Monday, March 14, 2016

Cutting Off Your Nose To Spite Your Face, Pt 2: School Considers Banning All Clubs Because ... Gay Club

So, this morning it was all about the city of Stockton, California, cancelling a citywide Easter Celebration because event organizers “accidentally” invited an LGBT-inclusive church to attend, and now we move to Franklin County, Tennessee where school board members are considering the banning of all students groups because it will force a recently formed Gay-Straight Alliance [GSA] to disband.

Uh huh. The GSA at Franklin County High School has faced nothing but opposition since its first meeting just a few weeks ago; some parents compared the group to ISIS, seriously, while, at the school, students defaced the group’s posters and started wearing “straight pride” signs as a protest. Then these wingnuts, homophobes, bigots and illiterates played the “radical gay agenda” card and said the purpose of the GSA was to recruit children.

Uh huh. But, there’s something called the federal Equal Access Act, and so school officials cannot shut down the group … unless they also ban each and every other extracurricular group, from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes to the Student Council.

So, punish all the kids because a GSA has been formed to create a dialogue between gay and straight students, so they can understand one another better. Little Johnny cannot be in the Baptists Bully Club and Betty Sue cannot be President of the Student Council because of The Gays.

Now, that does seem like an unfair way to handle the situation, you know, punishing all the kids because you’re bigots and homophobes, but school board Chairman Kevin Caroland says that is their strategy:
“We discussed last night our policies and procedures and the possibility of getting rid of all clubs, and what all that would entail.”
The GSA took to Facebook to rally support for their group …


… while, at the meeting, opponents of the club waved Christian flags and warned about the dangers of “fisting, rimming and anal sex.”


Uh huh. And so Chairman Kevin Caroland said:
“We’re trying to spell out for the community what would happen if we shut down all clubs. I think the community needs to be educated on what the consequences are of doing that. We’re just trying to get it all laid out so nobody’s surprised by anything.”
Well, I know what would happen; all of the students at the school who belong to any kind of extracurricular club would be punished because of the bigotry of their parents who cannot accept the fact that GSAs here, and they’re queer, and they’d like everyone to get along.

But that’s a bad thing in Franklin County, Tennessee.

3 comments:

  1. good grief! There was a club like that when I was in college in the late 70s!
    The college is still there and it is doing great. Youngest graduated from
    the same school.

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  2. inbred asshats! trumplodites, no doubt!

    ReplyDelete
  3. It is so disturbing. There was a time, not too long ago, when it appeared that all of this anti-gay nonsense would fizzle out and people would come to realize that LGBT people are just people too. But for some reason things seem to be getting worse, not better. What is it they fear? I always felt that the word "homophobia" was a bit awkward in describing anti-gay sentiments but it seems more and more appropriate these days. Only maybe we should call it LGBTphobia.

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