I’m working on a story right now on the boys in Gibson County, Tennessee, who were assaulted while trying to attend a service at one of the guys’ father’s church. According to reports, the attackers were the boy’s father [the pastor] and two deacons [one of whom is the boy's uncle]. So here I sit, compiling my notes on that and making phone calls, and then I see this story, out of a different part of Tennessee:
MADISONVILLE, Tenn. – A 17-year-old senior at Sequoyah High School was reportedly shoved, bumped in the chest and verbally harassed by his principal last week for wearing a T-shirt in support of efforts to establish a gay-straight alliance (GSA) club on campus. In response, the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Tennessee sent a letter to the school district today demanding that students’ rights to free speech be protected in the classroom.
The ACLU has been assisting the student, Chris Sigler, in his and other students’ efforts to overcome resistance from school officials to establish a GSA. Principal Maurice Moser had previously threatened to punish students who circulated petitions about the club.
“It is totally unacceptable that a young man who was peacefully exercising his First Amendment rights would have his speech shut down by the public school principal,” said Hedy Weinberg, executive director of the ACLU of Tennessee. “Last week’s incident clearly illustrates the hostile environment LGBT students face at Sequoyah High School. Given this context, it’s especially important that supportive voices like Sigler’s can be heard in order to overcome the school’s resistance to a GSA.”
Here, I will answer my own question as to what the hell is wrong with Tennessee:
Anti-gay wingnuts are babies. They are not adults in any sense of the word. They react to any perceived slight to their fragile, ignorant worldviews no better than toddlers. They lash out and scream and cry and no amount of reasoning or coddling will sate them. The problem is that these babies are adult-sized and they have been granted positions of authority in Third World states like Tennessee. [Sorry if you're from there. So am I. I'm slinging shit at my own here.]
When the people we are brought up to show respect and deference to fail to pass the simplest smell test of what it means to be a “grown-up,” we end up with situations where high school principals physically assault kids, pastors and deacons physically assault kids, and state “family values” leaders bitch, moan and then gloat about what a good job they done did hurtin’ LGBT families across the state. And they know that, in the age of the internet, their antics travel fast, leading to millions of people at all points across the country and beyond beginning to mock, scorn and laugh at them, and in a way that makes it worse, as their resentment against the “cultural elites,” the people they hate and of whom they are secretly painfully jealous, causes them to dig their heels in even further and strengthens their commitment to hurting anyone who challenges their pea-brained worldviews.
It’s a sad situation, but that, in short, is what the hell is wrong with Tennessee.
…join already! Progressive organizations are at it full-time trying to protect your rights. But they need enthusiastic, committed armies behind them, armies just as energetic as fundamentalist congregations. If you need a kick in the pants, go to a right-wing megachurch,* witness the frenzied, bubbly vim, and reflect on the fact that some of these folks will go home after church and put all that energy to work to change society in ways you really won’t like.
Pretend you’re one of them, only through the looking-glass. Let an outrageous news article be the sermon that gets you going. Next time you read one, send five bucks to the progressives. Better yet, volunteer.
And when you join, leave a comment on this blog. Preach it!
In the Perris Union High School District in Southern California’s Inland Empire, the problem of anti-gay bullying and discrimination seems to be institutional:
Students and teachers at a Menifee high school say there is a pattern of bullying, harassment and discrimination against gay and lesbian students on campus.
In one instance, a Paloma Valley High School student alleged a teacher wrote an “S” on her hand and called her “a sinner.” In another, a student group says it was barred from doing an activity for gay and lesbian history month, though an ethnic student group could. An openly gay senior says he was unfairly disciplined after a dispute with a classmate who he says harassed him.
Teachers and students took their concerns to Paloma Valley administrators, the school board and the ACLU. District officials say they are addressing the complaints.
“We take them very, very seriously,” said Leslie Ventuleth, spokeswoman for the Perris Union High School District and its chief human resources officer.
Other students say they’ve endured anti-gay bullying from other students over the years, which is unsurprising when the adults in charge are unable to conduct themselves as professional adults. Fortunately, it seems that other teachers were the ones who were led to get the ACLU involved, so it’s not all bad apples:
Concern over their students’ welfare prompted Machado and teacher Elizabeth Darovic to speak out. Darovic helped form the Paloma Valley Gay Straight Alliance several years ago and is still an adviser.
“It’s your responsibility as a teacher to support kids,” said Darovic, an English teacher.
About 30 to 50 students, not all of them gay, attend weekly alliance meetings after school. Students have grown increasingly frustrated about the southwest Riverside County school’s climate, the teachers said. Some have filed formal complaints with the school district. Others spoke publicly at school board meetings.
“It doesn’t feel like a safe place to them,” Darovic said, but nothing happens when they complain. “There have been no consequences.”
Teachers and students cited several issues and incidents that have occurred recently, most during the current school year. In one instance, a teacher drew an “S” on a student’s hand and repeatedly referred to the student, who was wearing a T-shirt that read “Gay is Good,” as a sinner throughout class, according to a complaint with the district provided by a teacher.
It is unbelievable the way wingnuts conduct themselves in public, really.
Ms. Pedersen and Ms. Meitzen plan to file a lawsuit Tuesday against the government in an effort to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, a 1996 law that prohibits the federal government from recognizing marriages of same-sex couples.
They are plaintiffs in one of two lawsuits being filed by the legal group Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, a gay rights legal organization based in Boston, and by the American Civil Liberties Union.
A similar challenge by the gay rights legal group resulted in a ruling in July from a federal judge in Boston that the act is unconstitutional. The Obama administration is appealing that decision.
The two new lawsuits, which involve plaintiffs from New York, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire, expand the attack geographically and also encompass more of the 1,138 federal laws and regulations that the Defense of Marriage Act potentially affects — including the insurance costs amounting to several hundred dollars a month in the case of Ms. Pedersen and Ms. Meitzen, and a $350,0000 estate tax payment in the A.C.L.U. case.
So many people, even those who are nominally supportive of gay rights, have yet to realize just how many ways gay couples are discriminated against under our unequal system. Kudos to GLAD and the ACLU for working tirelessly to fight for true equality.
On June 14, while at home and off-duty, [Corrections officer Andre] Cooley called 911 after his boyfriend became physically violent. Among the officers who responded to the call was Chief of Corrections Charles Bolton, one of Cooley’s supervisors. After Cooley’s boyfriend told Bolton that he and Cooley were in a relationship, Bolton told Cooley not to return to work before speaking with his immediate supervisor. The next day, Staff Sergeant of Jail Operations Donnell Brannon informed Cooley that he was being permanently terminated. Cooley asked Brannon if he was being fired because he was gay, and Brannon responded, “Yes.” Cooley has never received a written explanation for his firing. He has never been charged or disciplined in connection with the domestic violence precipitated by his former boyfriend the day before he was fired. The official police report of the incident identifies Cooley as the victim. After firing Cooley, the sheriff’s department attempted to deny him unemployment benefits by alleging that Cooley had engaged in unspecified “inappropriate conduct and behavior while off duty, unacceptable for an officer.” But after a hearing, an administrative law judge concluded that the sheriff’s department failed to show that Cooley committed misconduct of any kind.
A federal judge on Friday ordered the reinstatement of an Air Force nurse discharged from the military under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that forbids openly gay service members.
U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton told a packed Tacoma, Wash., courtroom that evidence at a six-day trial showed that former Air Force Reserve Maj. Margaret Witt was an “exemplary officer” who should be “reinstated at the earliest possible moment.”
“Good flight nurses are hard to find,” he said in a 15-page opinion.
In a statement, Witt said she was proud of her career. “Wounded people never asked me about my sexual orientation. They were just glad to see me there,” she said.
Witt was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, which said the ruling was the first time a judge had ordered a reinstatement of a service member discharged under “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
Anti-gay laws simply don’t hold up under legal scrutiny, by any stretch of the imagination.
The American Civil Liberties Union is requesting that Senate Bill 909, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act, be amended to include additional free-speech protections that are already contained in the House version of the legislation, H.R. 1913.
Linda Paris, an ACLU spokesperson, told the Blade that [Sen. Sam] Brownback’s [free-speech] amendment is insufficient and that her organization wants the specific language found in the House version of legislation included in the final passage of the bill.
The language ACLU is seeking reads: “Evidence of expression or association of the defendant may not be introduced as substantive evidence at trial, unless the evidence specifically relates to that offense. However, nothing in this section affects the rules of evidence governing the impeachment of a witness.”
Paris said passage of this provision from the House bill would “reduce or eliminate the possibility that the federal government could obtain a criminal conviction on the basis of evidence of speech that had no role in the chain of events that led to any alleged violent act proscribed by the statute.”
The Human Rights Campaign contends that the legislation’s existing protection for religious speech is sufficient. Nevertheless, Chris Anders of the ACLU says House lawmakers are likely to insist upon the revision in conference committee.
“True Tolerance,” a campaign of Focus on the Family that enjoys promotional support from Exodus International, may be having an impact upon public schools:
As many as 107 Tennessee public school districts recently began blocking student access to gay health, science, family, and education resources. Instead, students who seek accurate information are being confined to ex-gay resources that have been rejected as inaccurate and harmful by professional medical and mental-health organizations.
Banned resources include:
Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG)
The Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network (GLSEN)
Human Rights Campaign (HRC)
Marriage Equality USA
Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)
Dignity USA (an organization for LGBT Catholics)
“True Tolerance” is an antigay response to the Day of Silence, GLSEN’s national campaign to discourage violence in public schools. The antigay project espouses tolerance of outspoken on-campus activism by antigay Christians — and intolerance of those who oppose antigay violence or who disagree with discredited ex-gay propaganda. Without offering evidence, “True Tolerance” accuses antiviolence advocates of waging a “monopoly” and a “pro-gay agenda.”
The campaign does not claim responsibility for Internet restrictions in Tennessee specifically, but the web site encourages antigay activists to pressure schools to silence the allegedly “unbalanced” messages of the antiviolence crowd and to silence “vulnerable children” (teen-agers) who seek to be honest about their sexuality.
If pressure tactics don’t work, then True Tolerance lobs legal threats against antiviolence efforts. First, the campaign warns against schools’ fears of “legal liability for not making their school ‘safe.’” True Tolerance dismisses the simple fact that antigay violence is making schools unsafe, and that parents of bullied youths are suing. Instead, True Tolerance offers to arm antigay activists with unspecified “legally accurate facts” in opposition to mandatory “diversity” policies. It would seem that, in the view of Exodus and Focus, “true tolerance” in schools cannot and should not be diverse enough to include bullied youths, their friends, or their parents.
Official efforts to “protect” mature students from the facts about gay health, science, family issues, and education are having a negative impact on Tennessee schools.
Karyn Storts-Brinks, a librarian at Fulton High School in Knoxville, points out:
Students who need to do research for assignments on current events can only get one viewpoint, keeping them from being able to cover both sides of the issue. That’ not fair and can hinder their schoolwork.
The ACLU is giving the districts until April 29 to come up with a plan to provide access to LGBT sites or any other category that blocks non-sexual websites advocating the fair treatment of LGBT people by the beginning of the 2009-2010 school year.
I’m working on a story right now on the boys in Gibson County, Tennessee, who were assaulted while trying to attend a service at one of the guys’ father’s church. According to reports, the attackers were the boy’s father [the pastor] and two deacons [one of whom is the boy's uncle]. So here I sit, compiling my notes on that and making phone calls, and then I see this story, out of a different part of Tennessee:
