I started out with some sympathy for this guy. I really dislike "outing" for political purposes unless the individual is actually publicly advocating specifically anti-gay policies. Getting your picture taken with Coulter does not rise to that level. And a lot of the left's responses to Coulter's homophobic comments have been pretty revealing, too. A creepy number of supposedly left-leaning people have felt it necessary to comment on her masculine appearance as somehow being appropos to her "faggot" comment. There's plenty of predjudice on our side of the political spectrum, and it saddens me when anyone falls victim to that.

But he really lost me when he got in to the "becoming a conservative was like leaving the porn industry" thing. Huh? What was the parellel he was trying to make between liberalism and porn? That made no sense to me at all. And, while I can understand that, having been attacked, he's probably not in the mood to judge his political opponents with much fairness, it does seem awfully simplistic, especially for someone who likes to point out his Ivy League credentials repeatedly, to lump all liberals together into the same category with the ones who are digging up dirt on him. He's absolutely right that they are being hypocritical, if they oppose government invasion of privacy but think private lives should be open season for political debate. Of course, the accusation of hypocrisy is not the most sophisticated political argument -- as he himself points out, life is just not that simple. People have a tendency, over the course of a lifetime, to contradict themselves. So surely he is aware that political movements are more complex and multi-dimensional than he is describing liberalism to be.

Kudos to Salon for giving him a forum, though, even if he does make himself look a bit foolish. That's at least one way to poke holes in someone's martyr complex.

First off I wonder about confidentiality issues here. Exactly how does the university get the info about the student's condition? Even if the students are seeing someone in an on-campus clinic, they should be protected from having their health status reported to the university. The confidentiality exception of being a "danger to self" only applies inasmuch as communication must occur to see to it that the individual gets immediate medical attention. I don't see how that necessitates university involvement. Even if hospitalization occurs, the students need not necessarily report what they were hospitalized for in order to explain their absences. Talk about potential liability! It is seriously scary how much supposedly confidential information about mental health gets quickly and easily circulated. Even the HIPPA laws, which were ostensibly about /protecting/ privacy, actually make it much easier for insurance companies to get the low-down on your mental health history.

Second, I'm not surprised to hear about how many people with serious problems went to university mental health clinics and got the brush-off. A lot of times the people you see in such clinics are trainees and/or interns, still in school or just out of school. Sometimes they are paid a small stipend, sometimes they are working for free in order to get qualification for licensure. In fact, I think it's a bit of a scandal in the making, the degree to which non-profits and even wealthier organizations like university clinics rely on massive ammounts of free mental health labor to function.

If you have a serious problem and need to see someone, make sure you know their qualifications first. It won't immunize you from duds, but it will increase your chances of getting someone competant. There are a lot of really great interns out there, but when it comes to recognizing and intervening in serious life threatening issues quickly and competantly, there's no substitute for experience. Save the university clinics for things like career counseling questions. I say that as an intern myself. We have to start the learning process somewhere, but to be honest I'd never send a loved one of mine to see an intern when they can see a trained professional instead.

Maureen, thank you for that info. If that is the case, I wonder why anyone would ever want to use a campus health center if they can afford to go elsewhere! What a travesty that students are subjected to decreased medical privacy when they cannot afford to get health insurance coverage independant of the university system.