No message can go through without an eager audience and when it comes to religious right lies, the audience sometimes tends to bend over backwards to be receptive.
Witness the firsthand account by Ana Beatriz Cholo of a meeting of folks seeking to overturn SB48, the newly passed California law which mandates that classrooms teach about the contributions and roles of lgbtq figures in age-appropriate classes.
I will showcase the comments made by several folks at the meeting, making sure to include some explanation behind what they really mean:
I drove an hour and a half to hear Karen England, Stop SB 48's main proponent, discuss their failed campaign and what their next steps are in stopping "the homosexual agenda." England is the executive director of a "pro-family" organization called the Capitol Resource Institute. As England put it that night, it's one thing to live with same-sex marriage. After all, even some hardcore conservatives might say with resignation, "Well, that's in their home. Live and let live."
"But now you're talking about bringing it into our schools; you're messing with our kids," England continued indignantly. "Kids need to learn their ABCs, not about transgendered people."
Another woman identified herself as a school employee. She works in her school's print shop and said she had a conversation with the assistant principal about the new law in recent weeks.
"I won't print that stuff for the children," she said she'd informed the administrator, referring to LGBT-related materials that might end up coming her way. "I will walk," she'd told him. The administrator had tried to dismiss her concerns, but she made it pretty clear that she would rather quit her job than allow gay people to be humanized.
An elderly man said his worse fears were medically motivated. "The gay community has a lot of health issues that straight people don't have."
So what do you do when you're up against such nonsense. Engage those you can, waste no time getting into useless arguments with those who won't listen, but above all, put the truth out there consistently.
Witness the firsthand account by Ana Beatriz Cholo of a meeting of folks seeking to overturn SB48, the newly passed California law which mandates that classrooms teach about the contributions and roles of lgbtq figures in age-appropriate classes.
I will showcase the comments made by several folks at the meeting, making sure to include some explanation behind what they really mean:
I drove an hour and a half to hear Karen England, Stop SB 48's main proponent, discuss their failed campaign and what their next steps are in stopping "the homosexual agenda." England is the executive director of a "pro-family" organization called the Capitol Resource Institute. As England put it that night, it's one thing to live with same-sex marriage. After all, even some hardcore conservatives might say with resignation, "Well, that's in their home. Live and let live."
"But now you're talking about bringing it into our schools; you're messing with our kids," England continued indignantly. "Kids need to learn their ABCs, not about transgendered people."
Please notice how England omits the fact that same-sex families have children attending these schools. She also omits the fact that lgbtq children are attending these schools. Her words are exploiting the notion that gays are "recruiting" children because apparently we don't have any of our own (a huge lie). Also notice how she intentionally pushes the notion of "transgenders corrupting children."
Another woman identified herself as a school employee. She works in her school's print shop and said she had a conversation with the assistant principal about the new law in recent weeks.
"I won't print that stuff for the children," she said she'd informed the administrator, referring to LGBT-related materials that might end up coming her way. "I will walk," she'd told him. The administrator had tried to dismiss her concerns, but she made it pretty clear that she would rather quit her job than allow gay people to be humanized.
She will quit her job and walk right into a new gig with the National Organization for Marriage as their latest phony defamation victim, even though her rights would not be violated by simply doing her job. She doesn't know what the materials will be but yet has made it up in her mind that she will not print them, as if she is entitled to do so.
An elderly man said his worse fears were medically motivated. "The gay community has a lot of health issues that straight people don't have."
We've all heard this before. One wonders if the man brought up the "gay bowel syndrome" lie.
So what do you do when you're up against such nonsense. Engage those you can, waste no time getting into useless arguments with those who won't listen, but above all, put the truth out there consistently.
3 comments:
That school employee is definitely playing the martyr card. But we know better - that she said she'd walk off the job.
But these folks, note how they use the transgender divider. They can't really stretch the gay thing any longer.
Please don't take what I'm going to say the wrong way but....doesn't it ever upset you to rehash everything they say? Don't you want to just keep up momentum on our side? I read many of the blogs and here's what I see: Our side rarely talks about what we can do to help things get better, what we can do to work on changing minds. Instead, we take the words they've said and beat them to death by being critical or by trying to get every last bit of hate that can be found and interpreted out of them. Then, when they say something negative, as we all know they will, we do it again. Can we stop being REactive and start being PROactive? I just am getting frustrated by the fact that we never take the bull by the horns, just let it pass by us and then reach for its tail.
Before you take the bull by the horns, you have to know which direction the bull is charging.
One problem of our side is that we don't study the habits of the right nor do we analyze how they get away with their lies. We just call them bigots and leave it at that. That's a sloppy way to fight a war.
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