The Anti-Gay Jihad in Tennessee

While things are very bad for LGBT citizens in Virginia - one almost wonders when a GOP backed bill will be introduced that would allow us to be hunted down and kill us - Virginia is not the only state where it seems to be open warfare against LGBT citizens. Also in the news is Tennessee where at Republican backed "Don't Say Gay" bill that seeks to ban Tennessee public schools from teaching about gay issues advanced in the Tennessee House. The Memphis Daily News looks at this toxic legislation with these highlights:

The legislation limits all sexually related instruction to "natural human reproduction science" in kindergarten through eighth grade.

Opponents of the measure said it's too broad and fear it would prevent teachers and others from speaking out against the bullying of gay teens.

The parents of one of two gay teenagers who committed suicide in Tennessee recently have said constant bullying over being gay led their son to kill himself.

"This is such a shame that we have ... a Legislature that doesn't care about us," said 21-year-old Eric Patton, one of a number of protesters that attended the meeting. "When we have more kids committing suicide because of this bill, the blood will be on their hands."

Hate, bigotry and cruelty toward others - the principal hallmarks of today's conservative Christians - are the bill's main characteristics. Meanwhile, The Nashville Scene looks at the recent gay teen suicides in Tennessee and rightfully asks the question of whether it will ever get better in that state. Here are highlights from that article:

In the midst of statewide, even nationwide concern over the impact of bullying, LGBT advocates and activists point to a spate of well-publicized bills in Tennessee's Republican-dominated legislature. These bills, they say, contribute to a culture of hostility toward gays and transgendered citizens — undermining their rights, restricting their restroom use, refusing to acknowledge their existence in the classroom.

By the most recent statistics, Tennessee has the 17th highest age-adjusted suicide rate in the U.S. These findings arrive among a list of other grim stats.

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network's 2009 National School Climate Survey found that LGBT students in Tennessee report levels of verbal abuse higher than the national average. Ninety-eight percent of Tennessee high schoolers have heard a peer use the word "gay" in a derogatory fashion, compared with a national rate of 89 percent. Likewise, 68 percent of Tennessee students did not report bullying to school faculty, and 65 percent kept instances of bullying from their families.

Compounding matters, fewer than one in 10 Tennessee students attends a school with a comprehensive anti-bullying policy. In addition, only one in seven could access LGBT information via school computers — the subject of a 2009 ACLU lawsuit against Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools and Knoxville Public Schools that was ultimately successful in overturning the policy.

Unfortunately, it takes time for things to reach Tennessee," Sanders says. "It's not to say it won't get better at some point, but right now, 2011-2012 — or you could say the time that coincides with the 107th General Assembly — it's the worst it's been since the marriage amendment went through the legislature. We're back really to — I think the worst point in history for Tennessee's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in years."

The irony, noted by Sanders and others, is that while conservative lawmakers dismiss equal rights legislation for gays on grounds that no group should be singled out for special treatment, they have had no compunctions whatsoever about punitive bills that specifically target LGBT citizens.

The most notorious example is HB600 — the blanket nullification of municipal anti-discrimination laws crafted by state Rep. Glen Casada, signed by Gov. Bill Haslam last year, and lobbied for in secret by powerful Christian conservative interests.

That was the first salvo in what has become a culture-war blitzkrieg. There is state Rep. Joey Hensley's HB 0229, the House version of Knoxville Sen. Stacey Campfield's "Don't Say Gay Bill," which bans any mention of sexuality other than the hetero-variety in K-8 sex education classes. There is HB 1153, which critics say codifies First Amendment protection for the very bullies who tormented Jacob Rogers and Phillip Parker. Most controversial — and LGBT advocates argue, most appalling — is HB 2279, which would make it a crime for a transgender person to use the restroom that best coincides with their gender identity.

"Comments like that, they really build a sort of hate, you know?" Crowder explains. "They sort of isolate people in a negative way, and that leads me to think that of course politicians play a major part in the forming of ideas that other people have. When they're sitting around trying to pass bills trying to protect bullies, it doesn't move society forward in being more accepting. If anything, it winds up hurting people."

As it turns out, science agrees with Crowder. A study published last year by Columbia University researcher Mark Hatzenbuehler found that in the state of Oregon, suicide rates among gay and straight teenagers alike are higher in politically conservative counties than their liberal counterparts, due in large part to a lack of school programs supporting LGBT youth.

There's much more in the article worth a read. What I'm left with is the conviction that one of the foulest forces in American society today is Christian conservatives. They make a mockery of the Gospel message and make me - and it seems many in the younger generations based on the growing "none: religious category - want to have absolutely nothing to do with Christianity.