Still smarting over its designation by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a venerable civil rights organization, as an anti-gay hate group, the American Family Association is targeting an upcoming SPLC-sponsored anti-bullying event, falsely claiming that it’s part of a plan to spread the so-called “homosexual lifestyle.” The New York Times reports:
On Mix It Up at Lunch Day, schoolchildren around the country are encouraged to hang out with someone they normally might not speak to.
The program, started 11 years ago by the Southern Poverty Law Center and now in more than 2,500 schools, was intended as a way to break up cliques and prevent bullying.
But this year, the American Family Association, a conservative evangelical group, has called the project “a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools” and is urging parents to keep their children home from school on Oct. 30, the day most of the schools plan to participate this year.
The charges, raised in an e-mail to supporters earlier this month, have caused a handful of schools to cancel this year’s event and has caught organizers off guard.
“I was surprised that they completely lied about what Mix It Up Day is,” said Maureen Costello, the director of the center’s Teaching Tolerance project, which organizes the program. “It was a cynical, fear-mongering tactic.”
Although, for my part, I’m not surprised — the anti-gay right has hated and opposed anti-bullying programs for a long, long time and never shies away from deploying blatant lies in the service of their anti-LGBT agenda — I’m utterly disgusted by how low these awful groups are willing to stoop. And of course, leaders on the religious right like the AFA’s Bryan Fischer claim that fundamentalist homophobes, not bullied LGBT teens, deserve the mantle of victimhood for themselves:
“Anti-bullying legislation is exactly the same,” Mr. Fischer said. “It’s just another thinly veiled attempt to promote the homosexual agenda. No one is in favor of anyone getting bullied for any reason, but these anti-bullying policies become a mechanism for punishing Christian students who believe that homosexual behavior is not something that should be normalized.”
The New York Times article reports that as of Friday, approximately 200 schools had canceled their Mix It Up at Lunch Day events.
Anyone who thinks I’m living a “lifestyle” needs to wake up. Fitness is a lifestyle. Smoking is a lifestyle. (Sorry) Veganism is a lifestyle. Conservatism is lifestyle. My Husband and I just happen to both be men. Trust me: It’s not all hot pants and circuit parties. Those ended a while ago. (They were great, BTW)
Sounds like it may have been a much needed wake-up call to people who don’t pay such close attention to hate groups.
AFA would find their bread going stale as a nationwide push to promote the “homosexual lifestyle.” Maybe the need to get real jobs as they appear to have too much time on their hands. Idol minds are the devil’s workshop.
So based on AFA’s logic, if I were a vegetarian who thought meat was murder, I would have the right to harass, bully and berate other students if they flaunted their flesh eating *lifestyle* in school!?
ps…I wish the (real) Christian students and others who support equality and inclusion would speak out and reclaim that word from the haters.
The AFA is anything but profamily. Bullying isn’t confined to one group, any child can be a victumn. Perhaps if the AFA aproved kids were the ones being bullied instead of the bullies, with the parents approval, they would sing a different tune.
Quote: “No one is in favor of anyone getting bullied for any reason…..” Does anyone outside of that demented, hateful, distorted world of theirs believe that? Apparently we just refuse to realize that when Christians come at us with the condemnation, harassment, speaking God’s and their judgement on us, etc, it isn’t bullying because they would have us believe that it comes from “love”. Most fundies have truly warped minds and trying to prove anything sensible to them is totally useless and a complete waste of time. Their blinders are cemented on and their interpretations of the Bible are the only way to see the world. God save us from your believers.
More like “Jesus save me from your followers,” Gianni. As far as I am concerned, the louder a christian group crows about their christianity, the more the want to see me injured, or, in their eyes, dead. So much for christian compassion.
There already are hazing laws in 48 states (2 others use simple “assault & battery” — now, since “bullying” and “hazing” don’t seem to be that different — then just make the end run — use the hazing laws, or even assault and battery. Then, we can watch these good Christians claim that we’re demeaning hazing and battery, to “promote homosexuality” — actually, I think these guys are just so very fearful everyone will turn gay in a few weeks, once a nice word was said about us.
[...] the furor surrounding the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mix It Up at Lunch Day program. As I wrote yesterday, the American Family Association — a certified anti-gay hate group — is [...]
What frustrates me “to no end” is this idea that you have adults, homophobic ones at that(some of which don’t even have kids in these schools as is the case here in Anoka-Hennepin with Barb Anderson of the MFC) that are being given “preferential treatment” (cuz we all know if this were Muslim, Wiccan, Agnostic parents pushing their “beliefs” we woundn’t be having this conversation)and allowed to inject and impose their “personal” fears and bigoted views and dictate public school policy. they are able to do so under the guise of “religious freedom.” This is frequently done to the detriment of kids, including their very own children who deserve better. It’s one thing to have a personal belief against being gay, fine, we get that your acceptance or approval in neither requested nor required …..hopefully for your sake you weren’t gay, but because you fear gay people or your own sexuality is no reason to impose that on schools, teachers, parents and more importantly kids. Your child will NOT be “turned gay” if a gay classmate is acknowledges as such anymore than I will become a man after listening to Ed Schultz. Here is the missing link with regard bullying and getting a handle on it. Here’s your bully America….It’s insecure adults pushing their own “pseudo-christian” religious agendas on public schools and claiming it’s their religious right…..it’s not, and until we call them out for the bullies they are it’s not likely to change. Hate is hate even if it’s passed off as faith.