- Lorie Burch
Aside from the Final Four, there’s another showdown this week you may not want to miss.
Tomorrow night at SMU, local lesbian attorney Lorie Burch will face off against Hiram Sasser, director of litigation for the right-wing Liberty Institute, in a debate on marriage equality. The debate, an SMU Political Science Symposium, is at 7 p.m.. in the Hughes-Trigg Theater. It’s free and open to the public, so we should try to pack the audience to give Burch a home-field advantage.
Burch is chairwoman-elect for the North Texas GLBT Chamber of Commerce and co-chair of the DFW Human Rights Campaign Steering Committee. I don’t know much about Sasser, but according to his bio on the Liberty Legal Web site, his military experience includes serving as headquarters commander, company executive officer and training officer in the Army Reserves. He’s also appeared on ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox News, CNN and the BBC, and has been heard on various radio stations throughout the United States, Asia, Africa and Europe, the bio states.
To be honest, though, this one sounds like a bit of a mismatch on paper: Burch has a law degree from George Washington University, while Sasser’s is from Oklahoma City University.
To view the Facebook event page, go here.
Conservatives besmirch liberty all the time. They want to restrict the freedom of others while pretending that is liberty. The only good ideas conservatives had they stole from classical liberals and libertarians. Shame on them.
I hope that Ms. Birch knows that all the National Library of Medicine pubs confirm that sexual orientation is natural, biologically induced in the first trimester of pregnancy, morally neutral, immutable, neither contagious nor learned, bearing no relation to an individual’s ability to form deep and lasting relationships, to parent children, to work or to contribute to society.
From the American Psychological Asociation: homosexuality is normal; homosexual relationships are normal.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Asociation and American Psychiatric Asociation have endorsed civil marriage for same-sex couples because marriage strengthens mental and physical health and longevity of couples, and provides greater legal and financial security for children, parents and seniors.
America’s premier child/mental health associations endorse marriage equality. There is no further reason to discriminate, except ignorance or bigotry. Think of what you would want for yourself or your your family.
Sexual orientation is similar to left-handedness: biological, unchangeable, innocent. We used to think left-handed was evil (Latin for left is “sinister”), and force lefties to use only their right hand, even though they never really changed. Research reveals variable hormonal levels in pregnancy permanently affect a child’s neural circuitry for sexual orientation and gender identity: a little more testosterone in fetal girls’ brains from an adrenal condition can cause <50% to be lesbian, 10% to be transgender. Sharing the womb with a boy co-twin (amniotic fluid has some of his testosterone) causes <15% of girl co-twins to be lesbian. These girls also have the bone structure and physical coordination of boys, so they are good in sports.
Less testosterone for boys' brains from mother's blocking antibody from having many older brothers causes <15% of boys to be gay. These boys can have the physiology/verbal skills like girls, and excel in language and visual arts.
All innocent. Make room for all.