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News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyMarch 5th, 2008
Few things ruffle the feathers of anti-gays more than And Tango Makes Three, the true story of a pair of male penguins that hatched an abandoned egg and raised a chick. Or as OneNewsNow tells us:
Peter LaBarbera with Americans for Truth About Homosexuality says he is not surprised that the homosexual propaganda piece is still showing up in elementary school libraries.
“One of the more insidious aspects of the homosexual agenda has been its willingness to manipulate young people’s minds to promote homosexual behavior,” he warns. “We shouldn’t be talking about homosexuality to kids who are years away from understanding … what
normal sex is ….”
So one anti-gay got all flustered about gay penguins and decided to cause a flap at the Loudon County, Virginia, elementary schools.
The complaint was filed May 28 by Sherrie Sawyer, a teaching assistant at Sugarland Elementary, according to records the school system provided in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.
Sawyer identified herself as a Leesburg resident and a “concerned parent and assistant teacher” in the documents she submitted to school officials as part of her complaint and the two appeals she filed with Hatrick.
At first it looked like her complaint wouldn’t fly:
Following school system policy, the principal convened an advisory committee of principals, librarians, teachers and parents to review the book. The group deemed it acceptable, and the principal concurred. The parent appealed. Another committee of administrators, librarians and parents reviewed the book. That committee, too, recommended that it remain in the collection.
But Schools Superintendent Dr. Edgar B. Hatrick gave it wings by overruling them, taking the book out of circulation at 16 schools, and putting it on a restricted list. And the anti-gays felt their spirits soar. They couldn’t help but crow about their victory.
But now it turns out that Hatrick’s decision has had a bit of a fall. First he had to hop back:
Because the parent’s challenge pertained to the book’s availability at Sugarland Elementary, Hatrick said, the decision applies only to that school, not the 13 other elementary schools that have purchased the book. Librarians at those schools can decide whether to return it to shelves, he said.
Then the School Board took the wind out of his wings when they took away his ability to remove books unilaterally. Then Sawyer’s goose was really cooked.
[Hatrick] discovered the parent objecting to the book is not a parent at the school that received the complaint
So now Hatrick has learned: if you cater to the screeching of the anti-gay flock, you can end up with egg on your face.
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Emily K
March 5th, 2008
ok, one more avian pun and i’d have flown the coop, straight over the cukoo’s nest.
Jarred
March 6th, 2008
Wait, the person who filed the complaint didn’t have a child in the school? It makes me wonder (1) how they knew the book was in the school’s library and (2) why they’d file a complaint about it.
I hope we’re not looking at a planned stunt of the sort that the anti-gay industry often accuses us of.
Jarred
March 6th, 2008
Ah, I should’ve read the linked articles. She is a teaching assistant at the elementary school. That most likely explains how she became aware of the books presence in the library.
InXanadu2
March 8th, 2008
First the Harry Potter beyotch and now this nutjob. Thank goodness sanity has prevailed–for now.
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