No Surprise: ASHA Board Member Liberal Progressive Politician; Gay/Transgender Rights Proponent

ASHA board of directors member Tom Hallahan is also a liberal progressive politician and proponent for transgender rights. This is from his failed 2010 Massachusetts campaign.

Many ASHA members wonder why ASHA seems so determined to shove irrelevant radical progressive causes (such as transgender rights) down its member's throats.
ASHA board of directors member Tom Hallahan's campaign literature describes him as an "advocate for social justice." He ran a failed campaign for the Massachusetts district one governor's council in 2010. He has described himself as a "vocal proponent" for gay and transgender rights.

ASHA board member Tom Hallahan is a liberal progressive and a vocal proponent for gay and transgender issues

The website "transgender news" ran an article about Tom called "Gay dad runs for governor's council" You can read that story by going here.
Included in the same article:

...Hallahan calls for more focus on transgender rights. “I have been a vocal proponent for passage of (ENDA) only if it includes all people,” he said. “The (national gay and lesbian) task force have always said, ‘this is the last line of civil rights, and we will all cross it together.’ And I could not agree with that more.” Link

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ASHA recently revised its code of ethics to include transgenders  (if you're scratching your head right now trying to recall the groundswell of ASHA members demanding that ASHA become an advocate for transgender rights, it could be because there was none). Now that ASHA has "more focus on transgender rights," board member Tommy - a "vocal proponent" for the same - might be pleased; members aren't.

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ASHA's sole purpose for existence should be to promote the professional interests of slps and audiologists. That means that ASHA has no business getting involved in any divisive social/political advocacy that is not directly related to our professional interests.

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In response to a request for a statement from ASHA, Marty Rome, chief staff officer for communications, sent the following:

Members of ASHA’s Board of Directors are elected by ASHA members. In their roles as Board members, they have well defined responsibilities delineated within  the position description for the position they hold on the Board. Board members are not paid for their service, have professional and private lives outside of their Board service, and have the right to their own personal views. ASHA does not comment on the personal views or opinions of Board members.

Martin J. Rome

Chief Staff Officer for Communications

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A note on comments:
I've received several comments/emails from individuals who make statements such as the following:
"As a lesbian SLP, I want ASHA to stand up for our gay clients so that they will not be denied speech services because of their sexual orientation."
I won't publish these comments because they are delusional. Crazy. And I mean Jared Loughner - the-government-is-controlling-our-minds-with-grammar - batshit crazy. There is no epidemic of clients being denied speech services because of their sexual orientation. I'll go even further: this has NEVER happened (and if it has happened, The ASHA Leader has been derelict in its duties by failing to report such incidents). The only place this is happening is in the paranoid fantasy life of the people who write me. Think of it for a moment: this SLP (and several others who have written me) actually believes that SLPs somewhere someplace (and they are always short of all specifics, of course), are refusing to treat students for their /s/ problem because they are gay. What is any SLP doing questioning a client about their sexual orientation? Who does such a thing? In the case of school children, what school would tolerate such an SLP working for them? I can see it now: a school based SLP assessing her third graders to find out if they are gay before deciding if she can work on their speech sound disorders. "Sorry, Mary, but your hairstyle is short and frumpy, you're obese, you have no fashion sense, and you like to play softball - no speech services for you. I'll just note this in your IEP: eligibility denied due to possible lesbian orientation."
If you claim that there is a problem with clients being denied speech services because they are gay, let's see some facts. Put up or shut up. I won't waste any space here letting you promote a self-serving myth.

UPDATE 8/13/13: It's been two years since I issued a challenge to provide documentation that any gay client has ever been denied speech services because of their gayness, and the silence has been deafening. The reason? It never happened! It was nothing but a lie and a slander, fabricated out of thin air. When challenged, not one person could prove the charge that slps are denying lgbt clients services and that ASHA had to become advocates for the lgbt cause in order to correct the (mythical) injustice that (never) took place. Why would they lie about something like that? It was a way to hijack ASHA and use its resources to further their agenda. Now that they have been exposed as nothing but vicious liars and slanderers willing to fabricate ethical violations in order to intimidate ASHA into even more politically correct madness than it already practices, no one who cares about this profession should take them seriously.

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