People for the American Way has answered the smears and myths that hate groups, who often refer to themselves as Christian, use to try to protect bullies in school. They're now arguing that bullies need protection too.
It isn't hard to figure out who the vulnerable kids are, and the hate groups are furious that outside groups are trying to help those kids get a decent education, survive, and live their lives with some semblance of dignity. Some of my favorite quotes are:
The Religious Right’s campaign against bullying utilizes an upside-down version of reality where the bullied are the bullies. Just as right-wing activists falsely predicted that hate crimes laws would lead to the arrest, prosecution and imprisonment of people of faith and the criminalization of religion, now they say that anti-bullying programs will force religious students out of schools.and:
Like Perkins, Barb Anderson of the Minnesota Family Council suggested that safe school organizations such as GLSEN “are creating an environment where these children that are sexually confused suddenly become affirmed as a homosexual or that they are born that way, and then these kids are locked into a lifestyle with their choices limited, and many times this can be disastrous to them as they get into the behavior which leads to disease and death in some cases.”Oh, where to begin? Every time a hater mentions "choice," I chalk it up to their being bisexual, and making a choice to be straight. Otherwise, why in the world would they think I had the luxury of choosing, and deliberately chose, to be gay? If anything, I'd choose bisexuality. Do they seriously think we choose to be gay just to be popular and get our groove on?
Secondly, what is the gay "lifestyle" they endlessly refer to? Stereotype much? I'm sure there are unhealthy behaviors associated with some fundamentalist church lifestyles, like handling snakes, or bigotry. I'm always amazed by those who claim to be such pure Christians.
