This is an interesting clip, discussing gay teachers’ experiences of being out in the classroom.  Contrary to Religious Right whining about imposing a “lifestyle” on anyone, it’s exactly as the first teacher says:  mentioning his partner has nothing to do with his sexuality, but has to do with sharing his life, as teachers often do when they make a connection with the students.

[h/t Unicorn Booty]

Folks, you know I’m writing about Peter LaBarbera when I start a piece with the word “folks.”  Anyway, the Day of Silence is this Friday.  If you are not aware, it’s a day where students and teachers across the nation remain silent for a day to give voice to the problems gay kids face every day, such as name-calling, physical abuse, and the like.  Indeed, it’s especially pertinent this year, as we’ve seen a spate of gay or gay perceived kids taking their own lives, stemming from anti-gay bullying perpetuated by classmates, teachers, pastors, and unfortunately, sometimes their own wingnut parents.  It is a fact, not an opinion, that fundamentalist religious teaching on homosexuality, as well as their bizarre obsession with the subject, is related to the pain and depression some gay kids experience. 

But hate group leaders Peter LaBarbera and Laurie Higgins really, really don’t want to examine their souls, at any point, because they love their dogma more than they love people.  So let’s watch them encourage truancy this Friday in order that the wingnut parents who follow them might have something about which to pout. Here’s the Peter Part [you don't need links.  You know where this hateful, dishonest crap is posted on the internet]:

The suffocating political correctness on a host of controversies — including homosexuality — overwhelms the Average Mom and Dad, who are already running ragged between work, family duties, church and youth sports.

Uh, normal parents aren’t running around crying about the “political correctness” [read: actual information and education] over homosexuality. Not good parents, anyway.

(In addition, as more and more Christian parents abandon the public schools, it removes a key wholesome influence restraining evil.)

At least once a week, the words of a fundamentalist remind me of a science fiction novel, or Magic: the Gathering, or something along those lines.

So we at AFTAH echo the call for parents to pull their kids out of any school that abides the annual homosexual-activist event April 15 called the “Day of Silence.”

[...]

If you have any inkling that they are encouraging this disruptive event, tell the school that you will be keeping your child home that day. In doing so, you will send a powerful message to teachers and administrators that their embrace of pro-homosexual advocacy comes at a price.

Uh, yeah. Five or six kids with annoying parents won’t be there that day.

Okay, time for Laurence:

It is unconscionable that conservative parents remain silent, acquiescent, fearful non-participants in our public schools while homosexuals and their ideological allies engage continuously in vociferous, vigorous, and bold action.

It’s always funny to me that hate group leaders like Laurie tell themselves that the REAL problem is that wingnuts aren’t bitching loud enough. Trust me. Everybody can hear y’all.

The Day of Silence, which is sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), is fewer than two weeks away. GLSEN’s Day of Silence, which began on college campuses and has now infiltrated middle schools, exploits anti-bullying sentiment to undermine the belief that homosexual acts are immoral.

And that’s all it is: a belief. A stupid, uninformed belief, based on nothing. But, ya know, gay kids unfortunately make up a disproportionate percentage of bullying victims, so how dare we include them?

GLSEN shamelessly exploits teen suicide in order to create a climate of hysteria which they can then exploit to falsely impute culpability for teen suicide to conservative moral beliefs.

Uh. Well, since anti-gay sentiment comes from conservative “moral” beliefs [sic], and this actually involves kids dying and/or being scarred for life, I really don’t see how anyone is “exploiting” anything. Laurence and Porno Pete are just upset because the day is coming when their “moral” beliefs will be relegated to the scrap heap of society where they belong, alongside White Supremacy. Laurence and Peter want special rights, really. Since it’s simply not debatable by actual adults whether or not fundamentalist anti-gay hatred contributes to the problem of gay teen suicide, they are desperately trying to get an exemption that would allow them to continue to spiritually, mentally and emotionally bully gay kids.

GLSEN’s end game is the eradication of conservative moral beliefs and the creation of a social and political climate in which it is impossible to express them.

Conservative “moral” beliefs are being eradicated on their own, mostly because in the year 2011, fewer and fewer people buy into their dishonest bile about gay people. And no, nobody wants to take away wingnuts’ rights to express their beliefs [as long as they don't directly hurt people]; I mean, the Klan still has rallies occasionally in the South. Nobody’s taking away their freedom of speech.

Their cultural vehicle of choice for this radical social experiment is public education. What a strategic coup for homosexualists: use our money to capture the hearts and minds of our children.

Oh yes, we are so crafty. We’re actually trying to protect YOUR kids, because YOUR gay kids are the ones who end up, all too often, depressed and suicidal, because of YOUR influence. Hello, “ex-gay” industry. How are you doing today? Still hurting people? Yup.

And we do virtually nothing. Our complacence makes us complicit in the damage done to our children and our culture. Moreover, we teach our children by example to be cowardly conformists.

To be fair, your kids, more and more, don’t really understand why you’re so barking upset about gay people.

Anyway, so then Laurence gives a bunch of instructions to parents, about keeping their kids home during the Day of Silence, so that their kids might escape the suffering that might befall them if they were confronted with actual education on the subject of LGBT people. The fundamentalist lifestyle really is, at heart, a loud, over-choreographed permutation of sticking one’s fingers in one’s own ears and caterwauling.

The piece ends with laundry list of grievances, about how it’s getting harder and harder for fundamentalist wingnuts to hurt gay kids and treat them like pariahs. My remarks come in italics after each whine:

•Ten states now have “enumerated” anti-bullying laws, which specifically include homosexuality and gender confusion as protected classes.  Instead of allowing the anti-gay bullying to continue apace!
•Comprehensive sex ed curricula portray homosexuality as morally equivalent to heterosexuality.  Prove that it is not.  Oh.  You can’t.
•California’s SB 48, if passed, will require schools to teach about homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder positively while censoring dissenting resources.  Well, discredited nonsense from wingnuts really has no place in public education anyway.
•Federal Safe Schools Improvement Act denies funding to schools to combat drugs and violence unless they agree to address homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder.  Again, what Laurie wants is special rights to continue hurting gay kids while protecting the other kids.
•Federal Student Non-Discrimination Act includes homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder as protected classes. If passed, schools would be prohibited from treating the objective biological fact of a student’s sex as if it had objective status. It would render the act of making common sense distinctions between boys and girls illegal. Oh, lord.  You know, Laurie, there’s biology involved in the phenomenon of “transgender,” and scientists actually understand it pretty well.  Feel free to do some research and learn about it.
•“Dear Colleague” Letter, which unconstitutionally expands the control of government over student speech, was sent by the Department of Justice to all school boards.  I’m getting bored writing this piece.
•The Department of Justice created a video submission to Dan Savage’s “It Gets Better” campaign in which federal employees affirm unproven moral propositions about homosexuality to students.  It’s really adorable when a wingnut tries to use the word “unproven,” since NOTHING they believe is proven or provable.  That being said, the fundamental complaint here is the suggestion [which is valid and provable!] that life can get better for hurting gay kids, and that it doesn’t involve spiritual abuse!
•President Obama held an anti-bullying conference at the White House to which he invited representatives from virtually every homosexuality-affirming organizations that seeks to use public education to normalize homosexuality.  Instead of affirming Laurie Higgins’ special right to hurt gay kids.
•The White House created an anti-bullying website that has a special image link for only one group of students who experience bullying: LGBT students.  Yep.

Seriously, I’d hate to be there on the day people like Laurie Higgins and Peter LaBarbera realize [if moral reflection is even possible for their kind] how much harm they have done to people throughout their careers. 

Like any good comedienne, Laurie saves her punchline for the last paragraph:

It’s long past time that conservatives start acting and speaking as if we think our moral beliefs are objectively true.

You do. Watching it is atrocious. They’re not. And people’s lives are destroyed because of it.

Spread the word about the Day of Silence, everyone.

The Pentagon has been moving slowly in recent months to ensure that gay and lesbian servicemembers will be treated as equals by their peers — not bullied or denied their constitutional freedoms, including the freedom of religion.

Meanwhile, relatively liberal states such as California are struggling to protect gay and lesbian students from violence and defamation and to halt antigay censorship in history courses.

Those changes have alarmed Focus on the Family, which today equated minority religious freedom, non-censorship in education, and opposition to harassment with “indoctrination.”

Focus on the Family and its partner the Pacific Justice Institute imply that it may be OK to suppress historical persons on the basis of ideology and sexuality, or to misinform students about these persons’ families. In short, these organizations project their own desire for quotas onto a state educational system.

“It seems a bit like a quota system,” said Ron Prentice, executive director of the California Family Council. “It’s based less on the level of contribution and more on one’s sexual orientation.”

Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, said: “Our Legislature just doesn’t get it — with thousands of teachers getting pink slips, this is not the time to place more expensive, politically correct mandates on our schools. This bill also undermines parental rights and is insensitive to those whose cultures and belief systems are at odds with the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) agenda.”

In fact, Focus on the Family and its affiliates already enjoy an antigay quota system in many school systems across the United States:

Heterosexual Christians: 100
Everybody else: 0

On the armed-services front, it’s clear that Focus on the Family and antigay activist Elaine Donnelly wish to bury efforts toward servicemember equality in red tape by reopening issues of housing, chain of command, religious liberty, and dress code that were settled amicably among most military leaders long ago.

In the battle to push gays out of the armed services, Christian Right activists will argue that their own rights to housing, religion, and heterosexual-only bathrooms require that everyone else lose those same rights.

Ashley Horne and Candi Cushman of Focus on the Family have the answer!  Unfortunately the video isn’t embeddable, presumably because it’s embarrassing.  The video is about Focus’s “Day of Dialogue,” in which they seek to deflect public attention from the blood all over fundamentalist Christian hands when it comes to the bullying and, all too often, suicides among gay teens.

Anyway, they don’t use the word “hate,” but rather use coded dogwhistles and catch phrases like “God’s plan for sexuality,” and other tripe meant to soothe the brainwashed.

An editorial in today’s LA Times pushes back against the absurd mental contortions of Tony Perkins and his cohorts as they seek to pretend they care about all students, while opposing the very programs meant to address bullying in our schools:

As The Times recently observed, harassment of gay and lesbian students is part of a larger problem, and therefore, schools should pursue comprehensive anti-bullying efforts. That doesn’t mean teachers and administrators shouldn’t recognize anti-gay bullying as a distinct issue rooted not only in adolescent cruelty but in cultural condemnations of homosexuality. When they do so, however, they are accused by some conservatives of taking sides in a culture war.

An extreme example was a recent article by Tony Perkins president of the Family Research Council. Perkins accused the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network and similar organizations of exploiting the suicides of gay teenagers “to push their agenda of demanding not only tolerance of homosexual individuals but active affirmation of homosexual conduct and their efforts to redefine the family.” For good measure, he said, “the homosexual movement, and their allies in the media and the educational establishment,” may be creating despair that can lead to suicide by telling homosexuals that they are “‘born gay’ and can never change.”

Perkins’ characterization of GLSEN is unfair to the point of absurdity. But it is true that many of those who decry the bullying of gay and lesbian students also believe that schools should accept and affirm their identity, and treat homophobia with the same opprobrium with which they view racism. These advocates also believe, rightly, that schools shouldn’t endorse the theory that gays and lesbians can be converted to heterosexuality, a notion dismissed by psychiatrists and psychologists.

Precisely. When the Religious Right talks about the Evil Homosexual Activists trying to push our “agenda,” one must always remember that at least 80% of what they say is code-speak. When they discuss a “homosexual agenda,” what they’re really saying is that we should ignore all of the scientific data, all of the real world consequences, and instead push programs which conform to the Religious Right’s disproven ideological worldview. The “agenda” here is a healthy respect for reality and a desire to protect ALL children from bullying in school. The fact that this involves truths which are inconvenient to Tony Perkins ‘n’ Pals should not be treated as a problem for anyone but Tony Perkins.

The Dallas Independent School District in the 1990s enacted a non-discrimination policy which encouraged the discrimination that is now occurring against transgender staff and students.

Dallas social conservatives are taking the next logical step — proposing an anti-bullying policy that, while citing a few general examples of bullying, deliberately excludes the specific forms of bullying that Dallas faculty and students routinely commit against sexual minorities.

Resource Center Dallas responded today with the following press release.

October 13, 2010
Contact: Rafael McDonnell, (214) 528-0144 office

Resource Center Dallas calls on Dallas Independent School District to revise proposed
new anti-bullying policy
Board to discuss policy October 14 at 11:30 a.m.

Dallas—The following statement is from Resource Center Dallas, on Dallas Independent School District (DISD)’s plans to revise
its anti-bullying policy:

“We are pleased that DISD is revisiting its approach to bullying. Unfortunately, the proposed policy does not define which students are to be protected by it. As a result, it does not provide specific protections for LGBT students. It is vital for this board to specifically articulate who this policy is designed to protect, rather than simply stating a broad definition of bullying. Absent any specific protections, it could be inferred that it would be okay to bully students based on their real or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression. Given the rash of LGBT bullying-related suicides in recent weeks—including one in the greater Houston area—specifically articulated protections are not formalities; they are essential.

“Resource Center Dallas encourages the North Texas LGBT community to contact the nine members of the DISD board. Encourage them to modify the proposed anti-bullying policy to specifically include LGBT students. Board members still have time to improve the protections for the youngest members of our community. Contact information, including phone numbers and e-mail, can be found at http://www.dallasisd.org/about/boardcontact.htm. Additionally, if you are able to attend the DISD board meeting Thursday, October 14 at 11:30 a.m. at 3700 Ross Avenue in Dallas, please do so. A representative of the Center will address the board on these issues.”

In the wake of increased media reporting of suicides caused by antigay bullying, Focus on the Family has retaliated against concern for the bullied by portraying itself as the victim of efforts by “homosexual activists” to “promote homosexuality” and the “homoseexual agenda” in public schools.

Focus only infrequently details these supposed sex promotions, and unfortunately the news media almost never demand that Focus on the Family document these promotions.

In an August 12 statement to OneNewsNow, Focus on the Family defined the three conditions that it considers “promotion”:

• Acknowledgement in federally recommended antiviolence programs that antigay violence is not, unfortunately, excluded from the definition of “bullying”
• Schools’ acknowledgement to elementary-school students that same-sex couples exist — an acknowledgement driven by the simple fact that these youngsters are seeing same-sex couples in their neighborhoods and meeting classmates who have same-sex parents
• Diversity training for high school teachers and students, acknowledging that non-heterosexual colleagues and classmates deserve the same respect and treatment as everyone else

Focus’ full disclosure is, frankly, a disappointment. I was hoping for revolting accounts of lurid pictures, sex toys, and adult-child solicitations. The reality seems hardly worth the self-pitying and paranoid anger and hate that Focus has unleashed upon the victims of antigay bullying.

I’m taking a deep breath before I start writing this post, because Linda Harvey is probably the single most consistently disgusting, hateful, pigheaded person on the entire Religious Right when it comes to her writings about LGBT people, and the fact that she has decided to piss on these children’s graves may send me over the edge.  But we will do this together, and we will be strong.

Her piece is, of course, on WorldNetDaily, home to all of the nation’s greatest conspiracy theories — they’re the biggest birthers on the internet — so it fits right in.

The headline:

Is ‘gay’ agenda to blame for teen suicides?

Yeah, Linda, it must be us. It’s the people who are trying to send the kids a message that they’re good, that they’re worthy of life, and that they’re loved. What villains we are.

Details are sketchy in the recent rash of homosexual-related teen suicides throughout the nation, but already the “gay” lobby is ready to exploit our children one more time.

I think you need to take your predatory hands off of our children, Linda. Do not use the word “our” when referring to gay children.

How do families and school communities cope with such tragedy? As a parent, I cannot even imagine the heartbreak.

Which is strange, since you’ve had a hand in inflicting it.

Would widespread community embrace of homosexuality and gender-switching prevent some of these suicides? Or is misinformation actually a contributor to the despair embedded in these tragedies?

The answer is “both.” If people, in light of all of the science [the grown-up science, Linda, not your fundamentalist moron "science"], grew to understand that homosexuality is a very, very normal part of humanity, these tragedies would be few and far between; moreover, if the Religious Right closed up shop tomorrow, the suicide rate among gay teens would drop precipitously, as the Religious Right is the originator of basically every lie about gay people that exists in our national discourse.

Linda then spends a paragraph bitching about GLSEN and claiming that their study which shows that nine out of ten gay kids are harassed in school is “flawed,” because facts like that are inconvenient for hateful women like Linda.

As the pressure groups scream for pro-homosexual policies, they simultaneously seek to prohibit all speech opposing homosexual behavior, which is viewed as harassment or contributing to it. Compulsory re-education is the only solution, because saying “no” to homosexuality always leads to such tragedy, or so they claim. In the fantasy world of these child-corruption advocates, there’s an unbroken line connecting the actual bullies to any and all who stand up against sexual deviance.

In other words, it’s not sufficient to punish the individuals involved. No, everyone must pay because traditional heterosexual culture is guilty for daring to believe homosexuality is a negative, not a positive.

Correction, Harvey: Backwards bigots believe homosexuality is a negative. Do not try to impute your poor education, your mental anguish, your inner hatred and your complete lack of a tether to actual reality onto “heterosexual culture.” Straight people are, by in large, making the transition into understanding their gay and lesbian children, brothers, sisters, friends and co-workers just fine, thank you. It could happen faster, but as with most issues of “other” in American culture, there is tension between the younger generations, who get it, and the older generations, who will have to die off before the transition is complete.

Moreover, anti-gay speech IS harassment. If these children went to anti-gay churches, what they heard from the pulpit was bullying, pure and simple. Any gay kids reading Linda’s words right now are being bullied.  It doesn’t mean the professional bullies aren’t protected under the First Amendment, but it does render us responsible to call them out for it.

Could there be another answer, one that deals with reality?

Always beware when a fundamentalist kook uses the word “reality.” It means we’re going to CrazyTown.

Recent trends in public schools might provide some clues. “Gay” advocacy is growing, now aimed at kids at younger and younger ages. Over 4,000 homosexual clubs have been formed in the past decade, some now at the middle-school level. New, often sexually graphic fiction urges children to explore alternate sexual behavior and gender norms. GLSEN’s explicit book recommendations come to mind. And the Human Rights Campaign’s “Welcoming Schools” program reaches down to grade schoolers to normalize aberrant lifestyles.

Kids are urged to “come out” early. That’s exactly what several of these young victims did, and such actions are often associated with subsequent early suicide attempts.

AND NOW she’s being completely intellectually dishonest, because her readers are stupid and she knows it. Yes, kids are coming out earlier. Many of them are doing just fine! The gay-straight alliances in schools are a big help, because they give kids a safe place where before they might not have had one. However, because there is still a disease of religious fundamentalism in this country, many of the kids accept their sexuality earlier and come out DO indeed find themselves more vulnerable to a cruel society, where many members have been indoctrinated into the sort of mindless and ugly beliefs that Linda is espousing today.

Now watch the toad just start cold making shit up:

The already troubled youngster is often the one drawn to homosexuality or gender compromise and is extremely vulnerable. For many reasons, the grand experiment is crashing before our eyes. But it’s our precious young people, the targets of the double barrels of cruel words as well as cruel sexual manipulation, who are paying the ultimate price.

That’s right, Linda. The entire scientific community has just been waiting for Linda, expert on nothing, to explain how kids become gay. You shameless fool, these kids are not “drawn” to homosexuality. They’re gay. As in, attracted to members of the same sex. It happens at puberty.

One wonders if any of these kids ever heard a clearly articulated warning against homosexuality.

OF COURSE THEY HAVE! Unfortunately, we still live in a society where irrational homophobia like Linda’s trickles down into all corners! They hear it from their predatory pastors, sometimes from their parents, from the nelly leaders of the Family Research Council on television, from kids in the schoolyard who are being raised by bigots…they hear it everywhere!

How DARE she stomp on these kids’ graves by suggesting that if only they had heard more of her Phelps-ian hate speech, maybe they’d be alive? HOW DARE SHE?

Watch her dig it even deeper:

Or were they faced with a continuous onslaught of pro-homosexual diversity lessons, novels and events like the “Day of Silence”? Were they surrounded with liberal teachers as role models and the bad example of a homosexual school club? What part did any of this play in the sad belief that homosexuality was an inevitable destiny, instead of a wayward yet changeable sexual inclination? Under almost continuous pressure to accept a lie – confusion and then despair may be the predictable result.

Yes, they were faced with an “onslaught” of people telling them that they were okay the way they are, faced with teachers and schools which gave them a safe gay club in an otherwise cruel world, and they just offed themselves. Newsflash: gay kids don’t have any reason to hate themselves if adults and other children don’t tell them they should!

She finally mentions the bullies at this point, but almost as an afterthought, because Linda is in full damage control mode. Nope, for this deranged woman, it’s all the Human Rights Campaign’s fault.

But there’s a solution. First and foremost, kids should be told the truth that no one is born gay. Despite any budding feelings he or she may have, many people who felt similarly at that age went on to change both their feelings and behavior, and to be well-adjusted adult heterosexuals, some married with children. The gay lobbyists actively prevent kids from knowing this option. Why can’t they be “pro-choice” regarding homosexuality?

Linda’s solution is to keep telling gay kids that they’re worthless and evil. She doesn’t say it that way, but because in her pig ignorance she refuses to accept the reality that homosexuality simply exists, gay kids simply exist, she would have you tell the kids that “no, you’re really not gay, you’re not who you know you are…in essence, you do not exist.”  For quick reference, these kids do exist, and here’s the suicide note from one of them who survived.  Read that and tell me that the only thing these kids need is to hear more anti-gay hate and bile from Linda Harvey.

Nice, Linda. It’s a wonder she hasn’t offered to hold the gun for one of these kids.

By the way, Linda is a troll in more ways than one, so if she shows up in the comments section trying to defend herself, let her have it.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), a medical professional organization of 60,000 pediatricians, has joined a chorus of criticism against an antigay Christian Right political group, after the latter sent a letter to U.S. public schools pretending to represent mainstream professional pediatric expertise.

The statement reads:

In 2008, a diverse coalition of 13 national organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) joined in a renewed effort to protect the safety and emotional well-being of students, including those who are at higher risk because of their sexual orientation. This group of education, health, mental health and religious organizations developed and endorsed Just the Facts about Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators, and School Personnel and sent the resource to public school superintendents across the US.

On or around March 31, 2010, school superintendents may have received another letter from the American College of Pediatricians, which is in no way affiliated with the American Academy of Pediatrics. The letter promotes another campaign titled “Facts About Youth,” which professes to offer guidance to educators on “approaches to students experiencing sexual orientation and gender identity confusion.” Their campaign does not acknowledge the scientific and medical evidence regarding sexual orientation, sexual identity, sexual health, or effective health education.

The AAP encourages school administrators and officials, teachers, parents, and youth to become familiar with and utilize the AAP developed and endorsed resources on this issue for reliable, sound, scientific, medical advice:

Just the Facts about Sexual Orientation and Youth: A Primer for Principals, Educators, and School Personnel – A guide for employees who confront sensitive issues involving gay, lesbian and bisexual students. It is intended to help school administrators foster safe and healthy school environments, in which all students can achieve to the best of their ability. “Just the Facts” includes the most recent information from professional health organizations, as well as up-to-date information on the legal responsibility of school officials to protect students from anti-gay harassment.

Sexual Orientation and Adolescents – A clinical report from the AAP Committee on Adolescence.

Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Teens: Information for Teens and Parents – Questions and answers from the AAP for teens and parents about sexual orientation.

Gay and Lesbian Teens – Information on sexual orientation from the AAP’s Caring for Your Teenager.

Gender Identity and Gender Confusion in Children – Information on gender identity, sexual stereotypes, gender confusion, and sexual orientation from the AAP’s Caring for Your School Aged Child: Ages 5-12.

With this statement, AAP joins University of Minnesota researcher Dr. Gary Remafedi, M.D., M.P.H. and conservative Christian professor Warren Throckmorton of Grove City College in Pennsylvania in criticizing the Christian front group’s falsifications and distortions of legitimate research.

Last week, Remafedi said:

Knowingly misrepresenting research findings for material or personal gain is a flagrant violation of this code of conduct. Implicating me in this chicanery is doubly damaging to my professional reputation and career by holding me accountable for misstatements and by associating me with a cause that most ethical Pediatricians will recognize as misguided and hurtful to an entire class of children and families.

After citing specific acts of research fraud by the ACP, Remafedi asked the ACP to retract its misuse of the research with a written statement on the front of its web site, and to return any donations made to the ACP on the basis of its fraudulent claims.

Throckmorton cited additional examples of fraud and misrepresentation.

“The ACP’ new anti-gay website essentially replaces facts with quacks,” said Truth Wins Out executive director Wayne Besen. The ACP consists largely of members of the discredited reparative therapy organization, the National Association for Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Former NARTH officer Arthur Abba Goldberg — a convicted Wall Street con artist and disbarred lawyer, not a doctor — sits on the ACP’ so-called “Pediatric Psychosocial Development Committee.”

Given the repeated acts of research fraud and misrepresentation that have been committed by NARTH, Focus on the Family, Exodus International, and PFOX, a joint effort among medical and mental-health professionals is needed, not just to slap down such political propaganda disguised as science, but to slap it down the moment it is made public.

The ACP has not corrected its website, and Focus on the Family and PFOX both continue to market the ACP’s fraudulent web site as if it were a factual resource for schools.

Perhaps I missed it, but I don’t ever remember a specific unit on “straight” relationships in elementary school, but Tennessee wingnut legislator Stacey Campfield just wants to make sure that kids don’t learn about any part of reality that happens to be gay:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. ‚Äî A Democratic lawmaker from Memphis opposed to legislation that would prohibit teaching about gay relationships in Tennessee public schools told the Republican sponsor today that the practice is a “figment of his imagination.”

The proposal sponsored by Republican Rep. Stacey Campfield of Knoxville was sent back to the State Board of Education for further study by the House Education K-12 Subcommittee. It’s at least the second year that the same panel has killed the measure.

Campfield claimed to have proof that some state counties could be headed toward such teachings. For instance, he said one school system has removed filtering software from its class computers.

Rep. Ulysses Jones, a Memphis Democrat who voted against the bill, said Campfield’s claims are not factual.

“What we’re dealing with is a figment of his imagination,” Jones said. “This is not based on any evidence.”

The proposal sought to prohibit the “teaching of … human sexuality other than heterosexuality in public school grades K-8.”

Campfield said the state should “stay neutral” and leave it up to parents whether they want to talk about anything other than heterosexuality.

Because kids need to be protected from the harsh light of reality as long as possible.

Newsflash, little weasel: kids already learn about gay relationships, even in Tennessee, because they have gay family members, friends, parents, and the like. And no, they don’t learn about gay sex (the wingnut Stacey’s true fear) any more than they learn about straight sex from simply observing the fact that, oh look, their friend from school has two mommies.

Thank you, Ulysses Jones, for not pretending that Campfield’s little stunt has any intellectual merit, and calling it out as the fever dream that it is.

As the above article mentions, Campfield has been barking up this Caucasian Wingnut tree for a while now. When he first introduced it in 2008, he explained it like this:

“If I were to say ‘Jack and Jill went up the hill’ or ‘George Washington and Martha Washington were husband and wife,’ there are groups out there that would say we were pushing a heterosexual agenda. To keep those lawsuits from coming, I thought we should still be able to talk about that side of it,” Campfield says.

Really? Because Jack and Jill have been going up that hill for quite a long time now, but nowhere near as long as it’s been since George and Martha gay married each other heterosexually, and I haven’t heard of one lawsuit. Perhaps I don’t read the missives from Campfield’s mothership.

Anyway, the bill is basically dead until the Wingnut Wonder of Knoxville decides to bring it up again next year. Or until the bill dies laughing when Campfield is caught with his pants down at a rest stop or something.

A little more background on Stacey Campfield:

Over the years, Campfield has proposed other controversial legislation, such as replacing the state’s food tax with a tax on pornography and requiring the state to issue death certificates for aborted fetuses. In 2005, Campfield compared the state’s Black Caucus to the Ku Klux Klan when they refused to let him join because he is white.

Do you remember what I was saying just one post back about how wingnuts are never just wingnutty about one thing? They always are screwed up and paranoid about a whole list of things which pose no threat to them at all. Campfield’s hang-ups are generally “not being allowed to do something that black people can” and “not being able to control sexual activity that doesn’t involve his and other likeminded penises, subservient wives, and a hole in a sheet.”

Pathetic.

And even more background on Stacey Campfield, about the time he got kicked out of a University of Tennessee football game on Halloween:

According to a report by UT Police Lt. Dana McReynolds, the Knoxville Republican was wearing a “Luchador’ (Mexican wrestler’) full head mask” during the game against South Carolina despite publicity before and during the game that Halloween masks were not allowed inside Neyland Stadium.

Campfield is not named in the narrative, but his identity was later learned by McReynolds through a driver’ license check. Campfield’ identity was confirmed Monday by UT spokeswoman Karen Collins.

(…)

McReynolds and a Knox County Sheriff’ Office deputy found the masked man and asked him to step into the portal.

“I told him masks were not allowed in the stadium and told him he would have to take it off,” McReynolds wrote. “He asked why and I again told him that masks were not allowed and he could either give the mask to me or take it off and put it away. Before I could finish my sentence he took off the mask and asked if he could keep it. I told him “yes’ and thanked him for complying.”

The officer noted that Campfield then re-entered the stadium area but went a different direction than his original seat.

“Curious about this odd behavior and concerned that he had misunderstood our interaction, I caught up with him in front of the concession stand in Section D,” McReynolds wrote. “I … began to tell him that I was not asking him to leave the section, just to take off his mask. Again … he interrupted and said, “I was just taking a walk. Is it illegal to walk around?’ I told him “no,’ and was surprised by his sudden confrontational attitude. … He again asked if walking around was illegal. I told him “no’ and again began to explain that he did not have to leave his seat, just take off the mask. He continued to ask if walking around was illegal. … Thinking that something was not right (he kept saying the same phrase over and over, would not make eye contact and kept shifting on his feet, left to right) I asked to see his ticket.”

And it just kept going…and going…and the wingnut child kept repeating the same words over and over again…

As we’ve seen so clearly in the Fulton, Mississippi story lately, another thing wingnuts have in common is that they’re essentially overgrown adolescents.

Campfield is is a pretty good sketch of the prototypical wingnut, really. Childish, not very bright, creepy, sex-obsessed, misogynistic, bigoted…

So anyway, now you know Stacey if you didn’t already. Don’t you wish you lived in Tennessee now?