Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Conservative writer implies that Tim Walz sexually groomed boys, gets thoroughly humiliated on Twitter

Joel Berry of The Babylon Bee tried to smear Dem VP nominee Tim Walz but instead embarrassed himself.

This is Joel Berry. He's the managing editor of the far-right trash publication The Babylon Bee. He's also the latest conservative trying desperately to smear Democratic VP nominee Tim Walz. Unable to mount a suitable attack on Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, Republicans have turned their guns of slander and smear against Walz. They've run the gambit from attempting to smear Walz as a disgraced military veteran to lying that he put tampons in the boys' restrooms of Minnesota schools.

Berry, however, is using the traditional right-wing smear of implying that Walz sexually groomed boys because he served as a faculty advisor of high school GSA (Gay/Straight Alliance) when he was a Minnesota teacher.

It hasn't gone well for Berry. First the Community Notes on Twitter called him out:



The truth is that exactly what the Community Notes said. Walz was asked to be the faculty advisor. And based upon what former members of the alliance had to say, Walz was positive influence on their lives:

Jacob Reitan, now an LGBTQ activist and lawyer, was a founding member of the GSA at Mankato West High School in Mankato, Minnesota, about 80 miles southwest of Minneapolis. He said Walz and his wife, also a teacher at the school, provided vital support during Reitan’s formative years. “Both Tim and Gwen were incredibly supportive of their gay students, and they modeled values of inclusivity and respect,” 

Reitan, 42, told MSNBC this week. “I was bullied in high school. [Their values] helped not just me, but it also, I think, helped the bully. It showed the bully a better path forward, and I can think of no one better than Tim Walz to show that better path forward for America.” 

 Fellow GSA member Seth Elliot Meyer attended Mankato West from 2000-2004 and had Walz for 11th grade history. Meyer, 38, said he initially expected to hate Walz, because he was a football coach and a hunter. “I was a leftist punk rock, anti-everything kind of kid,” Meyer said. “In the year that I had him, what I learned is that he really cared about everyone and wanted everyone to be seen.” 

 While Community Notes simply corrected Berry's ugly connotation of Walz's involvement in the GSA, others who responded to his Tweet weren't so polite. And Berry deserved every bit of the dragging he received:
And because I love a good Twitter dragging (especially when it's a conservative getting called out for spewing anti-LGBTQ lies,) I added my two cents:
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