Thought getting your local high school to set up a gay-straight alliance was a difficult job? Then get a load of this Wyoming school that won’t even let a “no place for hate” sign hang on the premises.
The Anti-Defamation League’s attempt at branding a public school as, uh, a safe place for students has been thwarted by the school board.
School board members in Wheatland rejected a request this week to put back up banners for an anti-hate campaign at several of their schools. The reason: They were sponsored by a gay and lesbian organization. One Wyoming attorney says the action may be unconstitutional.
Platte County School District 1 trustees voted 4-3 to keep the Anti-Defamation League’s “No Place for Hate” banners down at Wheatland High and West Elementary. The schools were two of 25 in Colorado and Wyoming taking part in the program. One of the sponsors listed on the banner is the Gay and Lesbian Fund for Colorado. Wheatland board members and parents took issue with that, according to the district. The others sponsors are Qwest and the David & Laura Merage Foundation.
Which makes sense, given what supporters of the sign are up against.
“The board thought it was inappropriate to have that sponsorship hanging up in the school,” said Stuart Nelson, the district’s superintendent. The banners, which had been allowed by district administrators, were removed after complaints. Some students asked to have them put back up, but the board refused.
Board member Lee Dunham said Wheatland is an “ultraconservative community” and that he has feelings about including the fund on the banner. He said the district isn’t ready to include that group. “If this is the way one chooses, then they can lead this particular lifestyle, but I don’t believe it needs to be publicly displayed in a school,” Dunham said.
Joe Fabian, another board member, said he believes the Anti-Defamation League is pushing an “agenda that is pro-gay marriage” and that the community of Wheatland is not supportive of that. “They wouldn’t want the organization, the Anti-Defamation League, dictating to their children that an alternate lifestyle is a normal lifestyle,” he said.
Lukas P.
Let’s just post signs with the cheery motto “A Great Place for Hate” in the school and throught the county. Truth in advertising would prevail.
How twisted and malfunctioning does someone’s mind need to be to find the “No Place” signs as an advertisement for homosexuality? Is bullying actually something they encourage in this part of Wyoming?
There we go again, pushing our sick perverted message of tolerance onto unsuspecting school children and their families.
Jeff K.
Um, I thought the ADL was a Jewish lobby?
JRD
Hilariously, by not wanting to be bashed (or anyone else to be bashed,this would cover the Jewish kids and the overweight kids too), we are pushing an agenda. I want what he’s having!
Chicagotist
@Jeff K.: ADL is an organization that was started by Jews and deals with mainly Jewish concerns. However, they also have a wider anti-hate and religious freedom agenda. For example, they (along with other “ethnic” groups) authored an amicus brief in the Prop 8 trial in California (the state trial) in support of same-sex marriages.
dizzy spins
I dont even see the Gay and Lesbian Fund listed on the sign, unless its in tiny print in the bottom. Which means a kid would have to read the small print and infer their inclusion meant gay marriage was A-OK! Wow, paranoid much?
alan brickman
very sad the kids will know this is bullshit…
Wade macMorrighan
That’s just SICK! I guess they don’t remember that one of the most well-known, national Gay bashings occurred in their state–the death of Matthew Shephard!
Lukas P.
Just checked: Wyoming has 430 Jewish residents, making up less that 0.1% of the population.
The ADL has supported BGLTQ causes, among many others, as noted above, even if some members do not eat BLTs [the sandwich, I hasten to clarify!]. Kudos to the ADL for standing for righteousness — and free speech.
Famous Wyoming persons include Dick Cheney, whose daughter Mary is lesbian.
Chicagotist
@Lukas P.: Not to mention another famous person from Wyoming – Matthew Shepard. Laramie is about 2 hours drive from Wheatland, Wy, in the neighboring county.
Wyoming Resident
I am from Wyoming and this makes me feel disgusted. I am not gay but i have a lot of gay people close to me, both gay and lesbian. This is a step backward in our society. Wyoming claims to be the equality state, its even on the state seal… This needs to be known through out the US.
Bill
I once saw a woman poke her daughter right in the eye with her ‘protect the children’ sign at a marraige rally. True story.
There was blood involved and eveything.
The mother stood there shouting at the top of her lungs ‘protect the children from the homos’ while her daughter had blood gushing out of her eye.
And I feel that sums these people up perfectly.
It is THEY who are damaging ‘the children.’
I guess since many of them have suffered eye damage as a relust of ‘protecting the children,’ many of them simply don’t see it.
tavdy79
I am sick and tired of conservative Christians forcing their lifestyle down the throats of LGBT people. I mean look at that lifestyle, it’s sick! Seriously, seriously sick! All that sexual repression, the mental gymanstics they have to do to fit reality to their religious beliefs, the complete inability to empathise with or respect people who have different opinions.
And the really freaky thing is that these people choose to be like they are – God knows they weren’t born that way, and they’d be the first to admit that it’s a conscious choice to be born-again. I mean, “born again”? WTF is up with that? I was born more than sufficiently the first time round, given the trouble my mother had with me – always have had a big head – so why on Earth would I want to go through it all a second time?
So tell me, who in their right minds would choose to live like that? Well? Exactly, no-one would, so they can’t be in their right minds. They have to be sick. It has to be some kind of mental illness, and the fact that they want the rest of us to suffer from it as well proves the fact.
Bill
@ NO 12 – TAVDY70:
“So tell me, who in their right minds would choose to live like that?”
52% of Americans choose religion.
Apparently reality is too dark for them.
My only regret is that when they die, they will not have the consciousness to understand that they re 6 feet under and nothing but worm food.
Just like us faggots, dykes and heathens.
I would LOVE to see that realization on any one of their hateful faces.
BenT.
I go to WHS and live outside of Wheatland. I’m a junior and I’m gay and I can tell you that that is hard. I’m not out but I joined No Place For Hate and its a great program. No it didn’t make me think yea I want to tell the world but it did make me see that if or when i do there are people who would be ok with it. And even with the banners down I know that. But there are kids I know who didn’t get to know that and that sucks. It would mean alot if people helped us fight for this. I wish I could do more, and I’ll do what I can, but we need help from the outside. i hope they sue the pants off the school board. There is some really good comments on Wheaterville website that I put up here. This is what everyone reads in Wheatland so if you hve comments that would encourage people that would be awesome. It’s hard to do from the inside.
Republican
@BenT.:
Keep up the good work, bud! Thanks for the link.
wyoresident
I just want to add that not all of us living in wyoming feel this way. In fact, many of the parents and students in Wheatland are protesting this decision.
BenT.
There’s an online petition you can sign now, and they want 10,000 signatures which is like three times as many people as even live in Wheatland, but I say hey let’s show them!
I think this is the link, but it’s also on http://www.wheaterville.com at the top of the page.
http://www.wheaterville.com/ViewStory.aspx?g=82903957-2fec-463c-a647-e976a0bd0ba3
terrwill
One of the nurses whom tended to Matthew Shepard was interviewed and she spoke of the most gut wrenching thing I ever heard, she said that when Matt was brought in his entire face and body was caked with dirt and blood. The only part not caked was his face where his tears had washed away a path down his cheeks………
And yet these scumbags in Wyoming still hate………….
BenT.
@terrwill: It’s not all of Wyoming, and this is our chance to take a really bad thing, the ban, and show people that Wyoming, and Wheatland too, doens’t have to be a place of hate.
Our petition has 100 sigs. We want 10,000. PLEASE, go sign it, and Twitter it, and send it to 10 people like the anti-gay people do. We want to hand the school board 10,000 signatures from a school of 300.
You can get right to the petition from http://www.wheaterville.com at the very top there. It takes like 2 minutes and it would mean a lot and could help alot. http://www.wheaterville.com also wants people to write editorials to keep the dialogue going. Our paper is a weekly paper that no one reads but everyone reads Wheaterville.
thank you to everyone.
terrwill
@BenT.: I don’t mean to cast shade over your whole state. I just can’t see how anyone from Wy. can ever have the balls to utter any anti Gay shit after what happened to Matt Shepard. I give you kudos for having the balls to be out and proud while still a Jr. in HS……….
WHS tchr
As a teacher at WHS, I’m ready for positive action to get the banner back up. After days of bitterness, sadness, and being out-and-out pissed off, I’ve reached a good place. I appreciate the comments that not all of us are racist, biggot, Nazi-lovers here in Wheatland. The four members who voted for the banner to come down are the minority, which is ironic in itelf; I can finally appreciate the humor! Please sign the mentioned petition at wheaterville.com and let’s move forward. Enough verbal jousting; take action!
BenT.
I’m proud to be from Wheatland. I am not out at WHS, but when I leave for college I will go somewhere that I can be. It’s not Wheatland’s “fault” that I’m not out, I’m just not ready to be. I’m really thankful for the education that I’m getting. I think i’m lucky though, and I know that there are kids that are scared at school and even at home. That’s wrong. this program helped. What’s happening now is making people take sides, and maybe that’s ok I don’t know. I do know that what has been said by the school board has set us way way back. Thanks to everyone from all over. Please know that Wheatland and Wyoming really is a good place with alot of good people, and they are coming out (ha ha) all over the place.