Homophobic? Maybe You’re Gay

***

Homophobic? Maybe You’re Gay

by richard m. ryan  and william s. ryan  •  April 27, 2012

WHY are political and religious figures who campaign against gay rights so often implicated in sexual encounters with same-sex partners?

In recent years, Ted Haggard, an evangelical leader who preached that homosexuality was a sin, resigned after a scandal involving a former male prostitute; Larry Craig, a United States senator who opposed including sexual orientation in hate-crime legislation, was arrested on suspicion of lewd conduct in a men’s bathroom; and Glenn Murphy Jr., a leader of the Young Republican National Convention and an opponent of same-sex marriage, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge after being accused of sexually assaulting another man.

One theory is that homosexual urges, when repressed out of shame or fear, can be expressed as homophobia. Freud famously called this process a “reaction formation” — the angry battle against the outward symbol of feelings that are inwardly being stifled. Even Mr. Haggard seemed to endorse this idea when, apologizing after his scandal for his anti-gay rhetoric, he said, “I think I was partially so vehement because of my own war.”

It’s a compelling theory — and now there is scientific reason to believe it. In this month’s issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, we and our fellow researchers provide empirical evidence that homophobia can result, at least in part, from the suppression of same-sex desire.

Our paper describes six studies conducted in the United States and Germany involving 784 university students. Participants rated their sexual orientation on a 10-point scale, ranging from gay to straight. Then they took a computer-administered test designed to measure their implicit sexual orientation. In the test, the participants were shown images and words indicative of hetero- and homosexuality (pictures of same-sex and straight couples, words like “homosexual” and “gay”) and were asked to sort them into the appropriate category, gay or straight, as quickly as possible. The computer measured their reaction times.

The twist was that before each word and image appeared, the word “me” or “other” was flashed on the screen for 35 milliseconds — long enough for participants to subliminally process the word but short enough that they could not consciously see it. The theory here, known as semantic association, is that when “me” precedes words or images that reflect your sexual orientation (for example, heterosexual images for a straight person), you will sort these images into the correct category faster than when “me” precedes words or images that are incongruent with your sexual orientation (for example, homosexual images for a straight person). This technique, adapted from similar tests used to assess attitudes like subconscious racial bias, reliably distinguishes between self-identified straight individuals and those who self-identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual.

Using this methodology we identified a subgroup of participants who, despite self-identifying as highly straight, indicated some level of same-sex attraction (that is, they associated “me” with gay-related words and pictures faster than they associated “me” with straight-related words and pictures). Over 20 percent of self-described highly straight individuals showed this discrepancy.

Notably, these “discrepant” individuals were also significantly more likely than other participants to favor anti-gay policies; to be willing to assign significantly harsher punishments to perpetrators of petty crimes if they were presumed to be homosexual; and to express greater implicit hostility toward gay subjects (also measured with the help of subliminal priming). Thus our research suggests that some who oppose homosexuality do tacitly harbor same-sex attraction.

What leads to this repression? We found that participants who reported having supportive and accepting parents were more in touch with their implicit sexual orientation and less susceptible to homophobia. Individuals whose sexual identity was at odds with their implicit sexual attraction were much more frequently raised by parents perceived to be controlling, less accepting and more prejudiced against homosexuals.

It’s important to stress the obvious: Not all those who campaign against gay men and lesbians secretly feel same-sex attractions. But at least some who oppose homosexuality are likely to be individuals struggling against parts of themselves, having themselves been victims of oppression and lack of acceptance. The costs are great, not only for the targets of anti-gay efforts but also often for the perpetrators. We would do well to remember that all involved deserve our compassion.

Richard M. Ryan is a professor of psychology, psychiatry and education at the University of Rochester. William S. Ryan is a doctoral student in psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/homophobic-maybe-youre-gay.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120429

***

Obama – Aggressive Warrior in Chief

***

Warrior in Chief

By peter l. bergen

Published: April 28, 2012

THE president who won the Nobel Peace Prize less than nine months after his inauguration has turned out to be one of the most militarily aggressive American leaders in decades.

Liberals helped to elect Barack Obama in part because of his opposition to the Iraq war, and probably don’t celebrate all of the president’s many military accomplishments. But they are sizable.

Mr. Obama decimated Al Qaeda’s leadership. He overthrew the Libyan dictator. He ramped up drone attacks in Pakistan, waged effective covert wars in Yemen and Somalia and authorized a threefold increase in the number of American troops in Afghanistan. He became the first president to authorize the assassination of a United States citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico and played an operational role in Al Qaeda, and was killed in an American drone strike in Yemen. And, of course, Mr. Obama ordered and oversaw the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Ironically, the president used the Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech as an occasion to articulate his philosophy of war. He made it very clear that his opposition to the Iraq war didn’t mean that he embraced pacifism — not at all.

“I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people,” the president told the Nobel committee — and the world. “For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler’s armies. Negotiations cannot convince Al Qaeda’s leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism — it is a recognition of history, the imperfections of man, and the limits of reason.”

^^^

Mr. Obama’s readiness to use force — and his military record — have won him little support from the right. Despite countervailing evidence, most conservatives view the president as some kind of peacenik. From both the right and left, there has been a continuing, dramatic cognitive disconnect between Mr. Obama’s record and the public perception of his leadership: despite his demonstrated willingness to use force, neither side regards him as the warrior president he is.

Mr. Obama had firsthand experience of military efficacy and precision early in his presidency. Three months after his inauguration, Somali pirates held Richard Phillips, the American captain of the Maersk Alabama, hostage in the Indian Ocean. Authorized to use deadly force if Captain Phillips’s life was in danger, Navy SEALs parachuted to a nearby warship, and three sharpshooters, firing at night from a distance of 100 feet, killed the pirates without harming Captain Phillips.

Read full article here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/29/opinion/sunday/president-obama-warrior-in-chief.html?pagewanted=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120429&pagewanted=all

***

Upward-Facing Soldier

***

April 13, 2012

Upward-Facing Soldier

By lauren k. walker

YOU are sitting behind the Humvee where you’ve dragged a wounded soldier. You’ve wrapped the gaping hole in his leg, given him a shot of morphine and radioed up the line for help. Your eye is trained on a distant, hazy point through the scope of an assault rifle. You can see the tiny, magnified bodies of your enemy. Maybe they are waiting for another explosion. A bigger one. Your heart starts pounding harder. The temperature is over 100 degrees. The kid next to you, a kid you always found slightly annoying, with his Massachusetts accent and his unwillingness to walk in the front position of the line, is now holding a bloody pad to his thigh and biting down on a bandanna to keep from screaming. Sweat is pouring down his face.

There is no easy way out. You simply have to wait and try not to give away your position. Through your scope you can see their rocket launchers in a pile on the ground.

What you do, without moving your hands from the rifle, is to start breathing, because you realize you have been holding your breath for a long time. So you deepen it. Slow, deeper, deeper. The hiccups of fear start to mellow out. You can feel your belly soften a bit. Then you visualize your breath. In the left nostril, out the right. In the right, out the left. After just a minute, the mad thumping in your chest begins to slow. You hold the fingertips of one hand to your forehead to calm the fight-or-flight response so you can think clearly. The situation has not changed, but you feel yourself change, and you are now able to deal with it.

Back in the safe and cold green mountains of central Vermont, I walk into the yoga room to face a roomful of boys and girls. They are 17, 18, 20 years old, but they seem more like boys and girls than men and women. The stress in my students’ lives is not at combat level. Yet. Right now, most of them have the stress of being in the Corps of Cadets at a military college. That means P.T. at 5:30 in the morning, and constant building, running, gunning, learning, hiking, jumping and being yelled at.

Norwich University, the birthplace of R.O.T.C. and the oldest private military college in the country, trains both military cadets and civilians in discipline, integrity, confidence, loyalty and honor.

From here, many of my military students will deploy to the deserts of Afghanistan. I have a boy leaving next week.

They are young. They are strong. They have incredible stamina. But they don’t have fluency or ease within their bodies. They do push-ups and pull-ups and bench presses and weighted lunges. They run 10 or 20 miles with heavy packs on. But they don’t know how to breathe or to access the core muscles in their abdomens that could help them hump their packs or carry a buddy to safety. I teach them this, and also, how to find that place deep inside that is whole, untouchable, sacred.

Halfway through the semester, I ask my students how they think yoga will help them. Why did they sign up for this class? “It helps us to focus on the good,” one says. “That’s the only way we can get through this place.”

I think of them as if they are in the Bhagavad Gita, the great Indian treatise on war. The soldier Arjuna stops on the battlefield and cries out to Lord Krishna: “Do I have to do this? Do I have to kill?” Krishna, instead of telling him what to do on the battlefield, teaches him yoga. So that is what I do. I teach them yoga.

I am humbled by this prospect, but I come in to the classroom strong. This is a community used to leadership. They stand at attention and call me ma’am. I have to show that I have enough strength to lead them. But I don’t teach them strength. They learn that enough. One girl said to me, “This is the only class where I don’t get yelled at.”

I want them to love and respect themselves. At the end of class, when they lie on their mats in savasana like children at nap time, I nurture and tuck in these bodies. I hold their ankles and swing their legs back and forth to let their hips soften. I roll their shoulder blades under their backs to help open their hearts. I hold their heads in my hands, while they lie there. They don’t get touched here, at military college. They don’t get nurtured. Everything is hard and harsh and angry and fast and sharp. Some of them are so stiff and rigid. They hold their heads at attention even when they’re lying down.

“Let go,” I say. “I’ve got you.” They relax their necks and let their heads sink into my waiting hands. Their hair is buzzed to the scalp or tied back in a tight bun. I hold their heads and pray over them. I pray with all my might that God does the right thing by this boy or this girl. I place their heads down on the blankets and hold my thumb over their third eye, hoping that they keep their intuition strong and will remember that their inner souls are stronger than any enemy outside of them, seen or not seen.

 Nick Roberts, a sophomore, finds focus in the author’s yoga class at Norwich University, the oldest private military college in the country.

In the beginner’s class, it’s all I can do to keep my students breathing while they move. In the advanced class, I teach these future soldiers the profound philosophy of yoga: how to sit in a stress position and still breathe, smoothly and steadily. How to keep minds open and flexible, to develop non-attachment, compassion, contentment.

We talk about what it would be like to have a buddy blown open next to you. How you would immediately feel yourself flooded with the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline. How your natural impulse would be to run like hell to get out of there, or to train a machine gun at the horizon and blaze away at everything in your path. How much harder it is to remain calm, to analyze the situation and respond from a place of strength.

It may seem out of whack to hold chaturanga for 10 breaths and think this will be preparation for war. But in fact, this is what yoga is all about. And in fact, if there is anything at all that could truly prepare them to go and fight, it is yoga.

Many people ask me about ahimsa — the grand yogic tenet of nonviolence. I respond with what the revered yoga teacher T. K. V. Desikachar says: It simply means that we must always behave with consideration and attention to others.

So I teach them this, too.

Indeed, Arjuna killed members of his own family. He was following his dharma, and his conscience. He was fulfilling his destiny, playing out the role in the world that he, and only he, was created for.

In the world we have created, there is a huge divide between the ideal and the real. If everyone truly wanted no more war, we would have to change the behavior that leads us into war. But I am not here to teach the world to have no more war. That is for the Dalai Lama. I am here to teach these soldiers, these young men and women who are willing to pay for our system of democracy with their lives, how to uncover the truth of who they are. Who they are — warriors, lawyers, doctors, mothers, fathers, teachers, priests — is each one’s own specific path. I am here to help them find their inner souls, and to help them walk their paths with honesty, integrity and grace. It is what I teach in every yoga class.

But here at this military college, it feels weighted with much more consequence.

Lauren K. Walker runs the yoga program for veterans, cadets and civilians at Norwich University.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/education/edlife/upward-facing-soldier.html?_r=2&hp

***

Moscow Flash Mob – Puttin’ on the Ritz

***

click then double click on video to watch full screen

http://youtu.be/KgoapkOo4vg?hd=1

***

Current Events with My Brother Matt

***

Matt,

From what I understand about the individual mandate, the primary way healthcare costs will be cut for all Americans is for everyone to join & pay into the risk pool. Without spreading the risks to and collecting premiums from everyone, the rest of the bill pretty much falls of its own weight. Don’t we do pretty much the same thing with social security, Medicare and unemployment insurance? Everybody pays in to finance the costs for those who need it. Not so revolutionary at all. FDR did it with social security and Johnson with Medicare. And for all of us those are givens. The healthcare mandate is based on the same principle although it bugs people more because, rather than having money deducted from their paychecks, they have to go out and proactively buy something. Oh boo-hoo – get over it. In the long run it will help everyone. Obama has owned the commitment to reduce healthcare costs, provide coverage for those excluded by the insurance companies and those who can’t afford it. Those who can’t afford it end up in ERs at taxpayer expense. Well, either that or they just die. That isn’t America as shown by past presidents who have implemented other “hand outs” such as Social Security and Medicare.

We’re living in an age where healthcare costs have spiraled out of control with your cost as one example. If everyone had to buy insurance then the costs per person would be less. Yours included.

As to the Commerce Clause, it’s been tortured for decades by SCOTUS to allow just about any federal regulation of anything. I won’t bore you with case law but the lengths to which it’s been tortured are almost laughable as federal programs & regulations have been approved since the early 20th century relying on the power of the federal government to regulate interstate commerce. My Constitutional Law professor in law school hated that and pointed out every major case that tortured that clause.

I didn’t know and am not so sure that the federal government has regulated the healthcare industry as the Obama healthcare bill seeks to do. I didn’t know that insurance companies have to get federal approval for rate increases or who they will accept for insurance, or that pharmas have to get approval for drug pricing. In fact, there are shortages these days of critical drugs and the federal government is powerless to do anything about it. Why are there shortages? Well, I really don’t know but I’ll bet it has something to do with profit for the pharmas. Health insurers don’t want people w/ preexisting conditions as that cuts into their profits. They also don’t want to continue insuring people who are sick as that too cuts into their profits. And how has allowing those mega companies to operate in a free market making exorbitant profits helped Americans? It hasn’t. In fact it’s done the opposite.

A slippery slope? That’s the “primrose path” argument – if the government can mandate the purchase of health insurance then what’s the next thing they can mandate – gym memberships, broccoli, colonoscopies? Yeah well – that’s just ridiculous. You can take any federal regulation and ramp it up to the absurd. Federal regulations are there for their stated purposes, not for what people could see as their next “logical” steps. Oh – you mean the IRS is entitled to 15% of my income? OMG, the next step will be 50% of my income. But it won’t because we have a congress that won’t allow that to happen. Checks & balances work both among the branches of government and within each branch itself. Just the stultifying partisanship in congress is enough to bring federal overreaching to a screeching halt.

As to the oral arguments on healthcare before SCOTUS, as pointed out by all legal experts, it is extremely rare that oral arguments influence the outcome of a case. I saw that clearly when working at the NYS Appellate Division in Albany. Cases are decided on the briefs and the justices’ own views of the law. (In fact, word has it that the Court has already decided the healthcare case and now it’s a matter of writing the opinions.) What is gained by oral arguments is a peek at how individual justices view the case through their questions. And even that is an iffy way to predict an outcome. The Solicitor General had a bad day at the office but that is almost certainly irrelevant.

SCOTUS has become (if it hasn’t been all along) an unelected political entity. We all know that and to deny it is denying political reality. The conservative are still fighting the Court on abortion, pleading for it to overturn Roe v. Wade. It had been the conservatives who’d fire up the base, citing SCOTUS as a motivator to get out and vote against Democrats. Now it’s the Democrats who are doing that in light of a conservative SCOTUS. See “Court’s Potential to Goad Voters Swings to Democrats”:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/us/politics/this-election-supreme-court-could-rally-democrats.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120405

For anyone to accuse the president of being ignorant of the role of the Supreme Court is simply ludicrous. I dare say that even Joe Blow knows the role of the Court. There is nothing wrong with Obama offering his opinion on the case. I mean everyone else has – the citizenry as well as member of congress. Once again, the Court is a political body despite its alleged esteemed apolitical role as spelled out by the Constitution’s framers.

Another example of Obama scolding the Court was in his State of the Union address after the Court decided Citizens United v. FEC. That was probably a first in SOTU history and caused CJ Roberts to cringe. That decision granted corporations the right of free speech, thus allowing unlimited contributions to PACs. If you haven’t already, please read my take on that horrific decision:

http://aboutnothing-doug.blogspot.com/2010/01/court-puts-america-up-for-sale.html

Like you, I am 100% behind Israel and have been my entire life. In my book, Israel can do no wrong which is why I studiously avoid discussions with anyone who doesn’t feel as I do. That’s the one subject on which I’m totally biased and unreasonable. Have you read or heard anything about the consequences of a preemptive strike on Iran by Israel or the US? The consequences are mind-boggling. Yet, it is the firm policy of the US (and Israel of course) that Iran will not be permitted to be a nuclear-armed country under any circumstances no matter the consequences. It is the consequences of a preemptive attack, though, which has compelled the US to try any & every alternative to military action. Furthermore, there has to be (and will be) clear evidence of imminent nuclear capability before military action is employed. That is contrary to the Bush administration’s trumped up reasons for the ill-advised war on Iraq.

This country has had it with wars which, in the eyes of the people, are for causes that don’t directly affect us. Look at the outcry when the US was involved even tangentially in Libya. There’s also plummeting support for the Afghanistan war despite it being precipitated by 9/11. What soured the country on wars in foreign lands that don’t directly affect us was the Iraq war.

I agree with you about the world “allowing” massacres to go on under its nose and on the watch of the world’s leaders. Are you proposing that the US be the world’s policeman? Should the US fire up its allies and together put an end to all the world’s horrors? Hey – ideally I’d love to see that. Nothing would make me happier than seeing NATO use smart bombs to take out Assad in Syria, Iran’s nuclear facilities and, while we’re at it, those lunatic ayatollahs and that Holocaust-denying midget with the big mouth. That’s not the way things work anymore in our world. Even Pakistan got its panties in a wad when we killed bin Laden, and those fucks were hosting him in luxury.

You’re also right about despots always finding targets whether they’re religious minorities or ethnic minorities. And they will continue to do so no matter what anyone does. We have that in our own country – let’s get the Muslims; let’s get the Blacks (although Muslims seem to be the flavor of the times). Worldwide, of course, the Jews are the historically popular, tried & true scapegoats.

What has Obama not done that wasn’t due to bloc-nay-saying by the Republicans? No matter what he and his administration have proposed, it’s been beaten or watered down by the Republicans – not so much on the merits but because it’s an Obama plan. I will never forget Senate leader Mitch McConnell’s statement in 2009 that the primary goal of the Republican party is to deny Obama a 2nd term. And from there the country was presented by the Republican party with obstructionism and partisanship to the nth degree. I also think about the bill to aid 9/11 victims. While it was eventually passed, even that was opposed by the Republicans.

Obama has owned the economic recovery. What he hasn’t owned and shouldn’t own are the economic conditions when he took office. Yes, time to stop blaming Bush for the pace of the recovery, but never time to stop blaming Bush & the GOP for what got us into the mess in the first place. That’s historical fact, not political posturing. And yet despite that historical fact, the Republicans are still campaigning on the trickle down theory of economics. Less regulation, tax cuts for the rich and let Wall Street and the rich create jobs and boost the economy. Yeah well isn’t that what got us into this in the first place under Bush? Obama says economic/job growth comes from the middle class, not by trickling down from the über-wealthy.

Something else to keep in mind is that the economic conditions when Obama took office were the worst since the Great Depression. It took the US 12 years to recover from that. It was WW II that skyrocketed the economy out of a grueling 12 year recovery. These days, though, everyone wants everything now. No patience; no understanding in a historical context. I lost my job and it’s Obama’s fault. I’ve been looking for a job, can’t get one and, therefore, it’s Obama’s fault. How fast do average Americans expect recovery from the worst recession/borderline depression since 1929? Now. Or, better yet, yesterday. Do people understand that unemployment is the last part of the economy to recover? No. Is the economy on a slow but steady path to recovery? Yes. Is it fast enough for Americans who want everything now? No. So let’s blame Obama for not fixing the worst economic situation in 80 years within a few years. Oh and the Republicans haven’t been much help with their bloc-voting partisanship – caring little about the American people as they’re so very involved in increasingly right wing party dogma and their own reelections. One classic example is consistent national polling indicating that an overwhelming majority of Americans want taxes raised on the wealthy. The Republican don’t care that their own constituents want tax hikes on the über-wealthy as it’s those same über-wealthy who finance their campaigns and PACs. And I’m not naïve enough to believe that Democrats aren’t also motivated by self-interest as the parties dig in on party lines creating partisan gridlock in congress. I almost fell off my chair when I heard that, in a rare display of bipartisanship, congress passed Obama’s jobs bill. Bet Mitch McConnell had a serious case of indigestion after that vote.

In general, though, the trend of not taking responsibility for one’s actions, choosing to blame others is a troubling one. We see it with the younger generations. Looking at each generation’s “kids these days” complaints, I think of our parents’ generation saying the same about us. We turned out pretty well as did our contemporaries who are running today’s world. So I have faith based on history that “kids these days” will do just fine as they grow into positions to run the world after we’re gone.

Foreign policy tends to be less political, with members of both parties coming down on opposite sides of issues. That is where presidential leadership has been allowed to trump partisanship and come to the forefront. I think Obama did a masterful job with Libya. His boldness and daring by sending Navy SEALS into Pakistan to kill bin-Laden was also masterful. Being able to operate in foreign policy without congressional obstructionist partisanship has allowed Obama to shine. Also don’t forget Obama repairing relationships around the world that were damaged by the Bush administration. Obama’s actually more popular internationally than he is at home – the same domestic vs. foreign policy dichotomy.

Matt – gotta say that I always enjoy our back & forth political emails.

Doug

***