Psyche, Science, and Society

AirTran: The Bigot’s airline (TM)

Scott Horton reminds us of the horrifying  incident whereby a Muslim family was kicked off an AirTran flight for the crime of traveling while Muslim. Here is Scott’s article. Below it is a message I just sent to AirTran. remember, that is  AirTran: The Bigot’s airline (TM):

None Dare Call it Stupidity

By Scott Horton

CNN reports that a Muslim family is hustled off a plane after some morons misunderstand their conversation. (For the film version of this incident, check out Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay,–as usual, the most effective comedy carefully apes reality.) Note that the FBI behaves correctly and the airlines officials make asses out of themselves. This fits the recurrent pattern.

A Muslim family removed from an airliner Thursday after passengers became concerned about their conversation say AirTran officials refused to rebook them, even after FBI investigators cleared them of wrongdoing. Atif Irfan said federal authorities removed eight members of his extended family and a friend after passengers heard them discussing the safest place to sit and misconstrued the nature of the conversation.

Irfan, a U.S. citizen and tax attorney, said he was “impressed with the professionalism” of the FBI agents who questioned him, but said he felt mistreated when the airline refused to book the family for a later flight.

An incident to keep in mind next time you’re booking a flight. Remember the name of that airline: AirTran.

My message to AirTran: The Bigot’s airline (TM):

Sirs, As an American citizen, university professor, and frequent flyer, I am distressed and outraged at your airline’s bigoted actions in kicking off a Muslim family from a flight for no good reason. Even more inexcusable is your refusal to rebook them after they were cleared by the FBI.

I will remember this action when I choose an airline in the future. I will remind my traveling colleagues of your airline’s intolerant and inexcusable policies. And I will do what I can to alert the public.

I hope you will now do the right thing and publicly apologize and compensate this family. But such actions would be meaningless unless you also adopt clear nondiscriminatory policies to make sure such abuses never happen again.

Sincerely,

Let AirTran: The Bigot’s airline (TM) know what you think.

UPDATE: the media are reportiong that AirTran: the Bigot’;s Airline “apologized“:

“We regret that the issue escalated to the heightened security level it did,” AirTran said in a statement Friday afternoon. “But we trust everyone understands that the security and the safety of our passengers is paramount.” Read the full statement

They certainly made no acknowledgement that they did anything wrong. The did not discuss their refuisal to rebook the family after they were cleared by the FBI. And they have not a word about policies to prevent a recurrence. I still suggest that you let AirTran: The Bigot’s airline (TM) know what you think.

Add comment January 3rd, 2009

Accountability for torture, yes. But what about for aggressive war?

Peter Dyer challenges us anti-torture activists to not loose site of the forest for the trees. While torture is a terrible crime, the original sin, he argues, is launching a war of aggression. The movement for accountability must not stop with torture, he argues.

At one level, I agree. But it is also important to realize the importance that the struggle against torture has brought together many, including many from the military, who agree on little else. I consider it one of the most meaningful results of our protracted struggle against torture that I have had the opportunity to come to know and respect so many brave and honorable people with whom I may disagree on much, but whom we agree that torture must be opposed with our souls. Some, but not all of these people disagree with the Iraq invasion. I am honored to work with them as we disagree on other matters.

How this all figures into Dyer’s argument, I do not know. But It cannot be forgotten.

Torture & the Crime of Aggressive War

By Peter Dyer

The U.S. government’s torture of detainees in the “war on terror” can be traced directly to a Feb. 7, 2002, memo signed by President George W. Bush.

This was conclusion #1 of the recently released final report of the Senate Armed Services Committee Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody.

Thanks primarily to this document, debate concerning one of the most shameful aspects of the “war on terror” has entered the mainstream debate after years on the edges of public discourse. [For more on the report, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Torture Trail Seen Starting with Bush.”]

Torture, however, is only one of the crimes associated with the “war on terror.” A few prominent examples of other crimes waiting to be “sourced” are:

Extraordinary rendition, illegal detention, loss of habeas corpus, abuse and murder of civilians in Iraq and elsewhere, and the creation of millions of impoverished refugees.

With these crimes, the need to find the origin is every bit as imperative as with torture. But we don’t need to ask the Senate Armed Services Committee to initiate 18-month investigations for each of these as well.

The question of responsibility for these and all other war crimes, including torture, was answered over 60 years ago at Nuremberg when high-ranking Nazis were brought to account for their atrocities in World War II.

On Sept. 30, 1946, Sir Geoffrey Lawrence, president of the International Military Tribunal, read the judgment of the first Nuremberg trial, which included these memorable words:

“To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”

Torture, rendition, loss of liberties, unnecessary death and destruction are just some of the trees. Aggression is the forest.

And there can be no doubt that President George W. Bush and members of his inner circle have committed “the supreme international crime.”

The invasion of Iraq is the clearest example of American aggression associated with the “war on terror.” The invasion – launched on March 19, 2003 – violated the Nuremberg Charter (Article VI(a)), as well as the United Nations Charter (Article 2, Sec. 4 and Article 39) and U.N. Security Council Resolution #1441.

In addition, since “Operation Iraqi Freedom” violated both the Nuremberg Charter and the U.N. Charter – treaties signed and ratified by the U.S. government – the invasion also violated Article VI, Clause 2 (the Supremacy Clause) of the U.S. Constitution.

To many Americans — and to the great majority of the rest of humanity — it couldn’t be more clear: starting an unprovoked war is an outrage, both legally and morally.

It is nothing short of mass murder. It cries out for prosecution, for justice, for accountability — no matter how powerful the aggressors are.

With the Senate Armed Services Committee report, we have taken the first steps towards assigning responsibility for torture.

However if we ignore or marginalize the more fundamental crime of aggression, we risk accepting the unfortunate contemporary American assumption that aggressive war is a legitimate and useful tool of foreign policy – when employed by the U.S. President.

Until this assumption is unequivocally banished, it is likely that future U.S. administrations will repeat this “supreme” crime, further ensuring that torture and other war crimes which flow from aggression will be repeated as well.

It’s good that the debate on accountability for torture finally has entered the mainstream. But the principles of accountability and rule of law do not end with a Senate committee report.

We should be discussing the possibility of arresting and prosecuting George W. Bush and all others responsible for the unprovoked invasion of Iraq.

The search for the source of war crimes should be followed to its logical conclusion. It’s time we saw the forest as well as the trees.

*********

Peter Dyer is a freelance journalist who moved with his wife from California to New Zealand in 2004. He can be reached at p.dyer@inspire.net.nz .

Add comment January 3rd, 2009

Latin american scholars criticize Human Rights Watch report on Venezuela

Over a hundred scholars on Latin America have written an open letter to Human Rights Watch criticizing HRW’s recent report on alleged politcial suppression in Venezuela as being politically motivated, inaccurate, and based on biased and unreliable sources.

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs has posted the letter, with this introduction:

December 18, 2008

The following letter has been sent to the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch, carrying the signatures of over 100 U.S. and foreign Latin American scholars. The letter raises serious concerns over that organization’s recently issued highly critical report on the human rights situation in Venezuela and the conduct of its president, Hugo Chavez. It is now being distributed by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs to its mailing list at the request of a number of signatories of that document. COHA’s staff is taking this step (with considerable reluctance) because it feels that it is obliged for any organization committed to social justice and democratic values, to speak out regarding the dispute now raging over HRW’s recent and very controversial report on Hugo Chavez’s human rights performance.

Any reservation COHA may have had over taking issue with a sister organization was voided by the egregiously inappropriate behavior exhibited by HRW. Most specifically it was the issuance of this report and the needlessly venomous tone resorted to by HRW’s head for Latin America, Jose Miguel Vivanco. In his charges, HRW’s lead researcher and writer of the report used intemperate language and patently disingenuous tactics to field a series of anti-Chavez allegations that are excessive and inappropriate. It is not a matter that President Chavez and the Venezuelan government are above reproach—far from it. The problem is the presence of a mean-spirited tone and a lack of balance and fair play that characterizes Vivanco’s reportage and his tendentious interpretation of the alleged misdeeds of the Chavez revolution are demonstrably bereft of scale and accuracy.

The failings of Vivanco’s scholarship are strongly contested by the scholars’ letter and the research compiled by a brilliant student of contemporary Venezuela, Dr. Gregory Wilpert. His study, Smoke and Mirrors, can be found by clicking on this link: http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/3882#report

Vivanco demonstrates an inability to distinguish President Chavez’s bark from his bite; and it is a distortion to characterize the Venezuelan leader as a prime human rights violator, a charge which already has attracted a good deal of notoriety. In other words, Vivanco continuously confuses Chavez’ often shamelessly antic style for his otherwise solid, if brassy, democratic credentials. Of course, COHA’s pages will be opened for debate on these issues.

In continuing their discussion concerning the Vivanco’s HRW initiative regarding Chavez, the prevailing sentiment among many Latin Americanists, including those on COHA’s staff, is that some of Chavez’s critics, like the New York Times editorial board and Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post editorial page, have resorted to an unacceptable use of meretricious pseudo-evidence and naked anti-Chavez spleen to buttress their lashing out against the Venezuelan leader. According to the attached material, they also have resorted to the use of specious arguments and undeniable overkill, rather than a measured assessment and unassailable evidence, to make their case.

Some of Vivanco’s critics have come to believe that rather than making a fair-minded evaluation of Chavez’ undeniable shortcomings, Vivanco mainly has created a straw man and then proceeded to thunderously trash Chavez as a human rights violator, a thesis that the evidence he cites, will not admit. The matter is not so much Vivanco’s professional shortcomings as it is that it would be a shame if Human Rights Watch is permitted to become a replica of Freedom House, when throughout the Cold War the New York-based organization became a warehouse for duplicitous double standards, selective indignation and self-administered histrionics intent on establishing that, almost by definition, right-wing human rights derelictions are less condemnable than those of the left.

Larry Birns (COHA Director) and the COHA Staff

One hopes that HRW will respond seriously to this thoughtful letter. Meanwhile, fair criticism of democratic abuses in Venezuela by the government, and by the often authoritarian opposition, must continue.

Add comment December 22nd, 2008

China hospitalizing dissidents?

Reminiscent of the Soviet Union, the International Herald Tribune has a report that Chinese officials are using mental hospitals and forced drugging to deal with dissidents:

Chinese paper says whistleblowers are sent to mental wards

By Andrew Jacobs

BEIJING: Local officials in Shandong Province have apparently found a cost-effective way to deal with gadflies, whistleblowers and all manner of muckraking citizens who dare to challenge the authorities: dispatch them to the local psychiatric hospital.

According to an investigative report published Monday by a state-owned newspaper, public security officials in Xintai city have been institutionalizing residents who persist in their personal campaigns to expose corruption or to protest the unfair seizure of their property. Some people said they were committed up to two years, and several of those interviewed said they had been forced to consume psychiatric medication.

The article, in The Beijing News, said most inmates had been released after they agreed to give up their causes.

Sun Fawu, 57, a farmer seeking compensation for land spoiled by a coal mining operation, said he was seized by the local authorities on his way to petition the central government in Beijing and brought to the Xintai Mental Health Center in October.

During a 20-day stay, he said he was tied to a bed, forced to take pills and given injections that made him numb and woozy. When he told the doctor he was a petitioner, not mentally ill, the doctor reportedly said, “I don’t care if you’re sick or not. As long as you are sent by the township government, I’ll treat you as a mental patient.”

In an interview with the paper, the hospital’s director, Wu Yuzhu, acknowledged that some of the 18 patients brought there by the police in recent years were not deranged, but he had no choice but to take them in. “The hospital also had its misgivings,” he said.

Although China is not known for the kind of systematic abuse of psychiatry that occurred in the Soviet Union, human rights advocates say forced institutionalizations are not uncommon in smaller cities. Robin Munro, the research director of China Labour Bulletin, a rights organization in Hong Kong, said such “an kang” wards - Chinese for peace and health - are a convenient and effective means of dealing with pesky dissidents.

In recent years practitioners of Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement, have complained of coerced hospitalizations and one of China’s best-known dissidents, Wang Wanxing, spent 13 years in a police-run psychiatric facility under conditions he later described as abusive.

In one recent, well-publicized case, Wang Jingmei , the mother of a man convicted of killing six policemen in Shanghai, was held incommunicado at a mental hospital for five months and only released last Sunday, the day before her son was executed.

The Beijing News story about the hospitalizations in Xintai was notable for the traction it gained in China’s constrained state-run media. Such Communist Party stalwarts as People’s Daily and the Xinhua news agency republished the story, and it was picked up by scores of Web sites. At the country’s most popular portal, Sina.com, it ranked the fifth most-viewed news headline and readers posted more than 20,000 comments by evening. The indignation expressed was universal, with many clamoring for the dismissal of those involved. “They’re no different than animals,” read one post. “No, they’re worse.”

Reached by phone on Monday, a hospital employee said Wu, the hospital director who voiced his misgivings to The Beijing News, was unavailable. The employee, Hu Peng, said local government officials had taken him away for “a meeting” earlier in the day and had also looked through patient records.

Although Hu said the hospital was not authorized to diagnose patients, he nonetheless defended the hospitalizations, saying that all the patients delivered by the Public Security Bureau were certifiably ill. “We definitely would not accept those without mental problems,” he said.

Add comment December 8th, 2008

Harvard Law students take on Jack Goldsmith’s protection of US torturers

Recently, Jack Goldsmith wrote a Washington Post op-ed opposing any further investigations or accountability for US torture. Goldsmith is well known as the attorney, who as head of the “Justice” Department Office of Legal Counsel rescinded the Yoo-Bybee memos legalizing torture. Less well known is that, in the process, Goldsmith said that all the actions ["torture" in normal language] were still legal, though the rationales under which they were undertaken were flawed. thus, tortre was fine, but Yoo-Bybee’s legal reasoning was not. Unfortunately, as a consesequence, Goldsmith got an undeserved reputation as an torture opponent. He is now using that reputation to help protect the torturers and keeep their secrets secret.

It has fallen to a few brave Harvard Law School students to denounce Goldsmith’s argument in the Harvard Law Record [Note: Goldsmith is now a professor at Harvard Law School]:

Obama administration must investigate Bush era conduct in the War on Terror

By Katherine Glenn, Anna Myles-Primakoff, and the Board of the HLS Advocates for Human Rights

Last week, Professor Jack Goldsmith published an opinion piece in the Washington Post in which he argued that the Obama administration should not conduct any new investigations into the Bush administration’s authorization of its “harsh, abusive and illegal interrogation program.” Goldsmith, who was an United States Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush Adminstration, believes that new investigations into this authorization of torture are unnecessary because we already know most of the story behind the approval of this program and, worse, any new inquiries could compromise national security by “spooking” the intelligence community, making them hesitant to undertake important counterterrorism actions. He also believes that those who “made mistakes” have already been held accountable through severe criticism and loss to their reputations and finances.

Goldsmith’s piece has already been critiqued by a number of analysts and commentators. But his article is particularly troubling for some of us at Harvard Law School who do not share his views. It misrepresents the actions that led to the authorization of torture, it ignores the legal significance of those actions, and it neglects the value that proper investigation and punishment of those actions would have.

Claiming that there is no reason to investigate because those likely to be implicated have already suffered enough is not particularly convincing, given the gravity of the wrongdoing in question.

Reading the now-infamous “torture memos,” in which U.S. and international laws were stretched, bent, and twisted in order to put a legal varnish on the use of interrogation methods well-established as torture, suggests more than a simple “mistake.” The men and women who crafted the legal arguments justifying the use of torture as state policy are intelligent and highly-trained lawyers, who knew and understood the law well. Signing off on interrogation techniques like waterboarding and the use of attack dogs cannot be credibly characterized as actions that “seemed reasonable at the time but now seem inappropriate.” These facts all suggest deliberate distortion of the law to justify patently illegal actions.

The torture memos in particular indicate that, at the very least, the ethical obligations of the legal profession were breached. However, approving the use of torture during interrogations is more than just an ethical violation; it is a war crime that, under the laws of this country, calls for prosecution. An investigation is required to determine who, if anyone, should be charged. The fact that some of the individuals involved have suffered damage to their reputation and finances is no substitute for appropriate punishment if a crime has been committed. To argue otherwise is to suggest that the rule of law does not apply to those at the highest levels of government.

Furthermore, Goldsmith’s argument that further investigation will lead the decision-makers in our military and intelligence agencies to “lawyer up” and behave more cautiously, to the detriment of national security, ignores the fact that the “airtight legal opinions” given by the Justice Department were clearly distorted interpretations of the law. One of the lessons we have learned from the machinations of the Bush administration during the War on Terror is that legal practitioners must be able to give advice-even on highly sensitive issues-without undue political influence.

The Office of Legal Counsel is intended to advise the president on what actions he or she may legally take, not to craft shamefully twisted legal arguments to justify whatever action the president wishes to take. An investigation into what went on sends the message that legal advice must be reliable, consistent and non-politicized. Rather than making national security officials skittish, investigation and prosecution of those responsible for the authorization of torture should have the opposite effect: in the future, officials could feel confident that the legal advice they were given would stand up to future scrutiny, because distorted, “rubber stamp” legal advice will no longer be acceptable.

In claiming that further action on these issues would bring “little benefit,” Goldsmith fails to recognize the value that thorough investigations, followed by prosecution where required, would have both at home and abroad. Notably absent from Goldsmith’s analysis is the potential benefit that such an investigation might have for the many people who were illegally detained and tortured at the hands of United States officials. Investigations would provide an opportunity to begin to make amends to those who were harmed-and in some cases, killed-by the illegal actions of our government. Moreover, investigations would provide the American public with the truth about what exactly was done in their name, and by whom. Such a process can further enhance security by restoring our badly damaged international reputation.

We must reaffirm our commitment to the rule of law, not only to demonstrate that no one in this country is above it, but also to show the world that fighting terrorism does not require the abandonment of our most dearly-held principles.

Add comment December 4th, 2008

Judge called Mukasey “Tyrant” before AG collapsed

Impassioned dissent on Bush administration apologists now extends to senior judges. It turns out that right before Attorney General Mukasey collapsed, a Washington State Supreme Court jusge yelled “Tyrant!” at him, in protest of Mukasey’s defense of detainee treatment. Elsewhere I read that the judge in question was a member of the conservative Federalist society, where Mukasey was speaking. More and more conservatives can no longer quietly accept this administration’s shredding of the Constitution, international law, and human rights:

Judge yelled ‘tyrant’ at Mukasey before his collapse

By Nick Juliano

Before Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed last week at a speech to the conservative Federalist Society, one audience member could not contain his disapproval with the speech’s subject matter.

Mukasey’s defense of President Bush’s policies on prisoner treatment and their indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay was too much for Washington State Supreme Court Judge Richard Sanders.

He shouted, “Tyrant! You are a tyrant!”

Sanders acknowledged his conduct in an interview with The Seattle Times.

“Frankly, everybody in the room was applauding or sometimes laughing, and I thought, ‘I’ve got to stand up and say something.’ And I did,” he told the paper. “I stood up and said, ‘Tyrant,’ then I sat down again, then I left.”

The outburst came well before Mukasey’s collapse and likely did not contribute to it. Sanders left before the end of Mukasey’s speech because he wasn’t enjoying himself, he told the paper.

While he regrets shouting at the country’s top law enforcement officer, Sanders says he still believes the policies Mukasey was advocating — namely that the US is not obligated to adhere to the Geneva conventions in battling al Qaeda — could lead to “tyranny.” In the speech, Mukasey argued that because the international terrorist group didn’t sign the convention, the US shouldn’t be bound by them, but Sanders said that wasn’t the point.

“I didn’t sign the Geneva Conventions, you didn’t sign the Geneva Conventions, but the United States did sign the Conventions,” he told the Times. “And that’s the point, isn’t it?”

Add comment November 26th, 2008

Accountability: Newsweek on Truth Commission

Newsweek on a torture Commission of Inquiry (Truth Commission):

Obama to Take On Torture?

By Michael Isikoff
[From the magazine issue dated Dec 1, 2008]

Despite the hopes of many human-rights advocates, the new Obama Justice Department is not likely to launch major new criminal probes of harsh interrogations and other alleged abuses by the Bush administration. But one idea that has currency among some top Obama advisers is setting up a 9/11-style commission that would investigate counterterrorism policies and make public as many details as possible. “At a minimum, the American people have to be able to see and judge what happened,” said one senior adviser, who asked not to be identified talking about policy matters. The commission would be empowered to order the U.S. intelligence agencies to open their files for review and question senior officials who approved “waterboarding” and other controversial practices.

Obama aides are wary of taking any steps that would smack of political retribution. That’s one reason they are reluctant to see high-profile investigations by the Democratic-controlled Congress or to greenlight a broad Justice inquiry (absent specific new evidence of wrongdoing). “If there was any effort to have war-crimes prosecutions of the Bush administration, you’d instantly destroy whatever hopes you have of bipartisanship,” said Robert Litt, a former Justice criminal division chief during the Clinton administration. A new commission, on the other hand, could emulate the bipartisan tone set by Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton in investigating the 9/11 attacks. The 9/11 panel was created by Congress. An alternative model, floated by human-rights lawyer Scott Horton, would be a presidential commission similar to the one appointed by Gerald Ford in 1975 and headed by Nelson Rockefeller that investigated cold-war abuses by the CIA.

The idea of such panels is not universally favored among Obama advisers. Some with ties to the intelligence community fear the demoralizing impact on intelligence officers, said one source who had discussions with Obama aides about the idea. But during the campaign, both Obama and Eric Holder, slated to be nominated as attorney general, sharply criticized the use of torture and the legal rulings that permitted them. Holder called some Bush counterterror policies “excessive and unlawful.”

The legal rulings on interrogation are among matters being reviewed by an Obama transition team headed by David W. Ogden, once chief of staff to former attorney general Janet Reno. The team has already moved into the first floor of Justice. Detainee policies are an even stickier issue—underscored last week when a federal judge ordered the release of five Bosnians held at Guantánamo Bay. Obama is committed to shutting down Gitmo. But his advisers are wrestling with what to do about the remaining 250 detainees there, especially those considered dangerous. Obama is unlikely to continue the military tribunals started by President Bush. One idea his advisers are exploring is the creation of new national-security courts. But a spokesman for Obama’s transition team said that decisions on all of these issues won’t be made till after the new national-security team is in place.

Add comment November 23rd, 2008

Novel: The Last Prisoner — Susan Beth Miller

Psychologist and published novelist Susan Beth Miller has posted extensive portions of a novel about torture online after having it rejected by several publishers. Here is her description of it:

My blog includes an intro to my novel, Indigo Rose,(Bantam Dell, 2005) and portions of a new novel, The Last Prisoner, the story of four men who interrogate and abuse (torture) a political prisoner in a South American jail, who later must decide whether to appear before an amnesty commission. I have published four psychology books plus the novel, but The Last Prisoner appears to be unpublishable due to its grim content. I believe the novel has some value, especially after Abu Ghraib.

Read the novel here.

Add comment November 18th, 2008

Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales indicted in S. Texas!

This time at least, its for abuses in the US:

Dick Cheney, Alberto Gonzales indicted in S. Texas
Charges related to alleged abuse of prisoners in federal detention centers

Associated Press

McALLEN, Texas — A South Texas grand jury has indicted Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County’s federal detention centers.

The indictment criticizes Cheney’s investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and “at least misdemeanor assaults” on detainees by working through the prison companies.

Gonzales is accused of using his position while in office to stop an investigation into abuses at the federal detention centers.

Another indictment charges state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. with profiting from his public office by accepting honoraria from prison management companies.

The indictments were first reported by KRGV-TV.

Add comment November 18th, 2008

LA Times: Psychologists shouldn’t help church screen out gay priests

The Los Angeles Times editorialized on the ethics of psychologists helping the Catholic Church screen out gay priests. As they state:

Pope’s new edict on the priesthood
How can psychologists ethically help the Catholic Church screen out gay priests?

Los Angeles Times, November 17, 2008

The Roman Catholic Church requires its priests to refrain from any sexual relationship, whether heterosexual or homosexual. So one might think that the sexual orientation of an aspirant for the priesthood would be a nonissue — especially in light of the distinction the church has drawn between homosexual conduct, which is considered sinful, and homosexual orientation, which is not.

One would be wrong.

The Vatican recently issued a statement re-emphasizing that even chaste gay men are to be barred from the priesthood. Never mind that large numbers of gay priests — estimates range from 25% to 50% — already serve the faithful, with most adhering to their vow of celibacy.

“Guidelines for the Use of Psychology in the Admission and Formation of Candidates for the Priesthood,” released Oct. 30 by the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, not only reiterates the teaching that men with “deep-seated” homosexual tendencies are unworthy of ordination, it also urges seminaries to enlist the aid of psychologists in screening candidates for homosexuality and other “psychic disturbances.”

Yet even if the U.S. church is following a more compassionate policy than Vatican pronouncements would seem to authorize, the role of psychologists in screening applicants raises troubling ethical questions, as even psychologists who approve of such cooperation admit. Aiding the church in weeding out homosexuals is hard to reconcile with these guidelines of the American Psychological Assn.:

“Psychologists are aware of and respect cultural, individual and role differences, including those based on age, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language and socioeconomic status, and consider these factors when working with members of such groups. Psychologists try to eliminate the effect on their work of biases based on those factors, and they do not knowingly participate in or condone activities of others based upon such prejudices.”

If the church — or a diocese within the church — takes the Vatican decree literally, it’s hard to see how a psychologist could lend his or her expertise to the thwarting of a young man’s aspiration to serve God simply because he happens to be gay. In our view, that’s not just cruel; it’s unprofessional.

An additional issue regarding such “screening” is that it is questionable that psychologists have a valid way of determining who is “gay” that would not generate many false positives.

Here is the whole editorial:

The Vatican’s hard line against chaste gay priests seems to be inspired by the condemnation the church justly received for its passive response to the sexual abuse of minors — most of them male — by some priests. But, as Pope Benedict XVI conceded during his visit to the United States this year, homosexuality isn’t the same as pedophilia. That statement was a rebuke to conservative Catholics, and others, who have attempted to equate the two. (Despite the pope’s enlightened comments, he approved last month’s statement.)

Obviously, the church must be free to define the qualifications for its clergy based on theological arguments that many outside (and within) the fold find unpersuasive. In this country, the 1st Amendment allows the church to bar homosexuals from the priesthood, just as it does women. But even many Catholics will be horrified by the idea of the church employing psychologists to “out” prospective priests. Nor is it much comfort that the psychological scrutiny will be voluntary. What young man who feels called to the priesthood will feel free to object?

To be fair, the Roman Catholic Church in the United States — including the Archdiocese of Los Angeles — operates under its own guidelines for the screening of prospective priests, which can include consultations with psychologists. Although the U.S. policy professes to adhere to Vatican pronouncements (and was approved by the pope), it seems to adopt a narrower definition of “deep-seated” homosexual inclination, one that allows gays to be ordained as long as their sexual orientation doesn’t interfere with their ministry.

Yet even if the U.S. church is following a more compassionate policy than Vatican pronouncements would seem to authorize, the role of psychologists in screening applicants raises troubling ethical questions, as even psychologists who approve of such cooperation admit. Aiding the church in weeding out homosexuals is hard to reconcile with these guidelines of the American Psychological Assn.:

“Psychologists are aware of and respect cultural, individual and role differences, including those based on age, gender, gender identity, race, ethnicity, culture, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, language and socioeconomic status, and consider these factors when working with members of such groups. Psychologists try to eliminate the effect on their work of biases based on those factors, and they do not knowingly participate in or condone activities of others based upon such prejudices.”

If the church — or a diocese within the church — takes the Vatican decree literally, it’s hard to see how a psychologist could lend his or her expertise to the thwarting of a young man’s aspiration to serve God simply because he happens to be gay. In our view, that’s not just cruel; it’s unprofessional.

Add comment November 17th, 2008