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Tuesday, April 8, 2008
News Weird rightwing fears on parade
Posted By John Grooms on Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 1:16 PM
If school board members Kaye McGarry and Ken Gjertsen weren't so potentially destructive, they'd be hilarious. The Homophobic Power Couple share the odd mentality of many social conservatives, which we've written about before. Namely, they see themselves as oppressed martyrs, having to fight off an evil army of gays and lesbians who want to take over their schools, maybe their homes, even ... dare we say it? ... their minds! Bwah-ha-ha-ha!
Gjertsen fought like crazy — and I don't know that I don't mean that literally — to defeat CMS' new anti-bullying policy because he was worried that Christian students who say homosexuality is a sin could be accused of bullying. Of course, he also thought the policy might be used to stifle opposition to "the pro-homosexual agenda" in schools, whatever that is.
Now McGarry has upped the ante. Her latest stunt is to call for the board to approve excused absences for students who stay home on April 25 in order to avoid being exposed to the wicked evil of a "National Day of Silence," a lowkey annual event that calls attention to harassment of gay, bisexual and transgender students. McGarry's actions are absolutely classic in terms of revealing social conservatives' odd fears: An event takes place to urge tolerance and respect for LGBT students, and she sees the event as threatening to straight students. Never mind that it's the students who've participated in the National Day of Silence who have been shoved around and called names. That doesn't matter — we should pity the anti-gay bigots because they have to put up with all those pushy queers who expect to be treated as real human beings. You don't know whether to laugh or cry.
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