Effort to repeal gay history law in CA fails

They couldn't even get enough names on the petition to put it up to a vote. Ha! Read the rest of this post...

Canadian Catholic leaders say "bullying" is a "distraction"

It's sad, but as Gaius wrote earlier, what in God's name has happened to Canada?  From the Toronto Sun:

Ontario Catholics are pushing back against the provincial Liberal government’s plan to force them to accept Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) in their schools.

Thomas Cardinal Collins, the Archbishop of Toronto and President of the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of Ontario, said in a statement issued Monday that all people, of faith or not, should be concerned by this action.

“If it happens to us, it can happen to you on this and other issues,” Collins said.

He's right, you know.  If they try to stop the gay kids from killing themselves, some day they may stop your child from committing suicide as well. And we all know how upset Catholic leaders get when someone tries to stop them from harming children.

Check out the insouciance, and near contempt, that this Catholic leader has for the very notion of bullying:

Marino Gazzola, president of the Ontario Catholic School Trustees’ Association, said the government’s Accepting Schools Act now emphasizes gay bullying over all other grounds that a student might be intimidated, harassed or physically assaulted by peers.

”In our view, the word itself is a distraction,” Gazzola said.

When asked if he believed the word “gay” was a distraction, Gazzola said, ”It can be. It just it takes away from the entire focus of our message which is the safety of all the students.”

Im sorry, but when you aid and abet the rape of small children, and refuse to come clean to this day, you have zero moral authority to say anything about anything. Read the rest of this post...

Anonymous gay group shakes up evangelical college

The good news - the school, Biola University, won't expel the kids so long as they seek help. Lovely.

[Vice President for Student Development] Grace dismissed the notion that students who are "struggling with homosexuality" would face expulsion. "I guess you'd almost call that a myth that students would get expelled for that," Grace said. Instead, Biola offers students an "open-door policy" to talk about their struggles and receive spiritual counseling. But he makes it clear that for a student who identifies as gay and is engaging in "gay behavior and unwilling to uphold our community standards we would initiate the dismissal process."

Debate about the group has raged among students and in the campus newspaper.

Samuel Smith, a cinema and media arts major, objected to the fact the members won’t come forward. “If you want an honest and true discussion about what they're going through, I feel they shouldn't be anonymous.”

Alexis Hughes, a biblical studies major, said the gay group’s anonymity is telling. "Obviously, if it's underground, they know it’s wrong and on some level they know they shouldn't be doing it"

Yeah, like the Underground Railroad, and the French Resistance - they were both underground too, and anonymous. Guess it's because they knew at some level they shouldn't be doing it.

Heckuvan education they're getting there at Ebola University. Read the rest of this post...

Court: Gay student may wear "Jesus is not a homophobe" shirt, gets $20k

I'll be curious to see a longer story about this. Read the rest of this post...

I wonder how Nebraska would handle a racist football coach?

An assistant football coach at the University of Nebraska has a problem with gay people.  Which is fine, so long as he keeps it to himself.  But I'd like to know how someone can be hired, or kept on, as a teacher once a school, especially a state school spending taxpayer money, finds out that the teacher is a very public bigot.  And lest anyone raise the free speech canard, would the University of Nebraska really keep an avowed racist activist as a teacher, or a coach?  How about a Klansman or a neo-Nazi?  Funny how complicated free speech gets when you take the gay out of the equation. Read the rest of this post...

Male student yanked off stage for expressing hope to marry a guy some day

Nasty story.  At least the principal wised up quickly and apologized the next day.  I'm impressed as hell that a high school student was willing to acknowledge on stage that he hoped in ten years he'd be married, to a guy. Read the rest of this post...

Student sues to wear "Jesus is not a homophobe" shirt

Love the shirt.  And gutsy kid.  From ABC News:

A gay high school student in Ohio who claims his freedom of expression was violated over a T-shirt is taking his school district to federal court.

Waynesville High School student Maverick Couch, 16, says he was threatened with suspension for wearing a T-shirt reading “Jesus Is Not A Homophobe” and bearing the Christian fish symbol. Couch wore the shirt last year in support of the “Day of Silence,” an annual event sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network where students spend a day in silence to raise awareness of anti-gay bullying and harassment.

Couch, a sophomore, claims in his lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Cincinnati, that he was told by the school’s principal, Randy Gebhardt, that the shirt was “indecent and sexual in nature” and had to be worn inside out.

Let's see how sexual it is after the first student is beaten up, or commits suicide, because of the intolerant tone set by the school. Then you're really going to see a lawsuit. Read the rest of this post...

Student sues to make prom more inclusive

NY Daily News:

An Atlanta-area teen is suing his high school after he claims he was booted from his position as student body president for introducing changes that would make it easier for gay couples to be named prom king and queen.

Reuben Lack, a senior at Alpharetta High School, said he brought up the idea of a gay-friendly "prom court" during a student council meeting in January, according to the suit.

On Feb. 8, Lack says he was stripped of his presidency and for "pushing personal projects," his lawyer said.

The 18-year-old filed the suit on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Atlanta in order to be reinstated as president.

Read the rest of this post...

DOJ files civil rights suit against school over LGBT harassment

This is good.  From Chris Geidner at Metro Weekly:

Noting specific examples of discriminatory treatment faced by 10 students in the district, DOJ's investigation, according to today's filing, concluded, "The school and District officials with authority to address the sex-based harassment knew or should have known about the harassment [the students] experienced.

"Often, District personnel ignored these sex-based harassment allegations," DOJ lawyers wrote in the complaint, which was signed by Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez, the head of DOJ's Civil Rights Division. "In those instances when the District did respond to reports of sex-based harassment, the District's response improperly placed the burden of stopping the harassment on the student being harassed. ... The District knew its responses to sex-based harassment were inadequate because the harassment continued and in certain instances escalated.

"In sum, students in the District experienced and reported verbal and physical sex-based harassment because of their gender nonconformity. ... Based on this evidence, a hostile environment based on sex exists in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, the District knew or should have known about the hostile environment, and the District has failed to address it," the complaint stated.

To end the lawsuits, the Anoka-Hennepin School District has agreed to take significant action to prevent harassment of students who are or are perceived to be LGBT or gender non-conforming, as well as those who have friends or parents who are LGBT, under the terms of a proposed court agreement announced tonight by DOJ and the plaintiffs of the two additional lawsuits that were previously filed against the district by students.

The agreement reached by six students in the Anoka-Hennepin School District who had filed two federal lawsuits accusing the district of gender-based and sexual orientation-based harrassment, along with DOJ and the school district, would put in place a federal government-supervised five-year consent decree requiring the district to take the actions to improve the atmosphere for the students and others like them.

Read the rest of this post...

Anti-gay TN principal is gone

That was fast.  And it's interesting to note that the announcement that the principal has resigned comes from the school district's law firm (makes me think they got scared about their legal liability should a kid get bullied or worse).  Back-story here. Read the rest of this post...

TN school principal tells kids "if you're gay you're going to hell"

UPDATE: And she's gone.


Haywood High School (I'd recommend starting with the Super)
* Marlon King, Superintendent: kingm.haywood.k12tn@gmail.com - tel. 731-772-9613

Principal: Dorothy J. Bond bondd1@k12tn.net

Vice Principal: Michelle Tillman tillmanm3@k12tn.net
Assistant Principal/AAA Summer School Principal: Drayton Hawkins hawkinsd@k12tn.netmailto:hawkinsd@k12tn.net
___________________
UPDATE: The ACLU is getting involved.  Sayonara...

What is it about Tennessee?  What a hateful state.

They'd better hope that a kid doesn't kill themselves, or get gay-bashed, or that school district is going to be facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit. It's a fact now. The school district has a serious legal problem now. Anything short of totally rebuking this principal will send the message that they're soft on anti-gay abuse, and that will be used against them the first time a child is hurt. More from Andy at Towleroad.

Dorothy Bond (right) is the principal at Haywood High School in Brownsville, Tennessee. She's accused of making insensitive remarks during a meeting with students. Parents are hot under the collar and the comments could drive a wedge between people living there.

“At first she was talking about PDA and she turned around and she directly pointed to the gay people and said if you're gay you're going to hell and if you're pregnant, you're life is over,” Amber Whittiemore said.

Note that the school non-discrimination policy (bottom of the page) does not cover sexual orientation or gender identity:

Haywood County Schools does not discriminate in its programs or employment on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, disability, sex, age or genetics.

Read the rest of this post...

Harvard being asked to award posthumous degrees to gay students kicked out in 1920s

Interesting, I hadn't heard of this.  Not surprising what happened, we are talking the 1920s.  Still, it would be good of Harvard to set things right.  If politicians can get honorary degrees, certainly minority students expelled in a witch hunt can as well. Read the rest of this post...

Hateful bigoted Tennessee is at it again

Tennessee was a slave state. Big surprise there. I don't why anyone would do business in this state. They go out of their way to bash gays. Again, big surprise that they were a slave state. Like far too many states, they seem to find their bigotry a badge of honor. Especially Tennessee Republicans, who were famous for their racist attacks on the President and First Lady during the 2008 campaign.

Last year Tennessee repealed every municipal civil rights ordinance in the state, and banned new ones (we wouldn't want black people, among others, getting too many rights). This time they're banning the word "gay" in Tennessee schools, likely in the hopes that gay kids will simply kill themselves when they can't get help from their teachers and counselors.  The only slim silver lining is that if they pass this legislation, and some kid does hurt themselves or get hurt, this can be used as proof of animus and hopefully get the kid and his family millions in a lawsuit.

Hateful bigoted place, Tennessee. Remember that the next time you have the option of passing through the state, working there, or otherwise. Spend your money elsewhere. Read the rest of this post...

Canadian gay fraternity in trouble for excluding women, using incorrect trans language, breathing

The Star:

Various activist voices in the McGill lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) communities angrily derided the frat for professing to be open and accepting, and yet excluding women from the group.

Frats are supposed to accept women now?  And sororities guys?

This also caught my eye.  The guys were trying to be accepting, before they got yelled at, and said trans people were welcome in their frat, which is great.  But the same gay group that freaked out over the notion of not accepting women to a frat also freaked out over the fact that the guys didn't use the proper language to describe trans people in their welcome statement.

Now there is controversy over how the fraternity has circumscribed who can and cannot join. Delta Lambda Phi (DLP) recently stipulated that it’s open to “males and those who identify as male.”

While some might have thought that would sufficiently encompass transgendered individuals who consider themselves male, McGill’s main LGBT group, Queer McGill, wasn’t happy when it saw the frat’s literature.

Queer McGill thought the language separating “males” and “those who identify as male” implied that transgendered individuals were somehow not real men. They were “just pretending to be men,” explained Queer McGill administrator Elyse Lewis, 20.

“There was a lot of misunderstanding with this whole thing,” Lewis said. “People from DLP didn’t know there was a problem with the language. They saw it as an attack in general.” [emphasis added]

Ya think?

Note that the "they're just pretending to be men" comment isn't from the frat, it's from the leader of the gay group at McGill, who's being a snide jerk.

No kudos for being openly welcoming of trans guys into their frat. Hell, I don't even know what language to use. Is "trans guys" correct? I'd have probably said the same thing these guys said, "men and anyone who identifies as male." What are they supposed to say?  Just "Men"?  Imagine the outcry had they done that - clearly "men" excludes trans people, the gay group would have then said. And in any case, why assume that "men and anyone who identifies as male" means the guys don't think trans people are real? If they didn't think trans people were real, they wouldn't have invited them to be a part of the frat in the first place.

It feels like Queer McGill's problem with these guys is that they're gay.  And nowadays, among some segments of our community, that's a crime in and of itself.
(H/t to Towleroad.) Read the rest of this post...

SPLC threatens to sue Alabama school district for refusing to let gays attend prom, wear "gay" sweatshirts

From Tuscaloosa News:

The Tuscaloosa County Board of Education is facing a demand from the Southern Poverty Law Center that school system officials allow same-sex couples to attend school proms and respect the constitutional rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students, or face a federal lawsuit.

The Montgomery-based SPLC stated in a letter sent to the school system Wednesday that on Jan. 5, Brookwood High School Assistant Principal Thad Fitzpatrick asked Elizabeth Garrett, a 15-year-old 10th-grader at Brookwood, to remove her sweatshirt that displayed the words, “Warning, This Individual Infected With ‘The Gay,' Proceed With Caution.”

In its letter, the SPLC tells the Tuscaloosa County School System that it has until Feb. 1 to stop its alleged censorship of speech supportive of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and its prohibition against same-sex couples at the prom.

Wolfe said if the school system doesn't meet the SPLC's demands, it will be in violation of Garrett's First and Fourteenth Amendment rights and a lawsuit will be filed in federal court against the system seeking an injunction, damages and attorneys' fees.

Read the rest of this post...

Was it okay for a middle school to out a 14 year old to his parents?

First I was outraged. But now, I'm actually a bit divided on this one after reading the story. First, read a snippet of the story:

Administrators at a Utah middle school outed a gay teenage boy to his parents because they feared he would be bullied, but the move has outraged civil rights groups that claim the student's privacy was violated.

Alpine School District took the unusual step after the 14-year-old boy, whose name has not been released, created an advertisement about himself and his sexual orientation during a class project.

An aide later overheard other students ridiculing him and became concerned about bullying. Even though the boy was openly gay in school, he did not want to tell his parents.

He was openly gay at school, and even created a class project about being gay. Does a kid have a reasonable expectation that his parents aren't going to find out or be told after they're this open? Granted, it's not clear what a 14 year old can reasonably expect - he's 14.

I'm not convinced that schools should be outing kids to their parents, especially when some parents disown their kids or worse on finding out they're gay. But I'm also not convinced that particular story is a good example of a kid's privacy being violated. Are you really that private if you're openly gay at school and creating class projects about being gay? Interesting question. Thoughts? Read the rest of this post...

They’re alive! Liberal groups suddenly realize Senate education bill ignores bullying

Our groups finally realized that the Education bill in the Senate doesn't do squat about bullying, and actually refused to incorporate two proposals that were already on the table.  When the bill passed, criticism was muted.  Today, for some reason, someone apparently pushed the unmute button.

This is the kind of thing our groups should have ensured was in the bill from the git-go.  And they didn't.  It's nice of them to express concern now, after they all dropped the ball, and now that it's much harder to get the legislation into the bill.

It's really quite abominable that Senate Democrats didn't even bother addressing bullying in their new education bill.  It's one more factor that makes the Democratic base wonder what the point is in electing Democrats if they refuse to act like Democrats and address democratic priorities?  What kind of moron didn't think of including bullying in an education overhaul? Unless, of course, Democrats were afraid, as always, that "teh gay" (misspelling intentional) would be too controversial (as if Americans would be on the wrong side of teen suicide).  Well, if Senate Democrats are embarrassed by us, we'll keep that in mind next November. Read the rest of this post...

Another teacher caught ranting on Facebook about the gays

I just don't know how you can continue to teach kids when you've publicly stated your disdain for an entire class of those kids. And there this:

John Paragano, a lawyer and former member of the Union Township Committee, said he had been offended by Ms. Knox’s comments, and questioned her ability to enforce the state’s tough new anti-bullying law.

“Teachers are at the forefront of that, enforcing that,” Mr. Paragano said. “My concern is that if this teacher has these feelings, is she going to call out the bullying of a gay, lesbian and transgender person?”

Are teachers permitted to be racists and anti-Semites? How about a klansman, can he be a teacher during the day and wear his white hood at night? I find it hard to believe that someone like that would stay for long as a school teacher, First Amendment or not. Read the rest of this post...

Confirmed: Anti-gays fail to get enough signatures to put repeal of education bill on ballot

EQUALITY CALIFORNIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 11, 2011

Opponents of FAIR Education Act Fail to Qualify Referendum for 2012 Ballot

(San Francisco) Today, anti-equality advocates announced that they have failed to collect the required number of signatures to place a referendum for the November 2012 ballot to overturn the Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act.

The FAIR Education Act, authored by Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and sponsored by Equality California and GSA Network, was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown earlier this year. It requires schools to integrate age-appropriate and factual information about historical roles of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, people with disabilities and people of color into existing social science instruction.

"The FAIR Education Act will simply ensure that California's students learn an honest, accurate, and inclusive account of history, but opponents of equality have grossly distorted the intent and the effect of the FAIR Education act in their quest to secure signatures for this referendum. Today's victory shows that their lies cannot stand up to our truth," said Roland Palencia, Equality California Executive Director and Interim Executive Committee Co-Chair of the coalition to protect the FAIR Education Act. "But we know that opponents of equality won't stop here. We remain vigilant, not only to make sure that people know the facts about the FAIR Education Act, but also to continue preparing for new attacks on the FAIR Education Act at the ballot box, in the legislature and in courts of law."

Read the rest of this post...

BREAKING: Anti-gays can’t get enough signatures for ballot measure on lgbt education bill

E-blast today from Stop SB 48:

"The News is Not Good ... it is doubtful we will get the number of signatures we need to qualify. Unfortunately the last several deliveries of mail have not been what was expected and a large number of petitions have been pulled out because of errors. From all appearances, we would need a miracle to qualify this referendum."

Read the rest of this post...