Gender identity is a complex subject with a wide range of issues. Just consider some of the the descriptive labels, such as Tgirl, drag queen, or shemale. Then there’s the associated alphabet soup – TG, TS, CD, TV. Issues can range from relatively mild (CD, TV) to complete identity with the opposite gender (TG). (See the following wikis for a more extensive discussion of the LGBT label, and the transgender community.)

Gender identity problems are much more common for males (M to F) than for females (F to M). In general, masculine women are more accepted by society than feminine men. Tomboy is ok but sissy is not. (You can make the argument that in a male dominated society, the less common F to M person can get away with a little bit because that’s going from a lower to a higher status. On the other hand, the more typical M to F trans-person is perceived as rejecting the position of strength and power and becoming a vulnerable “girl”.)

Gender identity issues for a person can change a great deal with time. For example, a boy doesn’t want to be tagged as a sissy – there are a lot of the problems that go with that designation! He may try hard to not act the part and to deny that part of himself. Later in life, he may accept and become comfortable with that part of himself. However, he still must deal with society and how it views and treats him. He also must deal with family issues which also change with time.

A lot of this is particularly difficult for older people; after all, not too many years ago the possibility of these issues was not even acknowledged, never mind discussed! This tended to leave a T person feeling isolated – that they were the only person in the world who felt the way they did. At least nowadays the subject is out there and can be discussed…

However, coming out completely is still very difficult and very dangerous – especially for the male to female T person. For most of them, passing as female is not possible, and they will be read as a guy in a dress. There are lots of times and places where being perceived as a guy in a dress is very dangerous.

Spiritual issues also can arise. If God made me this gender why do I want to be the other? Am I violating God’s intent for me? Specific answers depend on one’s concept of God. (In the Episcopal church there is no single answer to this question. Visions of God range from the hard line biblical literalism of those on the far right to the non-deist view of Bishop Spong.) My short answer is that we are what we are. Then, if we believe in a loving God, we accept who we are and trust that our mission and ministry will be found in living a useful and honest life.

The first thing we have to realize is that being gay, lesbian or transsexual is not a lifestyle choice. The Lake Wobegon motto fits: “Sumus Quid Sumus” – we are what we are. Does anyone really think that someone would choose to be gay with all its disadvantages and risks just because it would be fun? How about those gay people in places where it was or is extremely dangerous? In some parts of the world it’s the death penalty if you’re found out! Furthermore, there is evidence of physical differences in the brain associated with homosexuality. Animals have been known to display homosexual behavior (New Scientist, Biological Exuberance). The claims that gay men can be made straight by proper training are nonsense – they merely show that there are circumstances under which we can suppress our true nature – at least for a while – and usually at considerable cost to ourselves!

If we accept God as a loving God then would this God create a whole class of people who are doomed to spend their life suppressing their own God given nature? This hardly is a vision of a loving God!

If we look to Jesus, we see someone who often hung out with assorted marginalized people to the scandal of the proper and respectable citizens. He suggested that one had better be careful before judging someone else. Who did he condemn? It’s summarized in the judgment section of Matthew 25: It’s not gays and lesbians – no, the fire and brimstone are reserved for people who ignored those on the bottom. “I was hungry and you didn’t give me food, thirsty and you didn’t give me drink, a stranger and you didn’t welcome me, sick and in prison …..” Not a word about “you were gay…”

The sanctity of marriage issue also is subject to all sorts of distortions. The view that the “one man one women” marriage is a sort of universal concept is nonsense. Marriage is a social construct that varies with time and place and can have many forms. Marriage evolves – look at the changes in our own society in just the last hundred years. How many people want to go back to the form of marriage in Jesus’ time? One man and possibly many women; the women basically property; different definitions of, and punishments for, adultery applying to husband and wife….

The bit that gay marriage is a threat to traditional marriage also is pure nonsense. Yes, the institution of marriage in our country has major problems – but these problems have nothing to do with civil unions or gay marriage. For children one can see some advantage to having parents of different genders – but the advantage of having two parents instead of one is of much greater importance. Research in this area has been distorted by some on the right. In any case, the difference between individuals far outweighs everything else.

The argument that the purpose of marriage is to have children – be fruitful and multiply – may have had some substance a few thousand years ago. However, we are supporting our present population levels through the unsustainable consumption of resources such as oil, gas and water – all combined with enormous environmental damage. Therefore it is in the best interest of God’s creation that we stop multiplying! (See our blog, The world in transformation, on this subject.)

The usual argument for the first is that it is necessary to prevent some potential major attack and loss of life.  Even if this were true – and in the real world it’s not – the use of torture is still immoral.  Actually, it’s been shown quite conclusively that torture is not an effective technique for obtaining information.  Lots of info, some good and useful, some bad, and no way to tell the difference; lots of innocent people tortured; lots more people hate you.  At one time Israel engaged in torture – but then gave it up as not effective.  Israel is pretty efficient in this sort of thing and isn’t particularly concerned with what the rest of the world thinks so this is a pretty good indication of tortures lack of utility.

This of course brings up the question of WHY?  Why did Cheney and Bush and the CIA people go this way?  The ineffectiveness of torture as a means for gathering information has been widely acknowledged for a good long time so why do it?  What  do you expect to gain?  Are you just looking for statements to justify a course of action that can’t be justified by honest and rational means?

The second use of torture (and some of the specific techniques) has a long history.  It seems the Romans had a rule that you couldn’t execute someone for a crime unless they confessed….  Later, during the Inquisition, the church used some very brutal techniques (including a variation on waterboarding) to get confessions from witches and Jews (some history here).  In more recent times the Soviets used techniques such as sleep deprivation to get people to confess to “crimes.”  With these techniques you can break any person so that they’ll confess to anything – even if they know that their confession is a death sentence;  implicate anyone; in the end even believe in their own guilt.

Subtle forms of these techniques are not unknown in our enlightened society.  For example, police have been known to make up their mind that a person is guilty of a crime and then work very hard at obtaining a confession.  For example, here in Connecticut Richard Lapointe has been in prison since 1989 for a murder he probably did not commit.  Lapointe has mental issues, is gullible and wants to please authority; in a 9 hour unrecorded interrogation he gave the police and prosecutors the confession they wanted.  Unfortunately, police and prosecutors do not like to admit their mistakes….

If conditions designed to destroy someone mentally break someone’s mind are considered torture then add Supermax prisons to the list of instruments of torture.

What got me thinking about this dismal subject was a depressing piece by David Ignatius, “How Obama’s Decision Hurt the CIA.”  The main point seems to be that the poor CIA guys can’t do their job effectively because they’re too busy trying to cover their butts.   Stuff like

“One former officer told me he declined the job, not because he thought the program was wrong, but because he knew it would blow up. “We all knew the political wind would change eventually,” he recalled. Other officers who didn’t make that cynical but correct calculation are now “broken and bewildered,” says the former operative.”

Ignatius is even worried that our allies in torture, Egypt and Jordan, won’t want to handle our torture outsourcing anymore,

“risk is too high to do the things with America they’ve done in the past.”

The comments that go along with the piece mostly are as bad or worse.

Depressing.  The moral issues seem to be considered too irrelevant to even mention.  But morality does matter and it does have some very clear commandments – one of them is thou shalt not torture!  International law also is very clear – torture is illegal;  the order to torture is an illegal order.  Both are subject to prosecution.  The Nuremberg Defense – “I was only following orders” – is not a valid defense.

Morality certainly is an issues in the Muslim world and the perceived immorality of the West is a major driving force in Muslim anger.  That the US both practiced and outsourced torture is not exactly news to most of the world.  The question now is what next?  Should there be prosecution – after all serious crimes usually are punished?  Or should we just forget the whole thing and promise that we’ll play nice from now on?  Perhaps the “truth and reconciliation” approach?  However, that requires the admission of guilt and the desire for forgiveness;  hard to picture Cheney in that role!

John Robb just posted “TORTURE AND MORAL ISOLATION” on his in Global Guerrillas blog.  He makes the point that morality is important for very practical reasons.

“In short, a primary objective of US grand strategy should be to increase its connectivity within the moral sphere. The embrace of torture does exactly the opposite.  It self-inflicts moral isolation on the US by violating codes of conduct we profess to uphold.  This moral isolation creates an internal dialogue plagued by mistrust, menace, and uncertainty.”