Disability - Julie Clawson

On Banning Books and Forgotten Memory

Posted on October 11, 2025

As an avid reader, a common trope I encounter in books is that of cultural history fading from memory. In The Lord of the Rings, the memory of the One Ring fades and we see Gandalf digging through dusty old scrolls to find fragments and mentions. In The Chronicles of Narnia, after the Pevensie children are returned to our world after their reign as kings and queens in Narnia, they later return to discover a Narnia in ruins, devoid of magic and Aslan, where their reign is dismissed as myth. In The Hunger Games, the Districts have forgotten their history (as the United States) and even the very existence of District 13. In Star Wars, the Empire so destroys the Jedi with Order 66 that a mere 20ish years later Han Solo says he’s flown from one side of the galaxy to the other and has seen no evidence of the Force. Even in the Bible, after the Israelites were conquered, the Babylonians relocated the rulers and scholars of Israel by force into exile. When the Persians allowed them to return to Jerusalem some 70 years later, they had forgotten their faith, and it was only after discovering an old scroll of the Torah in the Temple and tracking down the elderly prophetess Huldah that they were able to returned to their faith (2 Chronicles 34).

When the stories of history are no longer told they are forgotten. If the powers that be want people to forget that something exists (usually something of great power in opposition to them), they destroy all mention of its existence. It benefitted Sauron that the One Ring (the source of his power) was forgotten; it benefited the Calormen to destroy stories of Aslan and magic; it benefited Snow to tell people District 13 (the rebels) no longer existed; it benefitted the Emperor and the Dark Side to erase every bit of knowledge about the Jedi and the Light Side; it benefited the Babylonians to destroy the Israelites’ faith and identity as a people. If there is memory of something different than authoritarian oppression it must be destroyed in order for the oppressors to hold onto power. Stories that contradict their narrative can give people hope that a better world is possible and hope is the most dangerous thing of all to authoritarian regimes.

And so, one of the very first things authoritarians do is try to control the narrative. Despite them out of one side of their mouth claiming that banning guns won’t stop children dying because banning things never works, they jump headfirst into banning books and knowledge. They change how history gets told – making it illegal to teach about slavery, or internment camps, or the mere accomplishments of women or people of color. They instruct their monuments to take down mentions of Trans people so that story doesn’t get told. They tell their military to remove stories and pictures of women and people of color from their social media. They ban public displays like rainbow crosswalks and “Black Lives Matter” signs. They remove books from schools for even mentioning that LGBT people exist – redefining the very existence of gay people as porn or smut. They make sure they control the narrative in every way, so only the stories they want people to know are ever told. And when someone’s story doesn’t get told, people come to believe they don’t exist or are a strange aberration to be shunned from society.

For instance, under the oppressive USSR government it was considered un-patriotic for visible reminders of the government’s failings to exist in public. So, when their horrible environmental practices and disasters like Chernobyl led to children being born with numerous birth defects, these kids were not allowed to exist in public. Much like when the Nazis rounded up all disabled people into concentration camps, these children were taken from their families and put into “orphanages” where they were hidden away from society, and no one was ever reminded that the government wasn’t perfect. Shortly after the fall of the USSR and before an even more oppressive regime was institute under Putin, I had the chance to visit Latvia and Russia. I almost wasn’t allowed to go on the trip with my youth group because I too am missing my lower left arm and it was well known that people like me were not allowed to be in public there. But I went and at one point we visited one of these orphanages full of people with varying disabilities. I got to spend an afternoon surrounded by kids who were missing limbs just like me being asked questions like “So in the USA are you allowed to go to school?” This is why when RFK Jr. talks about putting people with Autism and other disabilities into Health/Education camps, I know exactly what that is about. If we can be hidden away then we do not exist, we will be forgotten as normal humans and considered freaks. Banning us means us no longer being seen as humans deserving of rights, but as diseases to be dealt with.

Banning people and stories about them rewrites history and cultural perception as well. For example, the Institute for Sexual Science was a sexology research institute in Germany from 1919 to 1933. It conducted research on transgender, gay, and intersex people and campaigned on rational scientific grounds for LGBT rights. When the Nazis gained control of Germany they declared the institute un-German; their censorship programs then destroyed the institute and youth brigades burned its research documents in the streets. The most intensive and detailed research about these topics in existence at the time was not just suppressed, but utterly destroyed. This resulted in a massive setback for LGBT rights and public awareness. To this day people believe that being transgender is some new fad or that intersex people have never existed. None of it is new, none of our sexual desires or attractions are new, but when the research is destroyed and people are banned from talking about it (even sent to concentration camps and tortured for it), it fades from memory and those in control can twist the narrative to make people believe it is something abhorrent and unprecedented. There have ALWAYS been gay, trans, and intersex people but when all records of them are destroyed and it becomes a crime to write or talk about them, the public can be told any lie those in power want and it will be believed.

Censorship is terrifying because it works. Stories teach us empathy towards others. Knowing a person’s story, a people’s history, helps us see them as human – people to be loved and accepted. Seeing disabled people or people of color, or LGBT people represented in books and media, existing in public without fear, and being able to be fully ourselves normalizes our very existence and leads to greater acceptance. Those that want to harm and oppress us can’t allow that to happen. When people know we exist, know our stories, they come to accept us – people (usually) only fear and hate that which is outside of their experience. So, the authoritarian powers that be seek to ban us – they ban our stories, they ban our presence, they ban any reminders of us. We become erased so that they can more easily oppress us and spin the narrative they desire.

That is why we have to be loud. That is why we celebrate Banned Books Week and insist that all stories should be told. That is why when they paint over Pride crosswalks the community draws the color back in. That is why we still celebrate Indigenous People’s Day despite the government trying to overturn it. That is why we protest ICE removing people of color from our communities and disappearing them into secret prisons. That is why we shout that vaccines work and Autism isn’t a disease to be cured. We will not be erased or silenced or have our stories forgotten. That is why we rage against the dying of the light and choose to cling to hope. Rebellions are built on hope. We must tell our story.

On the Americans with Disabilities Act Turning 35

Posted on July 24, 2025

ADA 35

Cross posted from Turning Aside

July 26, 2025 marks the 35^th anniversary of the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act. For many in the disability community this anniversary is marked both with a desire to celebrate what progress has been made in securing our basic rights, but also with lamentation and frustration at how far we still must go. While (for now) public laws and codes require most public spaces to theoretically meet a bare minimum standard of accessibility (which is generally nowhere near sufficient to earn that label), the collective consciousness of the nation still seems to default to ableism.

I want to believe that the ablism as the default mentality is done out of ignorance instead of malice, but I know it is often a mixed bag. There are people who insist that it is their God-given right to mock the disabled, cruelly insisting on making us the brunt of their jokes or calling us “snowflakes” if we ask them to not use the R-word. Even the current President mocked a reporter’s disability at one of his rallies and his fan-base had no problem with it. So, I see the malice and the cruelty that fuels ablism, but I also see the ignorance.

When I was a kid in grade school the trend on the playground was to tell stump and Helen Keller jokes – making those with limb differences, deafness, and blindness their punchlines. People did this in front of me – a person with a limb difference. I thought we were beyond such ignorance as a culture, but in recent years I’ve been hearing stump jokes resurface – often told to my face cluelessly by people who are utterly ignorant that they are using my very existence to elicit a laugh.

Groups of friends plan events in upstairs locations and never wonder why I can’t attend. At parties I am left sitting alone while groups stand in a circle chatting a few feet away, clueless that I physically cannot do the same. I attempt to join meet-up groups only to discover that they too meet in inaccessible upstairs rooms, or at places with no parking (assuming anyone can park blocks away on the street), or at standing only venues, or at outdoor venues with loose gravel yards that my mobility devices can’t manage. These locations are never chosen with a deliberate purpose to exclude the disabled, it just never ever occurs to them to think about accessibility needs.

Or since developing mobility disabilities I’ve had to pay closer attention to accessible parking spaces. More often than I ever would have imagined I see handicapped spots full of cars without the necessary tags or plates. There have been times when I’ve been at a restaurant for a couple of hours in view of the handicapped spots and over and over again I see cars pull into them with no plates or tags and the person run into some store (usually a liquor store or pizza place) for 5-10 minutes. A selfish, self-centered behavior that puts their momentary convenience above the actual needs of others. When I mention this occurrence to store managers I get told that they don’t want to offend customers by having them ticketed or towed (which tells me clearly that they don’t care about offending their disabled customers). When I mention this habit to friends, they are incredulous and say that they can’t imagine anyone doing that so it must never really happen. Selfishness and ignorance.

The ADA was a start; but it is up against a culture that still looks down on disability. I’ve joined and followed disability groups in the last few years and have been shocked by the sorts of comments trolls leave there. Even the mere suggestion that a house be built with accessible features sparks outrage from these people about how the disabled are lazy, want handouts, and want to ruin life for “normal” people. Liturgies at churches still include prayers for the healing of the disabled – treating us as problems to be dealt with instead of people to be included. If I dare to mention that it is not my disabilities, but the inaccessibility of the world around me that limits me even the most open-minded people I know try to argue with me. When I mention Disability Pride Month the most common response I get is confusion about why I would be proud to be disabled and not just desire to be cured. Ableism abounds.

Fifteen years ago on the 20^th anniversary of the passing of the ADA I wrote this blog post about attitudes in the church about the disabled. In the very place where I would have hoped that the disabled would be welcomed and embraced, I was finding deep aversion to including us. Since then, my disabilities have multiplied, but I’ve seen little progress in society in thinking differently. Back then I rarely talked about disability, but now I realize that unless more of us use our voice and challenge all forms of ablism (both ignorant and malicious) then nothing will ever change. Acceptance, inclusion, and accessibility should be the norm, but we are not there yet. I wish more had changed in the past 35 years, but there is still a long way to go.

Never Pray Again

Posted on May 14, 2014July 12, 2025

This post is part of a blog tour for the book Never Pray Again by Aric Clark, Doug Hagler, and Nick Larson. I received a copy of the book as a participant in this blog tour.

Prayer can hurt. All too often it serves as the easy way to meet one’s spiritual quota for the day. Pray before meals thanking God for the food while ignoring the plight of the impoverished workers who labored unseen to bring you the food, send up prayers for stuff you need much like you would wish upon a star, pray that the people/sinners you don’t like will become more like you and check, you’ve done your duty for the day. This is called being close to God. This is the extent of many Christians’ daily spiritual practices. While it may seem benign this sort of praying can often do more harm than good.

As Never Pray Again delves into, prayer often misses the point of what it means to be a Christian. Instead of following the way of Jesus and living into one’s faith, prayer is used as means to look spiritual but not actually do anything. But prayer is not a substitute for action – for actually living out one’s faith. We can hurt ourselves by restricting ourselves from fully embracing our faith when we merely rely on perfunctory prayers, but we also fail to do God’s work in the world. We are God’s hands and feet in this world, it does no good to ask God to fix something in this world unless we are willing to function as such. We let hurt and suffering in this world thrive when all we do is pray. Faith is about going and doing, not simply making a wish and feeling like we’ve been let off the hook.

It is in the chapter titled “Heal!” that the book explores some of the ways prayer can be the most harmful. It is common in churches to pray for the healing of people – from people with cancer, to those with mobility issues, to even those with mental illnesses. And while it may sound extreme the prayers to ‘pray the gay away,’ or that a man or women would live into their God-ordained gender roles, or even that calamity might befall a person in order to stop them from the ‘sinful path’ they might be on are far more common than we would like to believe. I personally have been told by people that they would pray for me because of my belief that women could be pastors. That I shouldn’t take medicine to help with my anxiety issues but that I just needed to cast my cares on God in prayer and I would be just fine. I even grew up being told in church that if I just prayed enough God would heal my arm (I was born missing my left arm below the elbow). And conference after conference I attend think they are being inclusive of disability when they invite people who work with the disabled (and not the actual disabled) to speak about how they serve (seek to heal) those who are different.

The problem with these sorts of prayers and perspectives, as the chapter points out, is that they assume there is some default way of being in this world and that if you don’t measure up to the default you are deficient in some way and so therefore must be healed to be made whole. People who diverge from the default mold are broken and must be fixed. From gays and lesbians, to independent women, to the obese, to the disabled, to the mentally ill – these are signs of not abiding by a culture norm and so must be things people need healing from. These people are lesser than the default model and so must be changed in order to become whole according to whatever the culture currently happens to be defining that as.

Yes, there are some illnesses that people want to heal from so their suffering ends. Others find that using a wheelchair or prosthetic limb or taking an antidepressant helps them function with more ease in the world. There are steps of healing that are necessary and good and that help people become their full selves. But therein lies the distinction. They do not need healing so that they can be more like the default norm, they seek healing and aid because they want to be fully themselves. There is brokenness all around us and in us that prevents us from being whole or loving others into wholeness. But often it is the very implication that one must be healed (become more like the default norm) that causes the most hurt and pain. When families are kicked out of churches because the church can’t deal with their kid with autism, or a person in a wheelchair is effectively shunned because no one is comfortable interacting with a person they know will never be ‘whole’ like them, or someone prays that you would be healed of something that you consider an integral part of your identity, it is hard not to come to believe that one can never be whole and accepted as they are. They accept their place as broken and inferior and come to despise their very selves for being something other than the culture’s default norm. This is not healing; this is the creation of brokenness.

So as the chapter explores, our perspective of what healing means needs to shift. To heal is not to become like the cultural norm, it is to embrace all people for who they are and to communally help us all to live into wholeness. Being with, truly with, someone in a way that shows you love them for who they are is far more difficult than condescendingly sending up a prayer that people not like you need to be healed, but it is the only way to live into both your and their wholeness.

On Disability and Sola Scriptura

Posted on January 16, 2013July 12, 2025

And now for the disability post.

During the Q&A time with Phyllis Tickle at the Emergence Christianity gathering a woman who uses a wheelchair asked what I thought was one of the most important and telling questions of the event. She commented that even though emergence Christians talk about LGBT folks being the last great “Other” that the church needs to accept, in reality it is people with disabilities who are still otherized the most by the church and asked Phyllis what can be done about that.

I applauded her question.

That’s the thing to do in these sorts of gatherings. When someone dares to bring up the elephants in the room or be a voice for unrepresented voices one applauds if one cares.

I was the only one in a cathedral full of people who applauded her question. It was literally just the sound of one hand clapping.

Phyllis responded that disability is not a truly otherizing or controversial concern for the church because it doesn’t challenge the conception of sola scriptura, next question. I think Phyllis is spot on with her theory that the issues that challenge the church the most are those that shake up our perceived understanding of scripture. If we cling to sola scriptura and our interpretation of that scripture is that slavery is okay, women cannot teach in church, or that same-sex relationships are a sin then to accept those things is to disrupt our entire conception of the scripture. Given the philosophical framework of most Protestants and the lingering predominance of sola scriptura, I fully agree with her description of why such issues caused such turmoil for the church.

What I don’t agree with is that disability is not a challenge to sola scriptura.

I would argue that people with disabilities are in fact the most otherized group of people in the church. Whether it is dealt with well or not, most Christians would agree that racism is wrong and that we should love people of all colors of skin. Many churches would also say that sexism is evil and quite a few even allow women to serve as pastors. It’s trendy to engage in interreligious dialogue and LGBT advocacy is the undisputed cause of the moment. Not so much when it comes to welcoming and showing support for the differently abled.

Basically, we are not and never will be cool. While I fully acknowledge the damaging effect positive stereotypes can have – there is something to be said for the hip factor of Queer folk in advancing their cause. But no one brags about their cool disabled friend they go shopping with. We don’t have Pride parades that end up being the most fun event of the season. There are no sitcoms about witty and fabulous disabled people. Not that this is a competition, just the facts that we are hard to like. We are the awkward ones. We are the ones who are so used to the stares and the pointing fingers and the laughter that we’ve learned to brace ourselves as we enter most social situations knowing that we make other people uncomfortable. For better or worse we have never had the option of a closet to hide in to escape the taunts of the world. We are the freaks and it will never, ever, be trendy to advocate for us much less see us as something other than Other.

Secondly, standing in solidarity with us is costly, literally. If a church starts talking about offering programs for the disabled or even putting in an access ramp they quickly encounter the hard data of the cash it will cost them. Most decide that it is more fiscally responsible to just ignore us. Yes, I get that churches that chose to be welcoming and inclusive of the LGBT community know that there might possibly be a financial cost to that decision. But as members leave and take their tithes with them, the blow is softened by knowing that the loss of income came because the church chose the moral high ground over bigotry. It is easier to accept potential cost than swallow the price tag up front.

But beyond those factors, what I have discovered regarding why disability advocacy is not a cause emergence Christianity (or any form of Christianity really) cares about is that the traditional biblical notions about disability have not yet been challenged the way ideas about slavery, women, and Queers have. Instead of seeing people with disabilities as whole people to be equally welcomed in the body of Christ, there is still a ruling belief in the church that we are broken people in need of healing. We are people to be served and changed, not people to be included and fought for.

Think about the songs we sing (even last week at the Emergence Christianity gathering). The lyrics are all about the poor and the blind being made whole or about rejoicing that “I once was blind but now I see.” If we were singing “I once was gay but now I’m straight” or “I once was Native but now I’m civilized” there would be an uproar, but no one sees any issue in singing such about the differently abled. It is still permissible to assume an absolute normative and cast anyone who appears different as the incomplete other that must be healed and made whole before they can be accepted like everyone else.

The church still repeats the cultural mores of the biblical worlds. Those with imperfections of the body were barred from serving in the Tabernacle and the Temple. Even animals with defects could not be offered up to God in sacrifice. Only those who appeared normative, unblemished, could be accepted as pure and holy sacrifices to God. People with disabilities could not even enter the Temple to worship, but had to remain in the courtyard of the women and the Gentiles. The imperfection of our body made us unacceptable to God. Over time Gentiles, women, and slaves came to be seen as whole persons made in the image of God and therefore worthy of service, but the stigma of incompleteness remains on those with disability.

Phyllis was partially right in her response. Disability isn’t an issue challenging sola scriptura. But that’s because there has yet to be a vocal and vibrant call within the church to challenge ancient cultural assumptions that continue to cast us as Other. And honestly, I don’t know if there ever will be given how “uncool” we are and how costly it is to welcome us fully. That one could even state that how the church conceives of disability isn’t an issue is quite telling of how little attention is given to us at all.

It’s uncomfortable to be the sole person clapping for this cause in a room full of people who generally seem committed to being as welcoming and inclusive as possible. And it’s indicative of how far we still have to go.

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