Another School District Blocks Gay Speakers

[davidinalameda]

http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/03/033006school.htm

It was to have been a speech on diversity but the head of the national Gay Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN) cancelled after a group of parents claimed it was nothing more than "propaganda for the gay agenda" and the principal attempted to make what GLSEN calls "unnecessary and serious modifications" to the speech.

Members of Somers High School's Human Rights Club invited Kevin Jennings, GLSEN's executive director to speak after several students heard him deliver an address at a school in Westchester.

A group of parents organized Concerned Citizens and demanded the school cancel the invitation.

"Our issue is whether or not their personal choice of private sexual behavior should be publicly promoted as an equally valid option for our children," Judy Birdsall, the mother of a ninth-grader told the Journal News.


the wingnuts think being gay is all about sex-well, it's NOT

[saltpoint]

1. Ms. Birdsall, mother of a 9th-grader raises her

objection to "private sexual behavior" being "publicly promoted as an equally valid option for (y)our children," which is her right as a parent and a tax-paying citizen, but nevertheless it is misdirected bigotry.

To extend bigotry into the school curriculum she purports to be protecting, should school board members now remove all references to sexual activity, directly or in indirect context?

Should e.e.cummings be removed from the considerations of high school students? "...since feeling is first...the syntax of things....will never whollyl KISS you..." Better get that 'kiss' out of there right now -- it is private behavior and deserves no public endorsement! Why, ANYONE could do it! Students might even try it themselves!

In Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET, two avowed heterosexuals exhibit private intimacies, all the while as subjects for public school literature curricula.

Sweep down on that damn Shakespeare at once! Out, out, you filthy old lecherous devil!

[texastoast]

3. Hey, about Shakespeare

There are folks in our little nazi neighborhood of Shenandoah here in The Woodlands who would love to see Shakespeare gone. Don't you know that a Midsummer Night's Dream is Pagan?:eyes:

There is a group called the Republican Leadership Council who worked very hard to get some books removed from our library. They got a referendum on the ballot to jack with library funding to do just that. It failed. Even the Republicans had issues with this bunch of wingbats.

Nutjobs, I tell ya. Don't give them any ideas.

[saltpoint]

5. Hi, texastoast. I'm sorry you have to endure the Republican

Leadership Council's censorious ways.

What a lot of readers LOVE about Shakespeare and Forster etc. are those pagan currents coursing through here and there. That's the eternal zip of art and literature and painting. Loved your example.

My 10th grade English teacher struck ROMEO AND JULIET from the curriculum because it "promoted premarital relations" and instead we read JULIUS CAESAR, a tale of powermongering, betrayal, blood-letting, etc. Values education, anyone?

We need more brave Republicans to bring pressure to bear on their right-wing affiliates to knock off the censorship.

[texastoast]

7. Here's a hopeful for you

After the big hoopla about the library, the RLC got a lot of bad press. That didn't stop them from running for precinct chairs and stuff. At the primary where I was the Dem election judge, the Republican chair at the precinct was worried sick because someone had challenged her (she had served many years). Turned out that it was a member of the RLC.

Her words, "One of those sorry RLC people challenged me. You know who they are--remember the library bookburners a couple of years ago? Those people give Republicans a bad name."

I loved it.

[saltpoint]

10. I love it too. It's a handy summary of "those people."

:thumbsup:

[northzax]

4. gee, you'd think Ms. Birdsall

could simply tell her son/daughter not to attend the speech. or would that be taking personal responsibility?

[saltpoint]

6. It would be an excellent suggestion, northzax, but then you'd be

depriving her of an opportunity to shoot her mouth off and pat herself on the back for her outstanding moral leadership in the community, blah, blah, blah.

: )

[xchrom]

8. it might be her right to her opinion -- however

i think there should perhaps be an investigation of other speakers at that school.

different people can -- and in this case should raise objections about various other speakers -- it seems to me.

''bigotry'' has no place in a curriculum.

it can't be defended with statistics or science or social studies -- nothing.

speakers are generally -- admitedly -- offering a singular point of view.

she should prove that the speaker was there to offer an agenda -- and that other speakers are therefore with out an agenda.

[saltpoint]

9. Good point. I hope some of the students direct sharp criticism at

the parents who feel their daughters and sons should not be asked to consider a range of expression.

Liked your post, xchrom.

[Xeric]

2. Concern or fear?

I've often wondered if there isn't an element of selfishness on the part of these hysterical moms and dads. They are terrified that their child will "turn gay" and embarass them at the club, or that they won't get grandchildren to show off. It often seems like the religious attitudes or the "concern" about what is being taught at school is a smokescreen for a deeper fear. It's not just homophobia, it's a phobia that THEIR kid will be gay.

[kevinbgoode]

11. Apparently Mrs. Birdsall is bisexual. . .

since she seems to know all about how sexuality is such a "personal choice of private sexual behavior". . .too bad I don't live in that town - I'd be asking her to her face if she was bisexual.

[TaleWgnDg]

12. This homophobic group chanting appears to be a

.

This homophobic group chanting appears to be a national (and spreading fast) grass roots organization that's being spear-headed by religion-into-law uber-rightwing advocacy groups. I am guessing that it is bc it all sounds so damn alike.

1.) A person and/or GLBT group forms to meet, speak about, and challenge public school student body (and administration) homophobic picking on GLBT children, verbal abuse, physical abuse, and suicidal tendencies of GLBT children as a result of this negative public school setting, and

2.) A person and/or anti-gay advocacy group "forms" to challenge such GLBT person and/or group and to quash any meeting, speeches, or challenge to public school environs.

As a result, I wouldn't be one bit surprised if the uber-rightwingers have this on their agenda.

see, e.g., http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=221x31496 . . . particularly post #8 and its hyperlinks