Today’s Record Eagle contained a ‘hit piece’ I knew was coming. Front page news. And with a bad picture of me.
Titled Commissioner: Pedophilia linked to Homosexuality – Comments made during official business visit, the article relates my calling “homosexuality a perversion” during a visit to the health department orientation. The visit was in the offices of Fred Keeslar, the health department director. The visit which had in attendance myself, Fred, and one other employee. A visit in which a number of things were discussed, including services we provide, the possibility of growth, and some data that demonstrated where we are (as a county) year to year in communicable diseases.
One of those diseases discussed was HIV.
The HIV discussion as I recall, brought about my own curiosity about whether national statistics and occurrences of HIV are still weighted more heavily in the homosexual community. I asked, and discovered it apparently still is.
At that point I related a PRIVATE incident. Bear in mind, it was in what I viewed as a safe environment for discussion (the health department). It was something that I was uncomfortable talking about, but felt it had relevance to the discussion. I disclosed an event from my childhood, which happened in the same venue as a ‘gays against violence’ conference on the MSU campus. It was something I told them, (the director and other employee) that I had never even related to my parents in all this time. This discussion of this incident led to a pedophilia reference. (identical to the quote further down in this writing)
Never, would I have imagined that I would have to publicly refer to it as now, for purposes of context in defending my reputation.
The reporter had called me and wanted clarification of my remarks, took a few comments and was told that I didn’t remember all of what was said, because I did not feel like relating to a newspaper reporter a sensitive childhood incident that happened at the university. However, I did advise him that this was merely ‘muckraking’, based on ‘political correctness’, and a story was being made because someone was being too sensitive, and frankly my opinions have been made known prior on such things. I assume the sensitivity that started this as an issue was coming from the one other person in the room, or a key hole spy from behind the closed door. Either way, this was hardly ( in my view) a worthwhile expense of time.
My comments before? the entire article is at http://michigantaxes.com/wordpress/2010/09/intolerance-of-intolerance-challenged-in-tc/
“In fact this argument fits in well with Sarah and some others.. You are born this way, just like blacks, are born black, women are born women, etc.. I have heard it before; “you like chocolate or you don’t.. You like the same sex ..or you don’t.. Its all natural..”
Is it? Really? What about pedophiles? What about bestiality? What about compulsive violent acts? What the heck if you are wired that way right? Why are those not acceptable? At what point is any behavior deemed destructive?
“Born that way” is not a valid argument, unless you want to open the doors to all manner of hideous offenses against humanity. A sexual preference is just that.. a preference. Which means it is controllable and by default a personal choice. And in a lifetime that is full of all manner of choices, it is one that has a lobby for it to attain special rights and privilege.”
I have had these discussions with others in the past, usually starting with a review of a comment I heard on a Larry King radio show years ago. I have written some on it to a limited extent, and I have maintained a policy of putting my name to EVERYTHING I write, publish, utter etc. It serves the public better, and keeps me in check and not going off half cocked. It provides a place where someone can judge my consistency, whether they agree with my words or not.
In fact, the way in which the reporter inserted my use of the word ‘perversion’ is an ellipsis away from being contextually accurate (yes, I acknowledge my own use of ellipses is often wrong) as it places two completely different comments together in a way that seems to challenge my ability to be consistent. One point in the article I am quoted as saying:
“Homosexuality is a perversion … but I don’t care what people do in their own bedroom”
If anyone wonders how news folk present accurate information yet can be called out as biased, I suppose this is a good example. How could I NOT sound like a mixed bag of marbles? These two vastly separate quotes come from two different parts of the phone discussion. But put together they seem contradictory. From the same article that I authored and referenced above:
“As for ME? I could care less what they do behind closed doors. But keep it there. And if they bring it out inappropriately, then they will pay the consequence. Hell, aren’t these the same people who have brought us sensitivity training, and seminars, and large scale employee training that has paralyzed workplaces across the country by creating an environment where saying a seemingly innocuous thing could result with oneself in a former employer’s parking lot, with a box of personal belongings?
Nope, don’t care.. THEY must live with the consequence of their choices. I can no more tell someone they cannot be gay, than they can tell me I must accept that they are.”
The separation of the specific verbiage missing the context behind the first remark, and adding immediately, the oft expressed view that a person’s private decisions are their own is not entirely an accurate representation of my views.
If one looks at how we naturally propagate our species, then homosexuality is a perversion. It is also a decision, in my view and not natural if propagation is desired.
Then in the article, mentioning my Twitter reference without mentioning what it said, or when, is a little misleading.
MichiganTaxes Jason Gillman
Butt sex in Military is ok now.. Yay.. #SOTU Sorry.. just don’t want to know. thank you
The context of the time, (the president’s SOTU speech) the response to, (his remark on how it was good to have the DADT polity overturned) and my follow up (Don’t care, don’t want to know) as an instantaneous answer to what I view as a mistake among many by our current federal administration.
Multiple contextual ‘errors’ exist in this article, and mislead the readers at a number of levels. The problem is not that I feel I must defend myself, but that as I warned the reporter, he was taking something that might have been ‘upsetting’ to one person and potentially bringing the emotional battle to many more in the gay community. I believe I told him it goes beyond ‘transparency’ and as I had expected, it was presented in a way that is contextually flawed and more damaging to their cause.
I feel bad that this is an issue, not for my own sake, but for those who truly believe they have been aggrieved because of the presentation.
I told him as I will repeat here, that my attitude toward gays and homosexuality does not have me using the commission seat as a soap box against the homosexual community. Frankly my ‘agenda’ if there is one, is to provide a policy setting so that statutory services can be handled most efficiently, at as little cost to the community, and to keep government OUT OF people’s personal affairs to whatever extent possible.
Communicating has been my thing. I will continue to write HERE and elsewhere on all matter of issues, and will not allow a belligerent view of my opinions to sway me from presenting the truth as I see it. This issue has reached a level of discussion that seems to beg more titillation than might be expected from a number of drunk driving arrest news articles, or bylines about who lost their puppy this week.
But if the article was intended to present my opinions as intolerant or inconsistent, or perhaps even threatening to any in the community, then it has been done in a manner that is worse than the issue it uses. While there are citizen, news, and political entities calling for unity and collaboration to solve all manner of social issues, this type of article has but one result:
To divide our community.
To be clear, I am not a victim in this. The truth is.
