SUMMARY: The hit Broadway play “Choir Boy” chronicles an African-American prep school and its star pupil, the choir boy, who happens to be gay. Written by Tarell McCraney, a MacArthur Fellowship recipient, the play explores themes not often addressed publicly within the black community or outside it. Jeffrey Brown sits down with McCraney to discuss what it means to bring important voices to the stage.
SUMMARY: A Muslim academic recently opened a gay- and women-friendly mosque in Cape Town, South Africa, which was largely regarded as a response to the culture of exclusion and conservatism in the Muslim faith. And despite receiving death threats and fierce criticism, experts say the house of worship's policies represent an adaptation of centuries-old traditions. Martin Seemungal reports.
MARTIN SEEMUNGAL (NewsHour): The call to prayer at Cape Towns newest mosque, which advertises itself as one of a kind in South Africa.
TAJ HARGEY: We are the only mosque by the way in the whole country that has the words all welcome. We chose the name open mosque to really identify what the mosque was about—it was open to all.
MARTIN SEEMUNGAL: Sixty-year-old Taj Hargey is the man behind this new mosque– a mosque he sees worthy of being replicated in other parts of the world.
Hargey says his mosque is open to non-muslims, homosexuals—women are allowed to preach from the pulpit—they pray side by side with the men.
Tanweer is one of the few who prays here regularly ever since the Mosque opened last September.
TANWEER: I come to this mosque every week because this is the only mosque that I know of where there’s equality in the genders, where females sit and can actually view the sermon from the front and we’re considered equals to men.
MARTIN SEEMUNGAL: A counter, he says, to the daily stream of news and images that portray Islam as extremist and violent.
In fact, Hargey has been challenging Muslim orthodoxy for years.
Born and raised in Cape Town Hargey went abroad and studied at Oxford-he has a PHD in Religious studies.
He made headlines in Britain last year because of his ‘ban the burqa’ campaign.
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TAJ HARGEY: This idea of face masking (burqa), if its an Islamic practice. Why is it banned in mecca? No woman which goes to mecca the holiest mosque in Islam is allowed to cover her face—so this notion that is an Islamic practice with due respect is nonsense..it may be a cultural expression..fine..it may be a personal wish..fine—If I want to put a bone through my nose—I have a right..but then do I have a right to say a bone through my nose is an Islamic thing?
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): Celebrities, athletes and politicians have increasingly gone public about their sexual orientation. But the corporate closet has mostly remained closed.
Today, Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, opened that door a but more, declaring in an essay for Bloomberg Businessweek he is gay.
“While I have never denied my sexuality, I haven’t publicly acknowledged it either until now,” he wrote. “So let me be clear. I’m proud to be gay and I consider being gay among the greatest gifts God has given me.”
Cook becomes the most prominent business leader to come out, but what difference will it make?
Kara Swisher, who has long covered the tech industry and is co-executive editor of the tech news website re/code, joins me now.
So, Kara, in this day and age, why does what Tim Cook had to say matter?
KARA SWISHER, re/code: Well, he is the most prominent executive in tech, and he’s running the most valuable company in the world.
And so he has a lot of prominence, and this is a big deal for him to come out and say that. And the fact that no Fortune 500 executive has done this is a milestone.
GWEN IFILL: So, why now? Tell us about Tim Cook.
KARA SWISHER: I don’t think there was an occasion. He didn’t just decide, like, wake up this morning.
This is something — he’s been out among his friends, as he wrote, but he had never acknowledged it in public. And people have been talking about it in Silicon Valley a lot. There was a lot of hubbub a couple of months ago when a CNBC exchange discussed it. Everybody knows he’s gay and stuff like that.
And I think he just wanted — he’s been moving slowly towards it. He’s been making — he appeared at the Gay Pride Festival here in San Francisco this year. He made a speech just recently about gay and lesbian rights related to Alabama, where here’s from.
So he’s been moving towards this very clearly. And I think probably he just woke up and said enough. I will just acknowledge it and say it and it’s not a big deal. And me holding back probably makes it more of a big deal.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): Now, possible signals that the Roman Catholic Church may be softening its attitudes on gays and divorced Catholics. That’s what some observers are taking from a report out today marking the midway point of a two-week meeting of bishops at the Vatican.
Joining us from Rome to fill us in on all this is John Allen. He covers the Vatican and the Catholic Church for The Boston Globe and its Web site, Crux. He also serves as senior Vatican analyst for CNN.
John Allen, welcome back to the “NewsHour.”
I was just reading, some gay rights groups are calling this a seismic change in a positive direction. How do you see it?
JOHN ALLEN, The Boston Globe: Well, Judy, I think it’s important to be clear about what this is and what it is not.
What it is not is a change in Catholic teaching on marriage. The bishops at this gathering, which is called a synod, have made it abundantly clear there is not going to be any change in Catholic doctrine, which is that marriage is a relationship between a man and woman that is permanent and it’s open to life.
Now, that said, the bishops have also made clear that they want a more positive way of engaging people who don’t live that teaching, whether we’re talking about gays and lesbians, whether we’re talking about people who are cohabitating outside a marriage, whether it’s people who have divorced and remarried or whatever.
They don’t want the first thing they hear from the Catholic Church to be a note of condemnation. They want it to be a note of friendship and then, after that, we will see where the conversation goes. So, fundamentally, this is a change in tone, rather than a change in content. But given the fact that gays and lesbians in particular have become quite accustomed to hearing messages of condemnation and disapproval from the Catholic Church, I guess, you know, you could call that a seismic change in tonality, if not a dramatic change in content.
RACHEL TUTERA: My gender identity is really based in both my experiences as a woman– and also it’s just deeply rooted in the f– the fact that I’m masculine…
IVETTE FELICIANO (NewsHour): Rachel Tutera says it wasn’t until she started wearing boy’s clothes as a pre-teen, that she started to feel like the most authentic version of herself. Yet the 29-year-old says shopping for clothes in the men’s department left her feeling insecure and self-conscious. Nothing ever fit her proportions. So she was resigned to thinking that’s just the way it was.
RACHEL TUTERA: I got used to wearing clothes that hid me. I thought I would just end up being someone who would prefer to be overlooked, or not worth sort of a second glance.
RACHEL TUTERA: “Typically you show a little bit of cuff …”
IVETTE FELICIANO: After years of frustration shopping off the rack, Tutera decided to purchase her first tailored men’s suit…and she says the way she felt when she tried it on changed her life.
RACHEL TUTERA: Having something custom-made for my body basically reintroduced me to my body and I have felt, like, incredibly visible in a way that’s not just causing people to take a second look at me, but I think people see me in a way that may actually be aligned with how I see myself. And that has been the most, like, powerful, mind-blowing thing.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): The professor football player draft isn’t until May, but the news today about one potential prospect has meaning that promises to go far wider in the league and in professional sports.
MICHAEL SAM, NFL prospect: I came to tell the world that I’m an openly, proud gay man.
JUDY WOODRUFF: University of Missouri football star Michael Sam broke the news Sunday night in interviews with ESPN’s “Outside the Lines,” The New York Times, and Outsports.
MICHAEL SAM: It is a load off my chest. I told my teammates this past August that — I came out to my teammates. And they took it great. They rallied around me.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The All American defensive end now stands to become the National Football League’s first openly gay active player after the draft takes place in May. Sam says he hopes his sexual orientation will be a nonissue.
MICHAEL SAM: It shouldn’t matter.
If I can — if I work hard, if I make plays, that is all that should matter. Can they — can he help us win games? Is he a team play ever? That’s all that should matter.
Nick Rhoades was clerking at a Family Video store in Waverly, Iowa, one summer afternoon in 2008 when three armed detectives appeared, escorted him to a local hospital and ordered nurses to draw his blood. A dozen miles away, his mother and stepfather looked on as local sheriff’s deputies searched their home for drugs — not illegal drugs, but lifesaving prescription medications.
Lab results and a bottle of pills found in the Rhoades’ refrigerator confirmed the detectives’ suspicions: Nick Rhoades was HIV-positive.
Almost a year later, in a Black Hawk County courtroom, Judge Bradley Harris peered down at Rhoades from his bench.
“One thing that makes this case difficult is you don’t look like our usual criminals,” Harris said. “Often times for the court it is easy to tell when someone is dangerous. They pull the gun. They have done an armed robbery. But you created a situation that was just as dangerous as anyone who did that.”
The judge meted out Rhoades’ sentence: 25 years in prison.
His crime: having sex without first disclosing he had HIV.
Officially, the charge, buried in Chapter 709 of the Iowa code, is “criminal transmission of HIV.” But no transmission had occurred. The man Rhoades had sex with, 22-year-old Adam Plendl, had not contracted the virus.
That’s not a surprise, because Rhoades used a condom.
And medical records show he was taking antiviral drugs that suppressed his HIV, making transmission extremely unlikely. A national group of AIDS public health officials later submitted a brief estimating that the odds of Rhoades infecting Plendl were “likely zero or near zero.”
After his lawyers petitioned the court, Rhoades’ prison sentence was changed to five years’ probation. But for the rest of his life — he is 39 — he will remain registered as an aggravated sex offender who cannot be alone with anyone under the age of 14, not even his nieces and nephews.
Rhoades’ is not an isolated case. Over the last decade, there have been at least 541 cases in which people were convicted of, or pleaded guilty to, criminal charges for not disclosing that they were HIV-positive, according to a ProPublica analysis of records from 19 states. The national tally is surely higher, because at least 35 states have laws that specifically criminalize exposing another person to HIV. In 29 states, it is a felony. None of the laws require transmission to occur.
Defendants in these cases were often sentenced to years — sometimes decades — in prison, even when they used a condom or took other precautions against infecting their partners. In 60 cases for which extensive documentation could be obtained, ProPublica found just four involving complainants who actually became infected with HIV. Even in such cases, it can be hard to prove who transmitted the virus without genetic tests matching the accused’s HIV strain to their accuser’s.
People with HIV have even done time for spitting, scratching or biting. According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, spitting and scratching cannot transmit HIV, and transmission through biting “is very rare and involves very specific circumstances” — namely, “severe trauma with extensive tissue damage and the presence of blood.”
Many law enforcement officials and legislators defend these laws, saying they deter people from spreading the virus and set a standard for disclosure and precautions in an ongoing epidemic.
“Shifting the burden of HIV disclosure from the infected person, who is aware of a known danger, to one who is completely unaware of their partner’s condition smacks of a ‘blame the victim’ sort of mentality,” Jerry Vander Sanden, a prosecutor in Linn County, Iowa, wrote in an email to ProPublica. “It would be like telling a rape victim that they should have been more careful.”
Even many people with HIV support the laws. In a recent survey of HIV-positive people in New Jersey, 90 percent said that people with the virus bore most of the responsibility to protect their partners. More than half approved of the kind of laws that resulted in Rhoades’ sentence.
But some health and legal experts say using criminal penalties to curtail the epidemic could backfire and fuel the spread of HIV. According to the CDC, 1.1 million Americans are currently living with HIV, but one-fifth of them don’t know it. And studies show that about half of newly infected people got the virus from those who didn’t know they had HIV. So relying on a partner to know, let alone disclose, their HIV status is a risky proposition.
The laws, these experts say, could exacerbate this problem: If people can be imprisoned for knowingly exposing others to HIV, their best defense may be ignorance. Such laws, then, provide a powerful disincentive for citizens to get tested and learn if they carry the virus.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed a law on Monday barring licensed therapists from trying to turn gay teenagers straight, the latest example of the potential 2016 presidential candidate steering a moderate course.
The Republican governor said the health risks of trying to change a child’s sexual orientation, as identified by the American Psychological Association, trump concerns over the government setting limits on parental choice. “Government should tread carefully into this area,” he said in the signing note, “and I do so here reluctantly.”
The decision marked the third time this month that Christie has staked out a moderate position on a hotbutton social issue as he seeks a second term in a Democratic- leaning state. It also offers more evidence that the governor is positioning himself as a pragmatist who shuns more conservative elements within his party.
Christie found middle ground on medical marijuana for children when he agreed Friday to allow growers to cultivate additional strains, and for marijuana to be made in an edible form for chronically ill children.
But he would not lift an oversight provision that could require as many as three doctors to sign off on a prescription.
Last week, Christie vetoed a bill banning .50-caliber rifles that was vigorously opposed by firearms rights advocates and gutted a proposed overhaul of the state’s gun permit law that relied on undeveloped technology.
Recently, he signed 10 less-significant gun measures the Democratic-led Legislature passed after last year’s deadly school shooting rampage in Newtown, Conn. The decisions allow Christie to quiet some of the criticism he could face from conservatives by offering specific reasons why he was taking the steps, often citing compassion for the needs of children and families.
His approval of the conversion therapy ban could be met with criticism in Christian conservative circles with influence in early voting states like Iowa and South Carolina.
In signing the ban, Christie reiterated his belief that people are born gay and homosexuality is not a sin, a position he first stated in a 2011 interview with CNN’s Piers Morgan.
Christie said on “issues of medical treatment for children, we must look to experts in the field to determine the relative risks and rewards,” citing a litany of potential ill effects of trying to change sexual orientation, including depression, drug abuse and suicide.
“I believe that exposing children to these health risks without clear evidence of benefits that outweigh these serious risks is not appropriate,” he said.
Christie, however, has not moderated his position on gay marriage, which he vetoed and continues to oppose.
As a result, gay rights activists applauded Monday’s bill signing but pushed for more.
SUMMARY: Author and journalist Jeff Chu joins Ray Suarez to talk about his personal journey coming to terms with being Christian and gay. In his book, "Does Jesus Really Love Me?", Chu discusses the choices made by gay Christians trying to reconcile their lives, identities and faith.
JEFF CHU, Author, "Does Jesus Really Love Me?": I think, for some people who have ended up on the atheist/agnostic part of the religious spectrum, they feel a sense of triumph. They feel like reason has won out.
That's not where I have ended up. I have tried to hang onto my faith, because it is very important to me. I think the conclusion that I have that is that we can't make these decisions for anyone else. We're not talking about something that's rational when we're talking about faith. There is an element of the absurd in it. Kierkegaard talks about that in his writings. Faith is not a rational process.
RAY SUAREZ (Newshour): A new survey provides one of the largest and most complex portraits of what life is like today for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans. The sweeping survey conducted by the Pew Research Center spanned topics including political views, social stigmas and the difficulties of coming out.
It finds growing acceptance in the U.S. of the LGBT community; 92 percent of those surveyed said they agreed with that. Yet 53 percent of gay Americans say there is still discrimination. The survey was done just weeks before the Supreme Court decision and was released during Pride Month.
A short time ago, President Obama spoke at a Pride Month event at the White House about those changing attitudes.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: From Minnesota to Maryland, from the United States Senate to the NBA, it's clear we're reaching a turning point.
We have -- we have become not just more accepting. We have become more loving as a country and as a people. Heart and minds change with time. Laws do, too.
Change like that isn't something that starts here in Washington, but it's something that has the power that Washington has a great deal of difficulty resisting over time.
RAY SUAREZ: For more on all this, we turn to Paul Taylor, executive vice president of the Pew Research Center and co-author of the LGBT survey, and Gary Gates, distinguished scholar at the Williams center at UCLA and co-author of the "Gay and Lesbian Atlas."
SUMMARY: In San Francisco, city employees are preparing for a rush of same-sex marriage applications in case the Supreme Court strikes down Proposition 8, which banned marriage for anyone except between a man and a woman. Spencer Michels looks at the history of California's fight on same-sex marriage and previews the court's decision.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): For the first time, an active male player in the four major professional sports today announced publicly he's gay. Pro basketball's Jason Collins put it this way: "I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay."
Jeffrey Brown looks at his decision and the reaction.
JEFFREY BROWN (Newshour): The news came first in Collins' own account on Sports Illustrated's website.
He wrote: "If I had my way, someone else would have already done this. Nobody has, which is why I'm raising my hand."
The seven-foot Collins is now 34 and a free agent. He played for the Washington Wizards and Boston Celtics this season, his 12th in the league. In his "Sports Illustrated" account, he pointed to this month's attack in Boston, saying: "It reinforced the notion that I shouldn't wait for the circumstances of my coming out to be perfect. Things can change in an instant, so why not live truthfully?"
Reaction appeared largely positive. Doc Rivers, coach of Boston Celtics, said in a statement: "I'm extremely happy and proud of Jason Collins. He is a pro's pro."
Los Angeles superstar Kobe Bryant tweeted his encouragement: "Proud of Jason Collins. Don't suffocate you are who you are because of the ignorance of others."
Since there is no binding authority in the Communion, these international bodies are a vehicle for consultation and persuasion. In recent years, persuasion has tipped over into debates over conformity in certain areas of doctrine, discipline, worship, and ethics. The most notable example has been the objection of many provinces of the Communion (particularly in Africa and Asia) to the changing role of homosexuals in the North American churches (e.g., by blessing same-sex unions and ordaining and consecrating gays and lesbians in same-sex relationships), and to the process by which changes were undertaken. Those who objected condemned these actions as unscriptural, unilateral, and without the agreement of the Communion prior to these steps being taken. In response, the American Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada answered that the actions had been undertaken after lengthy scriptural and theological reflection, legally in accordance with their own canons and constitutions and after extensive consultation with the provinces of the Communion.
VICE PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN: I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men and women are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.
And quite frankly, I don't see much of a distinction beyond that.
JUDY WOODRUFF (Newshour): The U.S. military closes the books on "don't ask, don't tell." Navy Lieutenant Gary Ross and his partner celebrated the end of "don't ask, don't tell" with a Vermont wedding just after midnight, when repeal officially took effect.
Being gay in this Southern city was once a lonely existence. Most people kept their sexuality to themselves, and they were reminded of the dangers of being openly gay when a gay church was bombed in the 1980s. These days, there are eight churches that openly welcome gay worshipers. One even caters to couples with children.
The changes may seem surprising for a city where churches that have long condemned homosexuality remain a powerful force. But as demographers sift through recent data releases from the Census Bureau, they have found that Jacksonville is home to one of the biggest populations of gay parents in the country.
In addition, the data show, child rearing among same-sex couples is more common in the South than in any other region of the country, according to Gary Gates, a demographer at the University of California, Los Angeles. Gay couples in Southern states like Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are more likely to be raising children than their counterparts on the West Coast, in New York and in New England.
The pattern, identified by Mr. Gates, is also notable because the families in this region defy the stereotype of a mainstream gay America that is white, affluent, urban and living in the Northeast or on the West Coast.
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Black or Latino gay couples are twice as likely as whites to be raising children, according to Mr. Gates, who used data from a Census Bureau sampling known as the American Community Survey. They are also more likely than their white counterparts to be struggling economically.
JIM LEHRER (Editor, Newshour): In fact, the report found that 92 percent of troops who have worked with a gay comrade said the experience was good, very good or had no impact on operations.
And, regardless, both Gates and Mullen said everyone in uniform knows orders must be obeyed.
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JIM LEHRER: Senate Democrats have pledged to bring up repeal again in the current lame-duck session. The Senate Armed Services Committee will hold hearings this week on the Pentagon report. But, if the full Senate does not act, the issue will likely die when Republicans regain control of the House next year.
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GEN. CARTER HAM, co-chairman, Don't Ask, Don't Tell Study: I do. I think we can. If the law changes, I think the uniformed military can execute and implement the change to the law with low risk to the force.
JIM LEHRER: Do you agree?
JEH JOHNSON, co-chairman, Don't Ask, Don't Tell Study: Yes, sir, I do.
I think that our study, which was the most comprehensive engagement of the force on any personnel-related issue, demonstrates that most service members simply don't regard this as an issue at this point. And many actually see positive effects of -- of repeal in terms of unit cohesion and the ability to work together.
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JIM LEHRER: What about Senator Graham's question you all didn't ask the troops in your study if it should be repealed? Why didn't you?
JEH JOHNSON: We don't conduct referenda or polls within the military about military policy. We don't poll the force about whether we should send additional troops to Afghanistan, for example, or go into Iraq.
We did ask very specific questions to test the effect of repeal on unit cohesion and the like. And our study was comprehensive enough that we in effect got an answer to the question of, can we do this?
And the survey results reveal a significant majority of the force believes that we can do this.
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JIM LEHRER: General, put on your combat hat. You have served in combat more than once. And the combat soldiers, Marines, were the most opposed to this.
What's your reading of that? What do you think is the reason for this?
GEN. CARTER HAM: I think there are a number of factors that are at play.
As the secretary of defense indicated, it's also the segment of the force that probably has the less -- the least actual experience of serving alongside gay and lesbian service members. And we found a distinct difference in the attitudes of service members who had that experience and those who have not.
JIM LEHRER: And the ones who -- and they knew they were serving with gays and lesbians, and they had -- they had a better experience than those who had no experience; is that what you're...
GEN. CARTER HAM: In general, that's correct. And we focused specifically on Marine and Army combat arms units in combat, and asked questions about, you know, did you know someone in your unit who was gay? And what effect did that have on unit performance?
And they actually -- the -- those who had that actual experience report that their unit performance was quite good.
JIM LEHRER: Even those that -- that had combat assignments, like Marines, say, on the -- or infantry -- infantry troops in the Army, they had reluctance about changing the policy, but they hadn't had a negative experience?
GEN. CARTER HAM: Those who had an actual experience...
JIM LEHRER: Actual experience.
GEN. CARTER HAM: ... particularly in combat, of serving in an organization with someone in their unit that they knew who was gay, their unit performance was quite good.
There is a very real difference between those assessments and service members in similar circumstance who have not served with someone that they knew to be gay.
