Box Turtle Bulletin

CA Kindergarteners to be Taught How to Shoot Up Heroin!!!

Schools will now be required to teach students that gay marriage is the same as traditional marriage, starting with kindergarteners.

Or so say the supporters of Proposition 8 on their official website, Protectmarriage.com. It’s right there in the education code, they tell you.

This is one of Yes on 8’s three central themes (along with individuals being sued and churches losing tax preferences for not celebrating homosexuality) and is included in all their outreach. It is referenced in their television ad and repeated in letters to the editor. Consider this press release quoting Dr. Jim Garlow, senior pastor of Skyline Church in La Mesa

Our California Education Code (#51890) will permit children as young as kindergartners to be indoctrinated about homosexuality.

Or this bold claim repeated twice on their youth oriented website iProtectMarriage

If Prop. 8 loses, children as young as kindergarteners must be taught same-sex marriage.

They even sought to include this in their ballot initiative argument in the state’s voter pamphlet until a judge threw it out as being untruthful.

In health education classes, state law requires teachers to instruct children as young as kindergarteners about marriage … If the gay marriage ruling is not overturned, teachers will be required to teach young children there is no difference between gay marriage and traditional marriage.

But amidst all the fear and terror about kindergarten children, there’s one thing they carefully do not provide: the education code which they claim forces “indoctrination into homosexuality” and moral claims to kindergardeners about same-sex marriage. That code section (51890 and the accompanying 50891) is simply never provided for review by those who want to see for theirselves.

But Box Turtle Bulletin isn’t afraid of the education code. We took a look and, by golly, there IS a provision for teaching about marriage:

…kindergarten…Pupils will receive instruction …in matters of… marriage…

Well right there it says it. See?

Unless, of course, you read the rest of the words. We’ve included the entire code section below the break. And as it turns out, there are a few other things here which “kindergarteners must be taught”.

• Mental and emotional health and development.
• Drug use and misuse, including the misuse of tobacco and alcohol.
• Diseases and disorders, including sickle cell anemia and related genetic diseases and disorders.
• Environmental health and safety.

Who knew that the curriculum in the California kindergarten classroom included the use of Paxil or how to shoot up heroin? Who knew that genetic disease and toxic waste shared the floor with “A is for apple” and “the sky is blue”?

Well it doesn’t and they don’t. These (and marriage) are not mandates for the education of “children as young as kindergarteners”. They are part of “all educational programs offered in kindergarten and grades 1 to 12, inclusive” and reflect a goal of providing health information over a child’s entire school experience.

Do those in the Yes on 8 campaign really believe that Kindergardeners will be taugh the mechanics of gay sex or that same-sex marriages have equivalent moral weight with heterosexual marriages? I very much doubt it.

But it’s such a convenient scare tactic that they can’t resist making the claim.

There will be, at an age-appropriate time, a discussion about “Family health and child development, including the legal and financial aspects and responsibilities of marriage and parenthood”. And that discussion will, no doubt, include the fact that same-sex couples can legally marry.

But the decision as to when and how this will be taught is not to be feared. The “planning, implementation, and evaluation of comprehensive health education” must include active participation by parents and, in California, any parent can remove their child from such discussions.

Don’t you wish that the supporters of Proposition 8 were more honest? Wouldn’t it be nice if those who are so concerned about my morality cared more about their own?

(code section after the break)
Read the rest of this entry »

Rosie Wins, Anita Loses

The Miami Herald is reporting that a Florida judge has found the state’s ban on adoption by gay persons to be unconstitutional:

A Monroe Circuit Court judge has ruled Florida’s 31-year-old gay adoption ban ”unconstitutional” in an order that allows an openly gay Key West foster parent to adopt a teenage boy he has raised since 2001.

Declaring the adoption to be in the boy’s ”best interest,” Circuit Judge David J. Audlin Jr. said the Florida law forbidding gay people from adopting children is contrary to the state Constitution because it singles out a group for punishment.

Based on previous decisions, the decision may not withstand appeal.

Behind the Scenes of NY’s Safe Schools Bill

Queerty has a fascinating tale of how Log Cabin worked with ten New York Republican Senators to carefully craft a gay-and-trans-inclusive school protection bill that would provide protection for bullied children but also address the objections of more conservative members.

Foreseeing challenges with gender identity and expression, the Cabinites worked with gay non-profit Empire State Pride Agenda to add another level to the argument. Rather than focusing on the “trans” implications of such legislation, the group highlighted the fact that many students aren’t targeted for being “gay,” but for not conforming to gender norms. That may be a simple fact for some of you, but New York’s Republican party’s not always the most progressive.

PFOX’s Griggs Goes Off the Deep End

PFOX (Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays) claims to be a support group of parents and others that support and work for the interests of their ex-gay children and friends. However, a closer look at their activism reveals that they are comprised mostly of a handful of ex-gays, a few parents that wish their children were not gay, and some others who just want to “fight the homosexual agenda”.

And while there may be a place for an organization that fights for civil inclusion for those who identify as ex-gay, this group does not fulfill that function.

Ex-gays face discrimination and hostility in society – most of it based on perceptions and stereotypes. It is not unknown for ex-gay men to appear less masculine or ex-gay women to appear more so than social norms may expect. And while they may have religious objections to homosexuality, many of the employment, housing, and other protections that gay people seek would also benefit those ex-gays who may appear to be gender atypical. So any organization seeking to better the lives of ex-gays could find common cause with the LGBT community on a number of issues.

But PFOX has no interest in common cause. Or even in the civil protections of ex-gays.

PFOX pays but nominal attention to ex-gays and instead expends its efforts in seeking to restrict services and information for gay people, primarily youth. And they have a long history of showing little regard for truth, decency, or integrity in their efforts.

They have distorted the work of reputable scientists, made wild accusations against various schools and youth programs, manufactured “attacks” by gay activists, hurled vile insults against those who disagree with them, and, most recently mangled research to exploit suicide statistics for political positioning.

But now Regina Griggs, and PFOX, have bested themselves. They now have made a claim so phenomenally ridiculous, so homophobic (in the traditional sense of the word), that even anti-gays should be driven to mocking them.

As reported by the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow, Griggs opposes Gay-Straight Alliances and other safe spaces for gay teens:

Research shows that individuals often go through periods of gender and sexual confusion as they grow from children to teenagers to adults. Griggs wonders why, then, would schools opt to send children along a dangerous path. “Why are we allowing people to tell them, ‘Try it — you might like it?’ Over 70 percent of young kids 13- to 24-years-old, men having sex with men, are now HIV-positive,” Griggs notes.

Seventy Percent?

That claim is phenomenally stupid, even by anti-gay standards.

As Ed Brayton at ScienceBlogs.com notes:

According to the 2000 census figures, there are roughly 50 million people between the age of 13 and 24. Slightly more than half would be female, so let’s say conservatively that there are 22 million men between those ages. If 2% of them are MSM, that’s 440,000. The percentage of HIV positive MSM between 13 and 24 is more like 3.1%, a far cry from 70%. Okay, it’s probably a bit higher than that because there will be some men in that age group who were diagnosed before 2001, but at the absolute outside we’re talking 5%, not 70%.

I might calculate using different variables, but Brayton is right. HIV infection in gay youth, or even in sexually active gay youth, is FAR from 70%.

Griggs is either a wanton liar or a raging loon. Perhaps both.

UPDATE

I calculate around 0.7% of all gay youth aged 13 to 24 are now HIV-positive.

Anti-Gay FL School Board Hit With Legal Fees

In May we told you about Principal David Davis at Panama City, Florida’s Ponce de Leon High School. Mr. Davis was unhappy that a gay student had friends and supporters so he banned all positive messages about gays or equality, be it by button, armband, sticker or symbol. The ACLU didn’t find that amusing and sued Davis and his school board.

I commented at the time that Davis seemed astonishingly stupid. My opinion hasn’t changed.

Davis outed a gay student to her parents, organized a “morality assembly”, and interrogated students about their orientation, and suspended students that were part of the “Gay Pride” movement.

Now the judge has issued his opinion (pdf) and has awarded legal recovery to the plaintiffs. And Davis’ homophobia cost the district $325,000 in legal fees and cost (plus a dollar to the plaintiff).

As for Davis, (WTVY)

Davis has chosen to return to the classroom and teach American government and other classes.

Somehow I don’t think that the curricula involving the First Amendment will receive the attention that it deserves.

Newsweek Justifies Rumor and Innuendo as Source

Earlier this week I criticized Ramin Setoodeh’s Newsweek article about the “flamboyance” of 15 year old murder victim Larry King. Now Newsweek’s Kurt Soller has written a follow up that is, frankly, disgusting.

Soller spends a few paragraphs quoting from some of the 4,000 responses. If you are easily angered, I’d advise against reading Soller’s piece.

While some of the comments he quotes share my ire that Newsweek was quick to point out every foible of King while refusing to mention reports that McInerney and his friends had picked on him, some seemed to put words to Setoodeh’s innuendo that King was really to blame for his own murder and that McInerney was the true victim.

Soller presents these justifications for premeditated, execution style murder as though they are just another opinion. It makes me nauseous that a credible news magazine can act as though “you blamed the victim” is the moral equivalent of “he had it coming” and that both are worth reporting without comment.

And what further annoyed me was the closing paragraph. Maeve Fox, the prosecutor in this case, told the magazine that they had inaccurate information and should not have relied on whispered anonymous rumors. Too bad.

While Fox thought the anonymous sourcing was unnecessary, Setoodeh says his story would have been impossible to tell without it.

Setoodeh had a story to tell. And he wasn’t about to let journalistic integrity stand in his way. And Newsweek applauds him for it.

PFOX Misrepresents LGBT Suicide Research

It’s very difficult to imagine a more disgusting, callous and cynical act than exploiting the very real problem of LGBT youth suicides for political gain. But that is exactly what PFOX has done. And they did it by deliberately misrepresenting some of the important research studying the very real problem.

PFOX recently responded to a Washington Post article on Gay-Straight Alliances in schools last week:

The Washington Post recently ran a sympathetic article about a 15-year-old boy named Saro who described his homosexual feelings and how Gay Straight Alliance student clubs help such gay teens to deal with discrimination and bullying in high school and middle school.

“What the article failed to describe,” said PFOX Executive Director Regina Griggs, “is the danger of young sexually confused teens self-identifying as gays at an early age. Research has shown that the risk of suicide decreases by 20% each year that a person delays homosexual or bisexual self-labeling. Early self-identification is dangerous to kids.”

What Griggs failed to describe was exactly what the article she referenced actually said. That article was “Risk Factors for Attempted Suicide in Gay and Bisexual Youth” by Dr. Gary Remafedi and colleagues (Pediatrics 87 (June 1991): 869-875). This study only looked at a non-representative sample of 137 boys, which means that it is not the kind of study one can draw such specific conclusions. Among the many caveats of this study was that “The circumstances, prevalence, and severity of suicide attempts in this cohort may not reflect the general population of homosexually oriented boys.”

Wayne Besen contacted Dr. Remafedi, who supplied this response:

My work has been cited by PFOX in response to a Washington Post article on gay-straight alliances (GSA),” wrote Dr. Remafedi. “PFOX misuses one of my studies on suicide attempts in gay youth to argue that people should not identify their sexual orientation at young ages. Our findings do not support the contention that young people choose their identity or the timing of events in identity formation. Nor is there any evidence that the availability of GSAs influences those developmental processes.

Newsweek’s Hit Piece on Murder Victim Larry King

There are certain words and phrases that give a reader a sense of the perspective of the writer. And when discussing issues relating to orientation, some words and phrases suggest either a harsh hostility to gay people or a callous ignorance of our lives.

So it was with dismay that I read Ramin Setoodeh’s piece in Newsweek about the circumstances surrounding murder of Lawrence King. Setoodeh, in an effort to tell a “multilayered and complex” story, saw fit to use such language as “inappropriate, sometimes harmful, behavior”, “flaunted his sexuality”, “flamboyance”, and “pushed his rights”. These are all catch phrases that are most often heard from anti-gay activists when seeking to justify bigotry and discrimination.

Setoodeh uses these phrases to present a picture of Larry King, and one that is not complimentary. Unlike his murderer, Brandon McInerney, who “was smart” but “had his share of troubles”, for King the author had little good to say.

To Setoodeh, Larry was the primary source of disturbance on campus. He wore makeup and “thought nothing of chasing the boys around the school in [high heels], teetering as he ran.” He was “a troubled child who flaunted his sexuality and wielded it like a weapon”. “He went to school accessorized to the max” and would “sidle up to the popular boys’ table and say in a high-pitched voice, “Mind if I sit here?””

If there were any residents of Oxnard that didn’t view Larry as a prancing mincing menace intent on wreaking havoc on all around him, Setoodeh didn’t seem to find them. He found instead an attorney with a “gay panic” defense, a litigious adoptive father who resents the gay community for caring about Larry’s murder, and several teachers who objected to his effeminate ways.

In short, there’s very little in the Newsweek article that would not seem more at home on World Net Daily or a press release from the American Family Association.

And other than the briefest of disclaimers there is little to suggest that King was not fully to blame for his own death,. After all, he “sexually harassed” McInerney. He “was pushing as hard as he could, because he liked the attention”.

In addition to Larry King, there’s one other villain in Setoodeh’s tale. No, not the boy who pulled the trigger; he was being “bullied”, you see. The other responsible party is Joy Epstein, “a lesbian vice principal with a political agenda.” In Setoodeh’s words, “Some teachers believe that she was encouraging Larry’s flamboyance, to help further an “agenda,” as some put it.”

It may be that Ramin Setoodeh was limited by the nature of the legal system. While the defense attorney has an interest in pushing a “blame the school, blame the administration, blame the victim, blame anyone but McInerney” spin, the prosecution was not willing to try the case in the papers. And with Larry King’s allegedly abusive adoptive father motivated by his lawsuit against the school, there is no one left to speak for Larry.

Setoodeh may have let inexperience and limited input sway his judgment into writing a hit piece on the victim. He is, after all, an odd choice for an in depth article about social interactions in an elementary school. His prior articles appear to consist primarily of celebrity interviews and entertainment commentary.

But though Setoodeh had not written substantive work for Newsweek before this, it is not the first time that he has shown awkwardness around the subject of homosexuality.

In December of 2005, he phrased a question to Jake Gyllenhaal that makes presumptions about Gyllenhaal’s expertise on gay issues and also wild assumptions about what “people” believe.

“Brokeback Mountain” is a breakthrough movie. Why do you think people oppose gay marriage?

Similarly, his odd questioning of Clay Aiken and whether the Kelly Ripa incident was homophobic cut short his interview with the former American Idol star. In fact, I was surprised at how frequently the term “awkward” appears when googling Mr. Setoodeh. And often when it didn’t, it should have.

I don’t know Ramin Setoodeh’s orientation or his personal tastes or biases. Nor do I know his reasons for writing an article that serves as little more than a press release for the defense on this murder case.

But whatever his motivations, it is clear to me that he was tragically under-qualified for the job and his lack of experience showed in his use of language and in his final product.

Boos and Cheers for a Homecoming King

Eighteen-year-old Kyle Hutchinson accomplished something that no one at Red Mountain High School in Mesa, Arizona, has ever done before. He was crowned king of the high school prom as an openly gay man.

Kyle’s parents were present when he was crowned king Saturday night amid cheers and boos:

“He kept telling me he was going to win, and he had convinced me,” said his mother, Doreen Hutchinson. “When they called his name, we heard the cheering, but then we immediately heard the boos,” she said. “My heart went into my stomach. It was so awful. My husband said he was expecting it, but I wasn’t prepared. It was so sad.”

Hutchinson said he felt bad that his parents had to hear his classmates who weren’t supporting him. But he also said their reaction is something he has known his whole life, and he wasn’t about to let it ruin his moment.

Kyle said he had always been picked on for not fitting in with the other boys in school. He came out to his parents on his sixteenth birthday, and he moved from his former high school to Red Mountain the following year, he started his first day of class being open about his sexuality. And while Mesa is known for having a large conservative Christian population, Kyle found that he had very few problems until his prom night.

Kyle was crowned king after winning the contest in a landslide, which is perhaps indicative of the changing attitudes among the younger generation — even among young conservative Christians, 80% of whom thought the church was “too anti-homosexual” in one recent survey.

Principal Resigns Over Gay-Straight Alliance

Irmo, S.C. High School Principal Eddie Walker announced that he will resign, following the creation of a Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) club at his school over his objections. That announcement came after the school district determined that he had not grounds to prevent the club’s formation.

Walker’s stated objections to the club were based on his own personal religious convictions. He also falsely accused the GSA of encouraging sexual behavior:

In fact our sex education curriculum is abstinence based. I feel the formation of a Gay/Straight Alliance Club at Irmo High school implies that students joining the club will have chosen to or will choose to engage in sexual activity with members of the same sex, opposite sex, or members of both sexes.

Gay-Straight Alliances have been established in hundreds of school districts across the country to provide a safe place for LGBT students and their allies, where they can find support and guidance. One student who attended a high school with a GSA remarked:

People used to make fun of and beat up gay people, just because they were different. This is actually a program to make everyone feel that they belong.”

I think Principal Walker made the right decision. If there’s someone who doesn’t belong at Irmo High School, it’s him. Not the LGBT students who attend his school.

Florida School Must Allow Pro-Gay Students

We reported about David Davis, the principal of Ponce de Leon High School who forbid any support for gay students on campus. Now a judge has determined that this censorship cannot be allowed.

Judge Richard Smoak of the United States District Court, Northern District of Florida, Panama City Division, issued an order that forces the school to stop its unconstitutional censorship of students who want to express their support for the fair and equal treatment of gay people. The judge also warned the district not to retaliate against students over the lawsuit.

The ACLU has more information on their website including a draft of the judge’s comments. Smoak was not particularly sympathetic to Davis, the School Board, or their attorneys.

I think the School Board may have take a different direction in this case and responded differently perhaps with wiser counsel.

He was particularly unimpressed by the School Superintendant’s “investigation” into the matter, the attorney’s paranoid rantings about a secret/illegal society, and the principal’s fear of imminent chaos.

Supporting Equality Not Allowed at Florida School

David Davis is the principal at Panama City, Florida’s Ponce de Leon High School. He also has some interesting ideas about which symbols are appropriate and which are offensive to wear on clothing at his campus.

For example, WMBB reports

Davis says clothes with the confederate flag are allowed at school. He says they haven’t caused a distraction. Of the 406 students at the high school, none of them are African American.

But if symbols associated with slavery are inoffensive, what ever could be?

Well, that would be any reference whatsoever that you support equality. Yikes!! That could just lead to civil unrest.

It all started when a student who was ridiculed for being gay approached the principal. Instead of protecting her, he advised that she stay in the closet and not talk about her orientation.

That didn’t go over so well with some of the other students. A couple dozen of them thought they’d stand up for their gay classmates.

Days later, Davis heard of students making gay rights signs, and reports of 25 of them coming to school with the letters “GP” or “Gay Pride” written on their hands.

[17 Year old Heather] Gillman says she is not gay, but her cousin (a student at PDL High) is.

Gillman made t-shirts with slogans like:
-“I support equal marriage rights”
-“I support gays”
-“Equal not special rights”

Well Davis couldn’t have that. He suspended eleven students and threatened expulsion. Unlike Confederate symbols, supporting equal marriage rights is against the school dress code.

So Gillman sued David Davis and the Holmes County School Board.

The case is in trial and so far Davis is showing himself to be intensely stupid.

Monday in court, Davis said students who see the slogans and symbols would be distracted in class, even have mental images of gays having sex.

And this is the man they have in charge of education at Ponce de Leon High School.

sigh.

Racists Gain More Allies from the Anti-Gay Movement

The defense of homophobic violence that started with an article by Ted Pike on David Duke’s virulently racist and anti-Semitic website has now been taken by Peter LaBarbera to his fellow anti-gays: Concerned Women for America (CWA)’s Matt Barber, and Bob Knight of the Culture and Media Institute.

Bob Knight and Peter LaBarbera are old friends from when they were part of Concerned Women, but I really don’t know if either Barber or Knight also share Pike and Duke’s racist and anti-Semitic agenda. They may just have been brought into the alliance by LaBarbera.

District Attorney on King Case Dismisses Quest’s “Blame the Victim” Defense

Karen Ocamb, writing for the Advocate, interviewed Senior Deputy District Attorney Maeve Fox about the murder of Lawrence King, a 15 boy shot by a classmate because he was gay. Although William Quest, the defense attorney for King’s killer, Brandon McInerney, has been telling the press that the blame should lie with King or with the school district, Fox isn’t buying it.

Fox declined to say if she thought Quest would mount a “gay panic defense” – saying that McInerney murdered King because the gay boy came on to him. However, Fox scoffed at any “blame the victim” defense as an “absolute failure to acknowledge personal responsibility.” Any “heat of passion” defense,” Fox said, requires an immediate, unforeseen reaction to an objectively overwhelming provocation and the absence of malice of forethought – the exact opposite of premeditation, which is what McInerney is charged with.

Fox further explained her thinking and why the DA wants to charge McInerney as an adult with premeditated murder with a special allegation of a hate crime.

“When you kill someone, to me you need to be incarcerated away from the public for a long time. Because to me, you’ve demonstrated that you’re dangerous. That’s why we have such lengthy sentences for murderers because you don’t want to just say, ‘Now don’t ever do that again!’ They’re dangerous people in most cases – unless it’s some extreme case where the person was under duress – in those cases we generally work out some kind of plea or arrangement. What I’m thinking of is battered women, people who kill under extreme circumstances.

“But if it’s a situation where it’s unprovoked and premeditated,” Fox continued, “then I would say in pretty much all of those cases, that public safety is a tremendous concern for me. And punishment is very high on my list of priorities. I’m very big on personal responsibility. And unless you can show me that you had a really, really, really good reason for doing what you did, I think you should stand up and be accountable for it. And you should be punished because otherwise we would live in pure chaos. These are the rules we’ve set up for each other and to me, it’s a very important part of this job.”

Times Are Changing, Even In Red States

Pam Spaulding is passing on some very good news this morning. She learned that the Alabama House of Representatives passed the Hate Crimes Bill by a vote of 46 to 44, mostly along party lines. Similar legislation was defeated last year. Also passed unanimously was an anti-bullying measure.

The ultimate fate of these two bills remains uncertain as they now go to the Senate. But as Pam notes, this is huge progress.