We recently introduced you to two teens who started a GSA in their Bible-Belt Tennessee high school amidst opposition and protests, and that opposition has taken an outrageously homophobic turn.
At a school board meeting earlier this week, parent Robert Widelick spewed out enough antigay bigotry and stereotypes to make Franklin Graham proud:
“The mainstream media won’t report it, but the Internet is packed with truths about the radical gay political agenda and lifestyles. In order to get what they want, they’re targeting kids. If you’ve ever heard of Kevin Jennings, he’s the founder of the GLSEN (Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network).
In 2006, they had a conference up in Massachusetts where they bused in middle school and high school kids that were members of the GSA, and they were subjected to stuff like fisting, rimming, oral sex, anal sex. The GLSEN does not belong in our schools.”
In a state that promotes abstinence-only sex education, we’re not surprised Widelick jumps to the most incendiary conclusion possible.
Making anything gay-related entirely about sex is the oldest trick in the book for homophobes. However, Widelick was countered by a straight ninth-grader and member of the GSA who spoke out in support of it:
How about we take this to the next level?
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“We have it to end the demeaning of the LGBT community. My point is, this community needs this group, and not just the school. You can’t tear the club down unless you get rid of all non-curricular clubs. You can tear our signs down, and you can tear the tears out of our eyes … but so far we have the legal right to keep meeting.”
The GSA is safe for now, though the school board is mulling new rules for all student clubs and will discuss them when they meet again next month.
Jeffrey Scronce
Teens are pretty good at exposing themselves to same-sex practices. Hell, sex practices in general. Do people just not remember being teenagers?
Richard Murrieta
So AA and NA are going to expose you to binge drinking and narcotics? Educate yourself and realize these kids need understanding, help and support.
Michael Edmonds
Frankly, they should be more concerned about the straight teen couples , prostituting themselves as a couple willing to perform their physical intimacies on webcams .
Watch one, you’d be shockingly awoken to how professional they are in ” we’ll do this and we’ll do that , how much to watch ”
Always so quick to blame what they fear.
Brian JC Kneeland
does extreme mean healthy?
Mack
In this day and age, unless they’re somewhere there is no internet or cellphones, kids pretty much already know about sex. You know their backward parents aren’t going to teach them. This is nothing more than an excuse to stop anything Gay. If they’re more concerned about their kids, then they should look at their cell phones once in a while.
Patrick Crawford
Or, it’ll make other students tolerate of their LGBT classmates. I wish i had a GSA when i was in hs. And that was only 15 years ago. Why is Tennessee so stupid?
LubbockGayMale
Mr Widelick (what a name for innuendo!) appears to be indulging in hopeful rhetoric; ‘don’t expose my kids, expose me!’
RIck Dean
Ridiculous.
gaym50ish
Enemies of GSAs always bring up the so-called “fistgate” incident. It concerns a conference in 2000 at Tufts University, sponsored not only by GLSEN but by the Massachusetts Department of Education and the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth.
The conference was for 14- to 21-year-olds but was attended by a few who were younger, with parental permission. Kids were allowed to ask questions about sex in a safe environment, and one of the questions was about fisting. An anti-gay organization called MassResistance had infiltrated the conference and secretly taped the ensuing discussion.
Margot Abels, a state employee who participated in the discussion, was fired. She sued the state and won her job back via arbitration in 2001. According to the arbitrator’s report, the parts of the tape that were not released had “important messages about AIDS prevention, abstinence, postponement, alternative forms of sexual intimacy and the need for students to enforce their own boundaries of personal security.”
What MassResistance did was outrageous, and those involved should have been arrested for recording and releasing discussions that were supposed to be confidential and “safe” for the gay youth. I hope that Tyler Clementi’s suicide and the prosecution of Dharun Ravi has taught these groups the dangers of spying on vulnerable gay kids.
Berkleyguy
This is the most absurd assertion I have heard. This is a great organization and offers affirmation to young teens who are already aware of their sexuality and struggling with it as well as straight allies who support them. This organization helps with bullying in the schools and many times is the catalyst that prevents a teen suicide. The organization does not promote anything but healthy attitudes and relationships and every school district nationwide should have active and highly visible chapters supported by the administration of those districts
James Rumsey
They should be worried about the priest exposing himself to their kids.
Billysees
@Berkleyguy:
Good points —
This is a great organization…offers affirmation to young teens who are already aware of their sexuality and struggling with it as well as straight allies who support them.
This organization helps with bullying in the schools and many times is the catalyst that prevents a teen suicide.
The organization does…promote…healthy attitudes and relationships and every school district nationwide should have active and highly visible chapters supported by the administration of those districts.
Masc Pride
The gay community is the only community that claims people who aren’t bigots as allies. It sounds SO desperate and this whole gay-straight alliance thing is silly. Just try to imagine a black-white alliance or a female-male alliance. It’s stupid and pointless and totally reeks of desperation and approval-seeking. People aren’t supposed to be bigots. The reward for not being an a–hole is not being an a–hole. Let’s stop calling them allies just because they’re not a–holes.
Queer Comedy
Most teenagers experiment with sex. This is not news. Having a gay-straight alliance has NOTHING to do with sex.
Vivienne Warner
Idiots
1EqualityUSA
As long as there have been schools there have been gay straight alliances, we just never had a title for it.