Education and Politicians: Politicians Are All Wrong. Surprise!

If it weren't for my Aspergian tendencies, I'd try to become a lobbyist or politician. Or if I knew I could make a good living off of it I'd do it.

I have some relatives that work in public schools, so I get to hear about lovely programs and solutions-of-the-month that are fed into the public schools by administrators and government. Most of the time I'm just left shaking my head, wondering what the politicians are thinking.

I mean...do they actually spend any time in the classroom to see what effect their various decrees are having?

I was thinking about it again when I found a Time article from a researcher who actually studied the effect of "bribing" kids with money in order to increase achievement in schools. The researcher was an economist, which reminded me of a fantastic book I recently finished, SuperFreakonomics. That book continued to build off the first book, Freakonomics, wherein the economist authors provide both entertaining and informative information while reinforcing the idea that people change their behavior based on the proper incentive (well, that's one of the ideas, anyway...he makes several observations and links between various phenomena of people's behavior).

I was thinking about the way the US is currently trying to increase student achievement. The government finds that our population is stupid. Very stupid. As in, on average, we are scientifically, mathematically, and historically ignorant compared to most other industrialised nations. Recent highlight; the NSF hid results of portions of a recent survey of American regarding the big bang and evolution.

Okay, blame schools, they decide. Enter No Child Left Behind, and the ensuing efforts to standardise education. There are lists of what kids must be able to do by certain grade levels/ages, and if schools keep underperforming, they lose funds, and if it continues to happen, schools are shut down or taken over by outside groups. Kids take a series of tests as dictated by various agencies in various state governments at different times of their educational lives.

There are huge numbers of detractors for the way education is attempting to be reformed, but it seems to me that the most fundamental problem is that the onus of "fixing" education is on the wrong entity.

There is no incentive for students to do better. If they perform poorly, the school is punished. Essentially, the teachers are told that if they have students not doing what they're supposed to be doing, then it's the teacher's fault; the teacher didn't "engage" every kid in the classroom to the point where they want to learn.

This places blame for student stupidity squarely on the teachers, as the blame is placed by politicians on the schools which goes on the administrators who then turn around and blame the teachers. And the blame stops there.

The real problem, as I see it, lay in the community. If the kids screw off in school, the school gets punished. Not them. What incentive is there to learn?

The parents of failing kids rarely seem to care. Usually that sub group is just as ignorant as the kids.

The community as a whole doesn't value education. We have a society that wanted to have a George Bush clone for president because he was someone that the "Average Joe" could sit and have a beer with, while "liberal" candidates were overeducated and out of touch with the average American, apparently because they were educated if you listen closely enough to the criticisms. How can you expect students to want to perform well in academia when we pay sports stars millions of dollars while scientists are begging for funding, usually from corporate interests only funding research that they believe with benefit their own interests?

What it comes down to, in my view, is incentive. Students have no incentive to achieve academically. What happens if they fail math or science? They still have their cell phones, ipods, freedoms for the most part...schools can only limit so much. Even things they're not supposed to have the freedom to do teachers will let kids get away with. "It's study hall, it's not worth taking away the cell phone, so if they want to text go ahead..."

Most parents don't care. The helicopter parents are usually the ones in the conferences and emailing about their child's progress and their kids aren't the ones failing or staying home "sick" for thirty days a year.

Since we don't place incentives or punishments on parents and students, and instead focus on schools being punished, of course schools will fail at getting kids motivated to learn. How do you get kids involved when all teachers hear from the students is, "What do these tests matter? It's not like we're graded on them or something."

It's simply another burden for schools to bear. The funny part is that people still think schools are for learning; they're instead a social program for watching kids. Most parents have no idea how much money is spent on so-called IEP's (this may be different depending on what your state has for helping kids) and special-needs. Schools spend tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on purchasing special equipment for kids that will never be able to move beyond the most basic of skills; 18 year olds with the mental development of a five year old. Schools spend resources on counseling kids, sports, and various activities that have little if anything to do with academics. It's disingenuous to label a school as an educational institution when it actually fills a niche I like to call "community spackle;" public schools are expected to fill in all the gaps that parents can't be bothered to perform in raising their kids.


The whole "No Child Left Behind" is simply highlighting the shortcomings that have been cultivated in our society so blame can be allocated onto the schools and politicians are able, for the next several years, to both look like they care about making society less stupid while simultaneously looking like they're doing something about it. What it actually does is add a greater burden to schools, which in turn puts a greater squeeze on their employees, which then makes more qualified educators flee from the field and encourage more mediocre teachers to fill teaching posts, thus lowering education quality even more.

In short:
There's little incentive for parents to pressure students to achieve.
There's little incentive for kids to achieve.
There's little incentive for good, qualified educators to stay in the field.
There's little power given to schools to actually affect any change in the situation. They're simply given a directive, and when they fail, they're punished. Ever been put in charge of something that you have no authority to direct? Isn't that the definition of being set up to fail?

There are several things I've found to be screwed up with public education but until we acknowledge that many of these problems begin and end with the public, our nation will continue to carry a reputation of being among the most mediocre countries for education, per capita, among the developed nations of the world.

Kids Teach Us About Us

I have a nearly five year old son.

The best part about observing my son as he grows and develops is that he has a lot of behaviors that I think we have learned to stifle as we age, so in a way he's a window into our "true selves." Impulse control issues aside, I am constantly admiring how much it seems he can teach about user friendly design issues and the various thoughts and observations that run through our heads that he'll say out loud while we stifle them at some point from being uttered.

The latest thing I noticed is that, like other people, he lives in a magical world. If it doesn't directly relate to something he wants or something he's directly curious about, he just takes it for granted. He doesn't ask questions about most of the things around him, and somewhere he files it away that that's just the way things are.

I can't for the life of me remember how we got directly on the topic, but I enlightened him to the fact that poop comes from food. Apparently he thought poop just appeared.

Me: "Yes, food you eat turns into poop after many hours. Where did you think poop came from?"
Him: "My butt."

We live in a world where you literally have more knowledge available to you than ever before. The Internet, your library, the bookstores...you can learn everything from how Twinkies are made to how to survive in the woods to how to grow your own food. You can learn about World War II and the sex lives of Romans and ancient Greeks. You have access to knowledge that great men and women in history would have killed to know. It's almost laughable the sheer volume of information that we have access to yet take for granted. And yet today we have people that believe the world operates on a set of arbitrary magical rules. Ignorance is almost celebrated in our culture. It's a sad commentary.

For the most part this quick post is little more than a random observation. I was simply struck by the fact that my son had naively never thought to question why he had to go to the bathroom. It just...happens.

Although now he thinks that when he eats food, he's eating poop.

Oops.

Healthcare System Thoughts: Reform

I recently saw someone make a half-headed comment about Democrats "ramming" legislation through congress for healthcare reform that "most Americans don't want" and Independents and Republicans are against.

I commented, only half jesting, asking if she had seen the recent bit on Colbert (or was it Jon Stewart?) where they did a news bit on Hawaii's healthcare.

For the most part she stayed out of the back and forth, probably because she doesn't really have a full idea of what she was whining about. She only clarified that if people were against it then it shouldn't be rammed through Congress.

Which, of course, is bullshit.

Primarily because Congress isn't looking out for the people; they're looking out for the popular vote, money, and politics, THEN their constituents. And I usually think most of the people bitching about whatever issue is on the front page of a newsmag probably do not know what a constituent is.

The bit on the "fake" news program brought up that Hawaii has had, for nearly 40 years, a law that mandates employers to provide health insurance for employees who work 20 hours or more four days a week. This means that just about every person in Hawaii is insured. There are wonderful statistics for the state showing that overall their health is among the best in the country. Of course here are problems to nitpick; employer fraud is on the rise, and some have decided to skirt the law by hiring more people to work fewer hours. It happens, of course. Apparently if something isn't one hundred percent effective then it's a failure in the minds of morons. At the same time, the numbers speak for themselves; the NY Times has an article that states that the health insurance premiums in the state tie North Dakota's for being the lowest and medicare costs per beneficiary are the lowest in the country. Hawaii has the highest incidence of breast cancer in the country, yet the lowest number of deaths.

This, of course, didn't stop someone in the Facebook thread, apparently from Hawaii, from being offended at the comment that they have a "socialized" healthcare systems (her tricorder must be missing a 'sarcasm' setting). Quick tidbit...when Republican spin doctors are spinning the ideas they oppose in oversimplified terms for an ignorant population, they like using words like "socialized" in this case to mean that the government is in control of the healthcare instead of the people; I was using the term tongue in cheek, but the fact remains that your state government is mandating health insurance coverage by proxy through the employers. When the government mandates and agent through proxy, it's still government meddling.

But in this case it seems to be helping.

A quick Google on the topic of "Hawaii healthcare" pops up several articles, most of the recent ones about a failed children's health insurance coverage system and many bouncy heads pointing to it as a failure. "See! They repealed it in seven months! We told you government healthcare can't work!"

Actually reading the information seems to show that there are kids who aren't covered with insurance. To help with that there was an initiative meant to cover the population of kids in need. What happened was that a number of people with  insurance already dropped their kids and moved them to the new system, so the money allotted couldn't handle the influx.

The actual "unworkable" system has been in place for decades for employed citizens.

On another note, I asked a friend and expat living in Australia what the health insurance system is like. He said that, like most of the modern world, it's socialized, and he'd be afraid to return to the States with the nightmare that is our insurance bureaucracy. The thing to remember, he said, is that your insurance companies are for-profit. They aren't there to help you. They have shareholders to please.

Which is true. It's against the law, last I knew, for a company to act in a way contrary to the interests of the shareholders, or the shareholders can sue. Good luck navigating this information, though...apparently big names like Blue Cross Blue Shield are fractured into a number of for-profit and non-profit sub companies in relationships so convoluted that the only thing more confusing is dealing with them as a customer.

I quickly grew tired of the crap spewing from talking heads and ended my contributions with a summary; I don't care. Any changes made not won't have a significant effect until I'm dead. Why?

Simple. Because part of the reason Hawaii is most likely doing well is because they've had it for decades. If you have state-run or federal-mandated health systems, it's going to have a large budget swell the first few decades because we're a population of gluttonous pigs. We're smokers. We're sedentary. We recognize more McDonaldland characters than we do names of astronauts or federal judges. More people can name more sports teams than ingredients in a soft drink or average calories at their favorite restaurant for their favorite meals (for those that actually provide nutrient information). So if you want to help with health issues, there's going to be a tail effect...the youth will need to grow up with better habits and lifestyles. As they become more prevalent, you'll see health effects slink up the charts, but the initial funding will be going towards those of us that have pissed away our lives in front of the television eating fast food and generally making unhealthy choices.

Offensive for some, but once we, the current generation or two, die off, then you'll see effects of a healthier lifestyled generation.

Of course at the point where we put a strain on the budget there will be a large outcry from the morons bemoaning the reform, and steps will be taken to eradicate it. People want it both ways. We want businesses to sell boatloads of frankenfoods...shakes...burgers...sodium-laden but yummy chain restaurant glop...while people just magically stay fit and healthy.

On the other hand, people living longer and healthier means that we'll have a greater population living longer and the health effects that just come from aging, a whole new ball of wax to debate and whine over.

My take? Like I said, I don't care anymore. I can't make a change. What I say doesn't matter. Any change for the better is going to take time and I'll be dead before I could reap any benefits from it (which I truly think is what insurance companies want). I also don't understand the endless debate we have in this "wonderful country" over healthcare when people literally go bankrupt because they have an illness. There's people WITH insurance that go bankrupt because of an illness. That's simply ridiculous, and the only reason I can think of that this is allowed to go on is because the asses actually being vocal about the debate are healthy or already have excellent insurance coverage, so they couldn't really give a damn about other people without voices in the matter, people who actually suffer the ramifications of these debates and political manoeuvrings, suffering because the talking heads that are supposed to be representing the interests of the constituency are more interested in the money from lobbyists.

Sad, isn't it?

Young Kids: It's Black and White

I remember when I was younger (way back in the 80's) I used to love watching cartoons like Transformers and Voltron. There were plenty of other series on like Smurfs, G.I. Joe, Dinosaucers, and many, many others.

I remember as I grew up it became fairly confusing how each of the series seemed to follow the same tropish formula. I don't mean just the examples found in series like Voltron, either, where you have a basic premise of the bad guys coming in and launching an all-out assault against the "good" planet (alway focusing somehow on the good guy's base of operations), good guys get into a scrape (how will they get out of it?) then the whole thing is resolved in the last five minutes by forming Voltron and slashing the bad guy in half with the Blazing Sword.

No, I mean the trope wherein these cartoon worlds were always divided into two factions; the good, and the evil. While in elementary school I began to wonder why the good guys always won. It was boring. We never knew why the bad guys wanted to take over the universe (who would want the paperwork involved? And what do you do once you've taken over the universe? Go to Disneyworld?)

Why were bad guys bad? Sometimes there's some trite backstory involving how the psychotic Bad Guy(tm) feels the world wronged him or the hero of the series wronged him, but there was never a decent reason given as to what motivated this Bad Guy to dedicated his life (and make a living, somehow) off making the Good Guys suffer, or why the Good Guys were dedicated to thwarting the Bad Guy.

It was always so simple, so clear cut which was good and which was bad (why didn't the bad guys just wear white? They could easily infiltrate the Good Guy base just be switching colors, it seemed). For no apparent reason whatsoever the bad guy simply perpetuated every "bad" stereotype out there for being bad. It really drove me nuts. Even in church I never understood why the Devil, Satan, Prince of Darkness, was such a trope...if God was infallible, and was the paragon of goodness, why would Satan have crossed Him? What possible reason would have made him think he could "beat" God? And even if it was just because he was jealous, why dedicate the rest of existence to this endless game of screwing with humanity to anger God? I mean, doesn't it get boring after a thousand years, and why wouldn't God just get tired of it and say, as most parents do when they grow weary of a child's petulance, "That's enough, you've had your fun. Now stop it or I'm going to invert the laws of physics holding your molecular structure intact."

The world didn't seem to play by these simple rules of Here's Good, There's Evil, and Good Always Wins, although we were always told that's how things worked. Certain political parties pandered to the citizenry as holding American values, that we're the Good Guys, that we do what must be done for the good of the world. We are the good guys, over there are the bad guys.

As I grew older I read stories of American warriors sent to other countries to destabilize their governments; we assassinated, we tortured, we killed. We reeled in disbelief at pictures held up by our government of concentration camps created by other countries as examples of their evil intentions and behaviors while simultaneously forgetting that America apparently had concentration camps for Asian-Americans during World War II.

The blinders continue to this day, but I'm not entirely sure anymore it's media that causes this viewpoint. Rather, media simply reinforces this notion that the world is a simple matter of black-and-white, good-and-evil. They're playing to an audience in order to sell more stuff to kids.

I'm the father of a four year old. Thanks to our corporate overlords my son was introduced to Lego Wii games in the form of Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Star Wars. I blew his mind when I told him these were based on movies.

So he watched Star Wars. Yes, even three. I'm a bad parent that way. But what I found interesting was his total lack of comprehension for what he's watching. Yes, he's four, but there are some things he latched onto ("Star Wars people are cool!" he'd say, referring to the Jedi with the lightsabers) and other things that flew over his head (understandably so). But in particular, he needed to divide the movie into "good guys" and "bad guys."

Star Wars is not necessarily a shining example of perfect storytelling. But it is rather complicated. It weaves a story together not just of a man's journey from his own failures and shortcomings to redemption, but of a man who plotted and achieved great power at the expense of a democratic republic, all the while the people of the republic supported his ascension to power. It told a story of corruption and of the apathy on the part of the citizenry that were in a position to do something about these things and didn't.

My son talked of the "bad guy" Trade Federation, the army of droids, in the movie. They weren't bad, I tell him. They were oppressed by taxation that they felt was unfair. Not surprisingly this didn't matter to my son.

He doesn't understand how the Republic ended up putting powers into the hands of Palpatine as supreme chancellor, and how he manipulated the events to eventually make himself emperor, or turn a democratic republic so mired in bureaucracy into a smooth if oppressive empire.

He doesn't understand how the "good guys" in the first three movies become "bad guys", or that Vader became Vader because he was selfish but driven to gain power over life and death itself in order to protect his true love (whom he ended up killing anyway).

As I live to observe kids in different ages I see fewer and fewer differences. We are, by most accounts in ways it matters, sheeple. We follow crowds. We are manipulated by television ads and print media, all the while told the television shows and ads and print media are just giving us what we want. Petulance becomes tempered and expressed in other more subtle forms as we get older, but in observing children I see human behavior in its most raw form. I see what we want, and what we want to do, in the most basic form. Children have no qualms about telling someone they're fat. Or that you stink. Or any of a number of things that we learn are social faux-pas to admit to. They want something, they say so, unlike my teenager that tries to manipulate us into getting something for her through other means.

And one of the things children latch on to is the idea that the world is simple. It's black and white. There's good, there's evil. Grey wavy lines in between are uncomfortable and take thought and critical thinking to work through.

That's why I think Star Wars is actually kind of a nice critical thinking test for my son. He doesn't yet understand what is going on in it, but someday he hopefully will. In it's own way Star Wars is a wonderful analytical exercise for understanding and critical thinking despite the obvious tropes and horrible elements put into the story for seemingly no reason (Jar-Jar? Oh geez...)

There are elements that should give pause. Why were the Jedi revered while so arrogant in their own power? Why was so little emphasis placed on the fear they placed on ordinary people, or is it unethical that children strong in the force were simply taken away for training, whether they wanted to or not? Was the Empire truly bad, when they apparently had done some good for the citizens in the Empire? And the rebels were killing large numbers of people who probably were not inherently "evil"...they blew up a Death Star that probably had many innocent people working and living on it. They killed beings whose only sin was being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And at the same time, the Empire had held the galaxy in order, and by destroying the central government they achieved what? Plunging the galaxy into a system of regional chaos, overseen by regional governors with their own agendas, while trying to re-establish a central Republican (not American political party Republican) government like the one that had become bloated an ineffectual in the first place? The Empire had drawbacks; being xenophobic, killing dissidents, and a small roster of other offenses to what we consider basic freedoms, but the Empire also brought stability and actual governance where the Republic had failed miserably.

On the surface the movies are simple and appeal to people who, like my son, want superficial simple good-is-good and evil-is-evil and rah rah for the good guy action. But there are skeptics and critical thinkers that want more.

I know this because there is now a growing surge in revisiting the 80's. It seems every franchise is having an attempt at a reboot, and in the process storylines are being fleshed out and revamped, some for better and some for worse.

Not long ago I read a story about the origin of Megatron, the leader of the "evil" Decepticons in Transformers (the real transformers, not the Michael Bay productions). I truly enjoyed it. Why was Megatron bad? He wasn't, really. He was a miner whose job was being taken away through the automation of the plant at which he worked, so Megatron and all the other "low ranking" beings were being forced from a job so a corrupt Autobot government would profit. The series showed how Megatron more or less fell into the position of Decepticon leader after leading a rebellion against a corrupt government. The Autobots were not all clean and clear of fault after all, and the Decepticons, despite having a simplistic set of motives in the childhood cartoons (namely, "we're conquering the galaxy because...well, because.") had actually valid reasons for the spark of insurrection.

Other heroes eventually explored the more complicated intricacies of their backgrounds. Batman is a truly screwed up individual. Iron Man faced his ethical demons in the Civil War story arc, one of the best series I've read from Marvel. Even Voltron has had some light shown in darker recesses that question how wonderful and pure he was as a hero when you look at the original, non-Americanized (and non-Disneyfied) Japanese origin story of Voltron.

This gives me some hope that sometime down the road my son will grow to be a critical thinker. There's hope I can interest him in thinking under the initial layers of simplistic thinking, that the Empire, despite Lucas' efforts to show otherwise, isn't just an evil scourge on the universe. There are complicated undercurrents to the story that can be fascinating to explore and in the process perhaps learn more about the world in which we live.

Self-Assigned Labels

I've been having a bit of a career funk. I find myself getting increasingly agitated with my job, and as a result I spend more time wondering if there's something that would be a better fit for me at this stage of my life, something I'd enjoy doing more and at the same time generate enough money for us to pay our bills and mortgage.

I decided first to find something I can do in my "free time", defined as an hour here or there over the day that I could use to take initial steps needed to invest in a new hobby or career. I narrowed those options down to trying to write a book or spending time learning a programming language to create a potentially sellable service and opted to try writing a book. It's an ongoing process and I'm writing once in awhile about it on the New Author Chronicles blog.

My next step was to try finding some "career guides" to see what, if anything, would appeal to me as a potential career change. I poked around the shelves of Barnes and Noble, I dug through a Waldenbooks that was liquidating stock (big surprise...didn't find anything), and I skimmed reviews and advice on Amazon and B&N's web storefronts (is there anyone that can compete or come close to competing with Amazon for information despite their awkward interface?)

I decided to get a copy of Finding your Own North Star by Martha Beck. The subtitle proclaims, "Claiming the life you were meant to live."

I haven't finished the book yet. All of what I had just written was just some background on how I arrived at my topic for today.

On page 68 the author is discussing "group everybodies", basically how we tend to have this notion of a vague "everybody" that judges us or dictates standards to which we conform when in fact these "everybodies" are really a generalization based on a very small number of people that we grew up with who were critical or somewhat dangerous to our mental health while we ignored the people who supported us, since the critical people would be the baseline of "Safe."

That's the gist of the part I'm currently in. In the discussion of "everybody" generalizations the author mentions that, "This means that most groups end up with a few very vocal members and a large silent majority. We tend to assume that such silense means agreement, that the groups is totally united and monolithic in its beliefs. We're usually wrong. I made this mistake recently, during a radio interview. I tossed of a remark about Catholicism being more restrictive than mystical Eastern religions, only to have the interviewer gntly inform me that he is a mystical Catholic with a wildly unorthodox worldview, and that I might want to think twice before I lump all Catholics together."

The author goes on to say, "I've met Chinese Communists who talked and acted more capitalistic than Donald Trump, U.S. Marines who were absolutely committed to nonviolence, and devout Mormons who were also lobbyists for gay rights. Of course, they weren't the rule, but they are exceptions I would never have dreamed possible if I'd taken the groups opnions at face value."

I'm sorry but this left me scratching my head a bit. I am the first to admit that I'm ignorant about most topics involved...I'm not Catholic, I don't study Chinese culture nor have I been Mormon (I knew some Mormons, but never was a member of the LDS). But these labels cited are largely self-selected and do tend to have fairly clear-cut definitions attached (and also some common assumptions that go with them).

What right do you have to get offended at being associated with what are commonly accepted archetype for a label you associate yourself with?

The religion one in particular bugged me because I've seen so many people who say they're one thing "Except..." They cherry pick, taking what they like of one religion and branding themselves that religion but then they would get huffy if you assumed one thing that they didn't find convenient, such as the idea that the Pope is to be followed without question for Catholics ("I'm a Catholic, but I don't think the Pope is right about..." Well, how are you a Catholic?)

There are some things you can't say you ARE XYZ then go on to clarify that you're not in certain respects. You can't be a little bit pregnant. I'm told my black and white view of the world comes from my own neuro-atypical behaviors, but really, how can you cherry pick the best features of what you like then turn around and get offended at being grouped in with them, especially if it goes to a fundamental founding of their use?

Nonviolent marines? Why would you join a group that has a pretty clear-cut mission of defending a country, usually using a large caliber weapon to cut the opponent into hamburger, and define yourself as a pacifist?

Communists that are capitalists?

Mormons that are gay rights lobbyists? (I don't know if the Latter Day Saints have an official stance on gays, but if they do, I would assume that you can't be against the official doctrine and still call yourself a Mormon).

Again, I am ignorant of the specifics here. It's very possible that, like with the Mormon disclaimer, there are certain things I'm missing and so I'll take the slap on the wrist for it. But here's my stance.

If you have a group or label you identify with, you can't call yourself that label with "except" for things you don't like if it's part of that label's identity.

I can see where mistakes would happen. I'm an American. Somehow this tends to mean that people may think I can't find France on a map and that I'm a rabid pro-Christian gun nut that loves shooting people. Really I'm an American because I was born in America and am an American citizen. The rest is stereotype and propaganda twisted by perceptions by foreigners and our own internal political parties...well, the Republican party...that cites the patriotic image to shame people who don't conform to what they want.

Maybe other people could point out how these dichotomies are justified. I was simply given pause by the statements in the book. Maybe it was simply the idea of a "mystical Catholic" digging up all the memories of people who cherry pick from the Bible while having no idea what they truly believe (or having a real understanding of the religion they wave the banner of). Sometimes the tenets are kind of hidden so unless you truly devote yourself to a cause or organization you may be ignorant of certain policies, such as the Boy Scouts being anti-atheist (I was led to believe they were mostly about pinewood derbies and camping and helping the community, not condemning others for not believing in the Christian God) and the Salvation Army is anti-gay as a policy. Or these are tenets that aren't hidden but rather tacitly ignored by those practicing in such organizations when it is convenient.

Is that what it's really about? Attaching labels out of convenience instead of practicality?