Questions for Shelley Lubben about The Pink Cross

I should start this by saying that, though I have written some fairly anti-religion articles on my own blog, many times, I want to be on the side of religion. I do really. I don't obsess about any topic unless I have feelings for it, as well as against it. I think that any route we can find in life that inspires us to care about other people is productive. Also, it's not so much all of the ideas behind religion that drives me crazy as it is the hateful person's interpretation of a religion and it's traditions. One person can use any story to say that it is a good thing to help your fellow human being. Another person can twist any story to say that it is only okay to help only one type of person and condemn the rest. So, it is important that anyone who has read my endless banter against discrimination, in the form of religion, know that I am really just very much in question of people who will use any means to hurt other people. Well, and that whole 'Man in the Sky' thing still bothers me... A topic for another time!

When I first heard about The Pink Cross, my first reaction was a positive reaction. Helping people, treating other people kindly, is healthy and very good. I am a huge proponent of groups that help living things: environmentalists, groups that save children and women from domestic violence, animal rights activists, the U.S. Department of Veteran's Affairs, etc... People who care are always needed in our world. They are necessary!

When I found out that The Pink Cross is a religious organization, I became instantly skeptical. But, I thought, 'You know, putting my skepticism about religion aside, it's probably only fair to just ask the main person, Shelley Lubben, why the religious overtones are even a factor in this organization.' Regardless of what I think, the fact is that religion is an integrated part of our species' culture well beyond most written history. For some reason people don't search for their own inner moral compass to lead them. Most people need magical stories, strict guidelines for how to be, who to be, why to be, and they also need to know exactly where they are going. And it's as if most people prefer to be told what to do. They want the guesswork taken out of living, even if it still leaves them with questions. It's hard for me to understand, really, because it's as if they think that the fabric of their existence will unravel into the abyss of extinction if someone doesn't hand them a picture-page outline of exactly what's going on, instead of seeing the unknown the way I see it, as a world of wonder and incredible possibility that reconnects me through the eyes of my own inner child, a child who is endlessly fascinated with the wonders of "The Beyond" - a wonder that isn't just about outer space and the possibility of life on other planets, but the mysteries we still grapple with here on Earth, the wonder of "You", the wonder of "Me". It seems a sad existence if everything is so finite and predictable. That, and of course, it makes no sense, to me. But again, if we are talking about "most people", maybe that can be a source of my compassion for this particular organization.

I was at a birthday dinner the other night and a Jewish friend was explaining the Ten Days of Repentance - ten days of thinking about your ways before facing your maker on Yom Kippur. I won't assume to write a comprehensive piece on this because I would get details wrong - I'm not Jewish - and it is not my intention to mislead anyone about any tradition, but from what he told me, I was in a bit of awe by it. He finished his explanation, and I said, "Wow. That's a very clever way of consciously getting people to stop and think about what they're doing with their lives. That's impressive." And it is! I mean, if you're going to get your group of people to pay attention, that is one thought-out way to do it! And it is, of course, things like this that can make me see the beauty in almost any tradition. They all have some noble things about them.

Where I know my compassion can be reached in Shelley's case is this: maybe she is not a discriminating religious person, maybe she just realizes that people need the third-party justification of religion to be okay with helping the lowly sex worker (speaking from the thoughts of people who would normally look down on such people, of course). Maybe Shelley realizes that just starting an organization without religion would get no one's attention. Maybe she tried! Maybe she knows that just being "someone who cares", for most people, is not enough. Maybe she is clever and in her own thoughts she knows that the only way, is to dress it up, in order to get the non-sex industry person involved - people who would not, otherwise, care about a prostitute or a "porn star" - even though they are as deserving of care as anyone else.

Somehow religion, once it enters the picture, any picture, no matter how crazy the idea, no matter how ridiculous the notion, or horrific the end result - even murder - somehow it is a carte blanche pass to do whatever you want. If this is something Shelley knows and uses, I sympathize. If Shelley, having been a prostitute, and knowing the shadier and more basic motivations in people, knows that there is no other way to get people to care about her kind, my heart goes out to her. I would still disagree with the method because tricking people into helping you may seem like the only way, but it is not the only way. No one wants to be a martyr - no one that I know, anyway - but I believe that just being honest can get the same result. That's just me, of course. Maybe I'm wrong.

If Shelley is, actually, a very religious person, then I have several important questions for her. And I do make her the focal point of all my questions because she is the spokesperson for The Pink Cross.

One obvious question is, do you only help women? Certainly, there are men who would like to be saved from their lives, that work in the sex industry? Do you just let people come to you, and if not, do you go to industry functions and just stand to the side as someone available to help, or do you and/or your people actually push yourselves on industry people who may not want your help, people who are perfectly happy with their lives? It's an important question because if it is a pushy cause, it's no different than a drug pusher getting right in someone's face with the hard sell that crack is the cheapest route to the happiest place on earth when you can't afford to go to Disneyland.

Also, I saw the video of "Dead Porn Stars", with title cards of how they died. That video is very insensitive because it just further stereotypes the sex worker as someone destined to die of AIDS, alcoholism, overdose, suicide... if they don't "get out now". The closet parallel to a porn star's life is the rock star life. The job, itself, pretty much requires personalities that lean toward the extroverted and outrageous. It is a lifestyle that invites excess. Also, for a good portion of time, one must remember, there were only so many porn stars, so I think it is an unfair representation of everyone in the adult industry, or maybe you have an organization in the works to save rock stars from their deviant lives, as well? I would be curious to know how many ex-porn stars are still alive and well and not contemplating suicide, or how many ex and current porn stars there are that are contemplating suicide, not because they feel badly about themselves as a result of their own thinking, but as a result of the kind of thinking that motivates videos that put them down as doomed because they are in porn. Videos like the "Dead Porn Star" video.

The most important question is, if you are professing to care about  a group of people, someone who wants them to get out of a bad situation, and your basic claim in helping them is that you don't judge them, if they want your help but are not willing to "accept God as their savior", do you help them, anyway? Maybe a person wants help but is not willing to pledge their devotion, maybe they are still looking for their own answers - are they still accepted as worthy of receiving your help? I'm not talking about someone who is blatantly rude about it, but maybe with all of their heart they just don't know what they believe, yet. Do you still care about this person and give them aide? It's a good question, because if the answer is "No," then what you are saying is the opposite of how you are presenting yourself. It's like PETA posting campaign ads that insult people: "Save The Whales", with a picture of an overweight woman in a bathing suit next to the title. You can't profess to care by being uncaring. It doesn't make sense. "Watch me display how sensitive I am, through my insensitivity..." It doesn't make any sense. If you turn people who need help, away, then you are saying, "Well, I would care about you, but if you don't care about God, you are unworthy of help."

I'm not trying to be an asshole, I think it's important to point out that there may be many people who do want help, but you've alienated them by making religion the most important factor in whether or not their lives are worth anything. PETA has made the core of their motivation about being publicly mean to children and overweight people. They use shock propaganda tactics to get attention and, consequently, they alienate entire groups of people they could be reaching out to. I think you could be doing great things with your organization, if your core goal is really about the people and not the religion. And that leaves the last question. Maybe the cause has nothing really to do with helping sex workers or pushing religion. Maybe these things are just byproducts of a greater cause. Maybe the core of your passion here is really just about promoting the only interest you have ever had in mind. Maybe this is all really just about you?

- Julie Meadows