Naturally members of religious right organizations are angry at California Governor Arnold Swarzeneggar for signing legislation designating a day of recognition for legendary lgbt activist Harvey Milk.
Two of the responses, in particular, caught my attention. One came from the organization
Save California:
“Harvey Milk* was a sexual predator of teens, an advocate of polygamous relationships, a public liar, and is in no way a good role model for impressionable schoolchildren,” said Randy Thomasson, president of SaveCalifornia.com. “Sadly, children in public schools will now have even more in-your-face, homosexual-bisexual-transsexual indoctrination. This provides the strongest impetus yet for loving parents to remove their children from anti-family public schools.”
“’Harvey Milk Day’ teaches children as young as five years old to admire the life and values of the notorious homosexual activist Harvey Milk” said Thomasson. “The ‘suitable commemorative exercises’ that are part of ‘Harvey Milk Day’ can easily result in cross-dressing exercises, ‘LGBT pride’ parades and mock gay weddings on school campuses -- everything Harvey Milk supported.”So honoring Harvey Milk will cause children to come to school "crossdressed" as members of the opposite sex?
Who knew. Someone should tell Thomasson that this already happens via powder puff football games and spirit week activities.
Now as for that other stuff - lgbt pride parades and mock gay weddings - there is nothing wrong with a school having events, i.e. parades and the like, just like there is nothing wrong with a school commemorating Black History Month or Women's History Month.
No doubt Thomasson is conjuring up images of school children in leather chaps and carrying whips or dressed as colorful drag queens.
And Harvey Milk was supposed to be the pervert?
In all seriousness, Thomasson is sounding the hysterical alarm. And rather badly too.
The second response isn't one that I can make light of because it gets me angry. It comes from a One News Now article entitled
Homosexuality 'not a civil right':
Last month, the Orange County Board of Education voted unanimously (5-0) to oppose the creation of Harvey Milk Day. Dr. Alexandria Coronado, chairman of that board, says she is "absolutely furious" that the homosexual community is claiming that passage of the Harvey Milk bill is a civil rights victory.
"I think it just absolutely denigrates the entire civil rights movement. Homosexuality is not a civil right," Coronado emphasizes.
"I don't remember the last time that a homosexual person was forced to move out of their seat on a public bus, like Rosa Parks. And I don't remember the last time that a homosexual person or student...was forced to go to a segregated school, as in the case of Mendez v. Westminster, which took place right here in Orange County, California."The title is ignorant and the piece is distractive.
Last week marked an ugly anniversary - the murder of Matthew Shepard. You do remember him, don't you? He was the young man targeted and murdered because of his sexual orientation.
Then there was Sakia Gunn, an African-American lesbian stabbed to death because she refused the sexual advances of her male attacker.
And lets not forget Michael Sandy, an African-American gay man who was hit by a car after running away from men who targeted him for robbery because he was gay.
There are so many other we have heard of and many more whose names we will never know - some of the latter are children who have been bullied, kicked aside, and not able to take advantage of a full education because they are lgbt.
But as long as no one places them in the "back of a bus," there is no problem. Right?
Coronado misses the point of why Parks took her stance. It wasn't about riding on a bus but about basic dignity; the ability to live your life without being disrespected and treated like you have no value.
In the long run, that's what it's all about, whether you are an lgbt, an African-American, or both.
