Polite Paradise

I think there are definitely circumstances when someone should be called out for their behavior online. A lot of hate and active prejudice thrives because it's left to fester on its own. That being said, it is also very possible to go too far, and get someone punished or embarrassed based on a misunderstanding.

This morning I read about the editor of a scientific journal, a physician, who was removed from that position after a homophobic email from him surfaced. He had been sent an email advertising a local ballet, which had an image of two men holding hands, and he wrote them back to be removed from their mailing list, going on about how they were promoting homosexuality and sodomy, using words like filth, etc.. It was a very charged email, from the quotes I read. I don't recall how the email made its way into the public, if the ballet company sent it to the press, or to the journal, or to the university which is the man's primary employer. On the one hand, this was private email correspondence, except not totally since he sent it to a company, and the university pointed out that he wasn't using the university email (I think) or identifying himself by his job there.

On the other, part of his defense statement was that his personal views about homosexuality--which in his own words are pretty virulent--"had no effect on how he treated his queer patients," or something like that. Which is just absurdly hard to believe--yeah, I think gay people are filth who are trying to corrupt the world, but when I have a gay person as a patient, I'm totally cool with that and don't treat them any differently. Uh-huh. To me this is a situation where I think his views should be made public, so people can choose if they want to be his patient or not--a doctor can have a tremendous amount of power and influence over a patient, especially when they are very vulnerable, and a lot of people would no longer trust this man to make decisions that could literally be life-saving. He might, totally unconsciously, decide to give up on a gay patient but keep suggesting new treatments for a straight one, for example. I'm guessing he's primarily involved in research, since he works for a university, and this could be an unconscious bias that affects the interpretation of his research as well. Then you get into stuff about how he is as a boss/mentor--does he treat a gay employee or student differently? Would he choose not to hire one based only on that? He's the one who chose to open up about his views in a pretty colorful manner (he could have just said, "Please remove me from your mailing list"), so now there could be all kinds of questions asked about their trickle down effect.

Had I been the person at the ballet company who received that reply email, I'd be pretty tempted to do something about it, whether sending it to his employers or the press. I'm curious about the rest of the story, because if he really didn't use his university email or mention his job there, it would have taken a little bit of work to find out who he was (just Googling, I mean, but intentional), to see if he had employers who would even care (this is Louisville, KY, where I have relatives btw) or if he was someone the press might care about. And I can't believe his was the only negative response they got to that imagery, in Louisville. Apologies if I'm mischaracterizing Louisville.