ISBL Asshat of the Week: Porterville Mayor Cameron Hamilton

Out there in Porterville, California, Virginia Gurrola, the city’s former mayor, suggested that to help fight bullying in schools that the city support a student-led program called ‘Safe Zones.’

Current mayor, Cameron Hamilton, though, had another suggestion for bullied students:

"Grow a pair."

Yeah, that’s what he suggests bullied students do when they are faced, daily, with teasing and taunts and threats and, perhaps, even actual violence. Just get over it.

But, while these Safe Zones are designed to provide safe places for children to go when they are being bullied, such locations designated with a sign or sticker.  Mayor Hamilton wasn’t having it:

"I'm against bullying, but I'm getting damn tired of it being used as a mantra for everything, and the ills of the world.  All most people just have to grow a pair, and stick up for them damn selves."

A little back story as to why Hamilton is so against Safe Zones: In 2013, Porterville’s then-Mayor Gurrola issued a proclamation declaring June 2013 as LGBT Pride Month in the town and, well, people went crazy.

So crazy, in fact, that Gurrola was unseated as mayor and Cameron Hamilton was named new mayor. And it was Cameron, along with council members, Brian Ward and Greg Shelton, who voted to ban the LGBT Pride proclamation because, you know, Gay.

Well, Gurrola wasn’t done, you know, and she kept up with city politics and making appearances at council meetings and when she arrived at the May 6th gathering she began talking Safe Zones. And many on the council immediately began doing the Google on Safe Zones and discovered :::gasp::: that there are many Safe Zone programs in schools nationwide, most geared toward LGBTQ youth and students.

That was it. Gay, dammit!

And Hamilton would not have that, you know, anything that might help LGBTQ youth feel safe in schools because, well, Gay, and so he suggested that those students who feel bullied should simply strap on some balls and fight back.

Cuz violence is apparently the answer.

Hamilton, along with Shelton and Ward, need to realize that they are bullies themselves, making any kid in school who is already afraid to speak up, any kid who might have benefited from a Safe Zone when feeling threatened, making those kids feel bullied again, as if their situations don’t matter because, you know, Gay; or even Maybe Gay. And let's not forget the kids who aren't gay, or perceived as gay, who might benefit from a Safe Zone. No, punish them all because, well, Gay.

Sad, and sick, and stupid, that Porterville allows Hamilton and Shelton and Ward to paint their entire town with such a broad anti-LGBT brush so that the mere idea of protecting children is dismissed with an insensitive joke.

Cameron Hamilton, ISBL Asshat of the Week.

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