Monday, November 21, 2011

Petty lawsuit + lots of money, religious right spin = big problems

From the American Family Association's One News Now:

A pro-family attorney says officials of one California school district were biased when they wouldn't allow a parent to be involved in her child's education.

The Pacific Justice Institute (PJI) filed legal briefs with the California Court of Appeal, arguing that San Jose Unified School District officials broke the law by refusing to acknowledge Norina Mooney's request to make changes to a pro-LGBT event at her daughter's school.

The lawsuit stems from a "Rainbow Day" event at Castillero Middle School that addressed the issue of lesbian, "gay," bisexual, and transgender bullying. Mooney asked the school district to place a request on the agenda that would recognize other minorities who are affected by bullying, but the superintendent and board president refused. PJI filed suit in June to protect parents' rights to participate in such decisions, but a Santa Clara County judge rejected the case without comment, prompting appeal.

And of course as you can read, and will probably read more, this is not the end of the story. I'm guessing that this faux controversy will continue and, as with other cases in the past, we will be bombarded with religious right spin portraying this woman as a so- called innocent parent stymied by the so-called gay agenda.

The fact that the lawsuit was dismissed without comment because it was petty means absolutely nothing.  Nor does the comment from San Jose Unified School District that the the school district doesn't have the ability to ask schools to change school-wide events mean anything also.

This isn't about bullying or parents. This is yet another attempt to undermine the gay community under the guise of morality. As long as there are religious right groups with unfettered finances to pursue such petty lawsuits, as long as there are enough right-wing publications eager enough to publicize the one-sided drivel of these groups, and as long as there are enough ignorant morons out there whose homophobic bias outweighs their common sense and who will comment about the evils of the so-called gay agenda even when they know that the situation they are commenting about is false, we should expect more phony moral panics like this.


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