ANGRY PARENTS LIKEN QUEER YOUTH TO ISIS
By Samuel Leighton-Dore
A number of disturbing stories have emerged from the cultural dregs of society this week involving an ever-present group of ultra right-wing parents who continually enforce anti-gay views on their children. Because obviously children are born good, and are at risk of staying that way.
Over in the dusty SRC boardroom of a rural Tennessee high school, a group of parents tonight held a community debate regarding the ongoing presence of a support group for LGBTQI students and straight allies.
“There’s really no place for discussion of sexual orientation in a public high school,” local resident John Widelick said.
Having already rallied against the new Gay-Straight Alliance at Franklin County High School, outraged and presumably simple minded parents have taken to Facebook to voice their concerns. One local resident, John Wimley, went so far as to write a post comparing queer youth to future members of Islamic terror group ISIS.
You know, because pubescent boys holding hands and religious extremists decapitating one another are the same thing.
“IF WE DO NOT BAN TOGETHER AND STOP THIS B.S. THE NEXT THING YOU KNOW THEY WILL HAVE F.I.M.A. (FUTURE ISIS MEMBERS of AMERICA),” he shouted into his keyboard, before ending the highly misinformed spiel with an all-caps hashtag, clutching desperately to the final straws of his 21st Century relevance:
#PUTGODINSCHOOLSPLEASE!
Speaking to Daily News Journal, Wimley later claimed that LGBT discrimination wasn’t a problem at the 1,500-student high school.
“It’s everyone else that’s trying to make it a problem,” he said, suggesting that all clubs dealing with sexuality or religion should only be allowed to meet off-campus.
Another member of the pitchfork-wielding parent posse also drew a strange/ambitious comparison between homosexuality and drunk drivers.
“We should change the constitution so that drunks can drive drunk, they were ‘BORN THAT WAY’,” he wrote on the Facebook event page, dropping a super cute GaGa reference.
“Lets don’t (sic) discriminate against these poor pathetic people and their lifestyles. I saw a drunk go into a store and the clerk wouldn’t sell him any beer, so he just put it back on the shelf.” He continued.
“He should be like the queers and sue that store for everything they have, damn shame he was discriminated against because of how he was born!”
The faculty adviser of the GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance), Jenny Morrell (who I can only imagine looks and sounds just like Ms. Honey in Matilda) pointed out that last week’s meeting attracted around fifty students, and condemned the recent parental hysteria as “outrageous”.
“When I talk to my students about it I say, ‘OK, folks. This is outrageous. You don’t need to get worked up about it because you know it’s outrageous,’” she said.
Regarding Wimley’s dismissal of schoolyard discrimination, Morrell said, “This is a particular group of students that’s found hostility in the community. If we can’t give them a safe space in their faith community or in the (wider) community, then where else are they going to find it but in a public school system?”
I’m just going to go right ahead and close this disheartening little article with a quote from The Dixie Chicks – because I can and want to and think it’s super relevant.
“It’s a sad, sad story when a mother would teach her daughter that she outta hate a perfect stranger.”
Sigh.
