On Outing an Audience Member

I wanted to point you to a good story on the CRC's meeting last week. Josh Lynsen from the Washington Blade, DC's main gay news source, was there, and took good notes.

I reported on this after the meeting, but Lynsen has more:

Jacobs and Sprigg fielded several questions at the meeting’s end including one from a curriculum supporter.

Matthew Murguia, who is gay and works at the National Institutes of Health, asked Jacobs to explain several points, including why she touts “that HIV and gays are together” when 65 percent of all AIDS patients in Maryland are straight.

Jacobs replied by outing Murguia, who had not revealed in his comments that he is gay. She also noted her data was taken from the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.

“Whatever is necessary for him to say to match his gay agenda, he will say,” she said. “And I have been very careful to stick to the CDC ... because I’ve known that there would be concerns.” Md. school board faces ‘trial’ on sex ed curriculum

Now ... Dr. Jacobs response epitomized the concept "dumb." Because Matthew is gay, everything that comes out of his mouth is "his gay agenda." Never mind that he is a high-ranking official in the AIDS research office of the National Institutes of Health -- he's gay, and that's all that matters, that is sufficient to disregard everything he says.

In this case, he listed off several things that she had said in her talk that were ... just ... plain ... wrong. And she knew it. She had lied, he called her out on it, and so that was The Gay Agenda at work.

The Blade reporter talked to Dr. Jacobs after the meeting.

After the meeting, Jacobs said she outed Murguia partly because “he’s very annoying to me.”

“I believe that as part of his gay identity, he is defending his gay agenda,” she said. “And so I felt at that point, when he’s attacking me with everything he’s got, to do it without saying he’s gay ... I think is disingenuous and wrong.”

Jacobs, who said she treats gay patients, insisted her objections to the curriculum do not make her homophobic.

The Blade is obviously implying otherwise.

Can you imagine being her patient, telling her the things that horrify you about sores on your genitals, your fears of dying, the stuff you've done with your lover, and then seeing her repeat it on live TV, streaming on the Internet, talking to the Board of Education?

One other thing: the word homophobic. I saw Jahn Garza recently say it's not a scientific term, and it shouldn't be in the curriculum. Like, they care so much about science all of a sudden.

If "homophobic" were to be taken eymologically, literally, it would mean "fear of sameness." It doesn't. It means hatred of gays. You can criticize the dictionary-writers for putting the word in there, or complain about people who make up words without carefully considering their origins. But the fact is, it's just a word. "Racism" isn't an ism, either, there's no Manifesto or philosophical society that maintains that belief system. Neither is "terrorism." "Discrimination" just means that you see the difference between two things. "Ugly" doesn't necessary have to do with your facial features.

Hey, for that matter, "liberal" doesn't really mean somebody who values individual liberty and self-determination -- but they use it that way.

"Homophobe" may not mean what the CRC wishes it meant. That don't mean they ain't one.