I'm almost 71. I came out as a lesbian in 1974--not to brag, but back when it actually was a bit dangerous to be openly gay. This wonderful woman is much more appealing to me than anything I've seen in the (quote) gay scene for more than a decade, and I wish her and her family nothing but blue skies and very sunny days.
So glad you all spent some time pointing out the hoops that boys have to jump through to survive. I see our education system as a grandmother and it ain't good.
I think an interview about what happened during the pandemic that resulted in such strange aftermaths. Parents found their children talking about nonbinary kids at school and getting assignments that lead to online pornography. How did this very "woke" agenda get started in our schools? It's almost like it was lying around under rocks, dormant, until the pandemic when nobody was looking.
There was a time not long ago when I supported the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR). FAIR’s positions on a range of topics associated with gender identity ideology made sense to me, and I was glad to see that FAIR was engaged in advocacy to curb the excesses of trans activism.
That all changed in December, 2023. I felt betrayed when FAIR platformed Robert P. George, a professor at Princeton University, a prominent right-wing Catholic activist and a member of FAIR’s advisory board, on the occasion of his receipt of the Religious Freedom Institute’s 2023 Defender of Religious Freedom Award. [1] The piece in FAIR’s Weekly Roundup included a link to the National Catholic Register and its story about the award complete with the text of the Professor's acceptance speech. [2]
When Professor George accepted his award, he told his audience at the Religious Freedom Institute:
"And here at home, we stand up for the rights of the Evangelical Christian baker or wedding planner threatened with legal sanctions for honoring his or her conscientious belief in marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife . . ." [3]
Earlier in the speech, the Professor said:
“We insist on the right to shape and run our institutions — be they schools, hospitals, food pantries, shelters, adoption agencies, rehab centers, or what have you — in line with the tenets of our faiths, and we further insist on our right as free and equal citizens to engage in advocacy on terms of equality with our fellow citizens in the formal and informal forums of deliberative democracy.” [4]
The alarming implications of the Professor’s ideology for gay and lesbian Americans will be apparent to anyone who has been following the Christian litigation campaign to curtail the existing rights of gay people. I will cite someone far more learned and articulate than I am to explain what Professor George’s notions of religious freedom mean for people like me. The following paragraphs are from Associate Supreme Court Justice Sonja Sotomayor’s dissent in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 600 U.S. 570 (2023):
Five years ago, this Court recognized the “general rule” that religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage “do not allow business owners and other actors in the econ¬omy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally appli¬cable public accommodations law.” Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Comm’n, 584 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 9). The Court also recognized the “seri-ous stigma” that would result if “purveyors of goods and ser¬vices who object to gay marriages for moral and religious reasons” were “allowed to put up signs saying ‘no goods or services will be sold if they will be used for gay marriages.’” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 12).
Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class. Specifically, the Court holds that the First Amendment exempts a website-design company from a state law that prohibits the com¬pany from denying wedding websites to same-sex couples if the company chooses to sell those websites to the public. The Court also holds that the company has a right to post a notice that says, “‘no [wedding websites] will be sold if they will be used for gay marriages.’”
“What a difference five years makes.” Carson v. Makin, 596 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting) (slipop., at 5). And not just at the Court. Around the country, there has been a backlash to the movement for liberty and equality for gender and sexual minorities. New forms of inclusion have been met with reactionary exclusion. This is heartbreaking. Sadly, it is also familiar. When the civil rights and women’s rights movements sought equality in public life, some public establishments refused. Some even claimed, based on sincere religious beliefs, constitutional rights to discriminate. The brave Justices who once sat on this Court decisively rejected those claims.
Now the Court faces a similar test. A business open to the public seeks to deny gay and lesbian customers the full and equal enjoyment of its services based on the owner’s religious belief that same-sex marriages are “false.” The business argues, and a majority of the Court agrees, that because the business offers services that are customized and expressive, the Free Speech Clause of the First Amend¬ment shields the business from a generally applicable law that prohibits discrimination in the sale of publicly availa¬ble goods and services. That is wrong. Profoundly wrong. As I will explain, the law in question targets conduct, not speech, for regulation, and the act of discrimination has never constituted protected expression under the First Amendment. Our Constitution contains no right to refuse service to a disfavored group. I dissent. [5]
I responded to FAIR’s support for Professor George’s repugnant ideology with a written objection that demanded an explanation. How could an organization that professes to fight intolerance tacitly endorse the explicit religious intolerance of a member of its board of advisors?
What follows are excerpts from my exchange of comments with Monica Harris, FAIR’s executive director, on Substack after she replied to my complaint:
Ollie Parks
Jan 13·edited Jan 13
Nobody forced FAIR to appoint Professor George to FAIR's board of advisors. You know as well as I do that the issue isn't Professor George's right to express himself. The problem lies in the social consequences when the deeply held beliefs he expresses are implemented in the real world.
FAIR did not need to select someone whose religious beliefs result directly in religiously motivated discrimination against gay and lesbians.
If FAIR does not recognize that as an odious form of religious intolerance that has no more place in American society than do sincerely held racist beliefs rooted in church teachings, then FAIR's moral compass is broken.
It is shocking that FAIR does not even acknowledge the obvious injustice. Well, the FAIR is on the wrong side of history here just as others were on gays in the military and same-sex marriage.
Monica Harris
Jan 13
Yes, you are correct. FAIR was not compelled to appoint Mr. George or any other individual to its Board of Advisors. But as a nonpartisan organization, we stand by our commitment to engage individuals all along the political spectrum, as long as they conduct themselves in a civil manner and in accordance with legally protected rights. Mr. George has done this. It would be inconsistent with the principles of a nonpartisan organization to exclude conservative members who exercise their legally protected rights.
Like FAIR, he respects the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by the law, and he does not endorse or promote practices that violate the Constitution. He advocates for his legally-protected right to religious freedom, and FAIR supports him, just as we support members who advocate for their legally-protected right *not* to be forced to embrace any religious practice.
I should also note that Mr. George is not a fringe thinker; he is a highly respected legal scholar and political philosopher, a graduate of Harvard Law School, and a professor at Harvard and Princeton University.
FAIR does not take a position on abortion or gay marriage. To act otherwise would make FAIR a partisan organization. As I’m sure you know, our sole commitment is to ensuring that all Americans receive equal benefit of the law. We find common ground with Mr. George on this fundamental point.
Ollie Parks
Jan 14
According to a 2009 profile of Robert P. George in The New York Times, he is "a Roman Catholic who is this country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker." [6] If others on the Protestant Evangelical and Charismatic fringe that has flourished since Trump's election in 2016 are now challenging Professor George's influence, his Establishment CV ensures he will remain the nation's most presentable conservative Christian thinker.
One thing Professor George is not is a passive observer of the status quo. He is also a powerful, accomplished and highly respected activist cum culture warrior. As the profile opens, Professor George is the central figure of a gathering of influential figures on the Christian right:
"Alarmed at the liberal takeover of Washington and an apparent leadership vacuum among the Christian right, the group had come together to warn the country’s secular powers that the culture wars had not ended. As a starting point, George had drafted a 4,700-word manifesto that promised resistance to the point of civil disobedience against any legislation that might implicate their churches or charities in abortion, embryo-destructive research or same-sex marriage." [7]
Later in the piece, readers learn that in 2009, before the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Robert P. George was "in many ways the public face of the conservative side in the most urgent culture-war battle of the day. The National Organization for Marriage, the advocacy group fighting same-sex marriage in Albany and Trenton, Maine and California, has made him its chairman. Before the 2004 election, he helped a coalition of Christian conservative groups write their proposed amendment to the federal Constitution defining marriage as heterosexual. . ."[8]
It is therefore inaccurate to claim that the Professor "respects the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by the law . . ." That's because his activism aims to shape the law - including constitutional law - and society to fit his conservative religious beliefs. That is his right, of course, but in our society others - including dissenting justices of the Supreme Court - have the right to object to the social consequences of such advocacy. Professor George and his fellow activists on the Christian right have no compunction about running roughshod over the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by laws. That’s exactly what they did to the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis.
Moreover, the professor is much too sophisticated to "endorse or promote practices that violate the Constitution." Why should he do so when he and his fellow right wing activists can elicit opinions from a right-leaning, political Supreme Court that [blesses] practices previously considered constitutionally impermissible? One need look no further than last term's 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, in which the Supreme Court gutted the accommodation clause of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act as it applies to gay people seeking marriage-related services. It would surprise no one if Professor George were pursuing Clarence Thomas’s open invitation to overturn the line of cases that include the one that established a constitutional right to gay marriage.
Before turning to 303 Creative in the next comment, it is necessary to probe the statement that “as a nonpartisan organization, we [at FAIR] stand by our commitment to engage individuals all along the political spectrum . . .”
Having so thoroughly engaged the Christian right in the person of Professor George, which respected religious thinker on FAIR’s board of advisors represents the segment of the political spectrum that isn’t actively waging culture war against gay and lesbian Americans and their legal rights?
As for the statement that “FAIR does not take a position on abortion or gay marriage. To act otherwise would make FAIR a partisan organization," with the nation’s most influential conservative Christian figure acting as FAIR’s advisor on religious matters, it would be superfluous for FAIR to take a position on gay marriage. We already know where FAIR stands.
In conclusion, suffice it to say that I do not believe FAIR is an honest broker insofar as the rights of sexual minorities are concerned. FAIR's amoral, disingenuous and tortured defense of Professor George's antigay activism is a tacit endorsement of religiously motivated intolerance towards gay people.
Excellent interview, as usual. It's always fascinating to hear Boomer/Gen Xer LGB folks talk about the radical changes to the movement wrought by modern gender ideology - especially the seeming desire to erase biological women. (making the definition of woman into a rubber band; men invading women's spaces).
I was very interested in the discussion about our perceptions of gender fluidity: I will readily admit that if my 24 year old daughter announced that her new boyfriend "had fooled around with some guys in high school/college" I would immediately instruct her to find another boyfriend. She doesn't have to be mean to the guy, she just has to let him sort out his sexual orientation.
By contrast, if my 25 year old son announced that his new girlfriend "had fooled around with some girls in high school/college" I would reassure him that there's nothing to worry about -it happens a lot.
As Meghan pointed out, those of us of a certain age very well remember AIDS (I'm about to turn 55); yes AIDS is not quite the concern it was 30 years ago, but women should still be reluctant to get involved with a man who has underlying questions about his sexual orientation. A woman will always be looking over her shoulder.
Double-standard? Absolutely. Every sentient adult holds conflicting or contrary opinions on a lot of topics. It's called being human.
That was a brilliant interview! This conversation was eminently cool and sexy ‼️😁
I'm almost 71. I came out as a lesbian in 1974--not to brag, but back when it actually was a bit dangerous to be openly gay. This wonderful woman is much more appealing to me than anything I've seen in the (quote) gay scene for more than a decade, and I wish her and her family nothing but blue skies and very sunny days.
So glad you all spent some time pointing out the hoops that boys have to jump through to survive. I see our education system as a grandmother and it ain't good.
I think an interview about what happened during the pandemic that resulted in such strange aftermaths. Parents found their children talking about nonbinary kids at school and getting assignments that lead to online pornography. How did this very "woke" agenda get started in our schools? It's almost like it was lying around under rocks, dormant, until the pandemic when nobody was looking.
Part 1.
There was a time not long ago when I supported the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR). FAIR’s positions on a range of topics associated with gender identity ideology made sense to me, and I was glad to see that FAIR was engaged in advocacy to curb the excesses of trans activism.
That all changed in December, 2023. I felt betrayed when FAIR platformed Robert P. George, a professor at Princeton University, a prominent right-wing Catholic activist and a member of FAIR’s advisory board, on the occasion of his receipt of the Religious Freedom Institute’s 2023 Defender of Religious Freedom Award. [1] The piece in FAIR’s Weekly Roundup included a link to the National Catholic Register and its story about the award complete with the text of the Professor's acceptance speech. [2]
When Professor George accepted his award, he told his audience at the Religious Freedom Institute:
"And here at home, we stand up for the rights of the Evangelical Christian baker or wedding planner threatened with legal sanctions for honoring his or her conscientious belief in marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife . . ." [3]
Earlier in the speech, the Professor said:
“We insist on the right to shape and run our institutions — be they schools, hospitals, food pantries, shelters, adoption agencies, rehab centers, or what have you — in line with the tenets of our faiths, and we further insist on our right as free and equal citizens to engage in advocacy on terms of equality with our fellow citizens in the formal and informal forums of deliberative democracy.” [4]
The alarming implications of the Professor’s ideology for gay and lesbian Americans will be apparent to anyone who has been following the Christian litigation campaign to curtail the existing rights of gay people. I will cite someone far more learned and articulate than I am to explain what Professor George’s notions of religious freedom mean for people like me. The following paragraphs are from Associate Supreme Court Justice Sonja Sotomayor’s dissent in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 600 U.S. 570 (2023):
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Five years ago, this Court recognized the “general rule” that religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage “do not allow business owners and other actors in the econ¬omy and in society to deny protected persons equal access to goods and services under a neutral and generally appli¬cable public accommodations law.” Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Comm’n, 584 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 9). The Court also recognized the “seri-ous stigma” that would result if “purveyors of goods and ser¬vices who object to gay marriages for moral and religious reasons” were “allowed to put up signs saying ‘no goods or services will be sold if they will be used for gay marriages.’” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 12).
Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class. Specifically, the Court holds that the First Amendment exempts a website-design company from a state law that prohibits the com¬pany from denying wedding websites to same-sex couples if the company chooses to sell those websites to the public. The Court also holds that the company has a right to post a notice that says, “‘no [wedding websites] will be sold if they will be used for gay marriages.’”
“What a difference five years makes.” Carson v. Makin, 596 U. S. ___, ___ (2022) (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting) (slipop., at 5). And not just at the Court. Around the country, there has been a backlash to the movement for liberty and equality for gender and sexual minorities. New forms of inclusion have been met with reactionary exclusion. This is heartbreaking. Sadly, it is also familiar. When the civil rights and women’s rights movements sought equality in public life, some public establishments refused. Some even claimed, based on sincere religious beliefs, constitutional rights to discriminate. The brave Justices who once sat on this Court decisively rejected those claims.
Now the Court faces a similar test. A business open to the public seeks to deny gay and lesbian customers the full and equal enjoyment of its services based on the owner’s religious belief that same-sex marriages are “false.” The business argues, and a majority of the Court agrees, that because the business offers services that are customized and expressive, the Free Speech Clause of the First Amend¬ment shields the business from a generally applicable law that prohibits discrimination in the sale of publicly availa¬ble goods and services. That is wrong. Profoundly wrong. As I will explain, the law in question targets conduct, not speech, for regulation, and the act of discrimination has never constituted protected expression under the First Amendment. Our Constitution contains no right to refuse service to a disfavored group. I dissent. [5]
(Continued below)
Part 2
I responded to FAIR’s support for Professor George’s repugnant ideology with a written objection that demanded an explanation. How could an organization that professes to fight intolerance tacitly endorse the explicit religious intolerance of a member of its board of advisors?
What follows are excerpts from my exchange of comments with Monica Harris, FAIR’s executive director, on Substack after she replied to my complaint:
Ollie Parks
Jan 13·edited Jan 13
Nobody forced FAIR to appoint Professor George to FAIR's board of advisors. You know as well as I do that the issue isn't Professor George's right to express himself. The problem lies in the social consequences when the deeply held beliefs he expresses are implemented in the real world.
FAIR did not need to select someone whose religious beliefs result directly in religiously motivated discrimination against gay and lesbians.
If FAIR does not recognize that as an odious form of religious intolerance that has no more place in American society than do sincerely held racist beliefs rooted in church teachings, then FAIR's moral compass is broken.
It is shocking that FAIR does not even acknowledge the obvious injustice. Well, the FAIR is on the wrong side of history here just as others were on gays in the military and same-sex marriage.
Monica Harris
Jan 13
Yes, you are correct. FAIR was not compelled to appoint Mr. George or any other individual to its Board of Advisors. But as a nonpartisan organization, we stand by our commitment to engage individuals all along the political spectrum, as long as they conduct themselves in a civil manner and in accordance with legally protected rights. Mr. George has done this. It would be inconsistent with the principles of a nonpartisan organization to exclude conservative members who exercise their legally protected rights.
Like FAIR, he respects the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by the law, and he does not endorse or promote practices that violate the Constitution. He advocates for his legally-protected right to religious freedom, and FAIR supports him, just as we support members who advocate for their legally-protected right *not* to be forced to embrace any religious practice.
I should also note that Mr. George is not a fringe thinker; he is a highly respected legal scholar and political philosopher, a graduate of Harvard Law School, and a professor at Harvard and Princeton University.
FAIR does not take a position on abortion or gay marriage. To act otherwise would make FAIR a partisan organization. As I’m sure you know, our sole commitment is to ensuring that all Americans receive equal benefit of the law. We find common ground with Mr. George on this fundamental point.
Ollie Parks
Jan 14
According to a 2009 profile of Robert P. George in The New York Times, he is "a Roman Catholic who is this country’s most influential conservative Christian thinker." [6] If others on the Protestant Evangelical and Charismatic fringe that has flourished since Trump's election in 2016 are now challenging Professor George's influence, his Establishment CV ensures he will remain the nation's most presentable conservative Christian thinker.
One thing Professor George is not is a passive observer of the status quo. He is also a powerful, accomplished and highly respected activist cum culture warrior. As the profile opens, Professor George is the central figure of a gathering of influential figures on the Christian right:
"Alarmed at the liberal takeover of Washington and an apparent leadership vacuum among the Christian right, the group had come together to warn the country’s secular powers that the culture wars had not ended. As a starting point, George had drafted a 4,700-word manifesto that promised resistance to the point of civil disobedience against any legislation that might implicate their churches or charities in abortion, embryo-destructive research or same-sex marriage." [7]
Later in the piece, readers learn that in 2009, before the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Robert P. George was "in many ways the public face of the conservative side in the most urgent culture-war battle of the day. The National Organization for Marriage, the advocacy group fighting same-sex marriage in Albany and Trenton, Maine and California, has made him its chairman. Before the 2004 election, he helped a coalition of Christian conservative groups write their proposed amendment to the federal Constitution defining marriage as heterosexual. . ."[8]
It is therefore inaccurate to claim that the Professor "respects the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by the law . . ." That's because his activism aims to shape the law - including constitutional law - and society to fit his conservative religious beliefs. That is his right, of course, but in our society others - including dissenting justices of the Supreme Court - have the right to object to the social consequences of such advocacy. Professor George and his fellow activists on the Christian right have no compunction about running roughshod over the rights and civil liberties guaranteed to all by laws. That’s exactly what they did to the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act in 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis.
Moreover, the professor is much too sophisticated to "endorse or promote practices that violate the Constitution." Why should he do so when he and his fellow right wing activists can elicit opinions from a right-leaning, political Supreme Court that [blesses] practices previously considered constitutionally impermissible? One need look no further than last term's 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, in which the Supreme Court gutted the accommodation clause of the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act as it applies to gay people seeking marriage-related services. It would surprise no one if Professor George were pursuing Clarence Thomas’s open invitation to overturn the line of cases that include the one that established a constitutional right to gay marriage.
Before turning to 303 Creative in the next comment, it is necessary to probe the statement that “as a nonpartisan organization, we [at FAIR] stand by our commitment to engage individuals all along the political spectrum . . .”
Having so thoroughly engaged the Christian right in the person of Professor George, which respected religious thinker on FAIR’s board of advisors represents the segment of the political spectrum that isn’t actively waging culture war against gay and lesbian Americans and their legal rights?
As for the statement that “FAIR does not take a position on abortion or gay marriage. To act otherwise would make FAIR a partisan organization," with the nation’s most influential conservative Christian figure acting as FAIR’s advisor on religious matters, it would be superfluous for FAIR to take a position on gay marriage. We already know where FAIR stands.
===============================================================
In conclusion, suffice it to say that I do not believe FAIR is an honest broker insofar as the rights of sexual minorities are concerned. FAIR's amoral, disingenuous and tortured defense of Professor George's antigay activism is a tacit endorsement of religiously motivated intolerance towards gay people.
[1] "FAIR Board of Advisors." Weekly Roundup. Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. 3 December 2023. https://news.fairforall.org/p/weekly-roundup-0e3
[2] George, Robert P. "Championing Religious Freedom: ‘We Must Preserve Our Unity’ Going Beyond Political Disputes." National Catholic Register. 4 November 2023. https://www.ncregister.com/commentaries/championing-religious-freedom-rfi-address-2023
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Justitia U.S. Supreme Court. Dissent (Sotomayor). 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis, 600 U.S. ___ (2023). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/600/21-476/#opinions
[6] Kirkpatrick, David D . “The Conservative-Christian Big Thinker.” The New York Times. 16 December 2009. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/20/magazine/20george-t.html
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
Dearest Meghan,
Excellent interview, as usual. It's always fascinating to hear Boomer/Gen Xer LGB folks talk about the radical changes to the movement wrought by modern gender ideology - especially the seeming desire to erase biological women. (making the definition of woman into a rubber band; men invading women's spaces).
I was very interested in the discussion about our perceptions of gender fluidity: I will readily admit that if my 24 year old daughter announced that her new boyfriend "had fooled around with some guys in high school/college" I would immediately instruct her to find another boyfriend. She doesn't have to be mean to the guy, she just has to let him sort out his sexual orientation.
By contrast, if my 25 year old son announced that his new girlfriend "had fooled around with some girls in high school/college" I would reassure him that there's nothing to worry about -it happens a lot.
As Meghan pointed out, those of us of a certain age very well remember AIDS (I'm about to turn 55); yes AIDS is not quite the concern it was 30 years ago, but women should still be reluctant to get involved with a man who has underlying questions about his sexual orientation. A woman will always be looking over her shoulder.
Double-standard? Absolutely. Every sentient adult holds conflicting or contrary opinions on a lot of topics. It's called being human.
Great conversation as usual. Looking forward to hearing about tickle v giggle lawsuit in Australia.