Odds and Ends

Here are just a few stories I found floating through the interwebz this week ...

Inoke Tonga, a volleyball coach from Valor Christian High School in Colorado, says the school administration told him to convert to being straight and “denounce being gay” or lose his job. Tonga, who is gay and Christian, was called into a meeting with school administrators last month, thinking that he was up for a promotion, until he was asked this:

“Did you ever post anything about identifying as a gay man or advocating for the LGBT community?”

Tonga happily said ‘Yes,’ because he wanted to stand up for gay people, but that didn’t make the administrators happy.

“Well how do you think that reflects on the school? You’re a danger to put in front of the kids.”

That meeting went on for about an hour and a half and Tonga says that he didn’t advocate more for himself because he thought he was there for a promotion, not a public shaming. As he was leaving, an administrator offered him some “kind of conversion books” and said:

“When you are ready to accept our help—we’re not holding this coaching position over your head, but when you’re ready to denounce being gay and accept our help to become a child of God, then you can have your position back.”

Tonga refused and, the next day the administration emailed the volleyball players and their parents saying he had chosen to leave because he’s “struggling with a spiritual battle.”

No, he was told to leave his job because he’s gay.

After nearly a decade in the NFL, Buffalo Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley saw his fame skyrocket in recent months, though not because he’s such a talented player—of that I have no idea and don’t care—but because of his anti-vaxxing stance.

And then this week, as the Buffalo Bills hosted the Pittsburgh Steelers, Cole Beasley dropped a pass in the first quarter, and Twitter was ready with jeers and heckles to mock the receiver.

It would seem that Cole cannot catch the virus and he cannot catch a football. COVIDIOT.

That bigot who is credited as the architect of Texas’ abortion ban, and would like to see Roe v Wade overturned, Jonathan Mitchell, says the Supreme Court’s inaction on that Texas law has opened the door for other “lawless” rights and protections to be reversed … as in the right to have gay sex and the right to same-sex marriage.

Mitchell says that while it was not necessary for the high court to immediately overrule the legal cases that enshrine those rights—Lawrence v Texas, which outlawed criminal sanctions against people who engaged in gay sex, and Obergefell v Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage—those cases are just “as lawless as Roe.”

And to be fair, this is an absurd interpretation, but it’s all in Mitchell’s brief, as is the case of Loving v Virginia, which ended racial discrimination in marriage.

Keep in mind that one of the justices who gladly jumped on Mitchell’s antiwomen, anti-choice, anti-abortion law is one Clarence Thomas, a black man married to a white woman.

I wonder how Thomas will feel if and when Mitchell comes for his marriage?

Recently Grady Knox, a  Tennessee high school student , was advocating for a mask mandate in schools during the public comment section at a Rutherford County Board of Education meeting and spoke about his grandmother who died of COVID-19 last year:

“This time last year, my grandmother, who was a former teacher at the Rutherford County school system died of COVID because someone wasn’t wearing a mask.”

And as he continued to speak, several adults …adults … behind him began to laugh and shake their heads; at one point, someone in the background can be heard screaming, “shut up!”

The heckling continued until Coy Young, the school board chairman stepped in:

“Hey guys, we’re here to act professional.”

Adults, laughing at the story of a woman dying of COVID.

Another ‘Karen’ bites the dust, y’all. In a recent viral video a woman dubbed “Coughing Karen” followed, and coughed, on a masked mother and daughter in a Lincoln, Nebraska Super Saver grocery store because … COVIDIOT.

And then, within a matter of days, social media did its thing and the woman was identified as Janene Hoskovec, an employee of SAP, a software company based in Germany.

And within hours, SAP posted a response on Twitter, writing that the company was “taking the matter of an SAP employee incident very seriously” and that an investigation was underway. That same day, SAP announced that Janene Hoskovec, AKA “Coughing Karen” was terminated from their employ.

Bye Karen.

"Christian" School Kicks Out Sunnie Kahle For Not Being Girly Enough

Sunnie Kahle is eight-years-old and loves to collect coins and hunting knives and baseballs. She also likes teddy bears and bracelets, but even she admits most of the things she likes are “boy hobbies.”

And, apparently, that’s the issue, because, as a girl, she should be wearing dresses and playing with dolls and learning how to cook and sew and take care of her man because this is the 1950s, at least in her little corner of Virginia.

"Sunnie realizes she's a female, but she wants to do boy things. She wants to play rough and tough." — Doris Thompson, Kahle's great-grandmother and legal guardian

Thompson has raised Kahle since she was an infant and remembers when Sunnie was five, and had hair down to her waist and asked her great-grandmother to cut it short because she wanted to give it to a child with cancer.

It was after that hair cut that Sunnie started wearing only jeans and t-shirts; no more dresses for her. And that’s also when the questions, and the troubles at school, started.

Sunnie says her classmates would ask if she was a boy or a girl, though it never bothered her. But it did bother the administrators at Timberlake Christian School [TCS], where Sunnie was a student and, last month, TCS principal Becky Bowman sent home a letter reminding Doris Thompson of the school's religious affiliation and its right to refuse students who contradict a "biblical lifestyle" … like girls who have short hair and wearing jeans:

"We believe that unless Sunnie and her family clearly understand that God has made her female and her dress and behavior need to follow suit with her God-ordained identity, that TCS is not the best place for her future education.”

Doris Thompson was offended by the letter and its references to biblical passages about sexual immorality. She says she’s raised Sunnie as a Christian and that Sunnie is just a tomboy, too young to understand sexual orientation or gender identity issues, but …

"If my child grows up to be homosexual or transgendered, I will love her that much more."—Doris Thompson said.

Sunnie no longer attends TCS; she is now enrolled in public school, but she wishes things had been different.

"I should just be able to be me and not let them worry about it."—Sunnie Kahle

Jeff Abbett, administrator of Timberlake Christian Schools, released this statement when the story broke:

"We are heart-broken that Sunnie’s grandparents have made her the subject of a public discussion. We regret that they made the decision to withdraw Sunnie immediately from Timberlake Christian Schools.

For confidentiality reasons related to a minor, it is not possible for us to explain in full detail the volume of documentation we have concerning the situation that the grandparents have made public. There is much more to this story than has been revealed related to Sunnie and the classroom environment. Our documentation shows a significantly different narrative than the one portrayed in the original news report.

You can be assured that we have cared for Sunnie and worked with her grandparents for several years to assist them. Our TCS teachers and administrators love Sunnie and we can assure everyone that this has never been an issue of hair length or boots as it has been portrayed. It has been our constant desire over the last several years to work with this family and to shepherd this precious little girl in a way consistent with traditional values.

As a private Christian school, we have the responsibility to all our students to assist parents to instill the Christian values upon which our school is founded.

We reiterate that the decision to remove Sunnie was entirely that of the grandparents."

Doris Thompson says Sunnie has never had any behavioral issues at TCS and that she has a 4.0 GPA; she does say that one time, there was an issue because Sunnie wanted to wear boy's pants as part of her school uniform. When asked if that was correct, if Sunnie was a good student who never caused problems, Jeff Abbett simply said, "Yes."

So who does that hurt? She’s a child being a child. She might be gay; she might be transgendered; what difference does it make when the school’s only job is to educate her? Who does she harm by wearing jeans, or having short hair, or collecting hunting knives?

I find it hilarious that the voice of reason is an eight-year-old girl who just wants to be herself, and yet she was surrounded by teachers and administrators who thought it more important that she wear a dress.

And we worry about kids bullying kids when we have schools like this one that try to set children against each other by saying that one child who does not conform to outdated gender stereotypes is a problem.

Turn the mirror back on yourselves.

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Community Theater Gig Cost Harold Scott His Job

Seriously, you overtly religious folks need to calm the eff down. Not everything is an anti-religious thing.

Take for example, one Harold Scott. He’s been an educator for 22 years, and has been the superintendent at Parkview Christian School, started by Calvary Community Church, since 2011. Now he says he was fired because he performed in a community theater production of “The Producers.”

Scott said he was told the reason for his termination is that Calvary's pastor, Dr. Carl Godwin, felt his participation in a theater production of a Broadway musical would have a negative reflection on Calvary Community Church and Parkview Christian School.

Um, was Scott that bad? Was his singing off-key? Two left feet?

What could it be? Let’s see, Harold Scott played Max, one of the main characters in Mel Brooks’ “The Producers,” a play about two men who scheme to get rich by overselling interests in a Broadway flop. It includes jokes about Nazis, homosexuals and show business, and includes gay characters.

Oh. I guess singing and dancing in a musical that references Nazis and The Gays is enough to get you fired.

“I never imagined that my passion for acting and participating in community theater would lead to me losing my job. I truly believe that I did nothing wrong and my involvement in theater should in no way interfere with the career I love.”—Harold Scott

Neither Godwin nor the chairman of the school's board could be reached for comment.

Nothing to say after firing a man who‘d been at his current job for almost two years after teaching for 22 years; nothing to say because the reasons for firing him are absurd, and possibly illegal.

I’m not a fan of lawsuits—not every wrong is a lawsuit—but I hope Harold Scott sues the pants off this so-called church. And then I hope he turns the whole thing into a musical.

I’d be there on opening night.

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