Gary Glenn of the Michigan chapter of the American Family Association is ever so pissed that some companies are realizing how little sense it makes to discriminate against gays and lesbians and endorsing gay rights legislation. But Glenn doesn’t just want companies to, in the words of many AFA action alerts, “stay neutral in the culture war.” He also thinks they should reconsider hiring gay people in the first place.
You know, because they’re unhealthy, mentally unstable, and prone to dying prematurely.
And so, just as Jesus would do, Glenn is taking to the airwaves to urge businesses to see the dangers of hiring gays and lesbians. In a radio interview with certified wingnut and anti-gay zealot Linda Harvey, of Mission America, he touches on all the “risks” of “homosexual behavior.” Citing a case in which a Holland, Michigan, company supported a local gay rights ordinance, Glenn rails against the notion that gays and lesbians could possibly constitute the “best” and the “brightest” workers.
Glenn: Herman Miller, which is a major employer and corporation in Holland [Michigan], a furniture company, supported this so-called gay rights ordinance on the claim that it allowed them to attract the best and brightest.
Harvey: Here we go, yeah we heard that before.
Glenn: What ridiculous folly to suggest that only those individuals who engage in homosexual behavior given all of its severe medical consequences constitute the best and the brightest. It’s not really bright to engage in behavior that puts you at dramatically higher risk of mental illness and substance abuse and AIDS and cancer and hepatitis, and according to various sources, premature death. So to suggest that engaging in that type of behavior defines someone as the best and brightest, which seems to be the line coming out of corporate America, is just ridiculous.
Funny that Glenn brings up mental health, substance abuse, and cancer. He brings up these things – which do, unfortunately, disproportionately affect the gay and lesbian community – as if they just blossom naturally in people who “choose” to have sex with members of their own sex. The real story, of course, is that gays and lesbians are more prone to mental health problems precisely because of people just like Gary Glenn. The minority stigma reinforced by Glenn and his ilk fighting against gay equality (and, indeed, gay existence) not only leads to a mental health disparity, but it also drives gays and lesbians to smoke more, possibly causing a cancer rate disparity. So what’s really ridiculous is Gary Glenn bringing up these very real problems as if he’s not personally helping kill gay people with his rhetoric and activism.
After that little tirade, Linda Harvey added:
You’re right. And higher rates of domestic violence and unstable relationships. I would not think of a homosexual person as a good employment risk, I just wouldn’t.
The funny thing is that the Religious Right, and the American Family Association in particular, supposedly opposes ENDA in part because there is no need for such legislation. In fact, in the AFA Journal, the AFA actually claims that anti-gay discrimination in the workplace is not an actual problem. From 2007:
So perhaps the question before Congress should be: Are homosexuals being discriminated against in sufficient numbers to justify federal intervention?
HRC tries to answer in the affirmative, but after years of asking supporters to supply the organization with personal experiences of discrimination, all it can provide is a report of “a few examples.”
Amazingly, HRC then makes a statement that would make Yogi Berra proud: “The cases documented here represent only a fraction of the uncounted people whose stories may never be told.”
How does an organization get a “fraction” of an “uncounted” number of cases that have never been told?
Despite the lack of proof that a witch-hunt is being conducted against homosexuals in the workplace, in the very next sentence HRC asserts that there is “widespread discrimination” against gays and lesbians.
The inconvenient truth
The empirical evidence that does exist suggests that homosexual activists simply have a case of the screaming meemies concerning a nonexistent problem.
And then there’s this, also from 2007:
In Vaughn’s [AFA general counsel] opinion, there is no legitimate need for ENDA on either the state or federal level. “There is no empirical basis for creation of homosexuals as a protected class of employees,” he said. “As a class, homosexuals enjoy privileged rather than disadvantaged economic and cultural positions in American society. Their household income is above average. Homosexuals are influential in culture, business, and politics. Homosexuals do not need government intervention to improve their position in American society.”
So here we have the AFA, on one hand, screaming that ENDA is a heavy-handed approach to a nonexistent problem. Gays and lesbians, after all, aren’t being discriminated against in the workplace. How ridiculous!
Then, on the other hand, we have an AFA official going, “Psssst! Hey you, employer! Don’t hire the gays, they’re filthy and sick!”
All in the name of Christ.
Yeah, okay. Keep talking as if you’re in the mainstream, Gary Glenn and Linda Harvey. I’m sure keeping gays and lesbians from getting a job will get you some wings or something.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In related (and better) news, Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy just signed a bill adding gender identity to the state’s non-discrimination law. Great news for Connecticut, but until we get federal protections, you can still be fired for being LGBT in a majority of states.