Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: Over The Edge Homophobia

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Over The Edge Homophobia

These two items on Pam’s House Blend caught my eye this morning…

Walt Bayes: Schools need separate bathrooms for gay students
Mike Butts mbutts@idahopress.com
Saturday, May 10th, 2008
TREASURE VALLEY — Homosexual and heterosexual students should have separate bathrooms and showers in Idaho schools, a Wilder Republican running for the Idaho House said Friday...
...The topic came up after Bayes mentioned it in his campaign literature, where he wrote, “It is absolutely wrong to force any student to share the same bathrooms and showers with homosexual teachers or students.”

Now just how does he plan to accomplish that? Will he require everyone to carry a card saying that they are straight or gay? On the other hand, maybe you will have to sign an affidavit that states that you are straight before going to the bathroom.

And from the “Didn’t the Supreme Court already rule that you cannot do that” file…

Principal Questioned in Gay Rights Case
Monday, May 12, 2008 - 07:17 PM Updated: 10:02 PM
By Mark Jenkins

A principal takes the stand Monday, for allegedly violating the civil rights of some students.
David Davis, the principal of Ponce de Leon High School.
He's accused of preventing students from wearing clothing or showing homosexual symbols…

…The string of incidents began last September, when a student who was ridiculed for being gay approached Principal Davis to file a complaint.
Monday in court, Davis says he told the student not to discuss her sexual orientation with other students.
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.
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"
Principal Davis said the t-shirts violate the school board dress code.

But…

…Another interesting point, 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…

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Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Over The Edge Homophobia

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