ASHA’s Gay Policy Agenda Exposed

Okay, fellow SLPs, it's time for a true or false test.
1) ASHA’s sole purpose for existing is to promote the professional interests of speech-language pathologists and audiologists. True or False.
2) With so many serious problems facing SLPs, ASHA would never waste its time or resources on an issue as divisive as gay, bisexual, and transgender rights. True or False.
3) Knowing that ASHA's membership is diverse and includes many people of religious faith, ASHA would never be so insensitive as to support an issue that blatantly contradicts the personal morals and beliefs of its members. True or False
Answer key: 1) False 2) False 3) False
How'd you do? Flunk? Don't blame yourself. You see, ASHA has a gay policy agenda that most members know nothing about.
Every year, ASHA develops a policy agenda for the organization (ASHA Policy Agenda). This agenda prioritizes the advocacy activities of ASHA according to the following designations: 1) highest priority, 2) priority, 3) monitoring, and 4) planning. Issues designated as highest priority are those that ASHA has determined require “major” ASHA resources. Issues designated as lower priority are deemed “important,” “relevant,” or in need of “a concerted planning effort” to develop objectives that can be acted upon.
Under the advocacy issues section listed as monitoring, ASHA includes this statement (same webpage):
“Support the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) Legislation, and Association policies that promote non-discrimination based on gender identity, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion, and cultural or ethnic heritage.”
Before we get to ENDA, let's pause for a moment and think about the last half of that sentence, the twenty words that follow the first comma. Why on earth would ASHA have to make supporting and monitoring its own anti-discrimination policies a priority? Has ASHA been secretly engaging in some pattern of discrimination based on “gender identity, disability, sexual orientation, race, religion, and cultural or ethnic heritage” that we don’t know about? Are male staffers being groped by randy ASHA female staffers (this cougar movement has really gotten out of hand!)? Are Hispanics being denied prime desk space in ASHA's offices because of their cultural and ethnic heritage? Are ASHA's bathrooms wheelchair inaccessible?
My guess is that ASHA only mentioned its own policies in that statement because it wanted to divert the reader’s attention away from its support of ENDA. ENDA is mentioned and then - whoosh! - it quickly disappears from your consciousness as you plow ahead to the end of the sentence. Like a carnival worker playing a shell game, it’s important to ASHA that you not look too closely at what it is doing or saying, or you’ll realize that you’ve been had. It's the secret to most magic tricks - divert your audience's attention from what you are really doing. Penn and Teller would be proud. As we shall see, there may be some very good reasons why ASHA did this.
What is ENDA? Let’s go right to the bill to find out. You can read the entire bill by clicking on Bills, clicking on "bill number," and typing "H.R. 2981" in the search box.
ENDA is bill H.R. 2981, S.1584. Sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the bill clearly states its purpose:
“ to provide a comprehensive Federal prohibition of employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity”
Notice that the bill doesn’t say anything about disability, race, religion, cultural or ethnic heritage - although ASHA lumps everything together in its statement about ENDA. ENDA is about one thing, and one thing only: creating a comprehensive Federal prohibition of employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity (meaning transexuals).
Does that sound like a law that promotes the professional interests of speech-language pathologists? It sure doesn’t to me. If it does to you, you need an audiological evaluation. Whether you are for or against ENDA is irrelevant here; that's not the point. What is absolutely clear and should be to every SLP and audiologist is this:
this bill has absolutely positively nothing to do with speech, language, or audiology.
So why does ASHA include it in its policy agenda?
Back in 2007, then ASHA president Noma Anderson made this statement regarding ASHA's support of ENDA (Statement):
"We feel strongly that everyone, regardless of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender or sexual orientation, should be given the opportunity to work in an environment free from discrimination and bias.”
Okay, who is this "we" whom Noma presumed to be speaking for?
Noma, I have news for you: you had no right to speak on behalf of the membership of ASHA on this or any other moral issue: that's not your gig. I'll make you a deal, Noma: I won't presume to speak on behalf of African-American women such as yourself if you agree not to presume to speak out on moral issues on behalf of white, blue-eyed Lutherans such as myself. Noma, who gives a rat's tail about how you feel about ENDA? There are many members of ASHA who feel very strongly that abortion is nothing but cold-blooded murder of the defenseless, but I don’t see ASHA making a pro-life policy part of its agenda.
By making ENDA a part of its policy agenda, ASHA has assumed for itself authority to make pronouncements on moral issues, a role traditionally and very wisely left to carefully trained and educated theologians, philosophers, ethicists, and clerics, not speech therapists and audiologists (what's next? Hearing aid vendors listening to confessions in Beltone stores?). ASHA's endorsement of ENDA is a breathtaking act of arrogance on the part of an organization that began in 1925 with the modest and noble intent of studying and treating speech defects, but which has since morphed into a Godzilla-like monstrosity that even the Japanese army couldn't defeat.

ASHA making pronouncements on moral issues? What does ASHA think it is?
Let me rephrase that question: What the hell does ASHA think it is?!
I suppose we should all stay tuned for future ASHA pronouncements on such issues as stem-cell research, euthanasia, premarital sex, masturbation, and whether or not divorced men and women can receive communion in the Episcopal church.
Now here comes the real zinger (if you're having a cocktail while reading this, you may want to refresh your drink before continuing: you'll need it):
ASHA “view(s) the placement of these objectives as flexible. If a particular issue becomes more visible politically or appears to be headed toward consideration, the Association's level of activity will be adjusted accordingly” (zinger). In other words, an issue that was originally prioritized as something that only deserved monitoring could be moved up the ladder and become an issue that ASHA thinks “requires major resources on the Association’s part." 

Pause. Take drink. Feel blood begin spurting out of your eyes.

An organization whose purpose it is to promote the professional interests of its members strays from its mission when it makes another unrelated goal a priority. At the very least, this could be a sign that the organization has lost its focus and clarity of purpose.
And at worst, it could mean the organization has been hijacked by individuals within the organization who are using it to pursue their own political agendas - agendas that may be antithetical to the values and beliefs of the organization's members.