Thursday, July 28, 2011
Lawrence O'Donnell disusses the heart wrenching number of LGBT teen suicides in Michele Bachmann's district.
There is no excuse for children to feel isolated because of their sexuality any more than it is okay to do so in response to their skin color or their gender.
Adults should understand that, and take great pains to be accessible to the students who are reaching out for help.
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Bachmann officially does everything she hates.
ReplyDeleteShe's against government subsidy, but takes it at her farmland and her husband's clinic;
She's against Fannie and Freddie, but uses them to finance her own home loan (borrowing the max $417,000 before voting to shut them down);
she's against homosexuality, but she's married to -- well, you get the point.
There you go, Gryph, assuming that people like Bachmann have a brain AND a heart. Isn't it clear that they lack souls as well? It's why we can never allow these people access to the White House. They will turn this country into something really ugly. What is really stunning is that they hide behind God, as if He sanctions their hatred.
ReplyDeleteMy gay son was so freakin' lucky that he had great teacher's and friend's who watched his back. However, he was harassed by some students so bad that he and his friends went to the principal. Nothing really happened so my husband had to call the principal and threaten him. Lucky for us there were video cameras.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what the principal said to those students but they never even looked at him ever again. We were always worried though that they would beat the crap out of him off school property.
He also never went to the bathroom at school. Pitiful but it was what it was. Although it is disgusting that these children have to live with this fear & take their own lives. If they only knew it would be better after school, etc. However, a lot of my son's gay friends had parents who disowned them or refused to pay for their college if they didn't stop being gay! Who could do this to their child?
Yet again the religious right are more concerned about abortion. Who cares what happens to the children after they are born. Idiots!
I don't know why that crowd isn't for teh gheys. I mean, 100% no abortions.
ReplyDeleteIt's not too often politicians do something that moves you to happy tears.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/portraits-of-gay-couples-just-married-in-new-york?p=2&&r=true&z=2H0BP9#responses
Bachmann and Palin are not a threat to President Obama's re-election, they can do as they please because they are not serious. This is comic relief.
ReplyDeleteSo Lawrence, I know you want to make these points, but neither freak-shows have a chance at affecting change.
"Will we be expecting boys to be girls"? WTF does that mean? Boys who don't bully are "girly"? Michelle answered her own question by showing that females can be bullies too.
ReplyDeleteWhen someone has to say that the 'comment is not meant to be sexist' -- IT IS. We've heaqrd it in many fashions - 'I'm not racist, but..', etc., etc.
ReplyDeleteAs I've been posting about this issue on Gryphen's blogs the past few days with links to Mother Jones & the Guardian in the UK -- the Mother Jones article which is excllent and explains in depth about the Bachmann district.
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/07/michele-bachmann-teen-suicide?page=1
It is set out that the allies of Bachmann and her creep faux husband "The Minnesota Family Council (MFC), and its local affiliate, the Parents Action League, which has lobbied to put discredited "reparative therapy" materials in schools".
In otherwords - the Bachmanns are lobbying to expand their clinic into the school system. That would mean two things - a therapy that doesn't work and secondly - expansion to include this quackery program in the schools PAID by taxpayers to the Bachmanns. You know, those two bastards that deny everything for the taxpayers but rape the taxpayer funds for themselves.
Like the video set up in the clinic to show that the clinic does the 'pray away the gay' - someone needs to set up the 'gay' hubby. He's so stunned and stupid, he'll bite and it brings him out of the closet!! He's 'itching' to get 'off' as Michelle doesn't do it for him.
Heart wrenching. Each and every parent of these children should sue the district and those organizations for everything they are worth. The lawsuit should be ongoing throughout her entire campaign.
ReplyDeleteWrongful death lawsuits should be filed immediately against the district and all the organizations that encouraged these students to be condemned for being gay.
ReplyDelete3:55am. I am so happy that your son had such wonderful parents to advocate for him and that he is doing well. I'm also glad that your husband put some fear into the principal!
ReplyDeleteIf someone wants to take Bachmann out of the race, simply get great attorneys for the parents of the children who committed suicide in this district and sue the school, the organizations that encouraged other children to tell these children they would go to hell for being gay and anyone else who has blood on their hands. The court case can be played out for everyone during the presidential race.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing is to start bringing out Michelle's associations to the Christian rocker who is currently suing Rachael Maddow for reading his own quotes on TV! The guy is hateful and nasty. They spent months on Obama's associations with his pastor, etc. so turnaround is fair play.
I would also hit the Bachmann money angle hard. If they are encouraging the reparative therapy in schools, Bachmann and Associates would make huge money.
The teabaggers want their freedom to carry guns but no freedom in who you love.
O'Donnell's piece on this was so sad. I don't know how there isn't a mob after Bachmann for this. I would not let my child go to a school district like this. Bachmann really is every bit as ugly as Sarah Palin.
ReplyDeleteI can't speak for the Bachmanns, but the implicit attitude among dominionists when I was growing up was that if gay people won't "repent," well, then their deaths aren't much of a loss. Yes, there was a stunning lack of compassion toward LGBT people and anyone else who didn't conform to the rigid standards set forth by the church.
ReplyDeleteI experienced this when I began to have severe depressive episodes as a teenager. The attitude among the people in authority was that the depression was my fault, and I could "cure" it or pray it away if I really wanted to. Right. Twenty years later, I'm still very leery of Christians because of their attitudes toward my depression (which has never gone away, but at least now I have medication and therapy and understanding people around me).
I can only imagine what any LGBT kids in our school/church went through. I doubt most of them even dared to self-identify as LGBT at that time; how could they, when they heard constantly at church and school how awful homosexuals were and how "the gay agenda" wanted to systematically destroy everything "we hold sacred"?
There's no form in which bullying should be acceptable. Focus on the Family opposed anti-hate speech legislation because they were so terrified it might infringe on their sacred right to tell gay people they're hell-bound. It's an appallingly selfish and near-sighted position.
You have blood on your hands, Michele Bachmann and James Dobson.
My husband and I took our children and their friends to the Equality Forum in Philadelphia. Joel Burns had started this project earlier in the year, and a lot of the people who were affected by this clearly bigoted anti gay culture of hate had the courage and grace to speak about their children, how they lived their lives, the loss of the hopes and dreams their parents had for them after their suicides, and the tremendous potential the world will never know.
ReplyDeleteWe didn't do this because any of our kids are gay (or are and aren't ready to come out), but because we want them to learn the real consequences bullying has on a person.
I was bullied every day at school because I was a heavy girl who didn't "fit it" nor want to, with the "it girls". The best thing that ever happened to me was years later, Someone sent a letter to my parent's home addressed to me. It was a letter of apology from someone who carried that guilt for years and needed to own his part for not speaking up. It was a gesture I never forgot. And I partly blame the teachers who turned a blind eye to my family's desperate pleas for help.
I don't want that for my kids or anyone else's, and we have to teach our kids not to tolerate bully behavior of any kind.
Bachman and her ilk need to do some serious soul searching and put a stop to this. It's inhumane and against all the teachings of the Christ they propose to worship.