(Photo: Hugh Jackson/Nevada Current)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

A current employee at Vegas PBS has filed a discrimination complaint against the station, saying she’s risking her job because she wants to bring attention to “a culture of retaliation and racism.”

Vegas PBS Director of Marketing Terry Chi in September filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Nevada Equal Rights Commission (NERC) alleging systemic racism, retaliation against a whistleblower and workplace mobbing, or collective abuse from managers to force people out of work. She said she also contacted multiple departments at national PBS, including the diversity council, who have declined to become involved.

Vegas PBS is a public television station that reaches 400,000 weekly viewers in four Nevada counties, as well as portions of Utah, California and Arizona. It is a member station of the Public Broadcasting Service and receives public funds under the federal Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, whose mission includes creating “programs addressing the needs and interests of minorities.”

Vegas PBS’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) broadcast license is held by the elected members of the Clark County School District Board of Trustees. Vegas PBS employees are employees of the school district, though the station operates mostly independently.

In 2023, Vegas PBS had a roughly $15 million budget, including $1.7 million in unrestricted federal grants, $8.3 million from local government appropriations, $109,000 from state funds and $32,000 from federal sources.

Chi, who is Chinese American, said the opportunity to work at a PBS member station was a “dream” because shows such as “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” and “Sesame Street” shaped her childhood and helped her learn English. But it quickly transformed into a “nightmare” that led to a vertigo diagnosis and daily heart palpitations.

“When I started, I was for several months the pet,” she said. “But quickly after a few months, I could start feeling the daggers in my back.”

‘Dismissed, disrespected, discounted, marginalized’

Chi was hired by Vegas PBS as director of marketing by President and General Manager Mary “Mare” Mazur in early 2022. 

Now Chi points to Mazur as the main reason she is speaking out. Over her roughly two years with Vegas PBS, Mazur issued Chi 15 disciplinary write-ups and multiple negative performance reviews, called three investigative hearings in front of the Clark County Association of School Administrators and Professional-Technical Employees (CCASAPE) union and CCSD Human Resources. She said Mazur also barred her from the Vegas PBS annual fundraising gala and “all major donor events,” which was followed by a 5-day suspension without pay.

Chi alleges the acts were in retaliation for questions about taking on extra work outside of her job description, such as membership department duties, and for objecting to racist comments.

“I didn’t work this hard in my life to be dismissed, disrespected, discounted, marginalized,” Chi said, who prior to joining Vegas PBS worked in the private sector for three decades. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

On May 19, 2022, Chi gave a presentation to the Southern Nevada Public Television (SNPT) Board, the appointed board that helps the station secure financial and volunteer support. It was later relayed to Chi, through Mazur, that in response to her presentation, Kim Walker, the board treasurer, said “Terry’s presentation was great… I wouldn’t want to meet her in a back alley.”

Chi said she immediately construed the remark as “loaded with unconscious bias, [that was made] because she is a smart, articulate Asian woman.” She said the concern was ignored by Mazur who told her to take the remark made by Walker as a compliment. 

When Chi refused to do so, she said Mazur retaliated against her through write-ups and punitive work actions. 

Walker and Mazur, who were college roommates, declined to participate in this story. Mazur was also elected to the SNPT Board last year.

According to CCSD policy, “offensive and unwelcome jokes” constitute unlawful discrimination or harassment. It also states that the CCSD Human Resources Department of Diversity and Affirmative Action is responsible for ensuring that “all persons can … work in dignity and security and are not required to endure insulting, degrading, harassing or exploitative treatment.”

Chi said after she called out what she believed was racism within the organization, things quickly began to go downhill.

“Vegas PBS and the Clark County School District has been the most racist and discriminatory environment I’ve ever experienced,” Chi said.

She filed a 35-page complaint with CCSD that documents more than three dozen allegations, including six claims of racism, two dozen accusations of retaliation, four claims that allege CCSD has enabled illegal work actions, including against a whistleblower, and one instance in which she was pressured to feel unwelcome by colleagues at a “non-work related luncheon.” Chi also wrote in the complaint that her name was removed from an award submission for “The Great Vegas Recipe” program that she produced and won an Emmy for.

Chi’s name was reinstated after the Emmy Board of Directors opened an investigation.

CCSD declined to comment on the allegations and as to whether there is an investigation into the claims.

“The workplace mobbing and the dehumanization of people of color whose lives and livelihoods are ruined without conscience is what racism looks like in the workplace,” Chi said.

Before coming to Nevada, Mazur was general manager at Arizona PBS. Ebonye Delaney, a former assistant production manager who worked under Mazur in Arizon, said Mazur interacted with her in a “drastically different” tone than with another Black woman on staff: “With me, she was very short and seemed to, just not particularly care for my dress or my appearance.”

Delaney is dark-skinned and wears her hair naturally, later transitioning into dreadlocks. She said on multiple occasions Mazur micro-aggressed by highlighting “our socio-economic differences” and dredging up “uncomfortable cultural conversations.”

“She’s not gonna outright call you a name,” Delaney said. “But it’s in her interactions with people – how she treats people, as she talks to them.”

Workplace mobbing

Chi alleges Mazur does not extend contracts beyond the probationary period for directors of color. Instead, she retained or promoted only white workers whom she identifies with.

“She surrounded herself with people who are like her,” said one former Vegas PBS employee who requested anonymity out of fear speaking publicly would affect their career. 

They said Mazur “rules by fear” and restructured the chain of command so that directors report to two directors, instead of the general manager.

Jennifer McGrew Shell, a former Vegas PBS project manager for the educational media services department, echoed allegations of retaliation and bullying at Vegas PBS. She is a white woman who worked under a director.

McGrew Shell said she was the victim of retaliation and workplace bullying which led her to file a 200-page grievance alleging a hostile work environment to CCASAPE, in March 2022, after working there for nearly three years. She said after filing a complaint with human resources in December 2021, she received a write-up once a month until her contract ended in June and her evaluations went from above average to unprofessional.

McGrew Shell wrote in the complaint to the union that her director created a culture of “fear, oppression and hostility” in the workplace. According to emails, the union determined McGrew Shell was dealing with “supervisory professionalism” rather than a hostile work environment, and told her the issue had to be “addressed by those who are within you/your supervisor’s chain of command.”

“It is the worst situation I’ve ever experienced – as a 60-year old woman – in my life,” McGrew Shell said.

Chi, who serves on the CCSD Superintendent’s Anti-Racism, Equity and Inclusion Advisory Committee, believes part of the solution has to include changing the policy at CCSD regarding probation periods for Vegas PBS administrators.

Vegas PBS employees have a 3-year probation period, which Chi thinks is excessive and harmful to workers, especially Black and brown people. Under Nevada statute, workers do not “have a right to employment” during the probationary period.

She hopes to work with lawmakers for the next several years until the policy is changed.

“The unions say, ‘We can’t protect you. You’re on probation,’” said Chi. “Well… Why are we paying you dues if you can’t protect our jobs?”

According to Jeff Horn, head of CCASAPE, all union members get equal protection while paying dues: “There is not a lot of protection during the probationary period,” he said via email. “However … if a probationary administrator is non-renewed without discipline or ineffective evaluation, CCASAPE would challenge.”

Chi’s contract will terminate at the end of June based on poor performance reviews.

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Former NBA player Royce White addresses a crowd after the fatal police shooting of Daunte Wright in April 2021. (Photo: Elizabeth Flores/Star Tribune via Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

After the murder of George Floyd in May 2020, former NBA player Royce White became an outspoken advocate of defunding the police. Over those ensuing months, he appeared at a number of protests and marches in Minnesota – demonstrations that conservative politicians and pundits excoriated.

Four years later, White accepted the endorsement of the Minnesota GOP in the state’s 2024 U.S. Senate race.

In the interim, White had appeared on the show of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, where he decried the “establishment” and “corporatocracy.” While on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, he complained that women “had become too mouthy.” Elsewhere, he lambasted the LGBTQ+ movement as “Luciferian” and described Israel as the vanguard of a “new world order.”

White’s transition from an NBA player who advocated for progressive causes to an acolyte of Jones is more common than you might think.

Many people might associate conspiracy theories with certain demographics or political leanings. But the reality is far more nuanced, with emerging research finding that there is far more diversity among conspiracists than scholars previously thought.

Conspiracy theories are just as likely to be held by your MAGA-hat wearing uncle as they are your best friend who’s a fan of the band Phish and goes to CrossFit three times a week.

Entering the margins

For the past four and a half years, I’ve immersed myself in spaces occupied by conspiracy theorists.

What began as an attempt to understand the QAnon conspiracy movement quickly expanded into an exploration of a wide range of alternative belief systems.

These include, but are not limited to, discredited intellectuals who promote race science; butthole sunners who believe that by harnessing the sun’s rays, they live longer; and semen retention enthusiasts, which is a practice that discourages ejaculation as a way to boost testosterone levels.

Most researchers have understood conspiracy theories and alternative beliefs as being a product of poor education or misinformation spread on social media. But recent research has found that support for them exists regardless of educational level or income. Some of the most privileged people in U.S. society hold deeply conspiratorial beliefs, as do sports fans, yogis and video game enthusiasts.

While some many say that believing in UFOs or Bigfoot may not be that big of a problem, these ideas can lead to real-world harms. Butthole sunning, for example, has been linked with cancer.

By understanding how conspiracy theories and alternative belief systems intersect and evolve over time, you can see how anyone – no matter their political leanings – can become subsumed by them.

Forbidden knowledge

Different conspiracy theories, forms of psuedoscience and discredited beliefs – such as the notion that the Earth is flat – occupy the same space.

They are part of a collective waste bin of discarded ideas, a phenomenon that political scientist Michale Barkun characterizes as “stigmatized knowledge.” Because they’ve been discredited by mainstream institutions, they often only emerge on the fringes of society.

Certain stigmatized narratives can also become tools wielded by politicians and media influencers who will say or do anything to make money and gain power.

For example, in their book “Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat,” Derek Berry, Matthew Remski and Julien Walker document the ways in which contemporary New Age spiritualism has been hijacked by social media influencers, who have then gone on to promote vaccine misinformation and foment government mistrust.

Social media platforms provide financial incentives for individuals creating the most engaging content. Of course, what’s engaging is not necessarily what’s accurate or truthful. Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of these influencers became popular by suggesting that they had “sacred” or “secret” knowledge on how to defeat the virus.

It’s one way people can go from embracing seemingly harmless ideas, like Bigfoot, to becoming open to more radical beliefs like the Great Replacement Theory, which is the conspiracy theory that illegal immigrants are colluding with Democrats to change the racial demographics of America and, in doing so, shape future elections.

The intersection of politics and alternative beliefs is not a recent phenomenon.

Some of these beliefs, like the imaginary continent of Atlantis, were used by the Nazi party to create a link to a mythical pure race. Indeed, a key component of the Nazi’s rise to power was the promotion of ideas that today would be described as New Age mysticism – a spiritual movement that emphasizes magical experiences and the notion that spiritual forces connect everything in the universe.

The complexity of conspiracists

While many pundits point to white Christian nationalists as the group most susceptible to conspiracies – and there is some truth to this claim – it’s important to pay attention to others who possess conspiratorial ideas.

The anti-vaccine movement is now a pet issue for many on the right, but it first gained notoriety among wealthy liberals. One of the most visible promoters of the movement is current presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Jacob Chansley, also known as the “QAnon Shaman,” is another well-known example of this juxtaposition: He’s been seen protesting on behalf of both right- and left-wing causes and was at the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol.

A 2021 survey by the Public Religion Research Institute found that 23% of Republicans believe that “the government, media and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles.”

The number might seem high, but probably isn’t all that surprising: It’s one of the core tenants of the right-wing QAnon conspiracy theory. But I found the survey’s other findings somewhat startling – that 8% of self-identified Democrats and 14% of independents also agreed with that statement.

Where do we go from here?

While seemingly unrelated at first glance, conspiracy theories such as QAnon and alternative wellness practices such as drinking urine share common themes. Namely, they’re united by distrust in mainstream institutions. They long for alternative belief systems that confirm their existing beliefs and ignore contradicting evidence.

Being critical of those in positions of power is a healthy thing, but there are times in which trust in leadership makes sense – like listening to firefighters evacuating a building or public health officials during a global pandemic.

In fairness, the number of Americans who believe in conspiracy theories does not seem to be rising. At the same time, conspiracies were a core motivator for many of the Jan 6 protesters who attempted to interrupt the peaceful transfer of power.

As the contributors to my forthcoming edited essay collection argue, conspiracy-laden narratives not only undermine societal institutions, but they also strain relationships with fellow citizens. They train people to be suspicious of trusted sources of information – and suspicious of one another.

None of that bodes well for liberal democracy.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Riley Gaines, the ex-Kentucky swimmer on Feb. 15, 2023 at the Kansas Statehouse (Photo: Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Women’s sports rarely get the respect they deserve and very few female athletes ever break through to become household names.

Stellar performances by Brittney Griner, Lisa Leslie, Sheryl Swoopes and many more have made the WNBA what it is today. But it’s not a coincidence that the arrival of Caitlin Clark, a white University of Iowa alum, has sparked a firestorm of media attention and endorsements.

So it’s unusual, to say the least, for Riley Gaines — a former college swimmer who tied for fifth place in the 200 freestyle final at the 2022 NCAA Women’s Championships — to become one of the best-known female athletes in the country.

Usually that sort of résumé would prompt another round of conservative griping about Millennials and Gen Zs being rewarded with participation trophies just for showing up — and never having to learn the tough, character-building lessons of pain, hard work and sacrifice.

Last year, North Carolina Republicans even introduced a bill that would eliminate such awards in youth sports. One of the sponsors, GOP state Sen. Bobby Hanig, told the media that “what we’re not teaching our children is to be prepared for life, be prepared for failure.

“… When kids are growing up they’re being taught it’s OK to just be OK. You don’t have to be the best,” he added.

But it’s A-OK with Republicans that Gaines isn’t the best in her sport — far from it. That’s because she’s turned her failure into a winning right-wing crusade against LGBTQ+ rights because the woman with whom she tied for fifth, University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas, is transgender. (Again, even if Thomas were disqualified, Gaines would have only come in fourth, which doesn’t even get you on the podium).

Shortly after her loss, Gaines started popping up in statehouses across the country, advocating for bans on transgender athletes under the guise of feminism. It’s truly a bigoted solution in search of a problem. The Michigan High School Athletic Association, for instance, said in 2021 that only 10 trans athletes used the association’s transgender athlete policy in the last five years.

Having lost the battle for public opinion on LGBTQ+ rights — 71% of Americans support same-sex marriage — right-wingers have tried to peel off voters by whipping up moral panics about all-gender bathrooms and kids’ books featuring gay characters.

While Republicans have found success pushing anti-LGBTQ+ laws in red states, like Florida, Texas and Ohio, that hasn’t worked particularly well in battlegrounds. In 2022, Gaines campaigned in Michigan for GOP gubernatorial nominee Tudor Dixon, who ran on a transgender sports ban, Ron DeSantis-style “Don’t Say Gay” law and banning “pornographic” books (Dixon never provided examples, despite famously promising a reporter she’d send a list).

Dixon lost to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer by almost 11 points.

But Gaines’ career, at least, is still on a roll, as she’s hit the GOP Lincoln Dinner circuit, headlined a GOP Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds fundraiser and was the guest of U.S. Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Bruce Twp.) at the 2023 State of the Union address. (Gaines also endorsed DeSantis for president, which worked out about as well as stumping for Dixon).

Reynolds went so far as to declare that Gaines is “fighting on the front lines of the most important women’s issue of our time” — which will come as a shock to the millions of people who voted for abortion rights measures and candidates in response to the far-right Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022.

But for those with a serious case of main character syndrome, Gaines must truly be an inspiration. No matter how much you might fail, no matter how insignificant the things you’re obsessed with are, as long as you have an unstoppable ego, there’s hope that you might achieve Influencer status someday.

You may have heard that Gaines popped up in Michigan again this month, this time as the commencement speaker at Adrian College, a small liberal arts school close to the Ohio border.

In announcing Gaines as the speaker, a school administrator billed the event as “offer[ing] our graduates the opportunity to broaden their understanding of world issues and inspire them as they embark on their future endeavors.”

You could make the argument that may have been achieved if Gaines did a debate or at least took questions after a speech (although I’m personally not of the belief that much is accomplished by engaging with those who don’t believe in the basic humanity of LGBTQ+ people). But the format of a commencement address is one-sided by design, so an accomplished leader can impart wisdom on the next generation. (Again, it’s hard to see how a fifth-place college swimmer fits the bill).

It seems clear that college officials didn’t think it was worth considering how LGBTQ+ students or family members would feel being forced to endure hateful propaganda on what should be a joyous day for all. As a bisexual woman with two kids who are proud members of the LGBTQ+ community, I can say I wouldn’t have wanted to subject my family to that.

And several alumni did speak out.

“She [Gaines] has no message to deliver other than she hates trans people. That’s her message,” Leann McKee, who is trans and a 1984 Adrian College graduate, told the Advance.

But in inviting Gaines, Adrian’s controversy-courting president seemed to get the reaction he was looking for, just like having former Gov. Rick Snyder speak at the 2017 graduation only a year after the Flint water crisis became an international news story.

Maybe the only upside of this sorry episode is that Gaines upstaged “Wheel of Fortune” host Pat Sajak, who delivered the commencement address up the road at conservative Hillsdale College, where he chairs the board. It seems that being a TV fixture since Ronald Reagan was president can’t really compete with Gaines’ brand of Instagrammable victimhood.

This column was originally published in Michigan Advance, which like Nevada Current is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

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(Photo: April Corbin Girnus/Nevada Current)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

The Nevada Senate Republican Caucus-backed candidate hoping to unseat Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro describes herself on her website as having “a pragmatic and results-oriented approach” but has previously identified herself as a member of a right-wing Christian organization.

Jill Douglass, a retiree who previously worked in financial services, is one of two Republicans running to represent State Senate District 6, which covers parts of Summerlin in Las Vegas. In the upcoming primary, she faces Josh Stacy, a tech developer who has raised no money and advertises no endorsements. The winner will challenge Cannizzaro, who does not face a Democratic primary challenger, and a third-party candidate in the general election.

2024 Primary Election Voter Guide

Douglass has not previously held elected office but last summer challenged Jesse Law as chair of the Clark County Republican Party. (She lost to the indicted fake elector.) At that time, Douglass noted in a public campaign pitch that she is a member of the American Christian Caucus.

The American Christian Caucus is an affiliate of the National Association of American Christian Communities, and believes churches need to be involved in politics and voice their opinion on “the laws being passed when the Bible is perverted.” Among the examples included on a national blog of things they believe “pervert” the Bible: “homosexuality was legal and encouraged,” “divorce was made easier,” and “abortion was made legal.”

“We must change the laws to make America Godly again,” reads the post.

One of the cofounders of ACC, Calvary Red Rock Pastor Gregg Seymour on a podcast last year declared that, “We’re in war time Christianity, and it’s never going to change. Peace time Christianity is over.”

Another cofounder, Fervent Cavalry Pastor Jimmy Morales has praised Trump for setting the stage for overruling Roe v Wade and urged Christians to “fight and take this country back.” Fervent Cavalry, formerly known as Calvary Chapel Lone Mountain, hosted the former president at an event last summer and was one of the churches that successfully challenged a Gov. Steve Sisolak’s pandemic-era executive order restricting the size of church gatherings.

Douglass did not respond to the Current’s request for an interview or questions submitted via email about the American Christian Caucus and whether her personal political views align with those expressed by the organization.

Douglass is an ardent supporter of Donald Trump, though the website for her state senate campaign does not mention him. In an interview with Veterans in Politics last summer, Douglass said she would support the former president in his reelection bid and called him “one of the most effective presidents we’ve ever had.”

State Senate District 6 has been highly competitive in the previous election cycles. In 2020, Cannizzaro won the district over Republican April Becker by just half a percentage point. In 2021, Democrats redrew the political boundary lines in their favor, extending their registration advantage. But this year’s election will be the first true test to see how swingy the district remains. A third of the voters of the district are registered as nonpartisans.

Douglass has been endorsed by the Nevada Senate Republican Caucus but is largely self funded, contributing nearly all of the $100,575 she reported on her first quarter campaign finance disclosure form. Notably, her campaign has not been endorsed by Gov. Joe Lombardo, who has been making a concerted effort to endorse and support many candidates running for the state legislature.

Cannizzaro began this calendar year by announcing her campaign had $700,000 on hand, a record for any state legislator going into an election year, and she reported nearly $134,000 in contributions in the first quarter of this year. That brings her on-hand cash to more than $800,000, as of March 31.

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Demonstrators at the “Jewish Rally for Abortion Justice” at Union Square near the U.S. Capitol in May 2022. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Lawmakers who oppose abortion often invoke their faith — many identify as Christian — while debating policy.

The anti-abortion movement’s use of Christianity in arguments might create the impression that broad swaths of religious Americans don’t support abortion rights. But a recent report shows that Americans of various faiths and denominations believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

According to a Public Religion Research Institute survey of some 22,000 U.S. adults released last week, 93% of Unitarian Universalists, 81% of Jews, 79% of Buddhists and 60% of Muslims also hold that view.

Researchers also found that most people who adhere to the two major branches of Christianity — Catholicism and Protestantism — also believe abortion should be mostly legal, save for three groups: white evangelical Protestants, Latter-day Saints and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Historically, the Catholic Church has opposed abortion. But the poll found that 73% of Catholics of color — PRRI defines this group as Black, Asian, Native American and multiracial — support the right to have an abortion, followed by 62% of white Catholics and 57% of Hispanic Catholics.

The findings show that interfaith views on abortion may not be as simple as they appear during political debate, where the voices of white evangelical legislators and advocates can be the loudest.

States Newsroom spoke with Abrahamic religious scholars — specifically, experts in Catholicism, Islam and Judaism — and reproductive rights advocates about varying perspectives on abortion and their history.

Abortion views in America before Roe v. Wade

The Moral Majority — a voting bloc of white, conservative evangelicals who rose to prominence after the U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 — is often associated with spearheading legislation to restrict abortion.

Gillian Frank is a historian specializing in religion, gender and sexuality who teaches at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. Frank said evangelical views on abortion were actually more ambivalent before the early ’70s Roe decision established the federal right to terminate a pregnancy. (The Supreme Court upended that precedent about two years ago.)

“What we have to understand is that evangelicals, alongside mainline Protestants and Jews of various denominations, supported what was called therapeutic abortion, which is to say abortion for certain exceptional causes,” Frank said, including saving the life or health of the mother, fetal abnormalities, rape, incest and the pregnancy of a minor. Religious bodies like the Southern Baptist Convention and the National Association of Evangelicals said abortion was OK in certain circumstances, he added.

Evangelical Protestants before Roe did not endorse “elective abortions,” Frank said, or what they called “abortion on demand,” a phrase invoked by abortion-rights opponents today that he said entered the American lexicon around 1962.

The 1973 ruling was seismic and led organizations opposing abortion, such as the National Right to Life Committee — formed by the Conference of Catholic Bishops — to sprout across the country, according to an article published four years later in Southern Exposure. Catholic leaders often lobbied other religious groups — evangelicals, Mormons, orthodox Jews — to join their movement and likened abortion to murder in their newspapers.

After Roe, “abortion is increasingly associated with women’s liberation in popular rhetoric in popular culture, because of the activism of the women’s movement but also because of the ways in which the anti-abortion movement is associating abortion with familial decline,” Frank said. Those sentiments, he said, were spread by conservative figures like Phyllis Schlafly, a Catholic opposed to feminism and abortion, who campaigned against and managed to block the Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s.

Polls suggest the views of Catholic clergy and laypeople diverge

Catholicism is generally synonymous with opposition to abortion. According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the church has stood against abortion since the first century. The conference points to Jeremiah 1:5 in the Bible to back up arguments that pregnancy termination is “contrary to the moral law.”

But nearly 6 in 10 American Catholics believe abortion should be mostly legal, according to a Pew Research Center report released last month.

Catholics for Choice spokesperson Ashley Wilson said that there’s a disconnect between the church as an institution and its laity. “We recognize that part of the problem is that the Catholic clergy, and the people who write the official teaching of the church, are all or mostly white male — my boss likes to say ostensibly celibate men — who don’t have wives,” Wilson said. “They don’t have daughters. They have no inroads into the lives of laypeople.”

Her group plans on going to Vatican City in Rome this fall to lift up stories of Catholics who’ve had abortions. The organization is also actively involved in efforts to restore abortion access — 14 states have near-total bans — through direct ballot measures in Colorado, Florida and Missouri this year.

Catholic dioceses and fraternities are often behind counter-efforts to proposed ballot questions. They poured millions into campaigns in Kansas and Kentucky in 2022 to push anti-abortion amendments, and also in Ohio last year to defeat a reproductive rights ballot measure but they failed in each state.

Ensoulment and mercy in Islam

Tenets of Islam — the second largest faith in the world — often make references to how far along a person’s pregnancy is and whether there are complications. University of Colorado Law professor Rabea Benhalim, an expert of Islamic and Judaic law, said there’s a common belief that at 40 days’ gestation, the embryo is akin to a drop of fluid. After 120 days, the fetus gains a soul, she said.

While the Quran doesn’t specifically speak to abortion, Benhalim said Chapter 23: 12-14 is considered a description of a fetus in a womb. The verses are deeply “important in the development of abortion jurisprudence within Islamic law, because there’s an understanding that life is something that is emerging over a period of stages.”

In some restrictive interpretations of Islam, there’s a limit on abortion after 40 days, or seven weeks after implantation, Benhalim said. In other interpretations, because ensoulment doesn’t occur until 120 days of gestation, abortion is generally permitted in some Muslim communities for various reasons, she said. After ensoulment, abortion is allowed if the mother’s life is in danger, according to religious doctrine.

Sahar Pirzada, the director of movement building at HEART, a reproductive justice organization focused on sexual health and education in Muslim American communities, confirmed that some Muslims believe in the 40-day mark, while others adhere to the 120-day mark when weighing abortion.

“How can you make a black-and-white ruling on something that is going to be applied across the board when everyone’s situation is different?” she asked. “There’s a lot of compassion and mercy with how we’re supposed to approach matters of the womb.”

The issue is personal for Pirzada, who had an abortion in 2018 after her fetus received a fatal diagnosis of trisomy 18 when she was 12 weeks pregnant. “I wanted to terminate within the 120-day mark, which gave me a few more weeks,” she said.

She consulted scholars and Islamic teachings before making the decision to end her pregnancy, she said, and mentioned the importance of rahma — mercy — in Islam. “I tried to embody that spirit of compassion for myself,” she said.

Pirzada, who is now a mother of two, had the procedure at exactly 14 weeks on a day six years ago that was both Ash Wednesday and Valentine’s Day. She said she felt loved and surrounded by people of faith at the hospital, where some health care workers had crosses marked in ash on their foreheads. “I felt very appreciative that they were offering me care on a day that was spiritual for them,” she said.

Seeing the stories of people with pregnancy complications in the period since the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to an abortion has left her grief stricken. For instance, Kate Cox, a Texas woman whose fetus had the same diagnosis as Pirzada’s, was denied an abortion by the state Supreme Court in December. Cox had to travel elsewhere for care, Texas Tribune reported.

Benhalim, the University of Colorado expert, said teachings in Islam and Judaism offer solace to followers who are considering abortion, as they can provide guidance during difficult decisions.

No fetal personhood in Judaism 

In Jewish texts, the embryo is referred to as water before 40 days of gestation, according to the National Council of Jewish Women. Exodus: 21:22-23 in the Torah mentions a hypothetical situation where two men are fighting and injure a pregnant woman. If she has a miscarriage, the men are only fined. But if she is seriously injured and dies, “the penalty shall be a life for a life.”

This part of the Torah is interpreted to mean that a fetus does not have personhood, and the men didn’t commit murder, according to the council. But this may not be a catchall belief — Benhalim noted that denominations of Judaism have different opinions on abortion.

Today, Jewish Americans have been at the forefront of legal challenges to abortion bans based on religious freedom in Florida, Indiana and Kentucky. Many of the lawsuits have interfaith groups of plaintiffs and argue that restrictions on termination infringe on their religion.

The legal challenge in Indiana has been the most successful. Hoosier Jews for Choice and five anonymous plaintiffs sued members of the state medical licensing board in summer 2022, when Indiana’s near-total abortion ban initially took effect.

Plaintiffs argued that the ban violated the state’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the court later let the claim receive class-action status. Several Jewish Hoosiers said they believe life begins after a baby’s first breath, and that abortion is required to protect the mother’s health and life, according to court documents.

Last month, the Indiana Court of Appeals ruled that the plaintiffs have the right to sue the state but sent the request for a temporary halt on the ban back to a lower court.

While the decision was unanimous, Judge Mark Bailey issued a separate concurring opinion explaining his reasoning and criticizing lawmakers — “an overwhelming majority of whom have not experienced childbirth” — who assert they are protectors of life from the point of conception.

“In my view, this is an adoption of a religious viewpoint held by some, but certainly not all, Hoosiers,” he wrote. “The least that can be expected is that remaining Hoosiers of child bearing ability will be given the opportunity to act in accordance with their own consciences and religious creeds.”

The post Religious views on abortion more diverse than they may appear in U.S. political debate appeared first on Nevada Current.

(Photo credits: Rabbit, Henderson Animal Shelter; Rooster, Camille Savage)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Nothing says springtime like bunnies and chicks, which are often gifted by well-meaning folks for Easter. But bunnies turn into rabbits, and chicks (even those determined by the feed stores that sell them to be female) can turn into roosters, which are illegal in most parts of the valley. 

“It happens,” says Shane Greismann, manager of Tractor Supply Store in Las Vegas, of customers who expected a hen but ended up with a rooster. Greismann says the store can’t guarantee the gender of baby chicks, which are placed in a box immediately after hatching, with enough food for 14 hours, and mailed to stores. 

“They usually end up selling them to ranchers and farmers,” Greisman says of the males. 

But not always. 

“Once they start crowing in about 16 weeks, if they turn out to be roosters, is when we start getting messages about surrenders, or start seeing them dumped in different areas,” says Camille Savage, an animal advocate who works with All Friends Animal Sanctuary. 

The sanctuary is called on by local shelters to find homes for abandoned or confiscated roosters. 

“Most of us aren’t zoned for roosters,” says Savage, who urges the public not to indulge the impulse to buy one. “I have so many screenshots from the local ‘backyard chicken’ groups of people trying to rehome roosters everyday.”

Savage also transports roosters to a sanctuary in Utah, but says most sanctuaries are at capacity.

“These animals feel pain like any other, need vet care like cats and dogs, and are not gifts for Easter or any other day, holiday and otherwise,” says Savage, who says all chickens rarely get the care they require.

Local animal shelters are also full of rabbits, especially in the weeks and months following Easter. Experts estimate four out of five rabbits gifted for Easter don’t survive or are abandoned in the first year. 

Dave Schweiger, founder of Bunnies Matter, a rabbit rescue group, and his volunteers rescue rabbits abandoned throughout the valley. “In the last three years we’ve adopted out more than 400 bunnies,” he says. 

Local spay and neuter laws didn’t cover rabbits until Schweiger lobbied for it. 

Clark County has outlawed the sale of rabbits, dogs, and cats from pet stores. Rabbits sold in Las Vegas city limits who are four months old must be spayed or neutered first. Those younger than four months must be sold with a voucher for sterilization, which can run from $200 to $400, according to Schweiger’s Bunny Matters website. 

In exchange for the City of Las Vegas’ agreement to require rabbit sterilization, Schweiger agreed to trap bunnies at Floyd Lamb State Park, a favorite dumping ground. Volunteers trapped close to 100 rabbits at the park, Schweiger says. 

“People think ‘Oh I’ll just leave the rabbit in this park. It will be fine.’ They die a horrible death. They don’t have any wild instincts. They are used to people handing them their food. Now all of a sudden you want them to go hunt?” he says. 

Schweiger is frustrated by local governments’ failure to crack down on illegal backyard bunny breeders. Three years ago he put together a group of volunteer sleuths who comb Craigslist and social media for rabbit breeders.

“We screenshot the ad, which usually has the phone number. Then we get a text conversation proving they are selling rabbits,” he says. “We’d get all that information, and turn it over to Animal Control and they would send out an officer. They would investigate, leave a notice if they weren’t there, giving them 24 hours to call, or they’d ticket people.”

Schweiger says this year the municipalities stopped sending an officer and sent a letter instead.   

“You know nothing’s going to happen,” he says. “We’re doing free work but they can’t back it up because of a lack of manpower.” 

Schweiger says there’s a public safety aspect to shutting down backyard breeders, who he says  often don’t vaccinate their own dogs against rabies, placing rabbits and the buying public at risk.  

His advice for those thinking about buying a bunny for Easter. “Don’t do it. Really at any time, but much less Easter.”

The post When bunnies and chicks become rabbits and roosters appeared first on Nevada Current.

The Nevada Wildlife Commission's lopsided membership, critics say, renders the board ineffective and preoccupied with looking out for ranchers and hunters at the peril of the wildlife it is charged with protecting. (Nevada Division of Wildlife Photo)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

The Nevada Wildlife Commission’s endorsement Friday of a plan to remove 75% of wild horses and burros from the state’s public lands, along with its refusal to consider a ban on controversial coyote killing contests, are both out of step with the desires of residents and tourists and could hasten efforts to revamp the board, say critics. 

The Commission is dominated by hunting and ranching interests under a statutory scheme that requires it to have five “sportsmen,” i.e. hunters, fishermen or trappers who have purchased a license in three of the past four years, one rancher, one farmer, one conservationist, and one member of the public.  

The lopsided membership, critics say, renders the board ineffective and preoccupied with looking out for ranchers and hunters at the peril of the wildlife it is charged with protecting.

“You’ve got five representatives on this board that represent three and a half percent of Nevada,”  former Nevada Republican legislator turned lobbyist Warren Hardy, referring to the percentage of Nevadans who purchase hunting licenses each year, told the commission Friday during a meeting in Las Vegas. 

A presentation from the Humane Society of the United States, which is represented by Hardy, asserted changing times and perceptions of animal rights have diminished tolerance of wanton killing contests among residents and visitors, and are compromising the integrity of the state’s legal gambling industry, thereby posing a threat to the economy.  

In 2019, hoping to dry up prize money for the events, opponents unsuccessfully argued to Nevada gaming regulators that the contests violate gambling laws. 

Commissioners widely applauded the HSUS presentation as the best they’ve seen, however, they suggested nothing has changed since the Commission last discarded a proposal in 2021 to end the contests. 

Other efforts to end the contests have also failed. In 2015, the Wildlife Commission voted 7-1 to reject a petition seeking to ban killing contests. 

The board’s allegiance to hunting and ranching interests disregards the desires of the vast majority of the state’s population, complained Hardy.

“This is petitioning that is worthy of a conversation, no matter how long, or how hard it is. This is the democratic process. And you are the board that we are rightfully in front of, not the legislature,” Hardy said. “In my legislative career, I’ve had at least three occasions to vote to change the makeup of this commission. And all three times I voted no or declined to vote at all because I firmly believe in this process,” 

Hardy added the commission’s refusal to engage in rulemaking left him no option but legislative action. A 2023 bill to prohibit the contests died in committee.

“For you guys to say ‘we’re not going to the rulemaking process so you can make your case’ is  frankly not only repugnant, but unprecedented,” Hardy said, suggesting their refusal amounted to political cowardice. “You’re saying ‘we’re not going to get consensus, so we’re not going to do this.’ So why do you exist?”

The Commission is the “the least democratic of all state boards or commissions which provide oversight to a public resource,” says Dr. Donald Molde of the Nevada Wildlife Alliance. 

A legislative effort last year to take a closer look at four commissions that regulate natural resources, including the Wildlife Commission, failed when it was vetoed by Gov. Joe Lombardo. However, the Joint Interim Standing Committee on Natural Resources is scheduled to delve into the Wildlife Commission’s actions on April 5.  

“This will be our first chance to go before a Legislative interim study committee and make our pitch,” says Molde, noting a number of states, such as Washington, New Mexico, and Vermont are questioning whether wildlife regulation is evolving with changing attitudes about conservation.

Commissioners complained they were hearing from extremists on both sides, but not from the center.

“We are the center,” Hardy responded, noting HSUS had already compromised by advocating for an end to coyote contests, but not a ban on hunting the animals.

The America’s Wildlife Values studies of 2018 and 2021 found that about 22% of the U.S. population holds a traditional view that wildlife should be managed and used for the benefit of humans, while 44% believe humans and animals should coexist.  

“This was a disappointing outcome but completely unsurprising,” Patrick Donnelly of the Center for Biological Diversity said following the meeting. “Frankly, I don’t think this petition ever had a chance. The wildlife commission is hopelessly biased toward people who kill wildlife. Until we reform the commission’s composition to truly represent all Nevadans, it will never be a venue for conservation.”

‘Failed approach to wild horse management’

Also Friday, the Wildlife commission joined a campaign to urge the federal government to escalate controversial wild horse roundups conducted by the Bureau of Land Management, in a renewed effort to remove about three-quarters of horses and burros from public lands. 

The Commission endorsed a letter to BLM director Tracy Stone-Manning from the Coalition for Healthy Nevada Lands – backed by ranchers, trappers, and hunters seeking federal funding to remove tens of thousands of wild horses from the state’s public rangelands and put them in holding pens for life. 

A Senate Joint Resolution with similar goals died in the 2021 Nevada Legislature.  

The U.S. has close to 70,000 wild horses roaming on BLM land, the government estimates. More than two-thirds – about 45,000, plus another 4,500 burros, are in Nevada. That’s four times as many animals as the state’s appropriate management level (AML) as calculated by the BLM. The 1971 Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act says animals that exceed AML are to be removed from the range. 

About 62,000 horses and 2,500 burros rounded up by government contractors are already in BLM holding facilities for the rest of their lives. 

Helen Foley, a lobbyist for the American Wild Horse Conservation, noted the Coalition’s initiative would require the removal of well over 40,000 animals at a cost of $40 million and another $2 billion to maintain them in holding facilities for their lifetimes. 

Foley noted that would leave “a density of one horse on 1,100 acres of land, making these significant ecotourism attractions difficult, if not impossible to find for people visiting and spending money. …Wild horse roundups and removals represent a failed approach to wild horse management.” 

Foley and others support sterilization of horses rather than removal.  

Fertility control has not been used on a widespread basis, animal advocate Fred Voltz told the commission. Voltz suggested “a reasonable path forward for BLM to find more money” would be to increase the cost of grazing to market rates, noting livestock “represent more than 10 times the number of wild horses and burros.” 

Nevada has about half a million cattle grazing on federal land. The BLM’s grazing charge is $1.35 a month per animal unit – the estimated amount of forage required to feed a 1,000 pound animal. 

The extent of damage to Nevada’s public lands from livestock and wildlife is largely a mystery because the BLM, which is charged with assessing and addressing the impacts, has reviewed less than half of the land allotted to ranchers in the state, according to data obtained through a public information request by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.

Note: This story was updated to correct the name of the Coalition for Healthy Nevada Lands, and to reflect that its letter is supported by ranchers.

The post Is Nevada’s Wildlife Commission on the brink of extinction? appeared first on Nevada Current.

Henderson residents wait Tuesday to make the case for TNR to the city council. (Photo: Dana Gentry/Nevada Current)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

As Sisyphean tasks go, putting a lid on the wanton breeding of cats, who can give birth to 20 or more kittens a year, is in a league of its own.  

In an effort to stem the supply, a small but dedicated band of volunteers while away the hours in the dead of winter and the heat of summer in mobile home parks, apartment complexes, and hotel garages, awaiting the elusive, sweet sound of success – the clank of a trap door, signaling the arrival of a cat that has taken the bait. 

Trap, neuter, and return (TNR) is widely viewed as the best of the bad options for feral cats. By sterilizing and vaccinating almost all of the cats in a colony, caretakers are able to reduce the population, protect against rabies and other diseases, and ensure a steady source of food and water.  

The practice is permitted in all Southern Nevada municipalities except Henderson, where it’s prohibited.

“I think we can all agree that we would like to see less cats in our premier City of Henderson,” resident Arvie Bromley told the council Tuesday during public comment. “We can’t adopt our way out of this situation and we can’t euthanize our way out. But TNR would move us toward a goal of having less cats.”

In Henderson, it’s against the law to feed feral cats. Trapped cats must be turned over to the shelter, where their disposition determines their fate. Friendly felines are put up for adoption, while those deemed unfriendly (a common state of mind for cats in a shelter) are killed. 

Of the 759 animals euthanized by Henderson in 2022, 185 were cats deemed feral. 

“That is not keeping up with the rate of kitten production and if it was, the Henderson shelter would lose its no-kill status because they would simply be killing too many cats,” Bromley told the council. 

Henderson residents “don’t want to call Animal Control because they know that these cats are not social. They’re going to be euthanized,” cat lover Daryl Nelson told the council, adding that people are “shocked” to learn of the city’s policy. “Why would somebody do that? Nobody wants to see healthy cats euthanized.”

“As much as many of us love cats, there are too many of them,” Jackie Wannamaker said during public comment, adding that TNR works. In 2009, Wannamaker began managing a colony of hundreds of cats near a hotel. Today, the population is “in the 20s.” 

Wannamaker, a Henderson resident. said she’s “embarrassed and ashamed” that the city ignores the plight of community cats.

Henderson has its reasons, according to a letter Mayor Michelle Romero sent to Bromley last year. 

Feral cats are killed by coyotes, bobcats, rattlesnakes and large hawks, Romero wrote in her letter. They kill birds, rodents, and reptiles. They may attack family pets in backyards, or be attacked by family pets. They receive no medical care when suffering, and can be killed by vehicles. And finally, unvaccinated cats can transmit diseases such as rabies, which require repeated vaccinations. 

But cat advocates suggest the same perils befall owned animals, and that TNR would only reduce the at-risk population. And, they note, experts suggest one dose of vaccines is better than none, especially for ferals, who have a shorter lifespan than owned cats. And under the watchful eye of a caregiver, sick or injured ferals can be treated by a veterinarian and humanely euthanized, if necessary. 

“…I am saddened these cats have been left on the streets to fend for themselves. Irresponsible pet owners have created a problem that is now recognized as a national crisis,” Romero wrote to Bromley. “I truly believe the compassionate way to manage these cats is in the manner the City of Henderson has chosen.”

Romero is not alone. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals condemn TNR as heartless and inhumane, and Henderson Shelter director Danielle Harney is a longtime opponent of TNR. Harney did not respond to requests for comment. 

Bromley suggests TNR could reduce the city’s expenses at the already cash-strapped and understaffed facility, for sheltering, feeding, and euthanizing feral cats, and slash related calls to Animal Control. 

“The only reason that Henderson can continue to support an antiquated and barbaric approach to community cats is because many residents are simply unaware of what goes on,” resident Lauren Guimond told the council. 

The cat lovers, determined to seek out allies and add to their ranks, aren’t giving up. They’re hoping the city will eventually consider a change to its ordinance. This, they say, is a rock worth pushing up the hill.

The post Cat lovers implore Henderson to stop killing ferals  appeared first on Nevada Current.

An estimated 1.1 million U.S. citizens are in a mixed-status marriage, according to the advocacy group American Families United. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

Immigration advocates are calling on President Joe Biden to use his executive authority to expand work permits and deportation protections to undocumented immigrant spouses of U.S. citizens.

Existing immigration policy, they argue, is tearing apart loving families and forcing American citizens to make impossible decisions, like divorcing a person they love or leaving the country to live in exile with them. It also has a negative economic impact, keeping potential workers out of the job market during a time of labor shortages.

An estimated 1.1 million U.S. citizens are in a mixed-status marriage, according to the advocacy group American Families United. An estimated 4.9 million U.S. citizen children have at least one parent who is undocumented, according to the advocacy group FWD.us.

On Valentines Day, American Families United and American Business Immigration Coalition Action launched a campaign urging Biden to take executive action and parole the non-citizen spouses of U.S. citizens. Parole allows non-citizen immigrants to temporarily reside and work in the United States.

“The president has that authority,” said Ashley DeAzevedo, president of American Families United. “He’s demonstrated he isn’t afraid to use it to expand work permits for new arrivals, including over a million new immigrants from Ukraine, Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and Haiti.”

The husbands and wives of U.S. citizens deserve similar respect and opportunities, she argued.

“If (Biden) only showed a fraction of that effort to support our families, our lives could be so different,” added DeAzevedo, who is a U.S. citizen in a mixed-status marriage.

Joining the immigration groups in their call for executive action is U.S. Rep. Delia C. Ramirez, a Democrat from Illinois and the only member of Congress in a mixed-status family.

The 40-year-old, who is married to a DACA recipient, said she was 3 years old the last time Congress enacted “any real immigration reforms.”

“The reality is nobody in leadership in the last 30 years has done anything to really move comprehensive immigration reform,” she said.

Recent efforts to overhaul the county’s immigration system have stalled in Congress. The Senate walked away from a major bipartisan package earlier this month when it became clear House Republicans wouldn’t pass it.

That legislation did not address the issue of assistance for non-citizen spouses of citizens, said DeAzevedo.

“American voters can tell the difference between border policy and immigration policy,” said James O’Neill, director of legislative affairs for ABIC Action. “They understand the labor shortage and they want solutions to that labor shortage.”

O’Neill said ABIC polled voters in seven swing states — Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia — and asked whether they would support a policy change to give work permits to “long-term immigrant contributors, farm workers, dreamers and spouses of U.S. citizens.” A majority, 66% were in favor; only 25% opposed.

Ramirez called the expansion of work permits for non-citizen spouses a “win-win” for the economy and mixed-status families. She added that the Valentine’s Day launch of a campaign to push for executive action was fitting.

“As we’re celebrating love, celebrating community, celebrating our spouses, the fact that so many people in this moment are worried that they may be separated from their loved ones because of this broken immigration system is despicable and unacceptable.”

Love stories

Elena, a Nevadan who is using a pseudonym to protect against possible repercussions affecting her federal employment, said she was sharing her story despite the risk because she wants to be a voice for the millions of people whose families have been “shattered by our nation’s broken immigration system.”

“I was married to the love of my life, who was an undocumented immigrant,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. “Together, we worked hard to achieve the American Dream, raising two beautiful children, and purchasing our own home.”

But there hasn’t been a happy ending.

Elena, a U.S. citizen, has worked for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for more than two decades. She says she was required to submit to a background check and needed to provide her husband’s social security number, which he did not have.

Fearing his immigration status would cost her family their source of income, Elena says, she made the “agonizing” decision to divorce him.

“The repercussions of this decision have inflicted immense pain and suffering upon me and my children,” she said.

Elena said she was plunged into battles with depression and anxiety, the latter of which is particularly high during election years like this one.

“I look to see where the candidates stand,” she added. “What will happen? How could a different administration destroy my life?”

Elena and her then-husband had tried to correct his legal status only to be met with him being issued a 10-year bar from the United States for unlawful presence. It was a common theme among the more than half dozen American citizens who shared their stories Wednesday.

Liza, a flight attendant from Atlanta who chose not to use her whole name, said she and her husband of 12 years began the legal immigration process the week they were married.

“Three years later, we hit the ultimate roadblock,” she said. “We were advised my husband could be subject to a lifetime bar from the U.S. should he leave to attend his visa interview in Mexico. Imagine our devastation that day when instead of finally reaching the end of the arduous immigration process we discovered there was no end in sight.”

Liza, her husband, and their two children are now “stuck living in the shadows” — in constant fear of him being deported and having their family separated.

What Liza and her husband were warned about is exactly what Dr. Gina Cano says happened to her and her husband a decade ago. He returned to Mexico for a visa appointment and wound up permanently barred from the United States.

Cano recalled receiving the phone call where her husband told her he wasn’t going to be able to come back home to her.

“There was nothing I could do as a U.S. citizen to change it or to even appeal,” she added.

Cano, who at the time was finishing a family medicine residency in Cincinnati, Ohio, made the decision to live apart from her husband while finishing her medical training.

“The difficult decisions have continued,” she said. “Turning down dream job offers, leaving my country to keep our family together, giving birth to our children in a foreign country, and missing countless holidays and family events…”

Cano has now lived in Mexico for nine years, though she has traveled back to the United States periodically to work, including during the height of the covid pandemic when health care professionals were in dire need.

“I’m facing living apart from my aging parents and never being able to pursue our dreams together as a family because of these outdated and ineffective immigration bars,” she said. “My husband is a kind, hardworking man who received a permanent bar for just having helped his family. We should not be punished for the rest of our lives for that.”

Ed Markowitz, an American citizen with Colorado roots, experienced something similar. Like others who shared their stories, the Navy veteran said he knew his wife Rocio was undocumented when they married, but he expected his citizenship to be able to provide a path toward legalization.

It did not.

Instead, in 2011, Rocio was permanently barred from reentering the United States after she left in search of medical care for their son. The couple and their son now live in Canada.

“This dysfunctional system has forced my son, my wife, and me to live in exile, away from our families and away from everything I’ve ever known as home,” he said.

It is “an injustice being served to innocent and beautiful American families,” added Markowitz. “And it hurt. It still hurts.”

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There are similarities between our slow response to the public health dangers of smoking and our current accepting attitude toward gambling. (Getty Images)

Policy, politics and progressive commentary

The past several years have seen an explosion of gambling in Virginia, and it is poised to become a billion-dollar industry here next year. There are new legislative proposals to further expand gambling, like allowing Virginia residents to bet on local sports teams, legalizing so-called skill games, and building more casinos. Concurrently, spending on advertisements for gambling is surging. Reading the headlines, one would think gambling has been a huge success for Virginia.

But that’s because we don’t talk about the downsides of gambling.

Up to 6% of gamblers worldwide suffer from problem gambling, a diagnosable condition defined as by a person continuing to gamble despite negative consequences. Calls to gambling helplines are skyrocketing in Virginia: in 2022, there was a 56.7% increase in the number of calls to the Virginia Council on Problem Gambling from the previous year. This data links to the most tragic problem associated with gambling: suicide.

A 2021 study based in England found problem gambling increases the risk of suicide attempts for men nine-fold and for women five-fold. In another study, nearly 20% of suicide victims were gamblers. About 30% of individuals diagnosed with problem gambling think about suicide and about 15% of these individuals attempt suicide, the study found. The link between gambling and suicide has been demonstrated again and again across cultures. Gambling can lead to despair and desperate acts.

Unfortunately, young men, many of whom tend to be impulsive, seem most prone to developing gambling disorder. As the father of a teenage son, this especially troubles me because I hear from my son that some of his underage peers engage in online gambling. Because of the vulnerability and impulsivity of the young brain and the expanded access to online gambling, I expect the number of individuals with problem gambling — and, unfortunately, the number of young men who die from suicide — to grow.

Suicide related to gambling is driven by two main factors: indebtedness and shame. Most of us know that “the house always wins,” making gambling is a losing enterprise for almost all bettors, and that fact drives the indebtedness. Gambling is becoming a billion-dollar industry in Virginia for a reason.

The second factor driving suicide related to gambling, shame, brings me to my larger point: we need to talk about our gambling problem.

Our current societal relationship to gambling reminds me of our relationship to smoking in the 1950s and 1960s. Smoking was seen as glamorous and something successful people did. Depictions of smoking were integrated into television and movies, and cigarette advertisements were everywhere. Even though we knew about the risks of smoking for decades, it wasn’t until the Surgeon General’s report on smoking in 1964 that we got serious about the substantial health risk it posed and recognized the incorrect messages we were sending about the impacts of tobacco use. It took another couple decades to stop depicting smoking as glamorous.

Fast forward to today, and I cannot watch a sports program or listen to a podcast without hearing about gambling. The gambling outcomes of a sporting event seem more important than who actually wins on the field. As some sort of nod to the dangers of gambling, a warning about problem gambling is usually buried in small text or tacked on in rapid speech, but that seems perfunctory when compared to the bulk of the content. With ESPN’s entry into gambling, the emphasis on sports gambling has only increased. I see the similarities between our slow response to the public health dangers of smoking and our current accepting attitude toward gambling.

But, it’s not me that I am worried about. I’m middle-aged, financially secure, and too annoyed by losing to gamble. It’s the impressionable young people who are targeted by the media that I worry for, those young adults for whom gambling’s promise of riches and glory will only lead to indebtedness, shame and possible suicide.

So, how can we decrease the impact of gambling on our society?

We know marketing drives gambling, among both young people and others who would like to stop gambling. Gambling advertising should be greatly curtailed, especially when people underage may be exposed. The rules for regulating tobacco advertising provide a template.

We also need to destigmatize gambling losses. We need to recognize that, for most of us, gambling is a losing endeavor and decrease the shame around losing at gambling. Losing money gambling is normal and should be normalized. We should not celebrate winners with ad campaigns that reinforce the myth that most people win. Gambling is designed so that we lose.

Most importantly, we must ensure that minors do not have access to gambling. We would not let a minor gamble in a casino; why do we not have better protections for minors online? A simple approach would be to make minors non-liable for losses at online gambling. That market-imbedded solution would likely and quickly incentivize online gambling companies to better age-gate their products. Maybe, when it comes to young people, the house shouldn’t be allowed to win.

As gambling has quickly become pervasive in our society, we have failed to recognize the insidious impact it can have on mental health and suicide rates. Young people are especially at risk. We need to talk about this problem and implement some solutions before we lose big.

This column was originally published in the Virginia Mercury.

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