans will hide their obvious motivations--that homosexuality is somehow 'wrong,' that it is somehow contagious (like a mental disease, which it also is not), and--far more importantly--its very existence makes them frighteningly uncomfortable, along with other backwards people too many of which exist within these borders. Thus, if it can be undone--and it takes some kind of illogical reach to consider that notion--someone, heaven knows not them in particular, but somebody--should have the perfect right to have at it.
Never mind the mental and emotional damage that can be wreaked upon gay folks, especially adolescents toward whom this is directed; you can't force adults to submit themselves to salvation but you can force wrong-thinking young people to reimpress themselves impressionably. That damage has been well-documented, as if that had any effect upon the Assembly Republicans who have been obviously planning on this hearing for some time now.
In my time on the NEA Executive Committee, we were confronted by this phenomenon (I think this happened about 2005 or so) when the so-called ex-gay caucus wished to set up a booth in the midst of many other educational ones at the NEA Representative Assembly. The NEA Gay-Lesbian Caucus had already established itself as a potent intra-political force, and their consternation could be cut with a dull kitchen knife. So it was put to us, as the chief facilitators of the RA: Should a caucus with such a contrary agenda to that which the NEA had obviously directed itself over these many years be allowed inside? Should that camel's nose be allowed inside our tent?
To provide context, please also understand that the NEA has caucuses enveloping nearly all possible political-social stances, including Right to Life (which will be bragging mightily next summer) and Conservative, about which people tend to shrug their shoulders, call it a free country, and most of whom stride right past their displays. Seeing as how about one-third of our members consider themselves politically conservative, though--somehow believing that they'll have significant impact upon policy, nice try--it's not exactly dealing with a fringe.
But ex-gay? That was interpreted as a direct attack upon a burgeoning, thriving caucus of very sensitive people who didn't deal with getting their toes stepped on very well. So we had this debate in open air, with everyone holding their breath about what would shake out.
Of course, these issues can't be considered in a vacuum. If we said no to the ex-gay caucus, we might get sued. That suit would be trumpeted mightily among the victim-ridden conservatives, in addition to costing us tons of cash that we would otherwise be using to promote other issues in significant states. So there was that, too. Contrary to what some tended to think, our coffers were never bottomless.
We eventually decided that in the name of free expression, which was always in question but also highly valued--indeed, the RA itself was based upon it--we would allow the ex-gays to set up a booth. We figured that the curious but uncommitted would pay some attention to it, but that its status wouldn't grow amongst our delegates, who would be mostly, if not completely to a person, inclined to reject their notions. In the time I belonged to the Executive Committee, we never heard of big lines at that booth. As I recall, the vote was unanimous but not vociferously so; nearly apologetic.
Had I to vote again, though, I would reverse it and speak strongly against it. I think we chickened out in the name of practicality, not high principle.
Conversion therapy is based on educational expression and availability. We were and are, after all, primarily interested in the substance of that education as well as protecting and improving the processes by which it's being dispensed and supported. Conversion therapy is nothing more and nothing less than a lie, as much as it would be for me as a history teacher to tell the students that China invaded North Dakota in 1875, which is why chop suey's so popular there. Free speech includes that which is false, but that doesn't mean it should be tolerated or promoted. That betrays and compromises that which we rely upon to even have democracy.
That's just as true in the Wisconsin State Assembly, which, in the name of something sacred--all the more reason to regard it with disgust--has moved forward with the backward notion that being homosexual is a disease that can be cured. Gerrymandering has, at last, succeeded in finding a license of illogic and intolerance. Expect more of that soon--more backing up out of reality.
Be well. Be careful. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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