Good news for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning and intersex kids who get arrested in Kentucky! Well, I mean, bad news to have been arrested, but at least there’s a policy that forbids the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice personnel, including volunteers, from using “derogatory language in a manner that conveys bias towards or hatred of the LGBTQI community” and telling “LGBTQI juveniles that they are abnormal, deviant, sinful or that they can or should change their sexual orientation or gender identity.”
When I first heard of this, I had to double-check the state. Kentucky, really? Yes, Kentucky! (My apologies to the Bluegrass State for doubting, but y’all do keep voting for Mitch McConnell.)
To anyone who volunteers to work with juvenile offenders, let me first say, Good for you! Too often, society writes these young people off as “bad kids” and once a young person finds him or herself in the system, it’s really hard to get out. And a lot of these kids are LGBT.
According to The Center for American Progress, “Though gay and transgender youth represent just 5-7 percent of the nation’s overall youth population, they compose 13-15 percent of those currently in the juvenile-justice system.”
Clearly, only a really terrible person would say, “You know what, I want to work with juvenile offenders and I want to tell the LGBT ones how gross and sinful they are as is my right as an American Christian.”
Or so argues Baptist minister David Wells, who, with the help of the gay-hating Liberty Council, is suing the DJJ because they won’t let him gay-bash the inmates with his “ministry.”
According to Liberty Council’s Mat Staver, LGBT youth involved in the criminal-justice system are a bunch of sex-crimers anyway, so it’s totally unfair to Wells that he can’t call it like he sees it.
“Many juveniles are in DJJ custody because of sexual crimes,” said Staver in a July 24 press release. “David Wells must be able to discuss what the Bible says about matters of sexuality with the juveniles he is trying to help.”
Yeah, because telling a kid, “You’re in here because you’re a damaged perv” is Biblical healing.
Staver continues, in complete hysterics, “To remove the Bible from a pastor’s hands is like removing a scalpel from a surgeon’s hands. Without it, they cannot provide healing.”
Let me just say, “All the nopes.”
Any bozo can pick up a Bible and claim to be a pastor. Being a surgeon, however, requires a medical degree, which means a lot of training and belief in science.
And let us not forget how for so long LGBT people have had the Bible used against them as a weapon. Which is what Wells wants to do. His argument is thus: “My right to hurt you trumps your right not to be hurt.” Which is bullshit. By the time young people end up in the criminal-justice system, they have already had more than their fair share of hurt. Being an LGBT kid sadly means an additional layer of pain.
So if Wells isn’t willing to sign a piece of paper that says, “I won’t use my position of authority as a minister to further victimize these kids,” then the DJJ is within its rights to say GTFO. And good riddance.
D’Anne Witkowski has been gay for pay since 2003. She’s a freelance writer and poet (believe it!). When she’s not taking on the creeps of the world, she reviews rock and roll shows in Detroit with her twin sister and teaches writing at the University of Michigan.