Holsinger Confirmation Hearings

Some of you may know that James Holsinger has been nominated by Bush to be Surgeon General. So who is this goober (and a goober he is)? He’s the chairperson of the Methodist Supreme Judicial Committee that ruled it was OK for a Methodist minister to keep a gay person from joining his church.

I spoke to Holsinger, as I did to everyone on the committee. He’s arrogant, condescending, and one of the most homophobic and bigoted people I think I’ve ever come across. And all of that before I even knew about a document he’d once written, “Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality.” You can read a review of the paper at Box Turtle Bulletin. It’s extremely poor scholarship.

Frank Lockwood at Bible Belt Blogger is keeping up with the hearings. He wrote today:

The surgeon general nominee, facing tough questioning from Sen. Kennedy, has distanced himself from his own 1991 paper, “Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality.”

The paper, which called homosexuality unhealthy and unnatural “does not represent where I am today. It does not represent who I am today,” Dr. James Holsinger said.

So, the guy bragged about, and presented it to the Methodist Church as gospel when it served his ends there…now it doesn’t serve his ends, so he’s changed his mind. He’ll make a great fit for the Bush Administration, but not for America.

Please contact your U.S. Senators and tell them to vote NO to the confirmation of James Holsinger for U.S. Surgeon General.