Gay at Baylor: A Christian Challenge

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This piece originally appeared in the Huffington Post

By Mark Osler

This past October, I wrote a piece in the Huffington Post entitled “Repentance of an Anti-Gay Bigot.”  Among the dozens of responses I received were many from my former law students at Baylor University, where I taught for ten years.  They were heart-wrenching, revealing the pain of attending Baylor in fear of being found out and expelled; of isolating themselves from their classmates; and ultimately their alienation from Baylor and even Christianity.  Baylor bars gays and lesbians from the faculty, and has fought hard to keep any gay student support groups from gaining recognition.  It has done this in the name of Jesus Christ, claiming the authority of the Bible.

I don’t teach at Baylor anymore.  This week I am starting my second year as a professor of law at a Catholic school, St. Thomas, in Minneapolis.  Though smaller than Baylor, it is similar in many ways.  It is strong in its faith identity, and the majority of faculty (at least in my department) and students are more conservative than you would find at most other schools.  Yet, there are differences, and at least one may be crucial to Baylor’s future.

 After a few weeks of teaching sentencing at St. Thomas, one of my students stopped by to see me right before lunch, so I invited him to join me.  He had a genuine interest in criminal law, and in particular wanted to work for the U.S. Department of Justice, my former employer.  I love talking about the DOJ, and asked him which division he would like to work in.

 He immediately told me he wanted to work in the Civil Rights Division in Washington, an important and often controversial office.  Looking over my sandwich at this middle-aged white male, I asked “Why Civil Rights?”

Mark Osler

He immediately responded, “Well, I’m gay.”  He then began to describe some of the work he had already done in the area, but I barely knew he was talking—after ten years at Baylor, I was in a state of shock to hear a student openly admit this to a professor in a public place.  I looked behind me to see if anyone we might know was around, and felt relieved when there were only strangers.

I need not have worried.  St. Thomas has a gay and lesbian student organization, my administrative assistant is openly gay, and two of my colleagues who are full professors are also openly gay and are welcome to (and do) bring their partners to law school events.  Yet, not only does the school survive, but the fact that we are welcoming to gays and lesbians does not in the least seem to be read as any kind of statement on the part of our sponsoring body, the Archdiocese of Minnesota.  We are a community that includes gay men and lesbians as faculty, staff, and students, and stand proudly together as Christians.

Baylor can accept gays and lesbians without sacrificing anything.  Yes, the student code of conduct bars pre-marital sex, but gays and straights are equally susceptible to breaking that rule; if potential for sexual relations is a reason to bar anyone, it is a reason to bar everyone.   That rule should be enforced evenly.  All evidence now is that it is enforced in the dorms, but not elsewhere.  If that is the case, then enforcement should be consistent, gay or straight.

Former Baylor President Abner McCall once told a good friend of mine that “Baylor can’t be a Christian.  Only people can be Christian.”  As Christian people we must be both honest and loving.  Honesty tells us that there have been, are now, and will be gays and lesbians at Baylor.  If the plan has been to exclude them, Baylor has done a lousy job.   Given that gay men and lesbians are and will be students at Baylor, love instructs us to help them grow in faith and to welcome them, rather than exclude or demean them.

 The time has come for Baylor to hire gays and lesbians who meet all other requirements; to lift the veil of fear from student life; and to allow gay and lesbian groups to establish themselves on campus.  Baylor is strong, proud, and Christian, and all of those qualities make such a change possible without a loss of identity.

 To remain an engaged and relevant institution, Baylor must change.  Its message to gays and lesbians has to be something other than what is perceived on campus now:  That if you are gay, there is no love for you, on Earth or in Heaven.  Christ promises more, and so should Baylor.

Corruption investigation rocks Tulsa Police Department

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Justice for all?

By Melanie Wilmoth

I haven’t heard much news about the corruption investigation of the Tulsa Police Department (TPD) that has been developing over the past few years. This case should be a national scandal. But it’s not.

The media coverage of this story has been lacking to say the least. A quick internet search for information resulted in only a handful of articles, and the few media outlets that are covering the story are almost exclusively local news sources.

The corruption investigation involves several TPD officers and one federal agent who for years used their positions of power to steal money from drug dealers, falsify search warrants, fabricate drug buys, traffick drugs, and manipulate informant testimony in drug cases. The federal investigation began with a tip from a drug dealer, Debra Clayton, who claimed that she sold drugs for TPD officers from spring 2007 to fall 2008. During this time, Clayton recorded conversations between herself and the officers. It was those recordings that led the FBI to investigate. (more…)

All Eyes on Jackson, Mississippi

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 By Alan Bean

The convergence of three events is directing a lot of attention to the Magnolia State: “The Help” is #1 at the box office, a statue of Martin Luther King Jr. is being unveiled on the Mall in Washington, and a televised hate crime has rekindled memories of the state’s brutal past.

A spate of connect-the-dots articles appeared over the weekend, and this lengthy piece in the Los Angeles Times is probably the best of the batch.  How much has Jackson, Mississippi changed since the civil rights era?  A whole lot, and not enough. (more…)

Texas offers Bible classes while vocational training is slashed

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By Alan Bean

According to stories published this weekend in the Texas press, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice will soon be offering a four-year course in biblical studies to forty inmates.

The training isn’t intended to prepare inmates for pastoral ministry in the outside world–most of the students are serving long sentences and will be locked up for many years.  Prison officials know that gangs and God are the most popular survival mechanisms for inmates.  Gangs create grief; a focus on God encourages compliance and reduces violent behavior.  By enhancing the God-option, state officials hope to create more disciplined and less violent prisons.

If you have been reading my recent posts on Burl Cain, the evangelical warden of Louisiana’s Angola prison, you will be wondering if the fledgling Texas program is a Louisiana import.  Yes, it is.  State Senators Dan Patrick (R-Houston) and John Whitmire (D-Houston) were recently introduced to the Angola program and came away impressed.

Part of me thinks likes this idea.  Having preached, sang and prayed with prisoners in the past, I know how important faith can become for people who have been stripped of everything but God.

But there are problems.  Lots of problems.

As Scott Henson points out in Grits for Breakfast, vocational programs for Texas inmates were slashed during the recent legislative session.  In effect, prison officials have diverted resources from a program geared to assist with post-release employment for a program promising to instill obedience and reduce violence.

Why can’t we have both?

Henson is also concerned that TDCJ is giving preferential treatment to the fundamentalist wing of the religious community.  It isn’t just that the new program amounts to state sanction of a single religion; it awards all the marbles to sectarian Baptists who, in recent years, have ruthlessly disenfranchised moderate churches and pastors.

Between 1980 and the mid-nineties, Southern Baptists across the South mounted a brutal purge against the denomination’s “moderate” element (there were few real “liberals” in the SBC).  I was working on a doctorate at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky between 1989 and 1994. When I arrived, the faculty was little changed from the folks who taught my wife, Nancy, and me back in the 1970s.  Two years later, all four professors in the church history department had been forced out and the same dismal pattern was being replicated throughout the seminary. Then many of the conservative replacements suffered the same fate (most commonly because they believed women were worthy of ordination).

The General Baptist Convention of Texas, a conservative organization if ever there was one, was deeply troubled with these developments, especially as they played out in Fort Worth’s Southwestern Baptist Seminary.  The ouster of the irenic Russell Dilday as seminary president created an ideological cleavage among Texas Baptists that will take at least a generation to heal.

As a result, Southwestern Seminary is no longer affiliated with the General Baptist Convention of Texas, having thrown in its lot with the fundamentalist (and highly politicized) Southern Baptists of Texas.

By throwing in its lot with radical fundamentalists without creating opportunities for other faith groups, the TDCJ is favoring folks aligned with the pro-Republican religious right. (more…)

Evangelicals have a Perry/Bachmann Problem

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A spate of recent columns in the mainstream media have dismissed concerns about Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann’s religion as rhetorical overkill.  Do Rick and Michelle really want to transform these United States into a theocracy controlled by sectarian religionists?  Don’t be silly.

But those who have done actual research on this subject wonder why leading presidential candidates are nurturing intimate relationships with sectarian theocrats if they personally reject the logic of dominionism. Many evangelical Christians are troubled by what they are hearing from the likes of Bachmann and Perry, largely because they don’t want “dominionists” speaking for evangelical Christians.  

Greg Metzger has examined both sides of the debate from a conservative perspective and believes there’s real fire behind all the dominionist smoke.  AGB

Evangelicalism’s Perry/Bachmann Problem

By Greg Metzger

I have been dealing this week with a major frustration: Extremely poor reporting and commentary in major secular media on Governor Perry and Michelle Bachmann has led to a flurry of superficial rejoinders by Christian thinkers who I respect and whose opinions matter. Key examples of the former are Ryan Lizza’s lengthy piece in The New Yorker on Bachmann,Sarah Posner’s post at Slate, and Bill Keller’s article in the New York Times Magazine; key examples of the latter are Lisa Miller and Michael Gerson inThe Washington Post, Charlotte Allen in The Los Angeles Times andDouglas Groothius and Scot McKnight at Patheos. Even Ross Douthat, while going further in his acknowledgement of the seriousness of the questions, still misses the core issues. (more…)

Private prisons, juvenile justice, and a little town called Walnut Grove

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Families of youth incarcerated at the Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in Mississippi listen to testimony at a hearing about alleged inmate abuse.By Alan Bean

Walnut Grove, MS is pleased to be located next to a private juvenile prison. The facility provides the tiny community with much-needed employment and a solid revenue stream.  Although the population of Walnut Grove, located northeast of Jackson, is only  1,737, that represents a 255.9% increase from the 488 residents recorded by the 2000 census.  1200 of the new resident are juvenile inmates prosecuted as adults on felony charges.  The rest, one assumes, moved to the Mississippi town shortly after the private juvenile prison opened its doors.  No wonder the locals are happy.

The ACLU and the Southern Poverty Law Center beg to differ.  Five months ago, a feature story on NPR’s All Things Considered highlighted what goes on behind locked doors in Walnut Grove.    In November of 2010, the two groups (represented by Jackson civil rights attorney Rob McDuff) filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the Walnut Grove facility on behalf of all the young men incarcerated at the prison.

According to the ACLU press release, the suit alleged “that the children there are forced to live in barbaric and unconstitutional conditions and are subjected to excessive uses of force by prison staff.”

The Department of Justice is conducting its own investigation.  Meanwhile, the ACLU-SPLC case is still pending in U.S. District Court in Jackson.

A companion piece to the NPR story provided some interesting (and troubling) background information about the Florida-based Geo Group.  “GEO has had a rocky reputation in the youth prison business,” the story said. “In 2007, the Texas Youth Commission canceled a contract with GEO to manage the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center after auditors conducted an unannounced visit and found rampant mismanagement.”

Now, as the Yuma Sun story below makes clear, Geo’s ugly reputation has damaged her corporate bottom line once again.  “We are making good progress with settlement negotiations with the Mississippi Department of Corrections,” Margaret Winter, associate director of the ACLU National Prison Project told a reporter with the Yuma Sun, “But the very terrible conditions (there) still exist. GEO has done nothing significant yet to remedy them.”

For-profit prisons have supported every piece of tough-on-crime to come down the legislative pike.  Why not?  Feeding America’s punitive consensus is great for business.  (For more on the case against private prisons, read Joe Atkins recent piece for the Institute of Southern Studies.)

Michael Mcintosh, the father of a youth involved in the lawsuit and a founder of Friends and Family of Youth Incarcerated at Walnut Grove, a coalition of individuals who advocate for WGYCF youth, makes the case bluntly: “Our children’s lives shouldn’t be at risk because corporations cut corners in order to increase their profits. This abuse must end immediately and the youth at Walnut Grove should be moved to juvenile justice facilities that can provide for their care.”

Private prison firms bidding on San Luis expansion are in hot water

August 13, 2011 5:16 PM

Two private prison companies — GEO Group and Management and Training Corp. — ­­involved in proposals for a prison expansion in San Luis, Ariz., are embroiled in legal battles.

GEO Group, the second-largest private prison company in the country, is currently a defendant in a federal class-action lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union for violations at its juvenile detention center in Walnut Grove, Miss.

The lawsuit contends the prison’s management caused a culture of violence and exploitation by selling drugs inside the facility and entering into sexual relationships with the inmates.

According to the ACLU, inmates were beaten by staff members while handcuffed and defenseless or sprayed with chemicals while locked in their cells. Others were subjected to multiple stabbings and beatings, leaving one prisoner with permanent brain damage.

The case is still pending in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Miss.

“We are making good progress with settlement negotiations with the Mississippi Department of Corrections,” said Margaret Winter, associate director of the ACLU National Prison Project. “But the very terrible conditions (there) still exist. GEO has done nothing significant yet to remedy them.”

In addition to the juvenile center, the ACLU is also monitoring another GEO managed site, the East Mississippi Correctional Facility, the only mental health prison in that state.

“We have found really atrocious conditions at EMCF,” Winter said. “(We found) really shocking deprivations of basic treatment for the mentally ill.”

Prisoners at the facility allegedly are subjected to extreme caloric restrictions, physical abuse and extensive lockdowns.

“We had a medical expert document that it was not uncommon for a person to lose between 20 and 50 pounds in the course of several months because the food is so inadequate,” Winter said. “We have seen in some cases prisoners physically abused for behaviors that are clearly triggered by untreated, serious mental illness.”

Winter said they are working closely with state officials to develop a corrective action plan to remedy the conditions at the prison.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division opened an investigation into some of the violations at the Walnut Grove facility. The DOJ declined to comment on the case.

Management and Training Corp., the third-largest private prison company in the country, operates the Kingman prison where three violent offenders escaped last July.

Two of the three inmates who escaped, John McCluskey and Tracy Province, are charged in New Mexico with killing Gary and Linda Haas, an Oklahoma couple, while the inmates were on the run, according to an Associated Press article.

A security review of the prison concluded there were multiple violations at the site.

The review mentioned a malfunctioning perimeter alarm system, guards not patrolling the fence, burned-out bulbs on a control panel showing the status of the fence, and a door to a dormitory that should have been locked was propped open with a rock, facilitating the inmates’ escape, according to a previous Yuma Sun article.

Relatives of the Haases filed a wrongful death suit against MTC in March 2011. The case is still pending in Maricopa County Superior Court.

Arizona Department of Corrections revised and reissued its request for proposals in January after a review prompted by the Kingman escape.

“Part of the bid proposal was to include issues from the past,” said Barret Marson, DOC spokesman. “That information is weighed in our decision and is part of the evaluation.”

The new request includes detailed provisions on security, including ones requiring both random and scheduled perimeter checks of prisons.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. Darren DaRonco can be reached at ddaronco@yumasun.com or 539-685 .

A public hearing on the proposed prison expansion will be held from 6 to 10 p.m. Tuesday at the City Council Chambers in San Luis.

“It will be an open hearing,” said Barret Marson, Arizona Department of Corrections spokesman. “The two companies will give their presentations, and then members of the audience can submit requests to speak and ask questions.”

In July, DOC announced that GEO Group and Management and Training Corp. were among the four finalists to receive the 2,000- to 3,000-bed project. The hearing will focus on the specifics of each proposal.

 

Eyewitness Identification and Wrongful Convictions

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By Melanie Wilmoth

I recently had the opportunity to attend a book club hosted by CitySquare in Dallas. At this event, we discussed the book, Tested: How Twelve Wrongly Imprisoned Men Held onto Hope by Peyton and Dorothy Budd. Their book tells the stories of twelve men who were imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. As a result of DNA testing and the introduction of new evidence, these men were recently exonerated. Unfortunately, by the time of exoneration, many of these men had spent 5, 10, or even 20 years in prison.

Although Dallas leads the nation in DNA exonerations, wrongful convictions are a problem throughout the US.

It was simply a fluke that over the decades Dallas happened to save and store the evidence needed to run DNA tests. In most cities, such physical evidence was destroyed long ago…This is not just a Dallas problem…Across the nation thousands upon thousands of innocent people are in prison for crimes they did not commit.” – Dorothy Budd

The majority of these wrongful convictions are a result of faulty eyewitness identification. Despite the fact that this type of testimony is unreliable, prosecutors across the nation continue to rely on eyewitnesses.

However, new rules issued by the New Jersey Supreme Court will affect how eyewitness testimony is used in the courts. These rules require more rigorous evaluation of eyewitness identifications and make it easier for defendants to challenge eyewitness testimony. Criminal justice reform advocates are hopeful that these new rules will significantly reduce the number of wrongful convictions and that other states will soon follow in New Jersey’s lead.

In New Jersey, Rules Are Changed on Witness IDs

By Benjamin Weiser

The New Jersey Supreme Court, acknowledging a “troubling lack of reliability in eyewitness identifications,” issued sweeping new rules on Wednesday making it easier for defendants to challenge such evidence in criminal cases.

The court said that whenever a defendant presents evidence that a witness’s identification of a suspect was influenced, by the police, for instance, a judge must hold a hearing to consider a broad range of issues. These could include police behavior, but also factors like lighting, the time that had elapsed since the crime or whether the victim felt stress at the time of the identification. (more…)

What happens when “guilt or innocence was never on the table”?

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By Lisa D’Souza

Eighteen years ago, three teenaged boys were accused of murdering three 8-year-old boys.  These three teens were suspected because they were weird.  The way they dressed and what they believed were not the norm for the Arkansas town of West Memphis.  And when the bodies of three young children were found mutilated and hogtied, the police and prosecutors were convinced it was the work of a Satanic cult.  Police suspected then-18-year-old Damien Echols, a goth kid who wore all black and called himself a Wiccan.  After an interrogation lasting some 12 hours, police got Echols’ friend, then-17-year-old Jessie Misskelley, Jr., to confess and implicate both Echols and 16-year-old Jason Baldwin.   Never mind that the specifics of his confession did not match the evidence collected from the crime scene.  The state was convinced it had apprehended the murderers.  The teens were arrested and became known as the West Memphis Three.

Not much later, Misskelley recanted.  The trial judge decided, based on the circumstances under which he confessed, that Misskelley’s confession could not be admitted as proof of their guilt at trial.  So the West Memphis Three were tried for murder.  There was no reliable confession.  There was no physical evidence that tied them to the crime scene.  No forensic evidence was discovered that linked them either.  The state’s proof was statements of people who said that they heard or overheard the three teens discussing the murders.  That was it.  That and the certainty of the police and prosecutors that they were right. The West Memphis Three were convicted.  Echols was sentenced to death, Misskelley and Baldwin to life.   (more…)

Rachel Tabachnick talks dominionism on Fresh Air (and why you should be paying attention)

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By Alan Bean

Are Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann part of a movement determined to forcibly Christianize every aspect of American culture?

If so, why does a blog dedicated to ending mass incarceration care one way or the other?

If Rachel Tabachnick is anything to go by, the answer to the first question is ‘yes’.  Tabachnick knows more about the dominionist strain within contemporary evangelicalism than just about anybody and you simply must check out her recent interview with Terry Gross of Fresh Air.)

I am still thinking through my answer to the “so what” question (and will have more to say on the subject as my thinking clarifies); but the rough outline of an answer came to me yesterday when a reporter asked me why Louisiana (unlike Texas and Mississippi) has done nothing to reform its criminal justice system.

The avuncular visage of Burl Cain sprang to mind.  Cain is slowly transforming the Angola prison plantation into a spiritual rehabilitation center.  Inmates (90% of them in for life) are repeatedly invited to get right with Jesus.  Life becomes a whole lot easier if they take the offer.

Then I thought of Ann Richards, the progressive Texas Governor who, during her ill-fated re-election campaign against George W. Bush, told the voters that she wanted to build more prisons so folks with addiction issues could get rehabilitated.

Burl Cain and his Louisiana fan club want to lock up more people every year so earnest evangelists can have a captive audience.

Friends of Justice works in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, three states that are gradually backing away from the punitive consensus that has controlled the American judicial system for more than three decades.  Texas was embarrassed into rethinking mass incarceration through a series of scandals: Tulia (the bizarre drug bust that gave birth to Friends of Justice), Hearne (the American Violet story), the Dallas Sheetrock scandal, the Houston crime lab, the Texas Youth Commission fiasco, an incredible string of DNA exonerations in Dallas County and Governor Perry’s botched attempt to silence the Texas Forensic Science Commission.  Thanks to a series of modest reforms, the Texas prison population has now plateaued in the 160,000 range (it was 40,000 in 1980) and will likely stay there for the foreseeable future.

Mississippi experienced a 3.5% drop in its prison population in a single year by deciding that inmates must only serve 25% of sentences before being eligible for parole (it had been 85%).

The old “lock ’em up” mentality is beginning to soften even in the state that boasts the highest incarceration rate in the free world.  Folks in Louisiana want to lock up as many people as possible out of a misdirected sense of compassion.  After all, isn’t it better to find Jesus in jail than to live an unregenerate life in the free world?  We don’t hate criminals in Louisiana; we just want what’s best for them.

This is precisely the kind of theocratic logic that politicians like Rick Perry and Michelle Bachmann have embraced.  They want to Christianize the nation (by force if necessary) the way Burl Cain has Christianized the Angola plantation.  And if the liberals presently controlling Hollywood, the recording industry, the public school system, the evening news and the political life of the nation don’t want to be Christianized, that’s just too bad.  Michelle, Sarah, Rick et al are God’s anointed apostles.  At Angola, to oppose Burl Cain is to oppose God; the New Apostolic Reformation wants to extend this kind of thinking to every aspect of our national life.

Do the politicians currently feeding at the trough of radical religion really believe that the eclectic vitality of a diverse nation can be homogenized by the blood of the Lamb?  Maybe not.  But they want to push the political envelope as far in that direction as the public will allow.  In these strange times, it’s smart politics.

If you think I’m overstating the case, please read Ms. Tabachnick’s conversation with Terry Gross.

The Evangelicals Engaged In Spiritual Warfare

August 24, 2011 – TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I’m Terry Gross. (more…)

Asked about the civil rights movement, Perry changes the subject

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By Alan Bean

The post below comes from Chris Kromm at The Institute for Southern Studies.  Asked to comment on the contribution of the “Friendship Nine”, Perry made the obligatory tip of the hat to racial equality and then launched into a standard (and off-topic) defense of small government politics.  Perry didn’t comment on the groundbreaking heroism of nine civil rights pioneers because his audience of choice gets angry at the very mention of the civil rights movement.  They don’t hate black people, and they aren’t calling for a return to the days of racial segregation; but the civil rights movement is a touchy topic because it makes white Southerners and conservative politicians looks really, really bad.  So Mr. Perry, fearful of alienating his base, changed the subject.

Gov. Rick Perry flunks civil rights lesson in South Carolina campaign stop

FriendshipNineJail.jpgEach presidential election, Republicans declare that this could be the year they might win over African-American voters, or at least enough to tip the balance in key battleground states.But if surging White House hopeful Gov. Rick Perry of Texas ends up clinching the GOP nomination, he may have irreparably hurt his chances of luring black voters — already a challenge when facing President Obama — this past weekend at a campaign stop and fundraisernear Rock Hill, South Carolina.During the media presser, a TV reporter noted that Perry was visiting a “very important place in Rock Hill’s and the nation’s civil rights history,” it being the 50th anniversary of a historic sit-inby a group of students from nearby Friendship College, known as the “Friendship Nine.” (more…)