Free to get your hate on

This post over at Pandagon is worth your time to read, it's about a fundie family attacking a school district for having the balls to include a book that shows same sex families. Here's the text that so offends:

"Laura and Kyle live with their two moms, Joyce and Emily, and a poodle named Daisy. It takes all four of them to give Daisy her bath."

[...]

"Robin's family is made up of her dad, Clifford, her dad's partner, Henry, and Robin's cat, Sassy. Clifford and Henry take turns making dinner for their family."

I had at least expected some hot gay sex, but sadly, no. The emails back and forth between religious wacko dad and the school are definitely worth scanning and if you can make any sense out of dad's argument I'd love to hear it. Jesse's own take goes a little something like this:

Parents have every right to intervene in teaching "homosexual family values", whatever the hell that means. At home. During all the time the kids aren't in school. However, in school, it's not the school's job to teach kids that some people hate them or their families. Do we have anti-Semitism week to give "equal time" to white supremacist parents?
[...]
The Parkers define their boundaries of religious rights as including complete control of what their children are exposed to in all circumstances. This, of course, is idiotic. Accomodation of the Parkers would simply lead to parents requesting that their children be let out of any number of lessons. Don't teach my kid about slavery! Don't teach my kid about the Enlightenment! Don't teach my kid about division!

There is no violation of their religious rights, as discussion of the existence of a phenomenon and/or of certain people does not constitute a statement of value upon that phenomenon or those people, unless it becomes one. Unlike, say, the Pledge case, the school is not asking the child or anyone else in the room to make an affirmative and approving statement about anything the least bit controversial.
[...]
Let's think about this demand for a second: they want to be notified if any discussion of same-sex relationships occurs in the school as a part of a planned activity. They also want their son to be removed from the room if anyone, at any time, brings up gays or lesbians. Given that there are students with gay and lesbian parents and/or family members and/or friends, the kid would be escorted out of the room several times a week just so he wouldn't hear about Harriet's dad's work at the museum in science class, because gay science is the worst kind.


But this comment also seemed worth quoting in its entirity:

You know, I think in the end there's a pretty clear fact at work here.

I'm unconcerned if my daughter finds out that some people believe that homosexuality is "wrong," that some people believe the Earth is 6,000 years old, that some people believe Saddam Hussein personally gave the order to blow up the World Trade Center, etcetera. I'm unconcerned because I expect that the things I teach her will be challenged at many times in her life, and that if they can't stand up to questioning, they're not very valid. I believe that my daughter will read about the evils of homosexuality and, after careful consideration, determine that those who hate gays are morons.

It never seems to be the same for those on the right. They always seem to live in fear that someone will tell their kids something that conflicts with their teachings, and that their kids will be lost forever to them.

Why is that?

I think it's because, at heart, many of those on the right are terrified that they're wrong. They are haunted by the thought that maybe gay people aren't the root of all evil, maybe Iraq was a dumb idea, maybe we are just a tiny speck of a world among a vast infinity of the universe. They are able to deny it to themselves, to hide it in compartments they dare not look into.

But they know that if their kids read the wrong thing, it will get their kids to thinking--and the kids might just come to the "wrong" conclusions. And that would force them to face their own fears.

I'm not scared of being wrong; heck, I'm wrong at least six times a day. And I'm sure in sixteen years or so my daughter will come home from college convinced I'm an idiot. (Heck, that'll probably happen in about nine years when she comes home from middle school.) But I'm not afraid my daughter and I may disagree; I hope we do. I hope that she teaches me that my views on something are wrong. I hope that because I want her to be strong and independent, to think for herself and not let anyone--not me, not her mom, not anyone--tell her what she can and can't believe.

It's not that way on the other side of the aisle. More's the pity.

Posted by: Jeff Fecke

(no subject)

As always you should really be reading Digby, particularly his latest entry on a courageous soldier who blew the whistle on some truly horrific events he had the misfortune of witnessing in Iraq. Everything from extortion to torture to murder. If not for his bravery these hideous acts would have been neatly swept under the rug, and I expect that all he'll get in return for doing what was right is villification from the Right.

After discussing the story Digby goes on to make one of the most heartfelt and deeply moving posts I've yet read:

I know that war is hell and all, but it's really important to keep in perspective one particular thing. We invaded Iraq; it didn't attack us. We weren't invited in either. We just did it. And as we now know, the reasons we gave for doing it were false. And when we got there we were so unprepared that we allowed the country to immediately devolve into chaos. Out of that chaos an insurgency developed. Our reaction was to "take the gloves off" -- in a country we had allegedly just liberated -- the same way we "took the gloves off" with al Qaeda.

The vast majority of Iraqis were not Saddam's bitter-enders, not insurgents and certainly not terrorists. They had just spent 30 years under the thumb of a totalitarian dictator. And yet we were rampaging through their homes, "hunting insurgents" and treating them as if they were an enemy. We sent in too few troops and those we sent were untrained and inexperienced. And we let the CIA and other unacountables have a free hand.

Again, these were Iraqis, the people we claimed to be liberating --- not a country of terrorists who threatened our way of life. And yet I think many of our troops did not understand this. And why would they? The president of the United States constantly made it sound as if they were one in the same. He evoked 9/11 in the same breath as Iraq over and over again. Many of our troops believed that the Iraqis were responsible for the terrorist attacks. And with the instructions to "take the gloves off" they took out their rage against those they believed were responsible.

This is why the chickenhawks should be forced go to war. It's not that they must be willing to die for their country; nobody's dying for America over there --- they are dying for George W. Bush. It's because if young (and not so young) men and women are going to be forced to have blood on their hands like this; to be involved in the killing of innocents and torture and abuse due to political incompetence, then the political supporters of this war should have to share in their nightmares and their guilt. Let them be the ones fending off nervous breakdowns and suicide, let them have this on their consciences. The chickenhawks who support "taking the gloves off" in an unjust war should be forced to be the ones who do this barbaric dirty work on behalf of the man they see as the great deliverer of freedom and democracy.

I sincerely hope that George W. Bush's God exists. Because if he does, he's sending that SOB straight to hell.