Clint McCance — the Arkansas school board member who took to Facebook to denounce Spirit Day as a “special purple fag day” that he would only partake in if all gays would “commit suicide” — might very well keep his job, since he is elected to the Midland School Board by voters, not school district administrators. Which means despite criticism from the district’s superintendent and condemnation from the Arkansas Department of Education and the Arkansas School Board Association, it’ll take the wishes of the Facebook group “Fire Clint McCance” and the Human Rights Campaign (which is buying full-page ads in local newspapers calling on him to resign) to oust McCance from his gig. Well, unless McCance can convince everyone he wasn’t the author of that bile.
Sign Anyway
http://www.change.org/petitions/view/demand_resignation_of_anti-gay_arkansas_school_board_member
ewe
He has a conflict of issue regarding particular children and should not be allowed to vote on any issues regarding all chidren because of that conflict. So if he stays till the end of his term then all he should do is sit there and stew quietly.
Cam
Oh give me a break, if he had said that female students should kill themselves. He would have already been fired.
Jeffree
You Tube has a very good MSNBC interview re: Clint McCance. They interview a reporter from the Arkansas Times (?) named Max Brantley.
(Sorry, I can’t link from this browser but search MSNBS and Midland & it should be easy to find.)
michael
I actually LOVE the fact the firing is so difficult because as this goes viral (google his name and you see how good ol’ Clint’s views are spreading) I think Clint is going to realize what he wanted kept to his FB page is now known by a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT of people…and unless Clint decides to move and join the Westboro Baptist Church I am guessing good ol’ Clint is going to start to think twice of whether he wants to remain on that Board…
‘Cause it’s going to be awfully hard to be so carefree while you’re goin’ fishin’ when you’re outed as a total. shithead. who. is. on. a. school. board. but. wishes. death. on. kids.
bob
@Cam: he can’t be fired because he’s an elected official….he must resign or be recalled by vote
Comixbear
@Cam: Unfortunately this is a very frequent trend nowadays…People make comments about gays that, if it had been said about any other minority or group of people, would have gotten them fired. But with gays, it is just freedom of speech.
Like Andrew Shirvell…Who wants to guess what would happen if he had been following a female student around, videotaping her and posting like he did online?
ewe
@bob: The other council members could walk out and boycott him as long as he stays. That would be courageous and meaningful.
Betsy Heckman
Everyone knows from previous experiences that, of course Clint McCance can AND should be fired. Getting voted into office doesn’t mean that you can do and say anything with impunity. In fact, aren’t ALL officials required to take some sort of oath of office after being elected…what was the oath he took…I’m reasonably sure it would be about serving students’ best interests….ALL students…not just the ones he approves of…but, he will learn the hard way that although, he may have like-minded people in his area, this is a whole brave, new world and no one gets off saying the things he said without a backlash from this country and, even people around the world…he has effectively screwed not just himself, but his entire family will feel the anger and hate he himself is responsible for creating.
boom
Why does he even want to keep his job? He hates children, he hates education, and he hates grammar–why doesn’t he just fuck off and become a fishing hermit, far far away from the rest of humanity?
Jeffree
As far as I can tell, the Arkansas Times is the only local “mainstream” media staying on top of this story. Reporter Max Brantley spoke with Mr. McCance twice by phone, and had been told by McC that a statement was being prepared. McC was consulting with an attorney.
Far as I can tell, no statement has been released.
Some local bloggers plan to demonstrate tomorrow. The Superintendent is “out of the office” until Friday.
CNN, MSNBC & some CBS affiliates, etc., also have been tracking the story, nationally)
[I can’t embed a link but you can go to arktimes {dot} com, click on ArkansasBlog, and then on today’s date to read more]
Harold Hughes
A bunch of us Arkansans are leaving Little Rock this morning to protest in Midland. We have vowed to return until the man has resigned.
Mike
What Clint McCance wrote on his facebook is horrible and frankly the gays are going to ruin him one way or another. I have trouble however finding evidence on grounds that he can be fired. (Hear me out before you send me angry responses). To my knowledge his facebook is on a private setting correct? He said this in the semi privacy of his facebook and was ousted by a person who had access to it. It’s not like Clint McCance said this at a school event or god-forbid to a student. The man has a right to his opinion no matter how horrible or how much we disagree with it. As long as he is able to uphold his position for the good and well-being of the students, he can believe in whatever he wants.
The day we start telling people what they can’t believe and say because it goes against our values and beliefs makes us just as bad as these twisted evangelicals and neo-conservatives. We become our worst enemies.
Lefty
@Mike: It’s not about him not being allowed to hold an opinion which goes against our values, it’s about someone with a position of power/responsibility in a school that almost certainly has gay pupils openly expressing the desire that all gay kids should kill themselves.
Can you not see how his position is untenable?
Leo Sigh
I live in Thailand, where gays, transexuals and just about everybody else are accepted as ‘normal’, so when I see this garbage emanating from an elected officials mouth in the US it just blows me away. You would NEVER hear anything like this coming out of the mouth of a Thai. The majority of them have gay friends or neighbors, so no way would they bad mouth them like this.
I’m honestly glad I left the US years ago. It’s become an even more racist, bigoted, homophobic place than it was when I first moved there. No thanks. I’ll take Thailand any day of the week.
gollygeegaygoy
Thugs when arrested frequently cry like babies, not for their victims, but for themselves. Equally fundamentalist bigots under the spotlight play the victim. Check out his sick supporters. http://www.facebook.com/pages/ProClint-McCance/113190085412448
meego
@gollygeegaygoy: The ignorance, stupidity and bigotry of his supporters is mind boggling! What planet are these people on? They obviously don’t have the same god as me because my god is a god of love, not hate.
Mark
The new face of terrorism. They are just as guilty for not holding their peer accountable.
Lefty
I find it really baffling that not only is he not losing his position at the school, but that people are actually defending this along freedom of speech lines.
First of all, if someone who held this position at a school openly stated that he’d like to see all teenagers (whatever their orientation) kill themselves he would lose his position immediately shortly before being told to seek professional help. Whether he stated his views in public or private is neither here nor there, because anyone he told in private who had a modicum of moral decency would inform the authorities of his desire immediately.
A school that teaches teenagers cannot under any circumstances have on its board a man who actually wants all teenagers to kill themselves – this should be blatantly obvious to anyone and it’s ridiculous to think that anyone could feel he should keep his position under those circumstances.
Now anyone arguing that this scumbag should keep his position at the school is merely doing so because they don’t think the gay kids being taught in his school should be treated with the same care and consideration as their straight peers.
That – while a school board member expressing the wish that all school children should kill themselves is not only repulsive but very worrying – a school board member who expresses the wish that all gay kids should kill themselves is just a man exercising his right to free speech.
No!
It’s a man in a position of influence and power at a school expressing beliefs which are not only homophobic but – as with a man in a similar position expressing the desire to see ALL kids commit suicide – it’s also deeply worrying and he should be removed from his position at the school and asked very delicately to go and get some professional psychiatric help – and probably made sure that he never works around children ever again.
If he doesn’t lose his position at that school then the school itself obviously feels that a man as clearly psychologically imbalanced and dangerous as McCance are more important than the rights and safety of the gay pupils inside their school that they’re supposed to care for and keep safe.
And anyone defending him on freedom of speech grounds obviously feels the same too.
Lefty
Whoops! That last paragraph should have said:
If he doesn’t lose his position at that school then the school itself obviously feels that *the rights of* a man as clearly psychologically imbalanced and dangerous as McCance
are more important than the rights and safety of the gay pupils inside their school that they’re supposed to care for and keep safe.
meego
@Lefty: Very well said.
Jeffree
McCance is reportedly running AGAIN for the Midland School Board on Tuesday. Guess what—he’s unopposed!
B
No. 9 · Betsy Heckman wrote, “Everyone knows from previous experiences that, of course Clint McCance can AND should be fired. Getting voted into office doesn’t mean that you can do and say anything with impunity”
Sorry, but he can’t be fired due to being elected by the voters, but he could be recalled or maybe impeached (if he committed a suitable crime). It’s basically up to the voters to not re-elect him, or to recall him if the rules in his state or town allow that. You generally can’t impeach someone (successfully) unless a crime has been committed, and merely being a total jerk is not a crime.
When we got our first openly gay elected officials, it was only the most enlightened districts/states/etc. that would vote them into office. If they could be summarily fired, the homophobes would just have kicked them out of office, and we would never have made any progress politically. Unfortunately, nobody has come up with a mechanism that will keep unpopular people who turn out to be civil rights leaders in office while allowing us to instantly eject assholes like Clint McCance.
B
No. 22 · Jeffree wrote, “McCance is reportedly running AGAIN for the Midland School Board on Tuesday. Guess what—he’s unopposed!”
I wouldn’t read much into his being unopposed – nobody realized what a jerk he is until a few days ago, way too late for someone else to run.
The best possible outcome would be if he got only 2 votes – from him and his mother, assuming all live in the town. If he has a wife, I wouldn’t count on her voting for him if he is that much of a jerk at home.
joe
The jerk’s name is Clint McCance.
Business He Owns:
Clint’s Carpet Cleaning
7569 Batesville Blvd,
Pleasant Plains, AR
(501) 268-7360.
Personal Info
Clint McCance
160 Songbird Rd
Pleasant Plains, AR 72568-9774
(501) 345-2791 (Home telephone number)