They’re gaslighting us?  Brilliant.  That’s exactly what it is.  That’s why showing them facts doesn’t seem to have an effect—they are pushing teh crazy at us on purpose, and by forcing us to ‘respect’ their point of view, they win, b/c their pov is CRAZY.

So many people wonder if Bill O’Reilly or Beck or Coulter actually believe what they are saying, and if they are gaslighting, then they don’t.  It’s obvious they only pull for their “team”, IOKIYAR, and anything a Dem does is evil by definition, but “gaslighting” explains why they do it.

They really don’t believe it and are just looking for a hook to hurt anyone they can in order to profit themselves.

Spoiled, bratty 13 y/os doesn’t even begin to cover it.

I saw some of this on Hannity last night (freaking roommate made me watch almost 10 minutes of it because he thinks it’s funny).  They had a guy on who “infiltrated” NAMBLA, which basically meant he gave them $35 and waited the three years they make you wait until you can start going to the meetings.  They started talking about NAMBLA’s “secret agenda” which is apparently just like their stated agenda except without the lobbying for laws that they’ll never be able to change anyway.

Kyso,

You’re shitting me.  Christ, I just flashed to The Daily Show’s America, The Book.

NAMBLA, stated agenda: make it legal for men to have sex with boys
secret agenda: Dude, did you see their stated agenda?!?

There’s some overt gaslighting going on.  John Derbyshire wrote an entire chapter of his book on the case against female suffrage, and when Thom Hartmann called him on it, he denied that he ever said that the 19th amendment should be repealed.  Textbook attempt, but Hartmann didn’t roll over for it.

Is there something wrong with me that every single scare quote on the FRC poster makes me think Jennings is exactly the kind of guy we want working with students?

Paul: that’s what I thought! He sounds like a genuinely cool guy. As a teenager, I might have even had a tiny ounce of respect for him! :p

Just remember: There are four lights.

Okay, so an ally brought him a young man with a quandry he could understand and he gave appropriate advice.

This is a problem ... how?

I agree with the “scare quotes” making me MORE likely to want this man around my young men as a mentor and resource!

Oh, and how can I get these jerks to fire my district superintendent, school board, and principals and music teachers?  Making my kids sing God Bless the USA repeatedly is a violation of MY parental rights!

Fuck the wingnuts. I say we just start beating the shit out of them everytime they open their idiotic mouths. I’m so sick of this shit. A great teacher helps a kid at his school deal with an issue that’s troubling him and he gets labeled a pedophile? That flier actually makes me want to get Jennings hired in my school district. They would work to get a great teacher fired and then complain day & night about the “sorry state of education”. God damn assholes.

Sorry, just needed to vent. This has been bothering me for a while.

Yup, and I’d go a step further and say they’re likely to use muted versions of these tactics in their day-to-day life. Hell, most of their religions intense guilt trips on women are designed to try and make their women do this to themselves to stay in abusive or unhappy relationships with strict gender policing.

But more on topic, I think the point in which this genie could not be put back in the bottle was the McCarthy hearings. When we allowed blacklisting and complete dissolution of communism and socialism in this country and created a system by which anyone could be immediately “too liberal” with a single word accusation that would have them removed for “political reasons”, we were doomed to this sort of shit.

That was the moment we told abusers that we would happily enforce whatever tantrum they had not just now, but for the overton window for all time. It’s how we have a system of people so afraid of looking more progressive and thus close to the blacklist that they naturally compensate to the right just to avoid baseless attacks which only encourages more because the more they level, the closer the legislation approximates their own beliefs (if they had any but that’s a separate issue).

That they’re trying to make this true for minority groups was also a given. Progressive groups know that minorities in high positions of power helps break up white male dominance of power and normalize a powerful minority figure. Black secretaries of states normalize black presidents, female speakers of the house normalize nearly female presidents and gay officials will normalize gay secretaries of X.

If you’re main cause is bigotry then you must stop the humanization of time especially in power in order to retain apartheid glass ceilings of privilege.

And yeah, political democrats have definitely gone into full blown abused wife stance over the years and we’re left trying to give them the confidence to leave the bastard.

Sadly just in life, we can’t just shoot the bastard and be done with it.

Wow, I wish that more people were like Jennings.  He talked a teenage boy who ended up in a risky situation and possibly made some mistakes, but instead of sending him on a guilt trip and telling the boy he deserved to get HIV because of his behavior, Jennings genuinely cared about his health and safety.  He seems like a fantastic guy who really cares about people, even people that don’t “deserve” to be cared about.

“I think the point in which this genie could not be put back in the bottle was the McCarthy hearings. When we allowed blacklisting and complete dissolution of communism and socialism in this country and created a system by which anyone could be immediately “too liberal” with a single word accusation that would have them removed for “political reasons”, we were doomed to this sort of shit”

Good point!

on the other hand - b4 McCarthy we had Palmer - we got over it
b4 Palmer we had Comstock - we got over it

we are only doomed as long as high ranking elected Dems keep caving like they did w/ ACORN
As soon as the wurlitzer demands a scalp and they don’t get it the whole thing collapses

Unfortunately, I don’t think Obama will ever deny them their scalps

You’re shitting me.  Christ, I just flashed to The Daily Show’s America, The Book.

That was my first thought, too.  According to the secret detective man, people stupid enough to join a pedophile club basically just sit around trading stories and tips about being a better pedophile, and reassuring each other that they’re not fucked up at all.  Which is stomach-churning, sure, but it’s not exactly surprising.  Hannity was clearly going for the ick factor to stir up the Anti-Kitten Burning Coalition.

Mark @ #10 -

Fuck the wingnuts.

I’m not sure I get it. They thought the 1000 year reich was on it’s way. But it really appears to be over, and it’s just going to get worse for them. Voters have resoundingly told the GOP to STFU twice, now, and this is how they react. If they can’t run America, fuck it, break it up. They aren’t even motivated to play the game of pretending they give a damn.

I just wonder what they’re going to scream when Obama’s finishing up his 8th year in the WH, and Howard Dean’s running again, or somebody to the left of Obama (there’s alot of room there) is throttling Jeb Bush in the polls. Is there a word after Socialist that I don’t know about?

Jennings is a life long gay activist of the highest order. maybe you agree that you would like to see a gay activist indocrinating the children. Would you feel as comfortable if the next president was a conservative and she appoints Tony Perkins to that same position?

Jennings’s message: Children should be protected regardless of orientation.
Perkins’s message: Children can go hang. (phrased thus in order to avoid saying “Fuck the children,” which I don’t think is Perkins’s message)

Tell me, which message is better for children?

Yes, I would love someone to indoctrinate children to use condoms every single time they have a sexual encounter.  I would love someone to indoctrinate children to value their lives regardless of who they’re sexually attracted to.

Even without the NAMBLA connection, there is plenty of reason to dump Kevin Jennings.

Like?

And promoting civil rights for all isn’t a good reason.

“we simply don’t need the president nominating all these radicals.”

Please listen carefully…Jennings is NOT a radical. Not by any stretch of your (obviously) overactive imagination.

Sorry, I must have missed the constitution or the SCOTUS rulling that said what Jennings is promoting is a right of any kind.

Huh? Equal rights aren’t constitutional??

The larger issue is bringing a sexually controversial subject into elementary schools for the sole purpose of indoctrination to that political viewpoint.

I’m totally lost. What exactly do you think he’s promoting?

Sorry, I must have missed the constitution or the SCOTUS rulling that said what Jennings is promoting is a right of any kind.

Then you might want to take a look at Romer v. Evans. Written by the none-too-liberal Justice Kennedy.

The larger issue is bringing a sexually controversial subject into elementary schools for the sole purpose of indoctrination to that political viewpoint.

Sexually controversial…like saying that gay kids aren’t a blight upon the earth. Uh-huh.

...also, I don’t know where you’re getting “elementary schools” from. Even the people lying and saying that Brewster is younger than he actually is are still saying he’s in high school.

Just read this morning that the crazy-ass call to impeach Obama has already begun (not a year into his term as a centrist.)

Gas lighting, indeed.

So will Obama cave again to crazzy ass right wing accusations, follow his previous pattern to eliminate the person all the shouting’s about, and impeach himself?

“Gas lighting, indeed.”

If they were lighting the gas, that might be okay.  But when they’re huffing it…that’s a different thing altogether…

“Let’s assume that it’s 2001 and George Bush is appointing positions and to ride roughshod on education, he nominates a Fundamental Evangelist to oversee the kiddies.”

...so, you want us to imagine what actually happened?...

Marginal 80’s Band, you sound like one of those idiots who reads The Constitution (or more likely has somebody read it for you), and you’re interpretation is that the only rights people have are explicitly listed out.  Otherwise, a person has no rights to anything else not listed.

I guess that Freedom™ and Liberty™ you assholes spout off about all the time is totally meaningless to you.  I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that a wingnut is full of shit.

Let’s face it:  If <strike>Jeb Bush</strike> Glenn Beck wore one of those tan Nazi uniforms, you’d do whatever he told you, and might even do so without the uniform.  Tool…

wangchung, you wingnuts were shouting all this Socialist stuff during the campaign, screaming about radicals, communists, terrorists, etc, and the American people still elected Barack Hussein Obama.

So apparently, America has decisively and affirmitively spoken up about being led by a radical communist. And you appear to be on the outside looking in.

Perhaps you should run along and learn some scarier words to call the president and his appointees, because this pallid handful isn’t working.

comment 26 - no it isn’t. That’s why America voted to keep McCain/Palin away from the White House.

Let’s assume that it’s 2001 and George Bush is appointing positions and to ride roughshod on education, he nominates a Fundamental Evangelist to oversee the kiddies.

You really don’t get it, do you? If Bush had nominated someone who was a fundamentalist Evangelical (which I assume you meant) whose stated policy was to make schools safe for every student, regardless of religion, to prevent bullying based on religious beliefs, and was committed because of their religion to the principles of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” “Judge not lest ye be judged,” and “Render under Caesar what is Caesar’s” - resulting in stating that therefore, religious minorities and gay and transgender students had not only a civil right, but an overriding moral right to fair and equal treatment, you would have heard very little other than cheers.

Of course, such a person would have been eaten alive by the conservatives for not being properly religious, but that is another matter.

We are not defending Jennings because he is gay. We are defending him because he is RIGHT. Because, specifically with regards the accusations being flung at him, once the lies are removed, he not only did nothing wrong, he actively did the right thing.

It is not as though he is being accused of having a young Christian student come to him saying that he was depressed about the challenge of following his religion and staying abstinent until marriage and hired a hooker for the kid.

You are creating a false dichotomy. There is NO indication that his counseling or his policies in any way tries to prevent kids who themselves believe in the things that the Right wants them to from doing so. He isn’t telling abstinent kids that they should rush out to orgies.

The truth, though, is that your hypothetical Bush appointee would very likely have done precisely that, because it was EXPLICITLY the policy of the Party and the Adminsitration. Gay kids were not to be protected. Hell, they are still fighting to try to make (or keep) it illegal to even admit in schools that adult homosexuals even exist.

Hey wangchung, I love 80’s music too!  Riddle me this, Internet buddy: My baby’s godparents are a gay couple.  My little brother and his partner.  They are gay men who have gay sex and support leftist gay causes like not getting their asses kicked for being gay.  Should my parental rights be terminated?  Thanks in advance!

I think to idiots like wangchung, gay kids just don’t exist or don’t matter. So of course someone like Jennings is a horrible radical, threatening to corrupt the minds of innocent children. But in reality, gay kids actually exist and very often they have severe obstacles at home and school growing up. They may face real kinds of persecution in their communities, the kind of persecution religious nuts like wangchung always seem to imagine they are facing.
The problems that people like me faced growing up aren’t some kind of radical agenda of adults but real life issues often in severe need of attention. There is nothing radical about helping gay kids survive high school but there IS something radical in pushing your twisted “religious” values upon everyone else and over the concerns of kids who really do need assistance and protection.

The life lived by Mr. Jennings proves that he is not some benign angel. He has spent his life promoting the normalization of homosexuals to schoolaged children, a controversial subject.

Homosexuals are normal. Promoting “normalization of homosexuals” is a reversal of society’s skewed policies for the last few millennia.

“The life lived by Mr. Jennings proves that he is not some benign angel. He has spent his life promoting the normalization of homosexuals to schoolaged children, a controversial subject. “
So you would rather kids are taught nothing in regards to homosexuality and/or have gay kids taught to hate themselves because they do not fit into your outmoded, non-mainstream idea of normalcy?

Idiot troll is idiot.

He has spent his life promoting the normalization of homosexuals to schoolaged children, a controversial subject.

Oh no!!! We wouldn’t want those kids thinking they’re normal!!!

WTF? that’s not radical, that’s common sense. What would you rather promote, that all gay kids be shot?

Dear Wangchung,
Outside of your own paranoid nightmares, people are not indoctrinated into homosexuality.

And exactly why does Mr. Jennings feel compelled to promote this viewpoint to elementary school aged children?

Let him make his case to adults in the arena of ideas. What he does is indoctrination and it’s dispicable regardless of which side you fall on.

If your objection is to anything being taught to elementary school kids rather than to adults, it’s disingenuous to pretend that it’s Jennings you have a problem with.

<blockquote.And exactly why does Mr. Jennings feel compelled to promote this viewpoint to elementary school aged children? </blockquote>

Well gee, it might have something to do with the suicide rate for gay teenagers.

Not that you give a shit.

“If your objection is to anything being taught to elementary school kids rather than to adults, it’s disingenuous to pretend that it’s Jennings you have a problem with.”

Marginal 80’s Band probably believes everything a young person needs to know can be found in the Bible or The Turner Diaries...

Bottom line is it doesn’t matter what your poliltics are, we simply don’t need the president nominating all these radicals.

There’s nothing radical about defending gay people’s right to exist and not hate themselves. That’s the boring, mainstream position. You are the radical. The world has moved on without you, and soon you won’t be able to see it anymore.

The larger issue is bringing a sexually controversial subject into elementary schools for the sole purpose of indoctrination to that political viewpoint.

I don’t really know too many 16 year olds in elementary schools, do you?

You know, my family had some friends that were gay when I was a kid, so I always thought it was normal. We always called the partners of our gay friends husbands or wives, so I had no idea gay marriage wasn’t legal until I was like 15. (I was shocked! I thought it was extremely sexist. No law should be based on sex.)

Unlike what conservatives are worried about, I never thought about “how they had sex” (my parents didn’t need to explain gay sex to me), nor did I ever feel the urge to be gay myself. Me and my brother are both straight, despite thinking being gay is not some evil perversion.

It never really seemed that complicated to me. Seemed like you can love all kinds of people, and what should their genitals matter to anyone else? Just like some people like to date nerds, some like to date jocks, some people like tall partners, some short, some fat, some thin, some rich, some poor, some women, some men, who cares who other people love?? Isn’t love a GOOD THING?

Meeting people against gay people was shocking and non-understandable to me, kind of like meeting someone against black people or Jewish people.

Just because I, personally, am attracted to nerdy, tall, penis-bearers doesn’t mean everyone should be just like me! In fact, I think it’s better that everyone is unique, I don’t WANT us all to be the same!

Conservatives do, though. They want us all in their little mold, to hate the people they hate, act like they act, love how they love, believe what they believe and how they believe it. They are against diversity, uniqueness, innovation, progress, against the very nature of humanity! The very things that I think make us great, they want to stifle and suppress!

I think wangchung’s underlying problem is a refusal to believe there is an objective reality. To him/her (and it seems, to many right-wingers), there is just ‘my beliefs’ vs. ‘your beliefs’.
To refuse to accept his/her worldview is roughly the same as the refusal to accept your world view. Concepts of tolerance, equality, and truth don’t play into it, because no objective standard is allowed. So in his/her mind, being openly and unashamedly gay is equivalent to persecuting someone who is openly and unashamedly gay.

That this is not a logically coherent position to hold, particularly in combination with many other right-wing beliefs, is not something s/he wishes to consider.

I think to idiots like wangchung, gay kids just don’t exist

Hence, the constant use of the word “indoctrinate” and its derivatives.

To this day, the fundie wingnuts just can’t accept that homosexuality isn’t just an alternative lifestyle, it is an INNATE sexual orientation.  People DO NOT CHOOSE to be gay, anymore than people choose to be straight or any other particular orientation.

Since they cannot get over this ridiculous belief, they really, truly believe that homosexuality is an “indoctrinated” orientation, and if only we could protect our precious confused children from these evil indoctrinators, maybe they won’t grow up to be teh ghey!  People don’t grow up and “become” gay!  They are, or they aren’t.  If they are, they can either accept it, or attempt to closet it.  Every study I’ve ever seen shows that those who choose to accept it rather than closet it are far more happy and emotionally-fulfilled people, despite having to endure society’s cruel continuing bigotry in 2009.  Many who attempt to “act straight” suffer from extreme depression and resentment, and tragically, they often die as a result of suicide.

The word “indoctrination” doesn’t belong in this discussion.  You cannot “indoctrinate” homosexuality.  You CAN teach students the value of accepting themselves and accepting those who are different than themselves, and this is precisely what it appears Jennings has done.  To that end, the man deserves our applause and praise.

Fuck the haters.

And Mr. Crappy 80s Band… Gofuckyourself!

AdamN (32):

I think to idiots like wangchung, gay kids just don’t exist or don’t matter.

To idiots like wangchung, there’s no such thing as a closet. So what normal people call coming out, they call turning gay. Nowadays I suspect (hope) more people are out as soon as they have any sort of adult sexuality at all and don’t have to fear homophobia, but wangchung and his ilk don’t believe in innate sexuality either, so again, that counts as “becoming gay.”

wangchung (33):

The life lived by Mr. Jennings proves that he is not some benign angel. He has spent his life promoting the normalization of [lactose intolerance] to schoolaged children, a controversial subject.

wangchung (35):

And exactly why does Mr. Jennings feel compelled to promote this viewpoint to elementary school aged children?

Yeah. I’m not sure it’s a “viewpoint” exactly.

And blast from the past demonstrates the point beautifully, claim the existence of certain people is de facto beyond the pale simply for who they are, demand an actively retroactive stance on a minority group to try and stifle self+[removed]funny note, some kids know they’re lgbt even before puberty, certainly after puberty, which for some early girls will indeed be at the end of elementary school, but more likely during middle school).

This is to set a stage where they can then turn and say that someone being who they are and saying, hey we exist and stuff and we shouldn’t like be hated because of that is oh my god, extremist who must be de facto denied representation at any level of power, whereas people actively against a certain group of people is reasoned moderate. It’s battling for the Overton window.

And by acquiescing to these people (schools are a great example of where this has happened) then actually standing up for the needs of actual students becomes “indoctrination” whereas demanding a large subgroup of children be literally sacrificed for white male power structures becomes inherently moral and good for children.

This is how we have worse schools unable to teach history, science, non-white-focused literature and to actively make it harder for kids to get real sex education, addiction help, depression counseling, support networks, etc…

I suppose it is a small benefit that creating a system of antagonistic adult structures solely intent on punishing kids for not fitting into a narrow box of expected behavior and deliberately misleading and lying to them about everything they can does produce a large number of genuine radicals who are disillusioned with all traditions and conservative bullshit in general.

Though, I still love the attempted argument by stuck in the 80s, “but don’t you fools see? He’s a faggot!” Reminds me of a troll I dated once whose response to me was “ha ha, you’re a trannie”. That’s not actually an argument, that’s being a moron.

And in your “i totally nailed you” flip argument, when you hear of people who care about education reacting badly to a fundie appointment, that’s because they have a stated goal of destroying the institution they are a part of. See Texas trying to create a conservapedia history textbook once it was stacked with fundies. If crazed snake handlers actually respected the institutions they were a part of enough to follow sub-minimal requirements, our reaction would be “god they’re a nut, but it takes all kinds”.

Wingnuts don’t get it, because their whole life is devoted to destroying the other, that the other doesn’t really stay up all night frantically thinking of the wingnuts. The only reason we give a damn about your insane hatreds is because YOU HATE US. You want us dead, you want to remove our rights, see us “punished”, fired from our jobs, and ritualistically humiliated by society at large. Thus ignoring you proves to be dangerous (sadly usually because battered dems fear the wingnuts enough to cater to them). If you didn’t hate us or if you weren’t affecting policy and job prospects, we’d never think of you at all, and in fact few of us consider your personal lives beyond trying to understand why you’re so obsessed with us.

We all have lives, please open yourself up to the varied wonderfully open world that is life and find a life that makes you happy and stop trying to find meaning by trying to piss on someone else’s parade. We would rather be focusing on other problems.

The life lived by Mr. Jennings proves that he is not some benign angel. He has spent his life promoting the normalization of homosexuals to schoolaged children, a controversial subject.

The “normalization of homosexuality” is as much of a controversial subject as is the suggestion that allowing zebras to continue to exist won’t be a threat to the world’s horse population.

Homosexuality isn’t some radical new concept conceived of in secret Communist gatherings in the 1950s.  It’s been around as long as animal species have existed (which is way more than 6,000 years, by the way… another completely uncontroversial FACT).

There is nothing to be “normalized” about homosexuality, because it has always been a perfectly normal orientation.  What’s problematic for pieces of shit like you is that the world’s population seems to be moving towards treating homosexual citizens with the same amount of compassion and dignity as we treat any other citizen with.  We ain’t there yet, or even close, and we may not get there in my lifetime… but the train has left the station, and your side has already lost this battle.

You just refuse to accept it.

So go cry about it, fucknozzle.

The life lived by Mr. Shmoo proves that he was not some benign angel. He had spent his life promoting the normalization of school integration to schoolaged children, a controversial subject.

It was improper to appoint any education official that was in favor of school integration until the controversy over school integration had run its course.  As long as there were conservatives complaining about black kids and white kids going to school together, no one who believed it was a good idea should have been in office.

wangchung,

It is NOT controversial, in school or not, to acknowledge that gay people exist. That is the sum total of what most people are objecting to.

Turn it upside down. You are saying the Jennings is unfit for his post exactly because he has made a career of working for gay teens not to be bullied in school. By extension, you are saying that it should be governmental policy FOR gay teens to be bullied, or at the bare minimum, that if gay kids are bullied, are depressed enough because of discrimination to commit suicide, or suffer from harassment enough to have to drop out of school that schools should be required to take no action.

Who’s the monster? Not Jennings.

Heterosexuality is not normal, it’s just common.

—Dorothy Parker

He has spent his life promoting the normalization of homosexuals to schoolaged children, a controversial subject.

So what? 

Why do you hate gay kids?

He has spent his life promoting the normalization of homosexuals to schoolaged children, a controversial subject.

So what?

Why do you hate gay kids?

I’m not a psychologist, but I think it’s probably the ‘gay’ part.

I’m not a psychologist, but I think it’s probably the ‘gay’ part.

So, wangchung approves of queer kids being bullied. And of queer kids killing themselves. To think those things are problems is apparently controversial.

So, wangchung approves of queer kids being bullied. And of queer kids killing themselves. To think those things are problems is apparently controversial.

Republicans are weird.

Try to be on the other end of this for a change.

Let’s assume that it’s 2001 and George Bush is appointing positions and to ride roughshod on education, he nominates a Fundamental Evangelist to oversee the kiddies.

OK with you?
Comment #26: wangchung on 10/08 at 03:55 PM

We were, asswipe. Considering all the environmental rapists Bush appointed to the EPA and the miserable fuckup “Let’ em drown Brownie” at FEMA was… your turn, live with it.

Lymis,

The life lived by Mr. Jennings proves that he is not some benign angel. He has spent his life promoting the normalization of homosexuals to schoolaged children, a controversial subject.

Comment #33: wangchung on 10/08 at 04:40 PM

You know wang chung, assuming that your name has anything to do with your ethnicity, rather than your gastronomic preferences, there was a time 1950’s and 1960’s when miscegenation was a controversial subject.  And the races affected by that weren’t only black and white, but yellow, too (staying with the color meme here).  So of course, any teacher who wanted to be accepting and teach her students to be accepting of little Wang Chung Smith and not make fun of his slanty eyes and blond hair, and his mommy and daddy, Chen and John, was promoting the normalization of miscegenation to school-aged children, a controversial subject.

I think wangchung’s underlying problem is a refusal to believe there is an objective reality. To him/her (and it seems, to many right-wingers), there is just ‘my beliefs’ vs. ‘your beliefs’.
To refuse to accept his/her worldview is roughly the same as the refusal to accept your world view. Concepts of tolerance, equality, and truth don’t play into it, because no objective standard is allowed. So in his/her mind, being openly and unashamedly gay is equivalent to persecuting someone who is openly and unashamedly gay.

That this is not a logically coherent position to hold, particularly in combination with many other right-wing beliefs, is not something s/he wishes to consider.
Comment #47: jalmondale on 10/08 at 06:04 PM

Holy shit, Jalmondale - I’m 3/4 of the way down a bottle of damn good red, but the accusation of relativism AGAINST the conservatives is a new twist and through my befugged state, glimmers, nay, shines, no, radiates plausibility.  II mean, isn’t relativism their charge against liberals?  Ahhh, the possibilities.

wangchung, I’d like an answer: why do you want gay teens dead?

Don’t bullshit and say you don’t. Kevin Jennings has worked on making schools safer for queer kids.  He’s worked to make sure services are provided to these young people so that they don’t feel so isolated.

Why do you want them dead?

MAJeff, it’s because gay kids don’t fit into his neat little box. They are different from him, and therefore scary, and don’t deserve to live. He thinks we’re all ants with our assigned role to play, and gay kids are going against their assigned role. The only option is to pretend they don’t exist, convince them to play the role they are supposed to, or let them die.

Even as a straight woman, I’ve encountered this before with conservatives. I don’t fit my role they want me in in so many ways. I’ve had conservatives trying to convert me to play their dumb game since I was a kid and they learned I was Jewish. I don’t believe in Jesus or a god, I don’t have long hair, I don’t dress girly, I have sex and like it, I don’t want kids, I don’t submit to men, etc.

They’re reaction to someone who doesn’t act how they want is first to pretend that you actually are acting how they want, and your either faking it or it’s a phase you’ll get over (you’ll want to act like a girl when you grow up and want boys to like you! or That gay man convinced you you were gay, didn’t he? You’re not REALLY gay! or you don’t really not believe in god, you’re just angry at him!), then convert you (You just don’t believe in Jesus cuz you haven’t heard of him! Here, let me tell you the story! By the millionth time you’ll surely believe! or You’re just gay cuz you don’t know you’ll go to hell for ALL ETERNITY for being gay!!), then destroy you (fire you, badger you to suicide, ignore people beating you up, make laws that force you to be miserable, lock you up, or kill you outright).

They’re either evil or stupid, or both.

Jeff, like too many Americans, Marginal 80’s Band just wants gay people to go away, disappear, get wished into the corn field, or whatever.

Many of the same people believe there weren’t any gay people when they were younger, that somehow LGBT people just materialized overnight or something, probably because of Dirty Hippies and LSD or something.

Their philosophical forefathers thought the same about race relations back in the 50’s/60’s, that Martin Luther King wasn’t trying to highlight and solve problems that had been around for centuries, but was just stirring up problems that weren’t there before he came along. 

They’re attached to an America that never really existed.  Our job is to firmly move them aside so progress can be made whether they like it or not…

Thanks guys, but I want wangchung to say why he thinks there should be no efforts to keep queer kids from killing themselves.

Wangchung, why do you want these kids dead?

Opposing the work of Kevin Jennings is objectively pro-dead queer kids. Why do you want them dead?

I knew a gay kindergartner.

I didn’t know it at the time; I was in first grade, a class ahead of him, and the concept of “gay” wouldn’t have made any sense to me at that age. (It probably could have been explained to me fairly easy along the lines of “You know that Indian girl in fifth grade with the big boobs? Mark wouldn’t be interested in that.”, but no one would have bothered even if I needed to know this.) We only met a few times in cross-classroom situations, although I was in the same class as one of his sisters. Retrospectively it was obvious there was something not quite right about him—he was very reserved, didn’t want to talk a lot.

I never did keep in touch with him or anyone in his family; I left public schools after second grade and wound up on my own long, strange odyssey of private schools. Years later, looking through something related to the public school system I had gone to, I found Mark’s name as an officer of the high school’s GLBT club or something like that. Looking back, although my school-hopping led to a lot of isolation on my part that still bugs me well into my thirties, I can only imagine how much worse it must have been for him, knowing that he was out of step with everyone else but for a long time probably never being able to put his finger on quite what. Growing up as a gay kid in the 80s must have been extraordinarily frustrating—so close to freedom, but still so far. I’m glad he chose activism rather than the closet.

This is all by way of saying fuck you, wangchung. Fuck you with a chainsaw.

Wangchung
You have not responded directly to any of the comments or arguments put toward you, which just goes to show how feeble-minded and ridiculously stupid your comments have been. If there were any intelligence in what you posted here you would be able to present solid responses to us and not result to constant repetition and diversionary tactics. It’s very obvious that you are the one with no grasp of any concepts here.
“My argument is one of getting politics OUT of the elementary schools.”
By removing the subject of homosexuality from education you are not getting politics out of education but simply moving YOUR politics in. Gay kids and the serious very real issues they face are not going to stop existing simply because you want them to and not dealing with these issues can have very serious consequences
And seriously stop with this indoctrination crap. No one turned me into a homosexual via indoctrination. It really doesn’t work that way. Were you indoctrinated into your sexuality?

It seems that you people don’t grasp even the simplist of concepts.My argument is one of getting politics OUT of the elementary schools.

Sorry, but you are the one who doesn’t seem to understand the simplest of concepts. The existence of gay people in our society and our world is not “politics.” It is reality.

Telling students that it isn’t okay to call someone queer, or a sissy, or a dyke, that it isn’t okay to beat them up, or stick threatening notes in their locker, or write death threats on Facebook isn’t politics.

Telling kids at or approaching puberty that if they do happen to be gay there are answers for them besides suicide, that they can grow up to be happy and heathy isn’t politics and it isn’t indoctrination, any more than telling kids who find out that they are left-handed that it is okay to write and eat with their left hands is indoctrination, and telling other kids not to make fun of them is indoctrination.

Telling kids that yes, in fact, some people grow up to love other people who are the same sex isn’t politics. It is a statement of fact, just like the existence of Jupiter, or DNA, or cumulus clouds. This is most especially true, but not limited to, states and cities where there are existing laws in place to guarantee rights associated with it.

AdamN is right. Many if not most of us gay folks new we were gay long, long before we told anyone about it. We weren’t indoctrinated. Keeping us from hearing about gay people didn’t make us straight, it just made us think we were alone, and added incredibly to our suffering.

And if you don’t think that a systematic attempt to use schools to deny that gay people exist, that it is evil and shameful, and that if it is ever raised as an issue it must be instantly condemned (if not met with violence that will be overlooked) isn’t indoctrination, then YOU need to look the word up.

JohnGor0 in #15

I’m not sure I get it. They thought the 1000 year reich was on it’s way. But it really appears to be over, and it’s just going to get worse for them. Voters have resoundingly told the GOP to STFU twice, now, and this is how they react. If they can’t run America, fuck it, break it up. They aren’t even motivated to play the game of pretending they give a damn.

You’re right that Republicans have been dissed twice now by the voters, and that they are in a position of weakness. I do think your conclusions and assumptions about Obama winning another term, and about long-term Democratic dominance, are premature. Also, you’re ignoring the Democrats’ own tendency to give in to this kind of Neo-McCarthy-ism that is being pushed by all significant conservative groups (Family Research Council, the “Heartland Institute”, Freedomworks) and media elements. (Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, et. al.)

I think that Amanda’s assessment, that liberals are viewed as feminine in some sense, and that the feminine is percieved as corrosive to society, is an accurate description of how millions of Americans think. Using the metaphor of an abused woman to describe the behavior of the Democrats, under the influence of media such as Beck, seems to me altogether too accurate. To continue this metaphor, what methods have abused women used to sucessfully pull themselves out of their situations?

Is there a word after Socialist that I don’t know about?

Communist, Terrorist, Traitor, Pedophile, Rapist, Racist, Baby-Killer, Illegal Immigrant, Thug, Fascist, Satan-Worshipper, Faggot, Bitch, Race-Mixer, Pervert, Totalitarian, Woman-Hater, Sub-Human…

I’m sure more can be thought of. There is no peak wingnut.

Answer the question, please, wangchung:

Why do you want gay kids to die?

I don’t see why anyone wouldn’t leave the tough social questions to the parents and keep the school teaching time for academics.

Well, because some of the parents are people like you.

“What a load of succotash!”

Well gosh darn it, Marginal 80’s Band! (pardon my French) 

We don’t allow that kind of harsh language on a respectable family blog like Pandagon.  If you’re going to talk like that in a place where children might stumble on to your foul language, then we’re just going to have to revoke your privileges, Mr. Pottymouth…

<quote>How does anyone get that I want anyone “to die” because I don’t believe the schools should be politicized?</quote>

Because politics is how we resolve conflicts outside of killing each other.

Yes, of course the schools are politicized.  It is a political statement that quality education should be available to every child, even those of nonwhite races.  It is a political statement that science classes should teach science in them.  It is a policy decision how to allocate our resources between education, counseling, and cocurricular activities. 

And it is a policy decision to create an atmosphere of acceptance for gay teens, because if we don’t, they kill themselves in depressingly constant numbers.  But, most importantly, it is a political decision that those children should kill themselves to deny the truth of how gay teens’ lives are lived in our society.

Kevin Jennings works on safe-schools programs, things that provide social support for LGBT youth, and do anti-bullying and suicide prevention work.

Why do you want gay kids to die?

Or is it just that more dead gay kids is a happy side effect for you?

“And after 45 years of shifts to the left, especially in the schools, you wonder why the public schools skink. “
Public schools “skink” not because of 45 years of moving to the left with Nixon, Reagan, Bush 1, Bush 2 but because of Republicans cutting national funding for education.
“How does anyone get that I want anyone “to die” because I don’t believe the schools should be politicized?”
Because by ignoring homosexuality in schools you are ignoring the existence of gay kids which in effect isolates them and makes them more prone to suicide and abuse by other students. We kind of covered that. Can you read?
“And YES, this *is* a political subject regardless of your belief that this is just too important and is above politics.”“
Protecting kids lives is not a political subject. I am sorry that you see it that way. Maybe you should watch less Glenn Beck.
“He’s a guy with a microphone for Christ’s sake! “
Propped up by corporations and the right wing to “indoctrinate” idiots like wangchung!
“And yet by simply exposing the backgrounds of these people, the public and even Democratics in office are appalled.”
And yet when they actually learn the facts instead of misinformation, they’re not.

So, gay kids dying is not only a political problem, but an acceptable, even preferable, outcome. Right wangchung?

“And after 45 years of shifts to the left, especially in the schools, you wonder why the public schools skink”

What are you? 12?

I state as some one who was in public schools 45 yrs ago, in rock-rib Republican New England, that we were far to the left back then compaired to now

Let’s see. The left…45 years.  Hmm, civil rights movement and desegregation…wonder what’s actually going on in wangchung’s head on that issue?

Want to produce smart and well-educated kids? Teach the academics and leave the politics to other institutions and parents.

And, y’know, make sure kids aren’t being bullied and that they’re not killing themselves.

And, y’know, make sure kids aren’t being bullied and that they’re not killing themselves.

Why would we want to do that?  After all, fewer queer kids means fewer queer adults.  Having these kids die is a win for wangchung and the right.

Shorter Wangchung @ 81: “Gosh darn it all, they’re calling out my utter lack of human empathy for all the world to see!  Quick!  Change the subject!”

@ 87 & 89, too:

“How dare you challenge my objectively pro-dead-queer-kid beliefs!  Read these quotes that were almost certainly taken out of context and grotesquely distorted if they’re not outright lies, and be ashamed!”

Since our troll has devolved into yet another reeling off of Reichwing talking points, how about we ask Mr. Marginal 80’s Band what he thinks of the rumors swirling around the intertubes that Glenn Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990...?

After all, it’s on the Internet so it must be true, right?  It’s gotta be at least as true as any of the groundless things Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh (or Michelle Malkin, or Ann Coulter, or Ramesh Ponnuru, or Sarah Palin, or George Will, or Bill Kristol, or Jonah Goldberg, or “Bobby” Jindal, or any Republican member of Congress) spews on a regular basis…

The issue is a larger issue than just nominating a homosexual activist to oversee education.

Much larger…

We know.  It’s about blocking and undermining everything The-Nigra-With-The-Funny-Name-Who-Can’t-Possibly-Be-The-Legitimate-President and the Democrat Congress try to do.  But for right now, let’s just keep talking about how you, and the rest of the people attacking Kevin Jennings, seem to like the idea of dead queer kids.

Can you cite any sources for this, wangchung? Funny, the only sources I’m finding are non-credible right-wing news sites.

Your “issues” might be larger, wangchung, but you still haven’t dealt with the fact that the result of preferred policy position is dead queer kids.

Why do you want these kids to suffer and die?

Eightiesband - she wasn’t asking you to email the “real facts” to her.  She was asking you to display them here.  First rule of debate outside the right-wing echo chamber: nobody is too much of an Authority Figure to be challenged.  We don’t take Amanda’s word for things, we don’t take Barack Obama’s, so why should we take yours?  Rule Two: if you don’t have evidence, you don’t have anything.  Rule Three: it isn’t our job to do your footwork for you.  If you don’t provide your evidence, you don’t have any.

In order to achieve such, the three discuss totalitarian methods in order to control the population. Those methods offered as suggestion included <b>forcing single women to abort their babies or put them up for adoption; implanting sterilizing capsules in people when they reach puberty; and spiking water reserves and staple foods with a chemical that would make people sterile.

This is not just crazy, it’s moronic. You’re hallucinating.

It seems like Wangchung is a hysterical loony bin in addition to being a bigot and dumb as dirt.
How about responding to the questions and comments put forward to you Wangchung?

wangchung (67):

My argument is one of getting politics OUT of the elementary schools.

And again, what politics are you talking about? What are these “tough social questions”? Do you want to break up all in-school romances, because they take time away from academics? Should all clubs be banned because they’re not teaching? Should friendships be prevented?

Rebecca (85):

And, y’know, make sure kids aren’t being bullied and that they’re not killing themselves

Well, all interactions between students need to be banned. We’re sticking to academics, you see.

Though Seraph’s right, he clearly knows he’s lost.

It’s great that we got a troll on this thread to demonstrate exactly what Amanda was talking about in the original post.  He’s got the whole methodology down:

Step One: Throw a hissy fit over a nonexistant problem in the hope that liberals, being generally pleasant and empathetic sorts, will apologize and give you cookies just to shut you up.  If this works, crow about what pushovers they are.

Step Two: If it doesn’t work, and people instead call you out on your lies and/or try to debate you in good faith, deny you said any of the things you just said.  Act like they’re crazy for thinking you said that.  Then repeat exactly the same lies (note how WC keeps yammering about “politics in elementary schools” even after it’s been pointed out about a dozen times that Jennings was counseling a high-school student).

Step Three: When people start to catch on that you’re just yelling for the sake of yelling, change the subject.  Pretend the original argument never happened.

Step Four: New hissy fit!

And again, what politics are you talking about?

The idea that it’s okay for gay kids to be gay instead of trying or pretending to be straight is a political issue to a distressing number of people. My mother called me a “radical” when I came out to her and told me it would have been fine for me to be gay if I’d been born fifty years later, but it’s not now. She’s more behind the times than she realizes, but there’s definitely a large minority on her side.

So, wangchung. You still haven’t said why you want kids to suffer and die.

“So, if we keep GLESN out of the schools, it will cause massive suicide? “
Um yeah, that’s part of it. Gay teens are four times more likely to commit suicide then their heterosexual counterparts. Do the lives of gay kids just not matter to you? What the hell is wrong with you?

Do the lives of gay kids just not matter to you?

I think we’ve established that. Can’t even bring himself to say he doesn’t think they should die. A dead teen queer is apparently better than one who grows to adulthood.

Wangchung, your last comment is so poorly worded I am not sure I entirely grasp what kind of point, if any, you were trying to make with it.
Are you arguing that we are not being multi-faceted in our arguments compared to you, a person who thinks that gay children and teens are seemingly ONLY “political agendas” of the “radical left!!!” instead of real people with complex needs?
What other facets would you like us to entertain? You certainly haven’t presented any in your arguments.
What other institutions besides the federal government should intervene in this matter? Religious institutions for help with gay kids? Seriously? You do realize the goal here is helping gay kids grow up healthy and non-suicidal?

shorter wang:

“let ‘em die. homos and human anyway”

“The goal is to teach reading, writing, math, etc.”
None of us said that this was not most of the school mission. Schools also teach history and current events (Social Science), these things include having an awareness of LGBT people. Most schools also have sex education as a part of their health programs which also concerns and can assist kids who are not heterosexual (learning about safe sex,etc).
Basically gay people exist, ignoring us does not make us go away but instead creates problems. How do we protect the millions of kids who are being harassed everyday at school because of their sexuality? Or kids who are isolated and may be suicidal?
“No one has demonstrated that having GLESN in schools will prevent anything.”
Even if this was entirely true, what EXACTLY would the negative effect of having it in schools? Has anyone demonstrated that having it in schools has had any kind of negative effect?? If it has saved some lives I am going to say its worth it. Why isn’t that good enough for you?
“It’s just another excuse to get in the schools.”
What the hell are you so scared off here? You can’t indoctrinate someone into homosexuality. Its not a disease that you can catch. Anyone who told you otherwise probably has severe issues with their own sexuality. Did someone make you straight? Because if they did, I have news for you, you maybe aren’t entirely straight.
“THEY’LL ALL BE *DEAD* IF YOU DON’T LET US IN THERE!!!”
Using cap locks doesn’t compensate for your lack of intelligent response to the questions and challenges put forward to you. How about telling us why the lives of gay kids don’t matter to you?
“Leave the psychology to the psychologists.”
You do realize the public schools have counselors? Part of their mission is checking on the psychological health of their students, just like part of every school’s mission is ensuring the safety and well being of its students.
Maybe you should listen to actual gay people (like MAJeff and myself) who actually have some understanding of what its like to grow up gay in our society instead of talking out of your ass about things you know absolutely nothing about.

Maybe you should listen to actual gay people (like MAJeff and myself) who actually have some understanding of what its like to grow up gay in our society instead of talking out of your ass about things you know absolutely nothing about.

Why would that be something he would want to do?  He wants a world without LGBT people in it.  That’s the basis he’s operating from: we shouldn’t exist.