Unbelievable: City Pages is reporting that Justin’s Gift, an LGBTQ youth group founded to honor the memory of deceased teen bullying victim Justin Aaberg (left), is being shut out of the annual Anoka Halloween parade:
Justin’s Gift, an LGBTQ youth group founded in the memory of Justin Aaberg, a 15-year-old gay Anoka High School who killed himself after he was bullied in school, has been informed youth from the group won’t be allowed to walk in Anoka’s annual Halloween parade, ostensibly because “there were too many people already walking in the parade.”
The Anoka, Minnesota area has gained notoriety in recent years for being the epicenter of a rash of LGBT youth suicides. As reporter Aaron Rupar writes, this colossally tone-deaf gesture is a horrible public relations mistake at best; at worst, it suggests that “the more things change in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, the more they stay the same.”
Local parent Rebecca Krone, who works with special needs children in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, started a petition on Change.org asking Anoka Halloween to reconsider their awful decision. Please consider signing and sharing Krone’s petition. Let’s make sure Anoka Halloween knows that the whole country is watching and counting on them to do the right thing.
When did MN abandon basic American values of tolerance? Many of us are tired of right-wing theocracy and hatemongering.
I am re-tweeting plus I made my own tweet also. This is OUTRAGEOUS!!! Are we going to let our LGBT youth fend for themselves OR are we going to help them?
In order to change the minds of my oft bigoted Anoka neighbors, we need to be public. They need to see our faces and hear our voices. Please sign this petition, especially any of you MN readers.
Since when are parades “full?” I call BULL!!!
Truthfully, parades do get full. The Chicago lLGBT Pride Parade had to limit the number of entries this year to keep it to a manageable length and it’s a common practice in big city parades. But I doubt this is the case here.
Most of Minnesota has not abandoned the basic value of tolerance. There are sections in the state that seem to be full of people that don’t accept you if you are not pure WASP. The Anoka area and into parts of mid-central Minnesota are that way. The Anoka-Hennepin area is also where Michele Bachmann’s district is. This area has long had people who want to make sure that the school district only supports the values of the religious right. Change is coming, but alas it is slow in that area.
Signed and shared.