Religious Conservatives Threaten College Funding For Hosting Anti-Bullying Conference

Out there in Iowa, they hold a yearly meeting called the Governor’s Conference on LGBTQ Youth, which is designed to help teachers, students and families learn how to protect LGBTQ youth from bullying. It’s a good thing, no? I mean, we’ve lost a lot of young people to suicide as a result of bullying, so any time we can spend fixing this crisis is good.

Unless you belong to the Iowa “Christian” conservative group, The FAMiLY Leader. That group of holier-than-thou-gay-hating loons is once again protesting a meeting to protect people, who, may or may not, be LGBT from being harassed and taunted and teased and bulled and beaten. Yes, a Christian group wants to stop training folks to prevent bullying of The Gays because they say it goes against the Bible. Now, I may not be a Biblical scholar—I may not even be a casual Bible reader—but I never heard a Bible passage that says it’s okay to bully people because of their sexual orientation.

And yet, The FAMiLY Leader head bigot, one Bob Vander Plaats, has accused the conference of discriminating against straight students, even though the meetings are open, and welcoming, to straight people. Of course, Bob Vander Plaats never met an anti-LGBT lie he didn’t love to spread.

At a press conference, The FAMiLY Leader and representatives from other groups—including SPLC certified hate group, the Concerned Women for America—raised their objections, saying that the conference compromised the Bible’s teachings—they glossed over that whole ‘Love Thy Neighbor’ part—on homosexuality and they have denounced the use of taxpayer funding for the conference; again, a conference to protect students from being bullied.

The FAMILY Leader’s Chuck Hurley:

“This Papa Bear is here to say, regarding the Governor’s Conference, stop coming after my kids and other people’s kids with evil propaganda. Stop twisting the Bible and stop using our tax dollars to do it.”

Judge not, lest ye be judged.

“We’re here today to warn parents and to warn lawmakers and others who are responsible for protecting those children, and to urge them to protect appropriate action to protect those children, such as not letting them go to this conference next week, such as considering home and private education if their schools are teaching the things this conference is advocating—that Iowa school districts teach—and above all, teaching our children the truth about the Bible, sexuality, and bullying.”

Isn’t it odd that a group, which aligns itself with the teachings of the Bible—or at least the teachings that allow them to continue hate—can come out, as it were, and preach that protecting students from being bullied is wrong simply because those students might be gay, or perceived to be gay?  Shouldn’t we all just want to protect the youth of this country from being tortured for their real, or perceived, differences?

And let’s toss into this Hate Stew, a conservative strident group, the Young Americans for Freedom, who are specifically targeting Des Moines Area Community College [DMACC] for hosting the conference. This group of young bigots have filed a Freedom of Information Act request to confirm that the university was spending money to help fund the conference, and one student Jake Dagel, said, “Diversity is not when you use my tuition money or our tax dollars to fund a conference that bullies people for their Christian or conservative beliefs.”

Jake? Dimwit? How are LGBTQ bullying Christian students? I mean, I follow a lot of stories about bullying, and have posted more times than I care to think about, the stories of young LGBTQ youth who have taken their own lives because they have been victims of systematic torture and abuse just for being gay, and I have yet to read one story about a Christian who was bullied to death by gay students. So, the bullying isn’t directed at you, it’s coming from you.

And from sixteen Iowa lawmakers who have threatened to cut DMACC’s funding for promoting groups “who pervert the Bible, teach our youth to engage in dangerous behavior, and target individuals like Jan Mickelson [a conservative radio host in Iowa who regularly attacks LGBT equality on his show] for hatred and bullying.”

Funny, that’s okay, you know, attacking gay people, but when LGBTQ youth, and their allies, try to band together to protect themselves, and others, from bullying, suddenly some of these so-called Christians gets their panties in a twist. 

They think the Bible is being compromised; they think the government needs to get involved. And yet they don't worry about the teachings of the Bible when an LGBTQ students dies as a result of bullying; they don't think the government need be involved when students are harassed and bullied right out of school. Not one of these ALLEGEDLY Christians groups expressed any concern over any LGBTQ youth who has died as a result of bullying.

Judge not ….. 

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