It’s quite likely the only place many gay people will see the diversity day story is in 365gay.com. Mike covered the story in a previous post here, as it was reported by the local paper. Frankly, 365gay is on par with WorldNetDaily for journalistic credibility and there are two critical facts 365gay failed to include in their turd of a story:
Virtually every major world religion was represented in the school panel except Christianity and Hinduism. (That even strikes me as unfair.)
When told an ex-gay would be included, the gay representative(s) were the first to pull out.
My own thoughts not touched on by either story:
Why not simply include a Christian and select one who is pro-gay or simply has no desire to attack gay people?
The proposed anti-gay Christian would sure look like an ass showing up at a school diversity day and being the only guest to attack another.
Liberty Counsel cited precedent but does it apply to the exclusion of a panelist who is Christian or ex-gay?
365gay is a disgraceful source of “news.”
Discuss.
What would the point of including an “ex-gay” be in the first place? Unless, of course, the Liberty Counsel would have no problem with the inclusion of an ex-ex-gay who had a history with those organizations – then there would be “different” points of view. And yet I never see the Liberty Counsel, in its interest to promote “inclusion” mentioning the fact that there are huge numbers of ex-ex gays they keep trying to pretend don’t exist.
In my opinion, the school should not have backed down. Students aren’t stupid, and they especially see through hypocrisy and B.S.- which is about the only thing the Religious Right has going for it. . .and bullying.
I would be more bothered by the exclusion of a Hindu, since that is obviously someone who could be of educational value to the students. It isn’t as if chrstianity is inaccessible to students, many of which have been indoctrinated by the Church and their families to hate the other groups being represented. But you are right. . they could have chosen a christian that didn’t satisfy the Liberty Counsel’s definition of “christian” and they would have still demanded someone who hated gays.
What I’d like to know is why the Liberty Counsel also didn’t demand that KKK members be represented. . .since they not only hate gays but could shed some light on justification for racial and gender discrimination. After all, this was about diversity, wasn’t it? A Nazi, a Holocaust denier, a KKK member. . .seems to me that the Liberty Counsel wasn’t too interested in REAL diversity. . .just their typical fixation on gays. By the way, as long as we have to include a christian, shouldn’t the Liberty Counsel also demand a satanic worshipper be brought in to the school as well? I mean, they are supposed to be about defending religious liberty, not adherence to their narrow definition of “christianity.” I thought they were all about protecting religious freedom? That means voodoo, mysticism, new age, and satanic worship. Seems to me that children are entitled to see all kinds of viewpoints, right?
If the purpose of the day was to allow presentations by minorities, I don’t see the inclusion of a Christian to be necessary, since the vast majority of students are Christians. This would be like demanding the inclusion of a representative of the National Association for the Advancement of White People, wouldn’t it?
If “reparative therapy” were successful as religious conservatives claim these people are not “exgay”, they are straight and not a discriminated against minority. No “exgay” is discriminated against for “enhancing their heterosexuality”, if they are discriminated against its because of their past history of same sex attraction. Any discrimination “exgays” experience is due to the hatred of same sex attractions they and society encourage. It is the exgay message itself that “being gay is a sin” which causes any rejection of gays and “exgays” alike. Rejection of that message is not discrimination against the messenger, it is mandated by the morality of fairness. No one has the right to tell another what to do when they aren’t being hurt.
Check out the LC’s press release here. Bitch bitch whine whine yawn yawn…
Posted by: Randi Schimnosky at March 22, 2006 11:54 AM
Well said. Ironic, isn’t it, that they cause the very descrimination of which they then claim to be victims. What a transparent group.
David
I’ve no problem with the inclusion of a Christian viewpoint. Most students actually are NOT raised Christian, though that may be their nominal religious affiliation.
As someone who was raised in a very conservative Christian family, I can tell you that there is some need for diversity training about conservative Christians, as well. There are a number of school based social events that by their nature exclude CC’s and I think that it could be useful to let that be known. It can be embarrasing to tell your fellow students that you won’t be going to the dance, that you have to be on the shirts team not the skins team, etc.
For that matter, I wouldn’t mind some Christian talking about the difficulties of having anti-gay viewpoints in a working world that demands that you respect all your fellow workers. Or that sometimes they are put in a difficult position where they either have to betray their viewpoints or be rude.
Unfortunately Liberty Counsel is so focused on being anti-gay that they do a disservice to their own kids. They convolute Christian with ex-gay and focus so much on this one area that they lose an opportunity to find ways to get along.
They’ve forgotten that in this culture war, like all wars, the casualties will be their own children.
Daniel,
I think you may be being a bit harsh on 365gay.com in this instance. I agree that they are not a very comprehensive news source and sometimes they do get it wrong. All in all, the report of this story – while it could have been better – wasn’t grossly misrepresentative.
You have to recognize what they do. They don’t really report the news so much as give you a brief synopsis. They serve as a big yellow highlighter and if there’s something interesting, I’ll search google news.
But it seems to me that they try to report a story (or synopsize from other sources) from a gay viewpoint without outright deception and spin. And they do try to report even when the news isn’t complementary to gays. They certainly don’t compare to AgapePress.
Now Advocate.com, on the other hand… 🙂