Thou shalt not watch training videos

In the ongoing effort by a particular cadre of über-Christians to emphasize one or two tenets of their faith and pretty much ignore the rest of it, we have the case of a worker for the Social Security Administration who has said he would rather be fired than watch a seventeen-minute video on respecting diversity (particularly with respect to LGBT individuals) in the workplace.

David Hall, of Tolono, Illinois, has worked for the SSA for fourteen years.  This year, supervisors have required all employees to watch a training video on LGBT inclusion as part of a drive to decrease workplace harassment and increase tolerance and respect.  Hall, however, has refused, and claims he's being discriminated against because he's a Christian.  "I think this is an issue they are prepared to go to the mat with," Hall said, "but I’m not going to give up my faith or compromise my beliefs just to go along and get along.  I don’t believe God wants me to do that."

A few things about this particular case stand out.  First, Hall is claiming discrimination, even though the SSA is requiring everyone to watch the video.  If Hall, as a devout Christian, had been singled out to watch the video, he might have a case to claim he was being targeted.  In this case, however, it's hard to see how he's being discriminated against, given that the definition of discrimination is "the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people or things, especially on the grounds of race, age, or sex."

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

A more important point arises when you consider why the video is being mandated.  Remember that the video is not saying (1) being gay is moral; (2) Christian ethical codes are wrong; or (3) you should all run out and have gay sex right now.  What it's saying is that we should treat people with kindness, tolerance, and respect whether or not we are like them or agree with them.  Sorta like what you read in the following quotes:

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you. -- Ephesians 4:32 

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.  And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. -- 1 John 4:20-21 

For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. -- Matthew 6:14-15 

But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.  Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. -- Luke 6:35-36

And, most strikingly:

Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.  We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. -- 1 Thessalonians 5:11-13

Oh, and the whole "judge not, lest ye be judged" thing.  That, too.

In fact, have you noticed that the bible has a lot more passages about being kind to others than it does about condemning homosexuals?  Funny thing, that.

Because that's the most annoying part of this whole emphasis on LGBT individuals being sinners; it requires you to pretend that a substantial fraction of the bible doesn't exist.  Besides the fact that there is a great deal more emphasis  in the bible on treating people compassionately than there is on the sinfulness of homosexuality, there are a whole slew of other things besides being gay that are considered sins (in fact, some are worse than sins, they're "abominations") and that Christians today pretty much ignore.  Eating shellfish, working (even collecting firewood) on the Sabbath, wearing clothing made of two different kinds of thread sewn together, men trimming their beards, having tattoos, and women speaking in church are a few that come to mind without even trying hard.  Oh, and the fact that no one born of a "forbidden marriage" -- and their descendants, to the tenth generation -- is to be allowed in church (Deuteronomy 23:2).

And then there's "biblical marriage."  Such as the provision requiring young women who were raped to marry their rapist (Deuteronomy 22:28-29), a verse that allows men who conquer other nations to keep any virgins as concubines (Numbers 31:17-18), a rule that when a man dies, his wife must marry his brother (Genesis 38:8-10), prohibitions against marrying outside of your tribe (Deuteronomy 7:3) , and so many instances of deity-blessed polygamy that I won't even try to name them.

So don't even start with any bullshit about the biblical definition of marriage being "one man and one woman."

The bottom line is that here we have this guy who has been given divine revelation that he's not supposed to watch a diversity in the workplace video because to do so would make him naughty in god's sight, while he apparently doesn't give a damn about most of the things in the bible that god supposedly does prohibit.  It's more and more looking like he's using the bible as justification for a lawsuit and his own bigoted inclinations rather than because there's been any real infringement on his right to practice his religion.

The most frustrating thing for me about all of this is that this is the same subset of Christians who accuse us atheists of having wishy-washy morality.  Just yesterday, I saw a comment on Facebook (apropos of the ongoing foolishness about having "In God We Trust" on police vehicles) that said, "Don't give in!  Atheists only whine about their rights being trampled because they don't have the moral backbone to know what is right."  Myself, I'm much more comfortable with someone whose moral code comes from careful consideration than one whose sense of right and wrong was determined by cherry-picking verses they like from their favorite religious text -- and ignoring the rest of it into non-existence.

Privilege blindness

I've been slow to realize how blind privilege can make you.  I'm sure a lot of this comes from being a white heterosexual middle-class male; white heterosexual middle-class males in the United States enjoy a tremendous amount of privilege (exceeded only by changing "middle-class" to "wealthy").  The tragic part is that being born to privilege, I haven't had to think about it.  It just comes with the territory.

I haven't had forced upon my consciousness the constant undertow members of other groups feel.  The necessity of having to prove oneself constantly in order to be taken seriously at work.  The fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and being under suspicion just because of your skin color or mode of dress.  The demand that you always be able to justify yourself, prove why you have a right to be treated with dignity.  The fact of being unsafe demonstrating affection to the person you love in public.

Being who I am has made it hard not to take those things for granted.  Not that I earned a single one of the privileges I enjoy; coming from the family I did, and receiving the genetics I did, automatically dropped that manna from the sky into my upturned hands.

So the gradual realization that other groups don't have the same automatic entrée into the country club has been painful.  I was also born with a fair share of empathy, so watching the struggles that my African American, Jewish, and LGBT friends go through -- hell, hearing from a female former student that she never puts out of her mind the fear that she might one day be raped -- makes my heart ache.

And it also makes me angry.  Which is why I reacted to an article a friend sent me yesterday with a string of language that I won't print here.

The story, from the site Addicting Info, is called, "Student Group Says Gays Need 'Sensitivity Training' to Be More Tolerant of Bigotry."  In it, we find out about a student group called the Young Americans Foundation at George Washington University, who wants a religious exemption for taking LGBT sensitivity training workshops.

We hear quotes from two spokespeople from YAF, the first one YAF President Emily Jashinsky:

Mandated training is not really being very tolerant of all religious beliefs.  The way that people who are deeply Christian behave is for a reason, and if you’re training them to change that behavior, there’s obviously a problem with that. There's honestly no need for further 'diversity training;' everything here is pretty harmonious.

Which is bad enough, but wait until you hear what the Vice President, Patrick X. Coyle, said:

Why is there not sensitivity training for gay and liberal groups to respect the free speech rights of other groups on campus?  Why has the student association not considered similar training to teach students to respect those who believe in traditional marriage?  The hateful atmosphere that currently exists at The George Washington University will remain as long as the university allows liberal bullies to intimidate and attack students or clubs that dare to express opinions different from their own.

Let me get this straight; you're asking a group whose members can't walk down the street hand in hand with the person they love, who are the subject of legislation targeted specifically at denying them rights that other people enjoy, who are heckled and bullied and subjected to hate speech on a daily basis, to engage in sensitivity training so they can learn how to interact appropriately with wealthy heterosexual white people?

What's next, reinstituting the Jim Crow laws so that people of other races don't get uppity?

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

This represents a level of "I don't get it" that boggles my mind.  But it's the same thing that caused more than one person to comment during February (which was Black History Month) and on March 8 (International Women's Day) how terrible it was that we never have a day to celebrate the accomplishments of white males.

You know why that is, you insensitive clods?  Because every single day of the year, we celebrate the accomplishment of white males.  White males never have to fight to be recognized.  We're never asked, "Wow, how did you manage to become an engineer?"  We never hear people comment about how forward-thinking our society is at having a white male President, Governor, Congressperson, Supreme Court Justice.  We never have to prove our right to be in the running, to justify our position in the world.

Because the biggest privilege of all is not having to think about how privileged you are.

People make a big deal about how we should alter public school textbooks to be inclusive, to make sure that history texts aren't just about Dead White Men, that science textbooks laud the accomplishments of women and minorities.  But the enculturation of privilege still underlies the whole enterprise, doesn't it?  The white men are already there in force; the rest have to be inserted, almost as an afterthought, to give us the nice glow of appearing broad-minded.

I'm not saying that such inclusion is wrong, mind you; only that it's the first step, and we're fooling ourselves to believe that by such actions, we're done, that we've counteracted the damage from centuries of unquestioned hegemony.  The fact that people like Jashinsky and Coyle could even ask the question of why sensitivity training was necessary, and their suggestion that LGBT individuals take sensitivity training so that they'll know their place, are particularly offensive reminders of the fact that we have a long way to go.

So maybe it's good that they revealed their attitudes, that they came right out and said what they did.  Maybe we more empathetic privileged people needed a kick in the ass to remind us that however far we've come in the past hundred years, we've still not won this battle.

Maybe it was time for someone to say, "Hey, don't forget, it's still White Heterosexual Male month."