Crocodile Tears

I find apologies after getting caught and there’s a backlash so insincere. The latest is the school official who got fired for yelling at a trans boy in the bathroom.

Lawyer for Liberty High School assistant principal asks school board to reconsider contract decision
WBOY
By Rodney Lamp
March 25, 2019

CLARKSBURG, W.Va. - Liberty High School Assistant Principal Lee Livengood is requesting that the Harrison County Board of Education reconsider its decision to not renew his contract.

Livengood became involved in a controversy related to a transgender student using the boys' bathroom at the school.  Liberty High School officials said Livengood was not terminated, but his probationary contract was not renewed.  The school board did not elaborate on why it was not renewed.

Livengood's attorney, Alex Shook, sent a letter to the school board asking for it to "remedy this situation."  In the letter, Shook stated, "this decision was based upon the controversy involving the incident with the transgender student."

Shook's letter goes on to say, "First, there were at least three faculty witnesses that saw and heard some or all of the incident.  One was standing right outside the bathroom door, and heard the entire conversation start to finish."

In speaking to 12 News, Shook said the three teachers, all female, who witnessed the incident, deny that Livengood was bullying the student.  Shook said the teachers saw a girl go into the boys' bathroom, which is against school policy, and they asked Livengood to address the matter.  Shook also stated that he has requested hallway surveillance video of the incident, but he has not received it.

Was it an honest mistake?

Was it bigotry?

What do you think?

bike tracks

I think that there is that doubt but… and it is a big but, why was he yelling at him? That in itself I think tells a lot about the encounter. He screamed at him, if he asked him in a conversational voice “What are you doing in here?” then I think there might be some cause to rehear the case. But to me it sounded like there was a lot of bias in the encounter.

---

The Republicans passed a law banning LGBTQ+ people from adopting children but a court saw otherwise.

Michigan will no longer fund adoption agencies that discriminate against gays
Detroit Free Press
By Kathleen Gray
March 22, 2019

Michigan will no longer financially support adoption and foster care agencies that refuse to work with same-sex couples and LGBTQ individuals because of religious beliefs under the terms of a settlement of a lawsuit negotiated by Attorney General Dana Nessel.

The settlement, which was announced Friday, sets up a battle with the Republican-led Legislature, which passed a law in 2015 that allows adoptions agencies to refuse to work with members of the LGBTQ community.

The terms of the settlement require that the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services agrees to maintain nondiscriminatory provisions in its foster care and adoption agency contracts. It also calls for the department to enforce the nondiscrimination provisions by terminating contracts with agencies that either discriminate against same-sex couples or LGBTQ individuals who would otherwise qualify to become foster or adoptive parents or that refer them to other agencies.

But the battle isn’t over the Catholic Conference  vows to fight on.

After the settlement was announced Friday, the Michigan Catholic Conference, the Lansing-based advocacy agency that serves as the official voice of the Catholic Church in Michigan, tweeted, "The settlement announced today by the Attorney General in the Dumont/Lyon case does nothing to protect the thousands of children in foster care looking for loving homes. As such, it is highly unlikely this is the last chapter of the story."

Lori Windham, an attorney with Becket, a Washington D.C.-based law firm that works on religious freedom cases, said the settlement violates Michigan law that protects religious adoption agencies.

There is something called the Fourteenth Amendment… you know the part that says everyone must be treated equally?

Once again the Republicans are trying twist the Constitution to mean that religion beliefs can be forced on to another person. That there will be two sets of laws one for the bigots and one for everyone else.