Over the past couple of weeks North Carolina’s House Speaker Pro Tem, a North Dakota Congressman and the head of Texas, Governor Rick Perry, made some really ignorant, and totally erroneous statements about LGBT issues.
First, North Carolina’s House Speaker Pro Tem Paul “Skip” Stam was grossly inaccurate in his definition of sexual orientation.
Stam handed out flyers during a debate on the floor over discrimination based on sexual orientation that included 30 categories of sexual orientation. It started after a Democratic amendment to a proposed charter schools modification bill would have banned the schools from discriminating in employment or admission based on sexual orientation or gender identity.
Stam’s two page flyer listed exhibitionism, coprophilia (“sexual arousal associated with feces”), apotemnophilia (“sexual arousal associated with the stump(s) of an amputee”), pedophilia, prostitution, toucherism and zoophilia/bestiality among others as sexual orientations.
The flyer included outdated definitions from the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual on Mental Disorders, which listed those paraphilias, or sexual attractions, as “sexual orientation” in 2000. The manual has been updated to reclassify the paraphilias as “disorders”.
Mr. Stam, there are four basic types of sexual orientation:
- Heterosexual: Sexual attraction to persons of the opposite sex.
- Homosexual: Sexual attraction to persons of the same sex.
- Bi-Sexual: Sexual attraction to individuals regardless of whether they are the same or opposite sex.
- Asexual: The tendency not to be attracted to either sex.
The American Psychological Association says that sexual orientation falls along a continuum. Someone does not have to be exclusively homosexual or heterosexual, but can feel varying degrees of both. Sexual orientation develops across a person’s lifetime–different people realize at different points in their lives that they are heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual.
Second was North Dakota Congressman Kevin Cramer who claims that workplace discrimination against LGBT employees does not exist because he has never seen it. He said, “I’m not even sure that this is a problem. I have to be honest: I don’t get many [complaints], if any. I don’t know that I’ve ever received a phone call in my office from somebody who says they’ve been discriminated against based on their sexual orientation.”
North Dakota does not have formal legislation making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. So, Congressman Cramer, that might be why you have not had many complaints. There is no legal redress for discrimination in your state!
Thirdly, Texas Governor Rick Perry now regrets, but is not backing away from, comparing sexual orientation to alcoholism. During a discussion over Texas’ official stance of advocating for “reparative” therapy to “cure” gay people, Perry said “Whether or not you feel compelled to follow a particular lifestyle or not, you have the ability to decide not to do that. I may have the genetic coding that I’m inclined to be an alcoholic, but I have the desire not to do that, and I look at the homosexual issue the same way.”
Oh Governor Perry, one’s sexual orientation is not a lifestyle, not a choice, not something that needs a 12 step program!
I am still amazed at the ignorance of so many of our so-called leaders!
