Social Issues | Laura G Owens ~ Writer

More: The role of community-wide wearing of face mask for control of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) epidemic due to SARS-CoV-2

On June 25, 2020

In Social Issues, The Pandemic

Surprise, surprise, wearing a mask has turned political.

It was only a matter of time when masks became a symbol of either forced conformity or deference to science.

My sense is that most people favor wearing masks. Pro maskers are posting charts and personal pleas to please cover-up.

While a vocal minority are upset that their personal freedoms are under attack. They’re also worried that if the government makes masks mandatory, the assault on freedom won’t stop there (e.g. forced vaccines).

But masks work. They’re not foolproof but they help.

This review of 172 studies across 16 countries and 6 countries is pretty convincing.

These data also suggest that wearing face masks protects people (both health-care workers and the general public) against infection by these coronaviruses.
Physical distancing, face masks, and eye protection to prevent person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID -19: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Believe me, I don’t want to wear one.

Does anyone? They’re hot, mildly suffocating and they hide my summer pink lipstick.

They also hide when I smile at a random stranger or the hardworking sales clerk across the aisle. The latter just happened to me yesterday.

I smiled at this clerk then thought, well that’s stupid. So I said “hi” instead. We’re an expressionless society right now except for the glimmer of empathy in our eyes as we pass a fellow masker.

But I wear a mask anyway. And not because I’m scared.

I haven’t been scared of contracting COVID or getting seriously ill since day one. No I don’t think I’m blessed with extraordinary Godly protection or have superpowers.

I’m healthy and under 65.

And my husband and daughter are healthy and under 65. Also we’re fanatics about boosting our immune system. Especially now. So if any one of us caught COVID while I’m reasonably sure it wouldn’t be a picnic, it probably wouldn’t be serious.

So wearing a mask isn’t about me or my immediate family.

It’s about others.

It’s about getting this superbly contagious virus under control for the sake of those at risk and our potentially overwhelmed healthcare system.

That’s it. That’s the reason to wear a mask.

Even if you don’t believe the science. The mere act of wearing one tells your fellow man, I got you.

But no way am I going to shame you on social media or give you the stink eye if your face isn’t covered. As one of my good friends sums it up, “you do you.”

I mean I strolled an (almost empty) mall the other day without a mask. But you won’t catch me in the essential or crowded stores bare-faced.

So instead of citizen shaming I’d like to see our local, state and national officials regularly encourage citizens and businesses to cover up.

Flood the public with service announcements until more people change their behavior (Temporarily. I mean, I’ll never be on board with becoming a mask-wearing society. Nor will I give up hugging and handshakes).

Shaming friends, family, neighbors or strangers on social media and in-person won’t work. If anything people will double down and 100% refuse. It’s what we humans do.

We vehemently defend our convictions. Especially in a time of political divide so heated that I’m not sure we’ll ever return to a time when partisanship was mostly civil.

So please wear a mask. Thank you.

Full-frontal breastfeeding in public. There’s room for middle-ground.

On August 16, 2018

Mom told to cover-up takes different approach. (Facebook/Carol Lockwood)

This won’t win me any friends but I agree with Orlando Sentinel’s David Whitley‘s view on women breastfeeding without covering up (at all). He gently thinks out loud about his own discomfort.

“Breastfeeding is normal, nurturing and nobody should be shamed for doing it. On top of that, it’s a legal right in all 50 states.

To breastfeeding moms and their supporters:

Feed your babies whenever and wherever the need arises. I just have one small request, and I don’t think I’m alone.

Please do it discreetly if possible. Or is that asking too much?

I fear it is, though for the male chauvinist life of me I can’t understand why.”

Of course breastfeeding is natural.

Of course no one should shame a woman for breastfeeding anywhere, anytime. But if full frontal breastfeeding makes someone a little uncomfortable, I get it.

We can berate our culture because we lose our minds when we see full-frontal breastfeeding on a plane, in a coffee shop, at Disney, at church. Plenty of cultures don’t think twice about mothers openly baring their breasts to feed their babes.

But our culture isn’t that culture, yet.

In all honesty I’d prefer, when possible, moms breastfeed with a teensy bit of modesty. Does that make a bad person? Or am I the product of our nation’s uptight (yet hypocritical) mores? (We sure love to see naked breasts in this country).

The message I’m hearing from full frontal nursing mothers and their advocates is:

Breasts are for feeding! Get over it!

Yes breasts are for feeding babies. But they’re also sexual. That I can say both in the same breath isn’t perverse. It’s factual.

Perhaps our culture will shift in time. And it should. But until then I’d suggest a bit of discretion when possible and comfortable. If not. No problem. At least for me.

Babies are unpredictable little buggers. A nursing mother might be caught unprepared. Or maybe it’s stinking hot and she doesn’t want to feed her baby under a sweat tent. Maybe she’s not interested in the clothing acrobatics it takes to be discreet. Or maybe she’s making a “I dare you to judge me” statement by baring all.

No matter her reasons for not covering up, I’d urge anyone who sees a full-frontal breastfeeding mom to just leave her alone.

Don’t glare.

Don’t tell her to cover up.

Don’t tell her to find a more discreet place or to leave.

Don’t complain to management and so, embarrass the poor woman. Now you’ve got management and other people staring.

Look away if you’re uncomfortable. Problem solved.

Nothing in your life will change if you see a breastfeeding breast. Oh, and your kids will be ok too.

But if your gawking toddler yells, “Look Mommy she’s naked!” explain that breastfeeding is natural. Tell her it’s one of the many ways mommies feed their babies. If your school-age child stares, tell him or her the same thing. Then remind your kids that staring under any circumstances is rude.

This brewing culture war could be diffused if people would realize tolerance is a two-way street says David Whitley.

Yes. But in a head-to-head debate, the people against full frontal breastfeeding need to ease up more than full-frontals need to cover up. Sorry, Mom and baby win.

P.s. I breast fed for 6 weeks. I preferred to do it only at home and only in front of my husband. But hey, that’s my issue.

Supreme Court rules for baker in same-sex wedding cake case. Not a clear win for either side.

On June 6, 2018

Marry who you love.

This is an interesting yet ambiguous Supreme Court ruling. It’s not a clear win for social conservatives or the LGBTQ community.

A baker in Colorado refused to bake a cake for a gay couple’s wedding citing religious objections.

He says he has no problem selling a gay customer baked goods. But he refuses to bake a wedding cake due to his beliefs.

The Court ruled that the Colorado Civil Rights Commission was intolerant and hostile towards religious beliefs based on comments the CCRC made while they reviewed the case.

They did not however, rule that refusing service to a gay person was Constitutional. Same-sex marriage is legal in all states.

This leaves room for future lawsuits by LGBTQ citizens refused service, but it also demands a tone of respect and religious tolerance by lower courts and commissions.

“These disputes must be resolved with tolerance, without undue disrespect to sincere religious beliefs, and without subjecting gay persons to indignities when they seek goods and services in an open market,” Justice Kennedy.

Okay I’m all for religious tolerance. Believe what you want. Until your belief stomps on Constitutional rights.

Because in no world is it okay to deny service to a gay couple who want to purchase items for their marriage. That’s not a religious belief without consequence. It’s discrimination. Period.

So let’s for a moment pretend I’m a baker.

My faith tradition happens to include doctrine that says HETEROSEXUAL marriage is sinful. Why? Because my God/god said so, as recorded in my faith’s sacred text.

Feels wrong, doesn’t it?

But forget that for a minute. Let’s look at religious objections to gay marriage. What’s the core belief?

Because God through sacred text, the Bible, commands that sex is for marital procreation. To make babies. Same-sex couples can’t make babies, therefore same-sex — sex, is against God’s will, against “natural” law.

Fine.

Then anyone who has religious objections to same-sex marriage for the *above reason (see footnote) should stop using birth control or stop having sex.

Right? Sex as commanded by God is to make babies.

Seems reasonable (note sarcasm).

Come on.

Younger generations are laughing, not out of disrespect for religion or lack of faith, out of disgust over an archaic belief that views a LGBTQ person as less inherently (and Constitutionally) deserving of marital rights.

Younger generations (and people who believe as I do) are saying, who cares if gay people get married, it’s not affecting your connection to God, or your marriage, or tax rate, or income or health or…..

My deep thanks to clergy across all denominations who always have, or eventually, embraced same-sex marriage. You get it. Or you eventually got it. Either way. THAT is Godly.

*It’s noteworthy that some socially conservative Christians believe homosexuality on its own is a sin.

And that’s loving, how? I’m born this way but it’s a sin? Hmm. Seems the anti-thesis to a Jesus message.

Is that like if my sacred text (for argument sake), says that blue-eyed babies are Godly, but brown-eyed babies are not? Or blond hair vs. blue?

From Focus on the Family website: “Further, we are convinced that the Bible leaves no room whatsoever for confusion or ambiguity where homosexual behavior is concerned. The Scripture both explicitly and implicitly regards it as falling outside of God’s intention in creating man and woman as sexual beings who bear His image as male and female.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/06/04/supreme-court-rules-against-gay-wedding-exemptions/1052989001/

The first amendment and what it means for free speech online

On July 5, 2017

Written by Sam Cook

The internet as we know it is nearly 30 years old. Sure, the web is a bit more complicated — and more intricately connected — than it was 30 years ago, but it’s no less of a modern Wild West today than it was in the 90s (although you may need to dig deep into the darknet to experience the real gun-slinging). The freedoms and anonymity we enjoy online are, however, constantly under scrutiny, by both governments and businesses alike.

At the heart of the issue many have with the internet in its current form is the aforementioned anonymity. That freedom is in no small part is guaranteed by the First Amendment, but it comes in direct conflict with the distinctly gray legal areas the internet seemingly creates with ease.

On the surface, online freedom of speech seems simple enough. The words inscribed within the First Amendment appear to be fairly straightforward in covering the topic:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

We see all of those freedoms expressed on the internet with stunning regularity. Religious websites of all kinds abound; people can and do say almost anything, sometimes with reckless abandon; newspapers are now surviving almost exclusively because of their internet presence; social media websites and online forums allow anyone to “assemble”; websites, such as petitions.whitehouse.gov, exist to streamline our legally-required right to petition the government.

Yet much of what happens on the internet falls more specifically under the broad concept of “free speech”. However, the definition of “speech” has expanded in the past 200 years to now include far more than just written or spoken words. Actions themselves can constitute free speech. This broad definition makes interpreting the freedoms, and subsequent limitations, all the more vague as some actions are certainly harmful to others in ways that infringe on their rights. Full text

Fluid gender identity. I don’t understand, but I’m trying.

On April 4, 2017

When I say confused I’m not saying anything is wrong with the spectrum and fluidity of gender identity; I’m saying I don’t understand how someone can feel like a man one day, female the next or at any given moment, somewhere in-between or entirely genderless?

But to quote my 19 year-old daughter, “Mom you don’t need to understand something to accept it.”

Clearly my ignorance and age is showing.

I’ve been socialized in a culture that lives and breathes by the construct of two genders, whether as cis or trans. No where in my upbringing despite liberal parents and my lifelong need to understand “the other not like me” was I introduced to gender identity across a moving spectrum. This is a new and complex conversation even inside my progressive circles.

Writes German Lopez, “It’s now more accepted if someone is a man and loves a man, or if someone is designated a woman at birth and identifies as a man later in life — or perhaps during childhood. Seeing this progress, others are trying to expand concepts of gender even further — to directions many Americans may not be used to.”

Actress and model Ruby Rose explains what gender fluidity means to her:

“Gender fluidity is not really feeling like you’re at one end of the spectrum or the other,” she said. “For the most part, I definitely don’t identify as any gender. I’m not a guy; I don’t really feel like a woman, but obviously I was born one. So, I’m somewhere in the middle, which — in my perfect imagination — is like having the best of both sexes. I have a lot of characteristics that would normally be present in a guy and then less that would be present in a woman. But then sometimes I’ll put on a skirt — like today.”

My daughter who identifies as cis gender told me that yes it’s all very confusing, the genders and associated matrix of pronouns (he, she, they, ve, ze…) but that her generation just isn’t hung up on labels.

But I feel old and stuck and I admit, a little uncomfortable with gender fluidity as it relates to privacy in public changing spaces.

What if I walk into the locker room at the YMCA and someone walks by who appears to be biologically male but who self-defines as a woman that day? Of course this is all wildly hypothetical. I’m not going ask the person’s gender identity.

But does the fact that my stomach drops when I see a presumed man in the locker room mean I think he might be a straight guy sneaking a peek at naked women?

Well, yeah.

But then we get into the issue of sexual orientation which has nothing to do with gender identity. Sexual orientation is the gender you are attracted, and like gender identity can be fluid. It can change.

And the reality is in any given moment in a locker room, on the beach, in the sauna, we have no idea who is attracted to who. We just go about our business…..

Want to read the whole post? Here it is.

God is also inside Planned Parenthood

On November 7, 2016

In Politics-Religion, Social Issues

Excerpted from “God Is Also Inside Planned Parenthood”

They were last night as I walked in to a Planned Parenthood discussion on “A Celebration of Faith and Reproductive Health.”

They’re always there, the voices to protect the unborn.

A few protesters waved graphic images of bloody broken babies and held “Planned Parenthood = Murder” signs. A man on a megaphone shouted Scripture from the curb.

For a moment I wondered about all the good these protesters could do if they combined their passion and turned it into everyone’s cause. Because everyone wants to reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortions.

As I walked into the meeting room I was struck by the number of men who showed up, men who don’t own a womb but must understand why they must never own mine.

I grabbed a chair in the front row and listened to a panel of faith leaders and one secular humanist share why they support reproductive rights in the context of their beliefs.

Rev Davis, former Chair of Planned Parenthood’s Clergy Advisory Board, spoke frankly about his years as chaplain at Skidmore College during the late 60’s.

When he first started he told his wife, “How hard could it be to counsel 1400 girls?”

“‘You’re an idiot,’ she said, ‘It’ll be hard.’” Read full post

To Westboro Baptist: We win

On June 20, 2016

‘Angels’ block Westboro Baptist Church protest at Orlando memorial.

Orlando Strong

I’ve long been horrified by Westboro Baptist.

On the continuum of LGBT haters, they spew the worst anti LGBT post tragedy bile imaginable with such Godly views as: they deserved it.

WB is apparently “Orlando Bound” to protest, as they often do, at local funerals of victims of the Pulse tragedy.

It goes without saying but it takes a special kind of broken, I’d suggest mental illness, to vomit hate on the grieving.

But here’s the thing, Westboro Baptist or any anti LGBT individual or hate group, you’re coming to my town. These are my people.

Your kind is not welcome here there or anywhere across our nation. You are the fringe, the true Left Behind, the outlier.

Our Orlando churches, many who stood in the way of same-sex marriage and who continue to pit God against gays, never set foot into your language. They grapple, they do not gouge out hearts.

Their version of God might tell them (sadly) that the LGBT community doesn’t deserve civil rights and protections. Still, their God, Muslim, Christian or otherwise, doesn’t command them to stomp on the mourning.

My Central Florida community is filled with bridge builders. This is who we are. This is what we do. Our local LGBT community has led the conversation for decades.

Cheers to Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs for her warning to funeral protesters: “If that happens we will not leave their presence unchallenged.”

Westboro, it’s best you turn that bus around because love and grief make for swift and determined justice.

I’m not suggesting violence. I never suggest violence, which the rational know begets…

I’m saying funeral protesters will be legally banned. Westboro knows this is likely and yet emboldened by a perverse sense of religious righteousness, they dare to come anyway.

But Westboro protesters will be surrounded and outnumbered. Calmly. Swiftly. Love advocates will stare protesters directly in the eyes, into the windows of the soulless. Unflinching. Many will say nothing.

And so, we win.

It may not feel like much of a triumph in the wake of our community’s deepest tragedy made more painful by verbal assaults on the grieving.

But we are indeed winning.

More of Us, than You.

#OrlandoStrong #OrlandoUnited

It’s time the anti-poverty Pope blesses birth control.

Full post at: Huffington Post

On February 24, 2016

In Politics-Religion, Religion/Spirituality, Social Issues

Pope Francis and birth control

It’s not easy to criticize the coolest Pope, ever.

Pope Francis smiles for selfies, Tweets, says yes! to the Big Bang and evolution, waves from his popemobile and against tradition, washes (oh the horror!) the feet of women on Holy Thursday.

I’m not Catholic but when this Pope speaks, I listen. I don’t expect to agree with everything he says but by God, he makes me want to.

Still, Pope Francis’s command to end world poverty doesn’t square holy with me when the church still insists artificial contraception goes against the “natural laws of God” to go forth and multiply.

What’s natural about nuns feeding starving belly-bloated children in remote villages while helping malnourished mothers push out baby number 6,7 and 12?

Simple compassionate math says when you make more kids you make more mouths to feed. Never mind couples who don’t want a houseful. Plenty opt out altogether which Francis in his wisdom of raising a family, lovingly calls a “selfish choice.”

Scolding birth control is an archaic man-made patriarchal mandate that commands women to be involuntary breeders and over populate the planet…..

No contraception makes sexy time better?

Of course most modern Catholics don’t believe every sperm is sacred. “They’re well aware of the Vatican’s pronouncements,” wrote Frank Bruni in his piece, “Be Fruitful, Not Bananas,” They just prefer to plug their ears.”

Some wishful thinkers think the church offers wiggle room for married couples to use their “individual conscience” about family planning but the reality is, contraception is still a mortal sin and an act of “individual disobedience.”

So when the sympathetic priest counsels a couple he’s forced to speak out of two sides of his mouth, “Sure, go ahead and pop on that condom, take birth control, but just so you know (smiling sadly), I’m obligated to tell you you’re headed for eternal Hell.”

I’m a former Methodist, now a Unitarian Universalist (your basic heretic) so I don’t grapple much with doctrine. If a teaching doesn’t jive with common sense and Golden Rule 101, I balk.

In the article “Contraception, Conscience and Church Authority” George Sim Johntson reminds that the good Catholic doesn’t just grin and bear His will, she heroically conforms to it.

“The implicit message is: God’s will is something you deal with while gritting your teeth.”

“But since gritting your teeth is not fun, and God doesn’t want us to be upset about the choices we make, then follow your conscience. There are so many fallacies here; it would take a book to address them. A short response is that saints not only heroically conform their lives to the will of God, but also love that will. Are we not called to imitate them? If we do, even the sex might be better. As Benedict XVI points out in Deus Caritas Est, eros is most fully itself when governed by agape.”

Wow, that’s quite a stretch. Unprotected sex as an aphrodisiac.

I’ve never met a woman who says she gets turned on by the thought of an unwanted pregnancy at the end of her partner’s orgasm. Making a baby when you don’t want a baby isn’t titillating, it’s terrifying.

But religion is masterful at managing cognitive dissonance. You just think you don’t want a baby or you can’t afford a fourth, but yield to God’s will rather than your own selfish needs and the blessings will appear.

Lady writes in to insist on “natural roles” for women and men.

On December 15, 2015

“Women in Combat: Pros and Cons”

I had to do some serious deep breathing after I read this letter to the Orlando Sentinel.

Diane wrote against women in combat, against women going against their “natural roles” in society:

“However, feminists have shrilly begged for “equality” for so long, and now they have it; or do they? Not all women want it; nor do men. Equality is physically and emotionally impossible. Society flounders and becomes coarse and nonproductive when men and women do not accept and assume their natural roles.”

Diane, you might think insisting on equal opportunity and pay is “shrill” and unladylike (you poor dear… does your husband haughtily scold you when you forget to warm his coffee or buy his favorite poppy-seed muffin?)

Let me explain so I don’t sound like I’m against traditional roles for men and women. I’m not.

You might prefer a traditional role in your home, wonderful, have at it, but don’t insult men and women who want opportunities once not afforded or expected of them.

Don’t insult men and women who prefer non-traditional arrangements for their family.

In my family I do the bulk of the cooking. My husband however, makes his own breakfast (I make his if I’m making mine) and lunch and often, his own dinner, so does my teenage daughter.

When our daughter was little he did diapers, bottles, and every other non-breast feeding child care task. He does his own laundry because he did his own laundry when we met, and, he’s a messy guy who piles clean and dirty clothes into one indiscernible mega heap so, I saw no need to take over this laundry fiasco when we married.

We both carpooled our daughter when she was younger. I worked for a while after she was born. I’ve stayed home ever since. I’m a writer. My husband also works from home. We both grill. We both take muscle strength classes. We both clean the kitchen. We had one child by choice. We all share in kitchen duty.

My husband takes out the garbage. I do the weeding. He serves himself, sometimes I get him a plate. I’m on a Board, he’s not. I volunteer, he does too. He does most of the long driving because I hate it. I do almost all the grocery shopping and 99% of holiday decorating.

Traditional family? Meh. Traditional-ish? We divide labor by common sense, fairness and gut instinct, not gender.

“Natural roles” simply don’t exist anymore except that women and men still come pre-packaged with baby-making parts.

Alllllllthough, not all women and men want babies, so are they unnatural? Let me clarify, if your friend Charlotte can’t make babies OR doesn’t want them, is she unnatural? Am I unnatural because I stopped at one child?

YES to your point Diane, our brains are different, no arguing that.

YES our bodies are different. By and large men have stronger upper body strength (although I’ve seen some kick ass strong women in muscle conditioning class who haul weights bigger than some of the men’s, sooo….).

But, who cares about our differences? Women (and men) deserve access to every job available on the planet IF they can do the job.

If over time co-ed combat works out, great. If it doesn’t then I’ll be the first to say women, sorry, you need to stick to non-combative roles. Only time will tell. (“Women in Combat: Pros and Cons”)

Diane wrote: “Society flounders and becomes coarse and nonproductive when men and women do not accept and assume their natural roles.”

Course? Unproductive?

Well now I do declare!

Yes, one finds it unbecoming and quite unproductive when a person of the female persuasion does not understand her natural role as wife and mother, and when she uses phrases not delicate or honoring to the feminine sensibility. Women are precious unspoiled flowers whose petals will wilt under such masculine pursuits or unsavory language.

What a load of archaic crap.

I love being feminine and (most) that comes with my femininity. I loved having my baby (minus childbirth, I’d give that horror away in a heartbeat). I love men being men (the muscles and other parts that differentiate us, and all that), but this natural role nonsense is pitiful.

Diane writes of women in uniform: “I find it rather sad that a woman is content to be admired because she is masculine. To what purpose?”

Admired? She’s—–wearing—–her—-uniform.

Her job isn’t to turn on her fellow soldiers with her feminine-ness. Would pink fatigues suit your delicate sensibilities better? Maybe some pretty little lace to dot the collar so the male soldiers know right away that underneath those boyish boob-flattening fatigues sits a girly girl?

Diane used the old sitcom “All in the Family” (“girls were girls and boys were boys”) to illustrate her point.

What I want to comment (but the piece is closed to comments):

What Diane, you fail to understand about one of my favorite sitcoms of all times “All in the Family,” is Archie and Edith’s characters were used to HIGHLIGHT that which was CHANGING in an era when racism, sexism and traditional gender expectations were CHALLENGED.

Norman Lear, ma’am, knew EXACTLY what he was doing when he wrote “All in the Family.” But do you know what you’re saying when you refer to “natural roles?” Define your role as you will, but allow others to define their societal roles as they will.

THAT’s the natural role of human beings, in 2016.

Image credit: By CBS Television (eBay item photo front photo back) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Kim Davis: At least we have this in common

On September 3, 2015