The Gaytheist Agenda

This young man asks a very powerful question in this video he posted on YouTube.

Now that’s food for thought.

 

A coalition of groups that advocate for LGBT rights have asked that Brandon McInerney, the 14-year-old boy who allegedly shot and killed 15-year-old Lawrence King, be tried as a juvenile. This would ensure that should he be found guilty he would go to a juvenile facility and receive a shorter sentence. In particular he would not be subject to the hate-crime penalty which could add an additional 1-3 years and the up to 25 years for use of a firearm.

The coalition of lesbian, gay and other organizations, including Lambda Legal, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and the Transgender Law Center, announced Monday they have asked District Attorney Greg Totten to try McInerney as a juvenile.

“We are saddened and outraged by the murder of junior high school student Lawrence King,” the groups’ statement read. “At the same time, we call on prosecutors not to compound this tragedy with another wrong. We call on them to treat the suspect as a juvenile, not as an adult.”

The groups’ statement called for the suspect to “be held accountable for his actions. But we support the principles underlying our juvenile justice system that treat children differently than adults and provide greater hope and opportunity for rehabilitation.”

…..

Other groups that signed the statement include the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Equality California, Gay Straight Alliance Network, Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

I have mulled this over in my head since reading the stories and have not been able to decide where I stand on this matter. Therefore I’m posting this as is, without commentary.

 

Two months ago 15-year-old Lawrence King of Oxnard, CA, was shot and killed because of his sexual orientation and gender expression. Even ten years ago there might have been, at best, an article about the crime in the local newspaper. But thanks to the power of the Internet not only has the crime received attention on national television and in major media publications but people around the world know his name and will keep him in their memories. Now The Washington Post has done a poignant article on this very phenomenon, and the way Lawrence King’s death has affected people who would otherwise never have heard of him.

No one really dies on the Internet. A private life becomes public. Every life finds an audience. Look at Lawrence “Larry” King. The openly gay eighth-grader who was shot and killed nearly two months ago lives on.

Larry lives on Wikipedia, where we learn about his tense life at school, the name-calling, the taunts, the teasing. Larry lives on Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, where he’s mourned by strangers not willing to let go. Larry lives on Web sites where the 15-year-old’s photos — Larry in front of the White House, Larry on ice skates, Larry getting a haircut — stare back at us, as if incarnated. Alive.

The Internet, so vibrant, so potent, brings those attributes to the dead, immortalizing them in unexpected new ways. Where once there would have only been a candlelight vigil outside Larry’s house or school in Southern California, now there’s also a virtual vigil in real time that knows no geographic bounds. Where once people would have attended a memorial service and cried about Larry’s sad story, now they can also bear witness and become the sad story’s

…..

Here’s what we know: At E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, Calif., Larry wore purple eye shadow, pink lipstick and high-heeled boots. And Larry reportedly told Brandon McInerney, 14, a member of the Young Marines program, that he liked him. Then, on the morning of Feb. 12, during English class, Brandon allegedly walked into the computer lab with a handgun and shot Larry in the back of the head.

Larry’s death — reminiscent of the murders of Matthew Shepard in 1998 and Eddie Araujo in 2002, both also gay — was inadequately covered by the mainstream media, gay rights activists say.

…..

Nevertheless, Larry is immortalized on the Web. Google, after all, doesn’t forget. RememberingLawrence.org , sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, shouldn’t be confused with RememberLarry.com , put up by the slain teen’s family. (The Kings declined to comment for this story.)

…..

Says Joshua Porter Zeller, a 17-year-old junior at Trinity Catholic High School in St. Louis: “If it wasn’t for the Internet, I wouldn’t have known about what happened to Larry. I have a religion class. In freshman year, the class was about church history. This year the first semester was on the New Testament, and right now the second semester is on morality. I asked my teacher if were going to talk about Larry’s shooting. He said no.”

Zeller, who is straight, is helping organize a “Day of Silence” in the school’s cafeteria on April 24. He also started a Facebook group a few weeks ago. It now has 169 members, mostly strangers.

Here’s to you, Lawrence King, and to the day there will be no more deaths like yours.

Major beef with the article. The person they said was “gay” named “Eddie” Araujo was not gay, so far as I know. Her name was Gwen Araujo as she was known to her friends, and if you look up a picture of her you’ll find that
anyone who would mistake her for a gay man clearly is delusional. She was killed when men whom she had had sexual contact with found out that she was not a biological female.

Her death rocked the *TRANSGENDER* community (and hopefully Queer community, though presumably not if articles are still being written about her using the wrong name and pronouns, seeing as how even her legal name is now Gwen), as just one more of a slew of examples of our trans sisters (and brothers) who has been murdered for her gender identity, and then had the double dishonor of being punished by a media that refuses to tell the truth about her life. (run on sentence, but Gwen’s death makes me angry)

I truly believe that you didn’t know any of this before posting that article (or you would have said something to this efffect in your commentary), but I urge you, if you consider yourself an ally to transfolk, to educate yourself as best you can.
Thanks

 

You’re absolutely right, Ezekiel, and I apologize for the oversight. Gwen was a transgender teen who was brutally killed by three men because her biological gender didn’t match her presented gender (she was pre-op at the time). Normally I would pick up on the blatant error presented in the Wa-Po article–Araujo was transgender and not gay (though some people can indeed be both), but I’m afraid I put the post up right before I went to bed and being tired I’m afraid I missed that. Again I’m sorry for the error and meant no offense.

 

The next comment is from Ebon who said:

 

Poor guy. And you know, you just know, that a bunch of people are thinking it was his own fault for being gay or for fancying the other kid. A Limbaugh or an O’Reilly might even say it. Scumbags.

My faith holds that homosexuality is perfectly acceptable, just another variation of the human condition (full disclosure: I am personally bisexual). However, it does hold that celebrating or excusing violence, even necessary violence is unacceptable. Most atheists I’ve met hold similar views. And yet, apparently, we’re the danger to humanity. Go figure.

 

Indeed. I’m sick to death of the “blame the victim” mentality that’s constantly thrust upon LGBTs and others like us. It takes the responsibility off the true offenders and relieves them of the need to change their behavior. I find it interesting that the RRRW wrings their hands over the “persecution” of Christians left and right, and always lays the blame for that squarely on the feet of everybody else. Yet when it comes to LGBTs/atheists/etc. the blame for bigoted acts against us are always our own faults.

I’m with you. I despise hatred, violence and everything associated with them. I would love a world in which they were non-existent.

The enemies of science, rationality and historical truth are at it again. The following is a press release from the Center for Inquiry.

PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release
April 07, 2008

Contact: Nathan Bupp
Phone: (716) 636-4869 x. 218
E-mail: nbupp@centerforinquiry.net

(Amherst, New York) –The Center for Inquiry (CFI), an international think tank promoting science and secularism, released a 25-page report today detailing what it calls “egregious errors” sufficient enough to warrant “immediate correction,” in a widely used civics textbook found in many secondary schools around the country, including advanced placement courses. CFI believes that the textbook American Government: Institutions and Policies, 10th edition, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006) contains inaccurate and misleading statements, in particular in its analysis of global warming and certain constitutional law issues. In response, CFI’s legal experts have analyzed the textbook and prepared a critique that sets forth recommended changes.

Derek Araujo, a lawyer and executive director for CFI’s New York office, spearheaded the textbook review project. Araujo stated that he was “surprised and dismayed that a textbook used in advanced placement courses would contain clearly erroneous statements about significant issues, such as global warming and school prayer.” Araujo recruited leading scientists, including Stuart D. Jordan from NASA, to provide their assessment of the book’s treatment of global warming.

CFI’s critique focuses on six areas: the science of global warming; the legality of school prayer; the significance of the Supreme Court’s decision in Lawrence v. Texas; the alleged influence of the religious concept of “original sin” on the structure of the Constitution; the meaning of the Establishment Clause; and the significance of the Supreme Court’s decision not to hear a case (what lawyers refer to as the denial of a writ of certiorari).

Ronald A. Lindsay, CFI’s general counsel, characterized the errors as “significant and inexcusable. For a civics textbook to state—as this book does—that the Supreme Court will not allow students to pray in schools betrays either a serious misunderstanding of the law or a willingness to have the textbook serve as a propaganda vehicle for the Religious Right.”

CFI maintains that it is very important for civics students to obtain accurate information about our Constitution, our legal system and public policy issues, and that instructional material should be objective and free of ideological bias.

The textbook critique was researched and written by Araujo, Lindsay, and Jordan. A downloadable PDF copy of the full report is available online here

Addendum. A comment has arrived. Ebon said:

It comes to something when the Religious Reich’s lies manage to find their way into textbooks.

 
The RRRW has infiltrated the controlling elements of our society; every branch of the government and the police, the military, school boards and others. They want their people in power positions as a means of achieving complete control of everything. There are even Dominionists among those RRRWers, and they make the standard RRRWers look like Mary Poppins.

I always wonder why they feel the need to go to such lengths. If their god is so all-powerful and intends to punish the crap out of all the sinners (which by their standards includes about 95% of us) then why don’t they just let him do it? Why not leave everybody the heck alone and leave the almighty god to do his work rather than making our lives hell on earth now?

But maybe they just don’t have the faith in their god that they claim they do, and that’s why they have to do his hating and punishing for him.

 

People across America have been rending their garments and fretting about the psychological ramifications for the child of transgender man Thomas Beatie. In the meantime officials from Texas Child Protective Services have removed a total of 183 young women, girls and boys from the Fundamentalist LDS Church’s compound near Eldorado, TX, once again proving that faith and religiosity by no means predict–let alone guarantee–ethical behavior.

A total of 183 young women, girls and boys - 97 girls, 40 boys and 46 young women over the age of 18 - have been removed.

The investigation into the safety of the children living at the ranch was initiated after Child Protective Services were notified by someone that a 16-year-old girl had suffered physical abuse. Eighteen of the girls removed from the compound were put legally into state custody because they appeared to have “been abused or were at immediate risk of future abuse.” The rest of the children are currently staying at a local civic center until authorities find them foster homes.

…..

The community was led by Warren Jeffs , who succeeded his father Rulon Jeffs in 2002. Warren Jeffs resigned his leadership of the FLDS Church in 2007, shortly after being convicted of being an accomplice to rape by the state of Utah. It is still unknown who is leading the FLDS church. However, several enclaves can be found in Utah, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, South Dakota, and in British Columbia, Canada.

It is important to keep in mind that Mormon fundamentalism, like FLDS, is considered a splinter group from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormons. Mormon fundamentalists embrace the doctrine and practice of polygamy, also known as “plural marriage” or “plurality of wives,” as it is generally referred to. Polygamy is not practiced by any, active contemporary member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormons have stopped practicing polygamy since 1890, after the Mormon Church officially disavowed polygamy.

Mormon Fundamentalists, however, believe that acceptance into the American mainstream came at way too high a price. They contend that the Mormon leaders sold them out and splintered off from the Church. Fundamentalists have formed numerous small sects, often within cohesive and isolated communities in areas of the Western United States, Western Canada, and northern Mexico.

To think, just recently State Representative Monique Davis (D-Chicago) claimed that it is dangerous for children to know atheism exists. Apparently the mere fact that some people believe in deities makes them morally and ethically superior to atheists. I have a feeling that the 183 children and young women removed from the Texas compound would disagree, as would I.

This Letter to the Editor by Sharon Underwood was originally printed in the Valley News (White River Junction, VT/Hanover, NH) in 2000. While the letter is nearly eight years old it’s impact has not lessened over time. It is so powerful on it’s own merits that I cannot add anything to it by way of commentary, so I will simply present it to you now.

Vermont debate brings out the haters
Sunday, April 30, 2000
By SHARON UNDERWOOD
For the Valley News

As the mother of a gay son, I’ve seen firsthand how cruel and misguided people can be.

Many letters have been sent to the Valley News concerning the homosexual menace in Vermont. I am the mother of a gay son and I’ve taken enough from you good people.

I’m tired of your foolish rhetoric about the “homosexual agenda” and your allegations that accepting homosexuality is the same thing as advocating sex with children. You are cruel and ignorant. You have been robbing me of the joys of motherhood ever since my children were tiny.

My firstborn son started suffering at the hands of the moral little thugs from your moral, upright families from the time he was in the first grade. He was physically and verbally abused from first grade straight through high school because he was perceived to be gay.

He never professed to be gay or had any association with anything gay, but he had the misfortune not to walk or have gestures like the other boys. He was called “fag” incessantly, starting when he was 6.

In high school, while your children were doing what kids that age should be doing, mine labored over a suicide note, drafting and redrafting it to be sure his family knew how much he loved them. My sobbing 17-year-old tore the heart out of me as he choked out that he just couldn’t bear to continue living any longer, that he didn’t want to be gay and that he couldn’t face a life with no dignity.

You have the audacity to talk about protecting families and children from the homosexual menace, while you yourselves tear apart families and drive children to despair. I don’t know why my son is gay, but I do know that God didn’t put him, and millions like him, on this Earth to give you someone to abuse. God gave you brains so that you could think, and it’s about time you started doing that.

No choice
At the core of all your misguided beliefs is the belief that this could never happen to you, that there is some kind of subculture out there that people have chosen to join. The fact is that if it can happen to my family, it can happen to yours, and you won’t get to choose. Whether it is genetic or whether something occurs during a critical time of fetal development, I don’t know. I can only tell you with an absolute certainty that it is inborn.

If you want to tout your own morality, you’d best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you. If you disagree, I would be interested in hearing your story, because my own heterosexuality was a blessing I received with no effort whatsoever on my part. It is so woven into the very soul of me that nothing could ever change it.

For those of you who reduce sexual orientation to a simple choice, a character issue, a bad habit or something that can be changed by a 10-step program, I’m puzzled. Are you saying that your own sexual orientation is nothing more than something you have chosen, that you could change it at will?

If that’s not the case, then why would you suggest that someone else can?

A popular theme in your letters is that Vermont has been infiltrated by outsiders. Both sides of my family have lived in Vermont for generations. I am heart and soul a Vermonter, so I’ll thank you to stop saying that you are speaking for “true Vermonters.”

Principles?
You invoke the memory of the brave people who have fought on the battlefield for this great country, saying that they didn’t give their lives so that the “homosexual agenda” could tear down the principles they died defending.

My 83-year-old father fought in some of the most horrific battles of World War II, was wounded and awarded the Purple Heart. He shakes his head in sadness at the life his grandson has had to live. He says he fought alongside homosexuals in those battles, that they did their part and bothered no one. One of his best friends in the service was gay, and he never knew it until the end, and when he did find out, it mattered not at all. That wasn’t the measure of the man.

You religious folk just can’t bear the thought that as my son emerges from the hell that was his childhood he might like to find a lifelong companion and have a measure of happiness. It offends your sensibilities that he should request the right to visit that companion in the hospital, to make medical decisions for him or to benefit from tax laws governing inheritance.

How dare he? you say. These outrageous requests would threaten the very existence of your family, would undermine the sanctity of marriage.

You use religion to abdicate your responsibility to be thinking human beings. There are vast numbers of religious people who find your attitudes repugnant. God is not for the privileged majority, and God knows my son has committed no sin.

The deep-thinking author of a letter to the April 12 Valley News who lectures about homosexual sin and tells us about “those of us who have been blessed with the benefits of a religious upbringing” asks: “What ever happened to the idea of striving . . . to be better human beings than we are?”

Indeed, sir, what ever happened to that?

(Sharon Underwood lives in White River Junction, Vt.)

For everyone who says there’s no harm presented by those who hold religious beliefs I present this story.

WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) — The frantic 911 call to the Marathon County Sheriff’s Department from the home of an 11-year-old Weston girl who died from untreated diabetes was made by friends of the girl’s parents, authorities said Thursday.

…..

Randall and Althea Wormgoor each spoke to a dispatcher as chaos and cries could be heard in the background at Dale and Leilani Neumann’s home in rural Weston on Sunday afternoon, said Capt. Scott Sleeter of the Everest Metro Police Department in Weston.

Madeline Neumann died Sunday from an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes as her parents prayed for her to get better. Her mother, Leilani Neumann, said she never expected her daughter, whom she called Kara, to die.

The family believes in the Bible, which says healing comes from God, Leilani Neumann said.

The sheriff’s department released tape recordings Thursday of two calls related to the girl’s medical condition.

One was from an aunt in California on the department’s non-emergency line, Lt. Jason Plaza said. She reported the girl was in a coma and needed medical help because the family “believes in faith instead of doctors.”

…..

In other words, the parents simply sat around doing nothing but making wishes to a spirit they have no proof exists while their daughter got sicker and sicker, then died of a treatable disorder. That’s depraved neglect if I ever heard it, at the very least. But wait–it gets worse.

Janine Geske, a Marquette University law professor who was a state Supreme Court justice from 1993-98, said a possible criminal charge in the case could be second-degree reckless homicide, which requires proof of “recklessly causing the death of another human being.” It carries up to 25 years in prison.

But Wisconsin has laws on the books that say a parent cannot be accused of abuse or neglect of a child if in good faith they selected prayer as a basis of treatment for a disease, Geske said.

So apparently the parents are going to get off scott-free for their behavior. How perfectly vile.

Addendum. A comment has arrived. OJ said:

This is the article that enraged and upset me enough to start my own atheist blog. I seriously could not believe my eyes when I read about it. And then, two days later, it happened again to a 15-month old girl with a bacterial infection. Two deaths in one week as a direct result of people who were too stupid to take their daughter to someone who knew anything at all about human health. Disgusting.

 
Indeed. Of course we’re not supposed to say anything (and they can’t be prosecuted) because it’s their right to let their child die in the name of their “deeply held religious beliefs”. People like them are also allowed to keep people like us from having equal rights because of their “deeply held religious beliefs”. Am I the only one who thinks things are really messed up here?

That is the question asked in the upcoming issue of The Advocate. See if the conclusions they arrived at are as astonishing to you as they were to me.

Elson, who says King didn’t mention being bullied at school to foster-care professionals, pointed out that each LGBT child at Casa Pacifica is given a “Know Your Rights Guide” provided by the National Center for Lesbian Rights, a legal advocacy group. “Queer and Trans Youth in California Foster Care Have Rights!” declares the pamphlet’s cover. Inside is a description of the state’s Foster Care Nondiscrimination Act, along with a list of entitlements for queer children like safe bathrooms and dating. Included on the list—below an illustration of a teenager in overalls and high heels—is the right for kids to wear clothes and hairstyles that fit their gender identity. King clearly took that freedom to heart in the last weeks of his life.

As wonderful as this encouragement sounds, did it put Larry in harm’s way by sending him out in a world not ready for him? It may be beyond the capacity of kids to reconcile a tolerant atmosphere like Casa Pacifica with the xenophobic, conformist nature of school. Children like Brandon McInerney are products of their society, one that simply does not know what to do with a boy in heels.

The Advocate, ostensibly a magazine that supports GLBT rights, is actually proposing the notion that the bigot who shot this boy was an innocent product of his society, and the organizations that encouraged Lawrence King to express his true self were at fault for his death? What alternative universe is this? Has the magazine been taken over by Gary George?

 

But did the pamphlet, however inadvertently, cause Larry harm? Marksamer bridles at that suggestion. “I think it’s really important that we don’t get caught up in the idea that either Larry or the group home or somebody could have prevented this by telling Larry he shouldn’t have been himself. That is not an approach that’s good for anybody, because you can’t just protect somebody by telling them not to express themselves, because people will know who they are even if—” He trails off, then resumes, “How could he ever think somebody would kill him for expressing his rights? That goes beyond any reasonable expectation. Maybe he could have expected to be called names or to be laughed at. But he also should have expected the school would have done something about that.”

Amen to that. It’s deplorable that anybody should suggest someone hide who and what they are in order to prevent becoming the victim of a hate-crime. Worse yet, it is obvious that one doesn’t even need to be openly gay or gay at all to be the victim of homophobia. That’s why it’s critical that homophobia be eradicated for the good of all.

Unlike Casa Pacifica, E.O. Green provides no literature about or for LGBT students. The Hueneme School District, of which E.O. Green is a part, has a program called the Second Step violence prevention education program, which lasts until sixth grade. Both King and his killer took part in this program, says Hueneme School District superintendent Jerry Dannenberg. As part of the program, kids have weekly classes that attempt to teach empathy and emotion management. Robin Freeman, assistant superintendent of education services, was hard-pressed to come up with any examples of tolerance training for her seventh- and eighth-graders. She brought up the substance-abuse prevention program Project Alert, saying it helped with decision-making skills.

“Part of the role of a school is to teach young people how to function in a democracy,” says Kevin Jennings, a former teacher and the founder and executive director of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, a national organization working to ensure safe schools for LGBT students. “In a democracy we protect the minority from the tyranny of the majority. Where are they going to get that lesson? They’ve got to learn it in school.”

But they don’t. At least not in the way they did before the No Child Left Behind Act was enacted by Congress in 2002 at the Bush administration’s urging.

“There’s been a real retrenchment of antibullying and diversity programs since No Child Left Behind,” says Jennings. “What that’s done is establish standardized testing as the only measure of good schools. In the late ’90s there was a lot of momentum around multiculturalism and diversity. That was really reversed by this imposition of standardized testing. A lot of educators are frustrated because they understand the importance of addressing some of these larger [social] efforts, but when they try to they’re told, ‘You’ve just got to get the math scores up.’ ”

I’m not surprised there. The quality of everything in schools has suffered since NCLB was implemented. But with regard to homophobic bullying, the rise is no doubt also fueled by the rise in the RRRW “moral values” crowd which has held so much power under the Bush Administration. They’ve pushed their version of morality, which has a hefty dose of anti-gay hatred, and it has definitely infected America’s schools–much to the detriment of LGBT students.

 

Brandon McInerney was E.O. Green’s alpha male: tall, good-looking, popular, smart. But like King’s, McInerney’s family life was far from stable. In fact, court records show a history of violence that lasted most—if not all—of McInerney’s life. Stories of abuse, shootings, drug addiction, and even a car chase fill the McInerney family history, reported the Ventura County Star newspaper.

…..

In many ways the killer and his victim were a study in duality. McInerney was hypermasculine while King was proudly effeminate. While King enjoyed an environment of understanding and stability at Casa Pacifica, McInerney’s world outside of school remained volatile. But at school the roles reversed: McInerney was imbued with authority and respect because of his good looks and athleticism, while King was different and an outcast, subjected to ridicule, scorn, and violence.

…..

Even though he was harassed at school, King was bold. Surrounded by queer kids at the Rainbow Coalition and understanding adults at Casa Pacifica, King felt free to share his desires with a world not ready to hear them. It wasn’t just his gender identity that King expressed. When he developed a crush on McInerney, King took action in his typical brazen manner—he let people know, including McInerney.

“Brandon would talk about it [and say] ‘He’s a faggot,’ ” says a student who chose to remain anonymous. McInerney became the butt of jokes after word of King’s crush got around, and according to students, he made his displeasure clear to King, with one report suggesting McInerney told King to “fuck off” after he caught King staring at him. Students mocked King for his crush, and according to student Weber-Hernandez, principal Joel Lovstedt sought Larry out to ask if he was OK. The teen said he could handle it.

“I asked the principal for an emergency assembly and he said no,” says Weber-Hernandez, adding that the principal cited King’s insistence on being fine as the reason. Lovstedt couldn’t be reached for a response, but his boss, superintendent Dannenberg, says, “I haven’t heard about that.” Nevertheless, Weber-Hernandez seems certain: “The day after he died I said, ‘Maybe if we had that emergency assembly, this wouldn’t have happened.’ ”

Maybe, maybe not. I think it would have taken more than an emergency assembly but I could be wrong. We’ll never know though.

It’s a striking fact that the society now prosecuting Brandon McInerney as an adult is the same one that failed both him and Lawrence King as children. And whatever is decided at the trial, one thing is likely to become evident: McInerney wasn’t the only one who pulled the trigger on February 12—he was joined in his crime by anyone who teaches violence as a solution to conflict, school curricula that weigh grades over education, and a culture where just being different can be deadly.

Indeed. It’s a society that continues to teach that LGBT people are of lower value than others because they offend the chosen religious bigotries of others. That they deserve to be denigrated and abused for who and what they are. Until that changes we will continue to have victims like Lawrence King.

Aye, there’s the rub. Often it’s not until straight people are harmed by the actions of homophobes that people take notice or care, and sometimes even then people don’t notice or care–so long as gay people are kept second class citizens. This time the victim is a 15-year-old boy who has been harassed mercilessly by his peers for the past three years. He’s not gay, but that doesn’t matter to them. They accuse him of being gay in person, behind his back and online. They subject him to myriad forms of abuse based on the mere perception that he’s gay, regardless of how many times he protests that he is not.

A car the color of a school bus pulls up with a boy who tells his brother beside him that he’s going to beat up Billy Wolfe. While one records the assault with a cellphone camera, the other walks up to the oblivious Billy and punches him hard enough to leave a fist-size welt on his forehead.

The video shows Billy staggering, then dropping his book bag to fight back, lanky arms flailing. But the screams of his sister stop things cold.

The aggressor heads to school, to show friends the video of his Billy moment, while Billy heads home, again. It’s not yet 8 in the morning.

…..

The many incidents seem to blur together into one protracted assault. When Billy attaches a bully’s name to one beating, his mother corrects him. “That was Benny, sweetie,” she says. “That was in the eighth grade.”

It began years ago when a boy called the house and asked Billy if he wanted to buy a certain sex toy, heh-heh. Billy told his mother, who informed the boy’s mother. The next day the boy showed Billy a list with the names of 20 boys who wanted to beat Billy up.

…..

In ninth grade, a couple of the same boys started a Facebook page called “Every One That Hates Billy Wolfe.” It featured a photograph of Billy’s face superimposed over a likeness of Peter Pan, and provided this description of its purpose: “There is no reason anyone should like billy he’s a little bitch. And a homosexual that NO ONE LIKES.”

According to Alan Wilbourn, a spokesman for the school district, the principal notified the parents of the students involved after Ms. Wolfe complained, and the parents — whom he described as “horrified” — took steps to have the page taken down.

Not long afterward, a student in Spanish class punched Billy so hard that when he came to, his braces were caught on the inside of his cheek.

…..

The Wolfes are not satisfied. This month they sued one of the bullies “and other John Does,” and are considering another lawsuit against the Fayetteville School District. Their lawyer, D. Westbrook Doss Jr., said there was neither glee nor much monetary reward in suing teenagers, but a point had to be made: schoolchildren deserve to feel safe.

…..

This is the sort of toxic, dangerous environment people like Sally Kern, Peter LaBarbera and James Dobson perpetuate under the guise of their “deeply held religious beliefs” or “God’s Word”. But it is nothing more than religiously justified bigotry, plain and simple.

Homophobia, Bi-phobia, Transphobia–they hurt everybody. Help put an end to them now and forever.

Oklahoma has joined Texas and several other states in the dumbing down of the nation’s students. Our schools are already overburdened and underfunded. But now they’ll have to deal with students squabbling over religion and being bullied by religious zealots who insist on “converting” them to save their immortal souls. Worse yet, is what the bill will mean for the status of education itself.

The bill requires public schools to guarantee students the right to express their religious viewpoints in a public forum, in class, in homework and in other ways without being penalized. If a student’s religious beliefs were in conflict with scientific theory, and the student chose to express those beliefs rather than explain the theory in response to an exam question, the student’s incorrect response would be deemed satisfactory, according to this bill.

The school would be required to reward the student with a good grade, or be considered in violation of the law. Even simple, factual information such as the age of the earth (4.65 billion years) would be subject to the student’s belief, and if the student answered 6,000 years based on his or her religious belief, the school would have to credit it as correct. Science education becomes absurd under such a situation.

So why have tests at all? Might as well just have each student offer their opinions as to what, why and where things are. That would be as valid as anything else under this bill. After all, considering the constraints teachers will now be under they dare not challenge anything a student puts down as an answer or the student could easily come back and claim “religious discrimination”.

If a student chose to take his opportunity to speak to a group of students in a school-sanctioned assembly to tell them they must accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior or go to hell, then that student would have a right to do so, according to this bill. Especially, but not only if the student held a position of honor and authority (class officer, team captain), and was speaking in his or her official capacity, the school has clearly established religion in violation of both the U.S. and Oklahoma constitutions.

Wonderful. Enter all of the evangelists screaming about how the LGBT students, atheists, Muslims, etc, are going to hell, because the Bible says so. Expect the bullying and hate-crime rates to escalate any time now.

The same would be true if the student chose to tell the assembled students that they would not go to hell, that there is no hell and that those who promote belief in hell are liars. What if a Wiccan student chose to tell the assembled students that the only true God is Nature, or a member of a radical religious sect advocated assassination in order to preserve God’s will? According to this bill, those students would be free, in a forum supported by the school, to do so. Any or all of these scenarios would lead to lawsuits.

That would be classified by the Christians as “persecution”, of course, as it always is. Funny how when they cram their beliefs down the throats of other people its “speaking the truth” but when others reject them or speak their own beliefs its “persecution”.

The consequence of the bill will be to create havoc and promote discord in the public schools. That’s already happening in Texas, where the bill has been law for several months. Denton, Texas Independent School District, responding to the law, has decreed that no students may ever speak in assembly, to graduation, to the crowd at an athletic event or in other group function. As reported in The Denton Record Chronicle Sept. 1, the superintendent there said if no students are ever allowed to speak, then there will be no discrimination and no basis for lawsuits. Another school superintendent in Texas said, “… we’re just trying to have school, and I think this is a complicating factor” as reported by Americans United for Separation of Church and State, an organization that has spoken out against the bill.

So they’ve already discovered by experience in Texas that this insane law doesn’t work, yet it’s still being attempted in Oklahoma? Why do the legislators in Oklahoma think the results in Oklahoma will be any different? I can safely say it’s not bloody likely.

This is a foolish bill that will result in chaos, injustices, bullying and a serious downturn in the quality of education. Particularly since it has been proven faulty in another state it’s foolish to try it in Oklahoma. If parents want to send their children to a religious school they have that right. Otherwise the best option for everyone is a secular school where all rights are respected and religion is kept strictly out of the equation.