Friday, September 16, 2011

Tammy Aaberg to Deliver 's Anti-Gay Bullying Petition to Michelle Bachmann

Michele Bachmann and her husband, "Marcia" Bachmann, do much to keep alive the myth that sexual orientation is a "choice" and therefore that it's perfectly fine to bully and beat the hell of out LGBT school students. Indeed, under their foul and warped version of Christianity, it's the "Christian" thing to do. It's open season on LGBT students and citizens. Despite her deep involvement in teaching and engendering homophobia, Michele Bachmann has refused to comment on the wave of bullying related suicides in the Anoka-Hennepin school district located in her home Congressional district. Bachmann likes to create a toxic atmosphere for LGBT students but doesn't have the guts - or decency - to address the fruits of her handiwork. Tammy Aaberg, whose son Justin (pictured above left) committed suicide after enduring incessant anti-gay bullying hopes to end Bachmann's efforts to dodge the issue when she delivers 130,000 petitions to Bachmann's office demanding that address the issue of anti-gay bullying in the schools.Bachmann must be challenged on the hate she helps engender and for the blood on her hands and the hands of her Christofascist allies. Here are highlights from Daily Kos on Aaberg's upcoming visit:

For months, Presidential candidate and Minnesota House Representative Michele Bachmann has been the subject of a Credo Action sponsored petition asking her to address the issue of anti-gay bullying in the schools. To date, the petition has gathered over 130,000 signatures.

Bachmann was selected because the district she represents is, not surprisingly, the ground zero of the LGBT teen bullying and suicide story. Bachmann's Minnesota Congressional District is home to the now infamous Anoka-Hennepin school district. A rash of teen suicides has swept the district, nine over two years. The Anoka-Hennepin school district has attracted international attention, including an extensive investigation by London's Daily Mail.

Anoka-Hennepin has also become the target of a Department of Justice investigation into their school policies regarding LGBT students and handling of incidents of school bullying.Justin Aaberg was once a student there, and now his mother, Tammy has agreed to deliver the petition signatures to Bachmann's office today. From Credo Action:

When Tammy Aaberg's son Justin was a 13-year-old student attending public school in Michele Bachmann's congressional district, he came out to his friends and family. What Tammy didn't know was the extent to which her son was being bullied at school. Not once was she notified by school officials of the harassment he faced.Just a few weeks after finishing his freshman year in high school, Justin hanged himself in his bedroom, and was later found by his mother and two brothers.

Now Tammy wants to take Justin's story directly to Rep. Michele Bachmann, who has been silent on the issue of anti-gay bullying in schools despite a string of nine recent teen suicides in her district. Tammy will present CREDO members' signatures at a meeting with Michele Bachmann's Minnesota office on Thursday.

And it's not just the U. S. Justice Department zeroing in on the abomination at the Anoka-Hennepin school district. The New York Times recently did an update story on a now pending lawsuit against the school district. Here are some highlights:

This sprawling suburban school system, much of it within Michele Bachmann’s Congressional district, is caught in the eye of one of the country’s hottest culture wars — how homosexuality should be discussed in the schools.

After years of harsh conflict between advocates for gay students and Christian conservatives, the issue was already highly charged here. Then in July, six students brought a lawsuit contending that school officials have failed to stop relentless antigay bullying and that a district policy requiring teachers to remain “neutral” on issues of sexual orientation has fostered oppressive silence and a corrosive stigma.

Also this summer, parents and students here learned that the federal Department of Justice was deep into a civil rights investigation into complaints about unchecked harassment of gay students in the district. The inquiry is still under way.

Through it all, conservative Christian groups have demanded that the schools avoid any descriptions of homosexuality or same-sex marriage as normal, warning against any surrender to what they say is the “homosexual agenda” of recruiting youngsters to an “unhealthy and abnormal lifestyle.”

In many larger cities, lessons in tolerance of sexual diversity are now routine parts of health education and antibully training. But in the suburbs the battle rages on, perhaps nowhere more bitterly than here in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, just north of Minneapolis. With 38,000 students, it is Minnesota’s largest school system, and most of it lies within the Congressional district of Ms. Bachmann, a Republican contender for president.

Ms. Bachmann has not spoken out on the suicides or the fierce debate over school policy and did not respond to requests to comment for this article. She has in the past expressed skepticism about antibullying programs, and she is an ally of the Minnesota Family Council, a Christian group that has vehemently opposed any positive portrayal of homosexuality in the schools.

Yes, as seems to increasingly be the case when hatred and the abuse and bullying of others is involved, its the "godly Christians" leading the charge to abuse and denigrate others. I again find myself believing that the world might be a far better place if Christianity became a dead religion.

No comments: