Friday, October 29, 2010

Arkanas School Board Member Who Wants Gays to Die Resigns

Arkansas' Midland School Board Member Clint McCance who ignited a fire storm with his Facebook statements that he wanted gays to die and who celebrated gay teen suicides is resigning from office. It's obviously wonderful that a hateful bigot like McCance will no be in a position to inflict his nastiness on school students. It remains a sad commentary, however, that someone like McCance could get elected in the first place. The resignation demonstrates that when the bright light of the media is focused on bigots it DOES make a difference. The big issue is getting the often lazy MSN to cover issues like this one and force the public to demand that officials who demonize other citizens pay the consequences. Here are highlights from Towleroad:
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Midland School Board Member Clint McCance told Anderson Cooper that he is resigning from the school board following a firestorm of outrage over remarks he made on Facebook celebrating the suicides of teens who killed themselves after homophobic bullying.
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Said McCance: "I am going to resign from the school board. It is to -- to help my community, to help my school. I don't want them to receive bad press or have a distraction because of some ignorant comments that have -- that I made. If they decide later, you know, a year, five years, 10 years from now to vote me back in, if my constituents want that, then -- then I will run again."
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Added McCance: "I -- you know, I would -- would like to extend an apology, especially to those to those -- to those families that have lost children, not just gay, heterosexual, all -- all children that feel like suicide's the only way out. It's a -- it saddens me, and -- but especially for those five -- five families that have just recently lost children. You know, I have -- I have brought more hurt on them with these comments. And that was never my intention. And I apologize for that, because they don't -- they don't deserve that. And I do feel genuinely bad for that, for them

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