Court uses queer counselor

I just ran across this article in the Setpember/October 2000 issue of the Utne Reader.

As psychotherapist Bret Johnson explains in In the Family (July 1998), gays and lesbians often go through a second coming out, from lesbian or gay to bisexual-sometimes decades after their first coming out. "Back in the 1960s and 1970s, coming out meant making a break from heterosexuality," he writes. "But in the late 1990s, we are witnessing a break from gayness and lesbianism."

But, he adds, "the new wave of coming out almost looks like going back in.... It's as if we're seeing a challenge to the old, modernist way of thinking 'This is who I am, period'and a movement toward a postmodern version, 'This is who I am right now."' ...

Perhaps this needs to be balanced with what Bret Johnson notes about the new generation of queer people he works with in therapy: "They don't want to fit into any boxes -- not gay, straight, lesbian, or bisexual ones. They want to be free to come out as who they are, when they are ready to decide that, and then they want to be free to change their minds."

Besides counseling gay men on coming in and out of the closet, Bret Johnson works as a custody evaluator for the Santa Cruz County family court. He may be tolerant of the "queer people he works with in therapy", but he is not tolerant of fathers rearing children.

He wrote a report that said this of me:

Further, Father's tendency to "do things over and over" such as feed the children one vegetable for a long period, have the young children brush their own hair because they are too fussy, and that he is unorthodox in parenting approaches may not be neglect or abuse in the pure sense of the words; rather it suggests he runs things in his own way, on his own time, and may not take new input well with regards to the children's best interests.

The vegetable remark was based on interviewing my 5-year-old daughter:

at Father's they have oatmeal; and she went through the vegetable rotation, e.g., broccoli, potatoes, asparagus -- "We are still on asparagus."

In Bret Johnson's view, I guess it is okay to be unorthodox about how I use my bodily orifices, but not about my vegetable rotation or my hair brushing.

Actually, I don't think that there is anything unorthodox about my vegetable or hair-brushing policies. I have consulted with dieticians and they say that my so-called vegetable rotation is excellent. Bret Johnson is an out gay man who knows nothing about children, so perhaps any normal practices might seem unorthodox to him.

Bret Johnson is someone that most people would regard as a kook and a pervert. Because he thought that my vegetable rotation or my hair brushing was unorthodox, he recommended that the family court issue the following order against me:

10. Counseling/ Related: A. Father shall participate in a minimum of six months of thrice monthly individual counseling with a licensed therapist familiar with issues of healthy child care ... and shall continue as needed thereafter or until released.

Until recently, homosexuality was considered a psychological disorder and a felony. In much of the USA and the rest of the world, people still think so. If being unorthodox justified forced psychotherapy, then surely homosexuality would qualify. Bret Johnson would be imprisoned and forced to undergo psychotherapy until he switches to more normal sexual preferences. In another time or another place, he would face the death penalty. Instead, he is working for the Santa Cruz County family court, and trying to order me to undergo long-term forced psychotherapy because he thinks that my vegetable rotation and hair brushing are unorthodox.

My ex-wife complains that I disagree with Dr. Johnson. You bet I do. Bret Johnson is incompetent and malicious. No one should ever take child-rearing advice from him. My kids could do better custody evaluations than he does.