SOGI Resolution - Wyoming Republican Party

Passed, August 12, 2017

 

Whereas the Party of Abraham Lincoln was created to abolish slavery, recognizing the dignity and equality of every human being under the law; and this same Republican Party continued to lead the fight for the natural rights of our common humanity, against the Jim Crow laws of the southern Democrats; and still stands for the rights of all people regardless of color, culture, ideology, or religion, and

Whereas such equal protection under the law demands protection against personal injury or property loss, but cannot demand affirmation of personal ideas, choices, or behaviors without infringing upon the integrity and property rights of other persons; yet “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” (SOGI) laws obliterate this foundational legal distinction, and

Whereas, laws using undefined and undefinable terms are inherently unjust, depriving persons under the law of any reasonable opportunity to know in advance how the law will be applied to them; and “gender Identity” lacks any definite legal content such that even its proponents are unable either to list every current identity, or rule out the addition of new identities in the future, and

Whereas wherever the terms “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” have been added to antidiscrimination laws, this ill-defined language has enabled unjust prosecution and legal harassment such as…

• Forcing owners to use their own private property for objectionable uses…
• Stripping owners of the right to protect the privacy, safety and dignity of patrons in showers, privacy facilities, etc…
• Stripping owners of the right to hire persons of their own choosing…
• Forcing the use of pronouns, titles, and other speech demanded by others…
• Forcing artists to produce creative speech against their own views...
• Stripping mental health workers of the right to treat patients according to the best standards…
• Stripping physicians of the right to decide treatments according to their own judgement of what is best for a patient…

These and many other violations of personal integrity and property rights, are not only theoretical, but the actual ongoing results of SOGI laws which have closed businesses, confiscated savings, destroyed reputations, and costs millions in legal defense, and

Whereas even one use of a law that allows an unjust outcome is enough proof that it is a bad law; yet we have seen not one, but many cases where “sexual orientation and gender identity” language was used to materially harm law-abiding citizens depriving them of liberty, property and good name, therefore be it

Resolved that the Wyoming Republican Party stand opposed to the insertion of “sexual orientation,” and “gender identity” language into any policy, ordinance, guideline, or statute at every level of government, and be it further

Resolved, that the Wyoming Republican Party continue to protect the dignity, safety and integrity of every human being by advocating for just, defined, and limited laws which protect persons from injury and their property from loss while not punishing anyone for holding, expressing, or acting upon their sincerely held beliefs.

SOGI Laws Skew the Playing Field

Wyoming Equality has the right to discriminate. They have a right to treat me differently than they treat others, just because of what I believe. They have the right to refuse me employment, just because of who I am. When they declined to speak and act in support of my views, they were perfectly within their rights.

Likewise, bakeries, florists and printers who think like Wyoming Equality have the right to refuse my request to create pastries, arrangements, or prints that contradict the message they want to send. They have the right to call you and me bigots, homophobes, and haters. They even have a right to say that we are morally wrong.

Every single day groups like these exercise their first amendment rights. And it hurts. It hurts me, personally. It shames me publicly – as it is intended to, and it has created a climate where people who share the same ideas that I do are materially harmed on a regular basis. It hurts, but I still defend their right to discriminate.

Some, like Memories Pizza in Indiana, were forced to close due to threats of arson and bodily harm. Others, like Melissa’s Sweet Cakes in Oregon, had their equipment vandalized. Still more have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to the harassment and fines of their own state or city governments.

Businesses like Elane Photography, Arlene’s Flowers, Masterpiece Cake Shop, have been shuttered. Public servants like Kelvin Cochrane and Ruth Neely have been fired for expressing their beliefs off the job.

Discrimination is happening every day, in plain sight. I wish it would stop. I have personally talked with LGBT lobbyists and asked them to stop. I have publicly written in these pages asking to be included in a serious conversation of how we might work together to stop it.  (Let’s Work Together to Protect All Wyo. Citizens, January 1, 2017)

There are many other civic-minded people as well who sincerely want to join hands to protect all Wyoming citizens from harm to both their person and property. Instead, two Cheyenne City Councilmen have been working in secret with Wyoming Equality for months, refusing every request even to see a draft of what they are working on.

It is clearer every day that the real point of the ordinance is not to stop actual discrimination, but to insert “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” language into city code. That’s the whole thing. Anybody who thinks there’s a better way to address discrimination is excluded from the table.

Advocating for this SOGI language, Wyoming Equality’s Sara Burlingame has a favorite talking point which was quoted in the WTE last Thursday: “[it is] currently legal to fire, evict or refuse service to someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.” (Councilmen Again Pushing for Protections for LGBT Residents, July 20, 2017)

Of course, this is true. But it’s a half truth, rather, it is a scintilla of the truth. The whole truth is that it is currently legal to fire, evict or refuse service to someone because of their political party, hair color, height, weight, I.Q., schooling, tattoos and a million other relevant and irrelevant factors.

But is anyone saying that we should include all of this in an ordinance? That would be silly. Laws are not given to make everybody virtuous, or to make everybody do whatever I think they ought to do.

Laws are passed when there is actual harm that is happening which needs to be stopped, not simply when there is potential harm which few, if any, are actually doing. So where is the actual harm? Who, exactly, has been denied employment or housing based on sexual orientation or gender identity? We have been debating these SOGI laws for years and still haven’t seen one single case of this kind of discrimination in Wyoming.

Andrew Koppelman, a law professor and progressive activist, has studied discrimination nationwide and found,

“Hardly any of these cases have occurred: a handful in a country of 300 million. In all of them, the people who objected to the law were asked directly to facilitate same-sex relationships, by providing wedding, adoption, or artificial insemination services, or rental of bedrooms. There have been no claims of a right to simply refuse to deal with gay people.” (A Zombie in the Supreme Court: The Elane Photography Cert Denial)

Again, there have been no claims of a right to simply refuse service to gay people. None. What people are claiming is the right to decline saying things, by word or deed, that they don’t believe to be true. They simply want the same right that Wyoming Equality exercises every day.

For this reason, I find it offensive and disingenuous when people who are defending the First Amendment are smeared as “haters” who want to deny service to certain people. Those who make these unjust claims know better. They just don’t want to talk about the real issue.

There simply is no rising tide of discrimination against people on the basis of gender ideology. But there is, demonstrably, a rising trend to punish people who disagree with gender ideology. So who wants Cheyenne to punish those who oppose the new gender ideology?

Benjamin Rasmussen, Rolling Stone Magazine

The June 23, 2017 edition of Rolling Stone suggests an answer. Andy Kroll writes about software mogul, Tim Gill, who is methodically using his $500 million fortune to bankroll SOGI legislation across the country (“Meet the Megadonor Behind the LGBT Rights Movement").

He is not putting his money into national politics. Instead, he is stealthily giving thousands of dollars to elect local officials and push SOGI laws which “punish the wicked” (Tim Gill's words). Is this what is happening to Cheyenne?

By a sustained lack of transparency, Councilmen Roybal and Johnson have left room for this suspicion. When we elect councilpersons, we expect them to work with each other to draft laws in Cheyenne’s interest. We don’t want them to outsource the drafting to out of state activists for partisan interests.

But let’s get back to Wyoming Equality’s right to discriminate. Do I want to pass a law that strips them of these rights? By no means. I will reason and cajole. I will seek to persuade them both publicly and privately to respect my person and my ideals. But I will never, ever, seek the force of law to hinder their rights to speak and act according to their convictions. We should agree on this, at least.

The freedom to speak and act according to one’s convictions comes from a source higher than government. It derives from our common humanity. Governments have no right to take it away. We shouldn’t give them the power. The sweetness of a momentary victory comes at a bitter cost to our common dignity.

For the moment, people on both sides of the issue are free to say and do things that challenge the other side. We are both free to disagree using reason, logic, morals, beliefs, and even feelings. The playing field is level. I don’t call this discrimination, but Wyoming Equality does. They have that right.

Whatever we call it, we should all use our freedoms in charity and respect. SOGI ordinances foster neither. They only take free speech from people like me, and skew the playing field.

A Human Chain Changes Lives

 

Last Saturday (July 8, 2017) a human drama unfolded in Panama City, Florida which captured the attention of the world. Even land-locked Wyomingites are learning about riptides and boogie boards. All because a couple at dinner saw a problem and acted.

The Ursrey family went to the beach for the afternoon. After a swim with her sons, the mother, Roberta, waded out of the water to continue watching them from the beach.

But when she turned around, they were not where she left them. Instead they were farther out, way farther out. She walked along the beach trying to get their attention. That’s when she heard their screams. They were caught in a riptide, a current formed by wave patterns that flows as strong as a mountain river away from shore and out to sea.

Ignoring the warnings of other beachgoers, she and her family entered the current to save them from drowning. But the current was too strong even for the adults. Soon nine people were trapped in 15 feet of water, unable to get back to shore.

An on-duty policeman also headed into the water. But quickly turned back calling for a rescue boat instead. Seconds counted, but minutes were passing. That’s when Jessica and Derek Simmons got involved.

They had come to have a relaxing dinner at the beach. After swimming to the sandbar, Jessica noticed flashing lights on the boardwalk. Then she saw that everyone was intently looking and pointing to the same spot in the water. Guessing that they were pointing to a shark, she made her way ashore to where her husband was.

That’s when they both realized that someone was drowning. Quickly they started organizing a human chain. By the time 50 people had linked arms out into the surf, Jessica grabbed a discarded boogie board she had found, and started swimming to the Ursrey family. Derek followed on a surfboard.

Before long more than 70 strangers were acting as one. They formed a human chain reaching 100 yards out to sea. By that time, Jessica and Derek reached the stranded party and started ferrying them one by one to the waiting hands of the outstretched chain.

When all was said and done, nine people were rescued. None lost their lives. Even Roberta’s mother, who suffered a massive heart attack during the ordeal, made it to shore safely and is now recovering in the hospital.

An event that could easily have ended in the tragic loss of an entire family, instead became a story worth celebrating. As I think about this story, several features stand out. First of all, I think about the power of family.

Recall that when Roberta first saw he children in the riptide, everyone discouraged her from going after them. It was unreasonable, against the odds, foolhardy and dangerous. Of course, they were right. On every logical level, it would be futile to go after them. Why risk the loss of one more life, if the chances of saving the boys are almost nil?

Why? Because that’s what parents do. They don’t count the cost, or calculate the odds. They just act from a place of love so deep that even they cannot explain it. This irrational, crazy love is naturally fostered in the sacred bonds of family.

Others on that beach were not willing to drown in an attempt to save two boys. Even a police officer, who had a sworn duty to serve and protect, decided to turn back once he realized the power of the riptide. But their mother and father would stop at nothing.

That’s not an indictment of anybody on the beach, not even the policeman. I don’t mean to criticize anybody who sized up the situation and decided it would be futile to risk their own life.

I only want to take the opportunity to reiterate the point of last week’s column: nobody, but nobody is a better or more tenacious advocate for life than parents.

That’s just the way it is. God made us that way, and everybody benefits when we recognize this fact and encourage families to be families.

Kids, remember this when you are upset and feuding with your parents. Friends, mentors, and peer groups will come and go, but nobody will ever love you more than your parents. Ever.

Parents, remember this when you think of your kids. You have been given a job that nobody else is capable of doing. Even the best, most dedicated, and brightest care-givers in the world simply do not have the same instinctual love towards your kids as you do.

Citizens, remember this when you are thinking about the role of government in our society. Whether we are talking about education, health care, crime control, or anything else, the more power we keep in the hands of the home and family, the more we are supporting the lives of all human beings.

The second aspect of this story that merits some comment is the spontaneous organization of the human chain that effected the ultimate rescue.

This, too, started with a family, and a Christian one, at that. During interviews with reporters, Jessica said that she originally intended to give the boogie board to her godchildren, and on her Facebook page, she spoke openly of God’s help and blessing.

So, a married couple with other family members, who just happened to be there, acted when everyone else was only staring and pointing. I don’t want to overstate this.

Obviously, anybody could have been motivated to do what Jessica and Derek did. But the fact remains that scores of people did not act when they did.

What they did was not only to form a human chain, but to foment a chain reaction. Derek and his niece started gathering people and holding hands to stretch into the surf. From the humble beginnings of five people joining hands to help, they gave hope and purpose to everybody watching on. Suddenly five turned to fifteen and fifteen into fifty.

This is often the way great things are done. It doesn’t require the whole plan to be worked out, and all the pieces to be in place. It just requires one or two people to show the way. That’s only human. Very often people who sincerely care about our world take no action simply because they don’t know what action to take.

We should not be quick to accuse anybody of laziness, or cold-heartedness, or any other vice. Rather, it could be just as simple as taking up the task yourself which points to a hope that others had not seen. Hope itself has an incredible capacity to encourage us to act and give us direction.

In the aftermath of the story, Mrs. Ursrey bubbled over with praise for her rescuers and joy that she did not lose her family to such a horrible tragedy. Her entire life was changed by the quick thinking of Jessica and Derek which triggered an entire community of rescuers to mobilize in mere minutes.

The Ursrey family had their lives changed that day. But so did everyone else on that beach. No one is ever the same after they have been a part of such an event. To feel the human spirit rise to the occasion is a joy to behold. It changes our lives and whets our appetite for more.

So, keep your eyes on the lookout for people in need of rescue. You will never regret it.

Parental Rights, A Matter of Life and Death

The plight of baby Charlie Gard has captured the attention of people across the world, and cast a spotlight on the issue of parental rights.

In case you have missed his story, here’s a quick overview. Charlie Gard was born August 4, 2016 with a rare and life-threatening genetic disease. Shortly after he turned two months old, he was admitted to Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), where he has remained in intensive care ever since.

In January 2017, the doctors at GOSH decided that continued treatment was futile. But his parents disagreed. They continued to research the problem, contacting doctors all over the world.

Finding one in America who believed he could help Charlie, they started a GoFundMe page seeking the resources to get him treatment. Through the generosity of more than 83,000 people, they are now financially able to transfer Charlie’s care to America.

To this point, Charlie’s story is a remarkable but reasonably normal case of parents working to care for their child in the best way they know how. Disagreements happen every single day. Even experts can only judge to the best of their knowledge, and no one has a crystal ball.

We can respect the doctors who have been intimately involved in Charlie’s case since October, and we can respect the doctors who gave a second opinion from afar. We can also respect his parents who hope against hope, and who will leave no stone unturned in caring for the child God has entrusted to them. We can cheer the thousands of generous donors who wanted to help give Charlie a chance.

To settle disagreements, we don’t need to demonize one or the other of these parties to the case. We only need to ask one question: who has the final word? It’s not about power, but about the authority to decide. After everyone has offered their best advice, those with parental authority lovingly act according to their best judgment.

But here is where Charlie’s story turns Orwellian. Instead of accepting parental authority and releasing Charlie, wishing him all the best, the hospital used its power to seize parental authority for itself. They filed an application with the Family Division of the High Court to take Charlie off life support.

While the Great Ormond Street Hospital is the lightning rod of the case, they are not the ultimate culprit. The fact of the matter is that every judge, appeals court, and supreme court since GOSH filed the motion has likewise behaved as though Charlie’s parents have no parental authority. What is even more frightening still, they have not even bothered to consider the question!

From all this, I can only conclude that the evil is not located in the hospital, or in any of the judges handling the case, but in the entire system of laws which led to this debacle. Ever since the original application was filed on February 24, 2017, strangers have been intruding on the sacred responsibilities of Charlie’s parents with the false presumption that they have the authority to do so.

How did this happen?

We know how parental authority is given. It’s about the birds and the bees. From the moment a child is conceived in the womb, the mother and father who conceived the child are responsible to take care of it. Since they and they alone have parental responsibility, they and they alone have parental authority.

We also know how parental authority is taken away. When parents die, or if they abdicate their responsibility through neglect and abuse, the care of the child may be re-assigned to other parents. We call this “adoption” and it is such a serious matter that we have careful laws surrounding it to make sure that the natural parents have every chance to amend their ways before it happens.

But neither Christopher nor Constance, Charlie’s parents, have died. Nor have they done anything remotely deserving of being relieved of their parental authority. Yet, the net effect of Britain’s socialized medicine system, is that not only Charlie, but all British children, have been legally alienated from their natural parents.

This reality is not obvious on the surface. It is mostly hidden because British law still “allows” most parents continue to act like parents. But when push comes to shove – as it has in this case – the dragon is exposed to the light of day, and it’s ugly.

As more news comes out about Charlie’s condition, we are learning that children around the world have actually lived beautiful lives with this condition. In America, Arturito Estopinan has been fighting and surviving for six years, and Gina Mohan lived with Charlie’s condition until she was 15 years old. In Italy, nine-year old Emanuele Campostrini has been battling this condition since birth while playing chess, climbing mountains, creating art and participating in the Boy Scouts.

So why must Charlie die? This question is exposing the ugly truth of Britain’s socialized medical system, and the European Court of Human Rights behind it. They have been the objects of a world-wide outcry from the pope to the president.

 

The injustice is so obvious that neither the hospital (GOSH), nor the judges are willing to defend their decision on its merits. Rather, each in its own way is claiming that their hands are tied by “the law.”
This is what happens when injustices become so entrenched in bad laws that nobody can find a way back to sanity. After scrabbling for power and “rights,” nobody is willing to admit any responsibility. Rather, the fault lies somewhere in “the system.”

This is the inherent injustice of socialism. By denying the sanctity of marriage, life and family it robs people of their God-given authority, assigning it instead, to the state. Socialism, rather than resting upon the pillars of natural law, sets government up, not as the protector of rights, but as the arbitrary creator of rights.

The government is not God. It has the power to take life, but not the power to give it. Only God has the power to give life, and he gives it within families. Only a mother and a father can beget life, and take care of it. A government that is on the side of life, must be on the side of parents.

Notice that even in the case of adoption, parental responsibility is not given to society at large. It is always located in a particular set of parents. Families are the irreducible building block of any society. Break apart families and the whole society crumbles. Children, while gifts to the whole society, can only be realized as blessings when placed within their families.

As I am writing these words, news is coming across the wire that Charlie will not be killed today, but that he will get yet another hearing. This is good news. The world is hoping and praying that all those courts and doctors whose “hands are tied” will find some loophole that still allows them to do what is obviously right.

Nobody is asking for “society” to give Charlie life, or to foot the bill for his treatment. Rather, they are demanding that Britain, and the European Courts do what government is supposed to do in the first place: to protect the rights of his parents to love him in the best way they know how.

Meanwhile, now that we have seen where the careless stripping of natural rights can lead, it’s a good time for us all to get serious about protecting every individual right and freedom that was so carefully protected by our own constitution.

These rights are not arbitrary gifts from the government. They are the natural and inherent rights necessary for life, and the survival of any society. Charlie Gard is barely eleven months old. But even in such a short life, he has already taught the world this vital lesson.

Considering Guns in School, Let's Ask the Right Questions

When you send your kids to school, do you want them to be safe? Do you think that their safety is the responsibility of the school staff? Of course you do! Nobody would deny this.

Now, let’s go a little deeper. How much responsibility do you expect from the teachers? You expect them to give up some convenience to maintain safe procedures. You also expect them to stay alert for physical attacks upon your child and to intervene promptly. Teachers do this every day, and schools that fail to do this are likely to get sued – and rightly so.

But how far does this responsibility go? If protecting your child from a bully meant that a teacher risked getting punched or kicked herself, would you still hope her to intervene? And as the threat of danger increases, what then? At what point would a thoughtful parent say, “Go ahead, and let my child get beat up. You have to look out for yourself.”

Jesus once talked about the hireling who sees the wolf coming and flees because he cares nothing for the sheep. But the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. When I think about the teachers in our school district, I do not know a one of them who would act like a hireling.

Even though I have no right to command that any teacher protect my kids at the risk of her own life, I have every confidence that this would be their instinct -- and their prayer. They want to sacrifice themselves for the good of our children. They prove it every single day.

That’s all part of the principle of “in loci parentis.” Teachers daily act “in the place of parents.” When you send your kids to school, you are entrusting other adults with the job of acting like parents toward your kids for the time that they are there. And this job comes with whatever rights and responsibilities are needed to get the job done.

It is only against this backdrop that we can really address the question posed on the front page of last Friday’s Uinta County Herald: “Should guns be allowed in schools?” (June 23, 2017). It is interesting how the question is framed.

A question like this makes no reference to people at all. Instead of naming teachers and children, it talks only about inanimate objects. Instead of considering the full range of possible circumstances, it assumes one unspoken assumption: that nobody will ever do what is not allowed.

We don’t ever write laws based on the assumption that people will never do what is not allowed. Rather, we write laws specifically to cover those times when people do what’s not allowed. And the one thing that we all agree on – the only reason we are talking about guns at all -- is that we don’t ever want to allow somebody to come into our schools and shoot our children.

So, what exactly, is the school board debating? Are they proposing that we buy metal detectors and hire airport security to screen every teacher, student, and parent who enters the school for guns? Or are we debating an after-the-fact policy which would fine a person days and weeks after they have already brought a gun into school? Only the first would prevent a school shooting. The second does not.

Every single school shooting that we have ever seen happened in a school that had after-the-fact policies in place. These policies make law-abiding citizens reluctant to remain fully prepared to stop evil, but they do nothing to prevent people with evil intent from carrying out their murderous plans.

So, unless the school board wishes to shoulder the cost of airport-level security at every one of Uinta County’s schools, we are back to the real question. If someone does bring a gun into school for the purpose of murder, is there a better way to prevent harm than to allow the men and women whom we entrust with the care of our children to bring the tools to school that would help them stop it?

If we are already hoping that they will sacrifice themselves for our children, isn’t it only human to permit them the tools to level the playing field, and to be successful? If we don’t, who becomes responsible for their lives and the lives of our children?

There is also a constitutional question here. Ever since the passage of the 14th Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Bill of Rights applies not only to the federal government but to the states as well.

This is called the doctrine of “incorporation.” In 2010 (McDonald v. the City of Chicago) the U.S. Supreme Court explicitly said that since the United States government is forbidden from infringing on the right of its citizens “to keep and to bear arms,” so is the state and all its subsidiaries.

School districts are branches of the state government. So, the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States applies to them. The new state law (HB 194) that has raised this question for our school board seems to contain an internal inconsistency that will be litigated at some point in the future. If it is illegal for the State of Wyoming to infringe on 2nd Amendment rights, why would we think that the state can allow its school districts to infringe on these same rights?

Constitutional questions aside, we should consider the question practically as well. We have learned from bitter experience that the threat of fines cannot prevent a Columbine, or Virginia Tech, or Sandy Hook from happening. We have also learned that the threat of having even one armed person in the building can.

It may be that not a single teacher in all of Uinta County would want to carry a concealed weapon into his or her classroom. That is their right. But the mere threat that one of the teachers might have a weapon, makes it virtually impossible for an Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, or Adam Lanza to plan their evil. That is a far greater deterrent than all the fines in the world.

Our neighboring state of Utah has allowed concealed carry in schools for seventeen years. In all these years, not one single child or teacher has been attacked by a gun-wielding attacker, nor has one of these concealed carriers ever threatened another student or teacher.

We trust our teachers with the lives and well-being of our children every day. We even expect them to protect our children with the same selfless love that we do. Entrusting them with the tools to carry out this high calling is the right thing to do.

Municipal SOGI Laws Criminalize Diversity

Hugh Carey / Wyoming Tribune Eagle

Last October, after five hours of contentious testimony that carried on toward midnight, the Cheyenne City Council passed a “Discrimination Resolution.” It was supposed to be the final outcome of a full-court press from the progressive lobby that began in the spring of 2015.

Council member Annette Williams (who has since lost her bid for reelection) had pressed for a law mimicking an Ordinance which was sprung upon the city of Laramie in April of 2015. It uses extremely broad powers to give the city attorney’s office investigative powers to impose penalties upon anything that it deems discriminatory, “based upon … actual or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity.”

The language of this ordinance had been hammered out behind the scenes with several of the council members and the LGBT lobby, Wyoming Equality. It has not even a modicum of protection for free speech and religious liberty but threatens even private schools, and Laramie’s churches with fines, jail time and mandatory sensitivity training unless they get fully on board with the latest LGBT dictates. 

While it was quickly rammed through the Laramie City Council over the objections of many citizens, it quickly lost steam as it was introduced in other towns like Jackson and Cheyenne. In addition to the lack of First Amendment protections, there was significant worry about the high cost the city would pay in fighting numerous legal challenges to the ordinance.

In Cheyenne, these factors combined to stop the ordinance in its tracks. After consulting with Wyoming Equality and the ACLU, Williams sought to breathe new life into the issue by dropping the penalties and the investigatory powers converting Laramie’s “ordinance” into a compromise “resolution.”

The resolution states, “it is the policy of the City to reject discrimination of any kind and to respect the inherent worth of every person, with regard to race, color, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, gender identity, age, sexual orientation, family status, veteran status, disability, marital status, or source of income.”

This was certainly an improvement. But still, there were serious objections to the compromise Resolution. It added the ill-defined legal terms, “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to city code. These are such fluid categories that they leave room for countless unintended consequences.

Nevertheless, at least some on the city council were persuaded that this compromise could resolve the issue and allow closure. It was a vain hope. Progressive compromises don’t settle issues, they only provide a launching pad for the next offensive.

The truce hoped for in the compromise resolution lasted a mere eight months. Now already Wyoming Equality is working with council members to bring Laramie’s punitive measures to Cheyenne. These include a $750 fine, 6 months in jail. Also, the definition of “public accommodation” is so incredibly expansive that it can be used against practically any entity that opens its doors to the public.

If a city hopes to treat all citizens fairly, regardless of their real or perceived identities or ideas, good laws are already on the books. They allow every citizen, business, or organization freedom to serve others in the best way they know how.

Good citizens of every town in Wyoming already offer a diversity of options which customers and clients can freely choose according to the approach best serving their own needs. An ordinance which would arbitrarily label some of these options “discrimination,” limits diversity and robs everyone of a full expression of options.

A business owner hiring a public receptionist should be free to take appearance into account. He shouldn’t have to worry that his motives will later be second-guessed by the discrimination police. Presentation matters. Perceived identities have nothing to do with it.

A clinical psychologist, using her training and experience, may think that her client’s alternate identity is treatable. She’s not basing this decision on whether the perceived identity is male or female. That’s clinically irrelevant. But a discrimination ordinance could unleash an investigation in one case, but not the other.

A surgeon may decline to remove a perfectly functioning organ because he believes it would do harm to his patient. What gives a city the expertise to second-guess his professional judgement?

Real medical discrimination gives inferior treatment based on irrelevant factors. SOGI discrimination codes which enforce irrelevancies will not make our towns any healthier.

A father who sees an adult male follow his daughter into the locker room is rightly concerned for her privacy and safety. It is not based on the man’s perceived identity. What threatens his daughter’s dignity is the man’s maleness!

Yet both men and women have been penalized for raising such natural concerns in places where SOGI discrimination is enforced. Do we really want to be a place where fathers are at legal risk for being good fathers?

Most good citizens of Wyoming still believe that sex is a relevant factor in treating all people fairly under the law. It is unjust and harmful to businesses, organizations, and individual citizens to assume that good-faith decisions based on sexual differences are, rather, malicious discrimination based on hate and prejudice.

Exemptions for certain religious organizations, or for businesses under an arbitrary number of employees, can toss a bone to those who oppose these ordinances, but such cut-outs do not make them any less unjust.

It is insulting and irrational to criminalize legitimate responses to the real world but then grant “exemptions” that allow certain people and certain organizations to remain “criminals.” Not only would this marginalize and stigmatize many of Wyoming’s most upstanding citizens, such cut-outs are sure to be the next targets to be taken out by some future progressive “compromise.”

Evanston and the rest of Wyoming’s municipalities, should learn from the events in our capitol. Cheyenne is a cautionary tale for us all. Be in constant contact with your own city council representative. Let them know your mind on Laramie’s ordinance and ask them to inform you if there are any behind-the-scenes lobbying efforts from Wyoming Equality.

Inform yourselves of the legal and First Amendment issues involved in SOGI ordinances. Beware that their real-world impact is never as advertised. The promise to enhance diversity and toleration invariably translates to an intolerance of traditional values and the criminalization of diversity.

Prevent or Promote Suicide, not Both

Over the past 5 years Wyoming has averaged the highest suicide rate in the nation. Montana is a near second, and both are more than 8% higher than the third ranking state, Alaska. Over 24 people per 100,000 commit suicide in Wyoming. That translates to almost 142 of our youth and peers who die by their own hand each year.

For Wyoming, suicide prevention is an urgent concern.

To make matters worse, these numbers are on the rise. Wyoming’s suicide rate has increased 15% over the last five years. This increase outpaces the 11.8% increase nationwide.

Suicide Prevention, more than any other safety concern, is a battle for the mind. By making people mindful of their health and safety, we can reduce accidents and diseases by percentage points, but cannot stop them entirely. On the other hand, when you change the mind of someone considering suicide, it is 100% effective.

For this reason, suicide rates are the most direct barometer of our culture’s attitude toward life. The fact that we have seen a steady increase in suicide rates over the past 30 years tells us that something sinister is afoot. The additional fact that this national increase has doubled since 2005 should be reason enough to look to the past decade for clues.

It should be no surprise to anyone that our current surge in suicide rates roughly corresponds to nationwide efforts to promote suicide. In 1980, the Hemlock Society was founded to promote the “right to die.” Then “Dr. Death,” Jack Kevorkian, wrote a series of articles promoting physician assisted suicide.

By 1990 he performed his first public assisted suicide of a 54 year-old woman. Over the next 8 years he terminated 130 people, most after his medical license was revoked. Finally, he was convicted of 2nd degree murder and sentenced to 10-25 years. But this did not stop the death march.

In 1997 the Hemlock Society scored their first major victory. An Oregon ballot initiative was allowed to become law. For the first time in US history physicians were legally permitted to violate the Hippocratic Oath and prescribe lethal drugs for the express purpose of suicide.

Efforts to duplicate such laws in other states met defeat, after defeat. This caused the Hemlock Society to developed a new marketing campaign and change their name to Compassion and Choices in 2003. Even after this, legislative victories still eluded them. So they turned to the courts.

In 2008, a doctor, backed by the former Hemlock Society, sought to overturn Montana law by arguing a constitutional "right to die." A District Judge granted their wish, only to be overturned by the State Supreme Court. Nevertheless, that same ruling declared that state laws forbidding physician assisted suicide only applied if the suicide attempt failed. As long as the victim/patient actually dies, Montana doctors are immune from prosecution. Talk about an incentive factor!

About the same time, Washington passed a ballot initiative similar to Oregon's. Vermont in 2013 and California in 2016 passed physician assisted suicide legislatively, while Colorado passed it through Proposition 106 on last November’s ballot.

A review of this history demonstrates that the gradual increase in suicide rates beginning in the 1980s coincides with the activities of Dr. Death and the Hemlock society. It further shows that the recent surge in suicide rates coincides with the formal legalization of physician assisted suicide in 6 states.

Of course, coincidence and correlation do not prove causation. Social science is never that neat and tidy. But we would be foolish to ignore the coincidence of these trends and claim that our overall problem with suicide is unrelated to any of these developments.

Even the Oregon Health Authority, in a September 2010 News Release, noted that, “after decreasing in the 1990s, suicide rates have been increasing significantly since 2000.” They also admitted that by 2007 Oregon’s suicide rate was 35% more than the national average.(PDF photocopy here.) Today it remains 37% higher than average. This in spite of the fact that physician assisted suicides, by law, are not counted as suicides!

That being said, Wyoming makes it clear that there is no one-to-one correspondence between state laws and suicide rates. Attitudes toward suicide do not respect lines on a map. What happens in Oregon does not stay in Oregon. It not only creeps like gangrene from state to state, but through social media, and the national conversation in general, it infects the minds of all people, young and old alike.

The fact of the matter is that laws teach. Good laws teach good things; bad laws, bad things. Physician assisted suicide laws teach that one legitimate answer to suffering is self-inflicted death. They teach that some human lives are, in the eyes of the state, pointless and unworthy of suicide prevention efforts. They teach that there is nothing beyond this life which makes any amount of suffering worth enduring.

In 2014 Michelle Carter acted on the lessons taught by these laws. She texted encouragements to her boyfriend who was wanting to commit suicide, telling him to carry it out when he had second thoughts. Now he is dead of carbon monoxide poisoning, and last Friday (June 16, 2017) she was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Did we somehow expect this wouldn't happen?

We may try to quarantine the teachings of assisted suicide and tell young people a different story. But youth are not stupid. They are not known for accepting the line, “do as I say, not as I do.” In fact, young people especially, are more apt to imitate their elders than abide by empty distinctions.

Since 2005 the suicide rate for those 75-84 has only risen 5.9%, but during the same period, the suicide rate of those 55-64 rose 36%. Worse, the suicide rate of 10 to 14 year-olds jumped 51%! (CDC: Causes of Death by Age Group) The Hemlock Society wanted the elderly to have “the right to die.” They inflicted it, instead, upon their grandchildren.

Neither can you put the genie back in the bottle by restricting it to “terminal illness.” It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that we are all terminally ill. Not a single one of us is going to make it out of this life alive. For any person in the midst of suffering and depression, there is no magical line between “6 months to live” and “6 years to live.”

As anyone knows who works to help people out of depression and suicidal thoughts, it is not suffering which drives suicide, but purposeless suffering. For those who have hope and purpose, no amount of suffering can quench the desire for life.

If you want proof of that last statement, read Man’s Search for Meaning, by holocaust survivor, Viktor Frankl. This brilliant psychologist didn’t just theorize about suffering and survival, he was tested in the greatest hell ever inflicted upon humankind, and lived to tell what he learned.

Suicide concerns us all for two reasons. First, entire families and communities are hurt by the suicide of even one person. Out of love for those with suicidal thoughts, and care for all their loved ones, it is all of our business to encourage and support life in difficult times.

Second, suicide prevention concerns us because we all live on the knife’s edge. None of us are strangers to suffering and sorrow. None of us are immune from terrible thoughts. We hang by a thread called “hope.” Hope is true, hope will not disappoint. But hope is a thin life-line, and easily cut.

It is possible either to encourage hope and prevent suicide, or to whack away at hope’s thread and promote suicide. We cannot do both. I know what my purpose will be. Will you join me?