Virginia Study: Increased School Bullying In Areas That Voted For Trump

2016 Virginia presidential vote by county.

A new survey of Virginia school students that correlates bulling with areas that voted for Donald Trump has yielded results that, personally, I do not find surprising whatsoever: Bullying is higher in areas of Virginia that voted for Trump in contrast to areas that voted for Hillary Clinton.  The results parallel the findings of past studies cited on this blog hat found that children raised in "conservative Christian" homes showed lee empathy toward others and were more inclined towards bullying of others. Given that evangelical "Christians" are Trump's strongest support group, it should be little surprise, therefore, that bully levels are higher in pro-Trump areas.   A piece at NPR looks at the study findings.  Here are excerpts:

After the 2016 presidential election, teachers across the country reported they were seeing increased name-calling and bullying in their classrooms. Now, research shows that those stories — at least in one state — are confirmed by student surveys.

Francis Huang of the University of Missouri and Dewey Cornell of the University of Virginia used data from a school climate survey taken by over 150,000 students across Virginia. They looked at student responses to questions about bullying and teasing from 2015 and 2017. Their findings were published Wednesday in Educational Researcher, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Educational Research Association.

In the 2017 responses, Huang and Cornell found higher rates of bullying and certain types of teasing in areas where voters favored Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.

Seventh- and eighth-graders in areas that favored Trump reported bullying rates in spring 2017 that were 18 percent higher than students living in areas that went for Clinton. They were also 9 percent more likely to report that kids at their schools were teased because of their race or ethnicity.

In the 2015 data, there were "no meaningful differences" in those findings across communities, the researchers wrote.

While bullying rates in areas of Virginia that voted Republican went up in 2017, rates went down in places that favored Clinton.

Their findings could lend credence to the anecdotal reports from teachers around the country after the election, says Dorothy Espelage, a psychology professor at the University of Florida who researches bullying and school safety in middle and high schools.

"Anybody that's in the schools is picking up on this," she says. "You don't have to be a psychologist or a sociologist to understand that if these conversations are happening on the TV and at the dinner table that these kids will take this perspective and they're going to play out in the schools."

"Parents should be mindful of how their reactions to the presidential election, or the reactions of others, could influence their children," Cornell, a psychologist and professor of education at UVA, said in a statement. "And politicians should be mindful of the potential impact of their campaign rhetoric and behavior on their supporters and indirectly on youth."

Regardless of where and how it happens, adds Francis Huang, "bullying is something that can still be addressed and brought down in schools."

Again, to me the findings are not surprising.  Trump's base represents some of the foulest, most racist and most cruel elements of America's population. While they parade around sanctimoniously pretending they are pious - at least while not carrying their AK-47's - they simply are not nice people.  Indeed, the biblical Pharisees look like nice and amazing people compared to Trump supporters and evangelical Christians.

In terms of Virginia itself, the red areas on the map above should be avoided if one values progressive values and decent treatment of others.

The Covington Catholic Students - a Calculated Art of Making People Uncomfortable?

At the risk of diving into the debate of what really happened in the confrontation between a group of white Covington Catholic High students and Native Americans, I suspect many individuals will interpret what they saw take place based on their own prejudices and allegiances to Donald Trump or their contempt and animus towards Trump.  Personally, I view wearing a Trump MAGA hat as the nearest thing one can do to donning KKK robes without actually doing so. My Republican "friends" will object, but supporting a vile racist who espouses racist policies, like it or not, makes one a racist or at best a white supremacist sympathizer. Thus, the Covington students wearing MAGA hats to me do not merit the benefit of the doubt.  Moreover, as a column in the Washington Post points out, one can sometimes be intimidating and threatening without violence.  A smug smile or sneer can speak volumes as many in the LGBT know from first hand experience. Given other stories surfacing about the bigotry and homophobia rampant at Covington Catholic, I suspect these students who are now proclaiming their innocence may, in fact, have know precisely what they were doing.  Here are column highlights:

“Rorschach test” already feels like such a weary metaphor for what happened last weekend on the Mall between a Covington Catholic High School student and a Native American elder. But it’s hard to think of another recent incident that’s metastasized so quickly and been interpreted so disparately — an insight into how you see the world and how you understand your place in it.

Meanwhile, the story grows, or maybe it finishes: On Wednesday morning Nick Sandmann, the smiling teenager at the center, sat for an interview on NBC’s “Today” show. “My position is that I was not disrespectful to Mr. Phillips,” he told Savannah Guthrie.

We could quibble about his word choices — is “listening to him and standing there” what really happened? — but that’s the point: We quibble. Conversations unravel. All week long, personal experiences have been unpacked like suitcases and brought forth as evidence.

A man I know who went to an all-boys Catholic school saw only typical adolescence in the videos: a group of kids, already hyped up by an encounter with the profanity-yelling Black Hebrew Israelites, firing off testosterone like careless sparklers.

I floated this with another friend, a woman, who raised an eyebrow. Maybe some of the other students were caught up in a fog of poorly supervised hormones, but Sandmann wasn’t, this friend pointed out. He wasn’t screaming. He was making the conscious decision to stand in Phillips’s path, and to smile.

It's the smile that we've been dissecting all week. Sandmann meant it to defuse the situation, he told Guthrie.

Is provocation a chant and a drum, or is provocation a flat smile and a decision not to move? (“As far as standing there, I had every right to do so,” Sandmann said.) Which one of them is the peaceful act, which one could be misinterpreted?

Here’s where the Rorschach test comes in: As much as we might try to see what happened from Sandmann’s perspective, or from Phillips’s, the perspective we’re ultimately seeing it from is our own.

The most insidious bully in my junior high wasn’t someone who stuffed smaller kids in lockers, but a smaller kid himself: slender, handsome, with a last name that appeared on a big building in town. What he would do, mostly, was stare. Stare and smile, and walk very close to his less-rich, less-handsome targets. Not touching, but close enough to show that he could have touched them if he wanted to.

And it’s funny, how awful “not doing anything” can feel to the person it’s not being done to. How infuriating or unsettling.

It’s funny, what a slender rich kid’s vehement denial can do to your mind-set: Maybe he wasn’t doing anything. Maybe he was just smiling. Maybe he was just smiling even when you made it clear you were trying to pass, and you were on the verge of tears? Maybe he was trying to defuse the situation, and you’re the one who was crazy.

That scene in front of the Lincoln Memorial was a circus . . .That interview with Sandmann was measured, and filled with the right words: “in hindsight,” “respect.”  But I don’t think my friends and I were crazy in junior high. I think our classmate knew exactly where the line was, and how to walk up to it. I think making people uncomfortable wasn’t the point; the point was making sure the uncomfortable people knew there was nothing they could do about it.

The Covington Catholic students were minors who were apparently mature enough to participate in the abortion debate — one of the most complicated issues of our time, and what brought them to Washington — but not mature enough to walk away from hecklers.
Does it matter that they were in MAGA hats? It’s hard for me to imagine anyone wearing them now, in 2019, wouldn’t understand they’re not just a sartorial choice.

It’s hard for me to talk about what happened on the Mall without bringing in every experience I've ever had: the knowledge that people who are used to having power know how to wield it in subtle ways. The knowledge that I’ve been on the receiving end of it, and once or twice, the giving end of it.

Maybe you think Sandmann didn’t do anything and is a victim of an Internet mob.
Or maybe you think, as Guthrie wondered aloud in the interview Wednesday, that standing there was its own act of aggression. The appearance of doing nothing while actually doing something.

It’s hard to imagine anyone’s minds changing by this point, though.

Perhaps my perspective is colored by the bullying I received in high school as a gay kid trying desperately to hide in the closet.  Or perhaps I flash back to the smiling homophobes who forced me from a law firm for being gay. Then again, perhaps I am influenced by the toxicity of Roman Catholicism.  Whatever Sandmann claims, I continue to believe that he knew exactly what he was doing.  The nature of his smile said all I needed to see/hear.

Why Trump’s Attempt to Scare North Korea May Horrifically Backfire

Throughout his real estate career, Donald Trump has used bullying - added to ignoring the law and associating with mafia figures - to accomplish his goals.  Stated another way, he thinks he can do whatever he wants and people are supposed to give in to him. It's a characteristic of many narcissist that they are so self-absorbed that they try to ride rough shod over others.  Frighteningly, this mindset now animates the White House and it could yet have truly disastrous consequences for literally millions of people. With North Korea, Trump doesn't seem to grasp that he is facing a regime headed by an individual (or individuals) even more un-tethered from reality than he is himself.  Throw in huge doses of paranoia and a near martyr complex among North Korea's leaders and it makes for an immensely dangerous mix.  My fear is that Trump is in way, way over his head and that, if he acts in his usual manner, a catastrophe could be in the offing.  Here are excerpts from New York Magazine that underscore the dangers we face with an unfit commander-in-chief in the White House:

President Trump and his advisers have taken a more and more threatening stance toward North Korea since January, and the isolated dictatorship has responded with threats of its own. Foreign-policy experts say a breaking point could be looming. Saturday marked the 105th anniversary of the birth of North Korea’s founder, Kim Il-sung, and the regime there commemorated the holiday with displays of military force — though, thankfully, not with a nuclear test, as many experts feared. Still, there is a sense of a collision course. Several days ago, the U.S. military moved a brigade of warships to the Korean Peninsula, as a show of force. Then on Friday, the North Korean government threatened to attack major American military bases in South Korea, saying it could destroy them almost instantly.

[W]e spoke with George Lopez, professor emeritus at the Krok Institute for International Peace Studies, which is based at Notre Dame University. He has advised the United Nations and various governments on North Korea and sanctions issues since 1992. Lopez also proposes a set of directions for getting out of this conflict — directions that favor diplomacy over military force. What American leaders fail to understand, he says, is that they can’t scare North Korea by threatening war.

Obama’s people told Trump’s top foreign-policy people this was their biggest worry. Obama seems to have told Trump in their one-on-one meeting that North Korea was going to be Trump’s biggest dilemma and that he needed a regional approach to it.

[T]his [past] week, the administration used what many would call a prohibited weapon in the Afghan theater, and it has also launched these strikes on Syria. . . . I think it was not without some delight in the White House that there was a secondary messaging effect to North Korea. These actions went in conjunction with the U.S. moving a small Navy brigade to the Korean Peninsula, and also with Trump’s meeting and phone calls with the Chinese president, to signal that our patience is running out.

Meanwhile, it’s unclear who is the Asia expert most influential in the White House’s national security staff, and the last time I checked the State Department chart, we still didn’t have a fully staffed Bureau of Asian Affairs. . . . .

[O]ne strategy that a group of us have advocated over the last couple weeks is to say, “Military force is so crazy to think about, the next best option is financial bankruptcy and economic strangulation.” That is, if you want to take the gloves off, take the gloves off in the trading and financial sector. Take a lesson from the tightening of the noose around Iran, and go after commodities, go after general trade sectors. You absolutely implement the top five or six recommendations of the U.N. Panel of Experts, which would hold all states in the Asian region responsible for ending corresponding banking accounts with not only North Korean banks, but with the shadow companies they’ve set up in Malaysia and China and elsewhere.

China needs to get tighter with the financial actors within its country who continue to sustain unabated channels to illicit financing for North Korea. There are a series of draconian financial measures that then get the attention of the great young dictator, and you can say, “The next move is yours. Do we talk or not?” But what this administration has done is put us in an all-or-nothing bind. Either he blinks or we blink.

[T]he issuing of the threat against South Korea [by North Korea] is a smart approach that says, “Well, let’s talk militarily. You could knock out our nuclear sites, but you can’t knock out the 175 major artillery batteries we have, poised to shoot at the minute we detect that we’re being attacked — and those can knock out 80 percent of Seoul. So the blood will be on your hands if you choose to initiate an attack against our nuclear sites.” In other words, “You’re not the only people who can issue ultimatums, and you’re not the only people who have military deliverables that are supposed to make us quake and fear that we must change our behavior.”

This regime has had an ideology, through three generations, that the war of liberation of South Korea will come when the United States oversteps its boundaries. And remember, they don’t have a peace treaty with the United States. If they were interested in peace, they would be proactive in coming back to the bargaining table and finishing off the armistice agreement from 1953.

This isn’t Syria. This isn’t Afghanistan. This is the point at which, if a U.S. missile crosses into North Korean territory, all bets on everything are off. It fits their worldview, that sooner or later, they will have to fire everything they have. That’s the only way the North could potentially survive an exchange.

[W]e need a U.S. policy that doesn’t put them in a position where their trigger fingers get nervous. You have to deal with the nuclear weapons and the missiles on their own terms, and you can’t use the potential for war against them as leverage. . . . They’re ready for war.

[W]e have to end their access to money — in all forms. We have to end the access of Korean diplomats marching off with big duffle bags, pretending they’re off to go play golf in Poland, when what they’re really doing is carrying gold bars and loads of cash, which ultimately goes to fund the various services that run the missiles. And you do need China’s help for that. Right now, China is looking the other way.

We’ve got to make sure our president doesn’t approach the microphone and says, “That’s the last straw. I’m taking actions in the next 48 hours, and they’ll never know what I’m going to do until I do it.” You can’t have that. In other words, someone needs to lasso him, quite frankly, and make sure we have a clearly articulated dynamic.

We think we can intimidate the North Korean leadership into keeping their powder dry. What we’re doing, more than anything else, is playing into their ongoing scenario of a likely, if not inevitable, confrontation with the West. . . . If you’re going to use as your calculus of success or failure, of an unarticulated policy, who blinks first, you’re on really, really shaky ground.

Be very, very afraid,   Would that Trump voters had even considered this scenario rather falling for appeals to racism and resentment over lost white privilege and extremist religious beliefs. Elections have consequences as the world could soon find out. 

The Coming Onslaught of Anti-LGBT Proposals in 2017

My Trump supporting "friends" continue to thing my sense of foreboding and doom is unfounded. That's easy to say when you are a heterosexual white Christian.  For those of us that do not fall in that category, there is much to fear, especially if one is a member of the LGBT community which is a favored target of the Christofascists ascendant in the Trump/Pence cabal (one mus remember that Pence himself is vitriolically anti-LGBT).  Here in Virginia the LGBT community is protected at the state level thanks to our Democrat governor, Terry McAuliffe, but with statewide elections in November what happens in 2018 will be frightening if the Republicans win the governor's mansion.  In short, it is difficult to feel much security in 2017 and beyond.  A piece in Mother Jones looks at some of the coming attacks on LGBT Americans.  Here are article highlights:

In 2016, state legislatures across the country proposed more anti-LGBT measures than they had in almost a decade, and activists anticipate more of the same in 2017. There was some good news last year: There was a dramatic jump in proposed pro-LGBT rights bills. And in North Carolina, Gov. Pat McCrory lost his reelection bid, and his defeat was seen as a victory for opponents of the LGBT discrimination legislation that he'd championed.

While the 2015 legalization of same-sex marriage in the Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges decision was a high point in gay rights, there are a number of proposals for 2017 whose intent is to roll them back. During a recent press call, the ACLU predicted a crop of "religious exemption" bills in the near future, laws that allow businesses and service providers to use their religious beliefs as justification for refusing service to a member of the LGBT community. "A Trump administration will embolden some of the folks in state legislatures who already wish to move legislation that harms the LGBT community," Bowman says. "That piece is very concerning."

Lawmakers in a number of states have already pre-filed discriminatory bills for 2017. Here are some of them: 

Alabama: HB24 would allow adoption agencies and foster care facilities to refuse, on the grounds of religious objections, to place kids in certain homes. The bill would also allow them to refuse to refer children to other agencies.

Missouri: HB205 would let government and religious officials refuse to perform marriages because of religious objections. SB98 aims to make transgender kids in school use an individual bathroom instead of the bathroom that matches their gender identity.

Tennessee: SB1 would give mental health counselors the ability to refuse service to LGBT patients on religious grounds.

Texas: SB92 would standardize nondiscrimination laws across the state, effectively preventing localities from passing stronger protections. The ACLU also notes that Texas does not have any state-level nondiscrimination laws for LGBT citizens on the books.
The ACLU plans to keep an updated list of discriminatory bills on their website throughout the year.

Congress: In Congress, the First Amendment Defense Act, which allows refusal of service on a religious basis, and the Russell Amendment, which would allow federal contractors to do the same with hiring, are likely to be revived, this time with potentially greater chances for success.

Republican lawmakers, who control both houses of Congress and have President-elect Trump's assurance he'll sign the bill, expect FADA to pass, inviting "widespread, devastating discrimination against LGBT people," Jennifer Pizer of Lambda Legal Defense Fund told NBC. "This proposed new law violates both Equal Protection and the Establishment Clause by elevating one set of religious beliefs above others." . . . Other discriminatory riders could also be attached to must-pass bills, such as defense spending or budget proposals.

Supporters of LGBT rights will renew efforts to pass the Equality Act, which would prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity at the federal level. . . . With Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, its passage is unlikely. 

[M]any of his [Trump's] Cabinet picks have been vocally anti-gay throughout their careers. Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, Trump's pick for attorney general, co-sponsored the State Marriage Defense Act in 2014, which would have allowed states to define marriage as only between a man and a woman, even after the Defense of Marriage Act was overturned by the Supreme Court. Tom Price, who was tapped to head the Department of Health and Human Services, called the federal recommendations for protecting trans people issued to schools and health care providers an "absurd" overreach of power.

Add to this list the rabidly anti-LGBT Betsy DeVoes, a prominent funder of a who's who of anti-gay extremist groups, who will head the Department of Education and likely move to end LGBT protections and turn a blind eye towards bullying.   

Trump supporting "friends" claim that they knew nothing of the anti-LBGT agenda that will unfold, yet had they spent a few minutes looking at the 2016 GOP party platform, the details were in plain view.  Somehow, they expect me to excuse their laziness.  I can't and I will not. 

Thinly Veiled Hate Speech: "Love the Sinner, Hate the Sin"

Besides being a total hypocrite when it comes to supporting Israel, Huckabee and his fellow Christofascists love to claim that they don't hate gays.  Indeed, they claim to "love gays" - they disingenuously claim that they "love the sinner, but hate the sinner."  They make these claims, of course even as they strive to make the lives of LGBT individuals a living hell and demand the right to mistreat us and discriminate against under the guise of religious freedom.  The take away?  That these people are vile hypocrites and few people lie more often than the self-anointed "godly folk."  A piece in Huffington Post calls out these modern day Pharisees.  Here are highlights:

“I love her, but she’s got to learn right from wrong,” he said … after beating her half to death. And there she lies, one foot in this world and another in the next--but fully “loved.”

I imagine that’s what LGBTQ folks hear when yet another Christian says, “I love the sinner, but I hate the sin.”

Now, I can imagine that immediately upon reading the connection between those last two thoughts, cries of righteous indignation will rise as a chorus unto heaven. “We’re not abusers, simply because we hate what homosexuals do with their private parts. We’ve never actually, physically struck a gay person because of their gayness.”

Nevertheless, I don’t think that gets you off the hook for the violence that is done in the name of your religious commitments for two important reasons.

First, when you fight against anti-bullying laws written to keep LGBTQ kids safe from being abused, you are propping up a system of violence that steals the dignity, and often the lives of those children you say you love. If a gay or trans kid commits suicide because you want to retain the right to loudly and repeatedly announce to the world your moral disapprobation, giving energy to a system dedicated to never letting LGBTQ kids forget that they are sinful aberrations for which the fires of hell are regularly stoked hotter, you bear some responsibility for their death.  

When LGBTQ kids get beaten, when they’re kicked out of their homes and forced to live on the streets and struggle to do some of the despicable things they have to do to stay alive, you may not be raising a hand against them, but you’re certainly massaging the muscles that do the damage. When you support a vision of the world in which LGBTQ people daily have to live in fear for their livelihoods, their homes, their right to a peaceful and flourishing existence just so you can proudly announce your doctrinal purity and your commitment to a world where only your religious beliefs matter, you may not be drawing anyone’s actual blood--but don’t kid yourself that there’s not blood on your hands.

Second, physical violence isn’t the only kind of violence. The abuse that takes place in families, for instance, is often not physical abuse. You can lay claim to having never physically harmed a person, while at the same time being guilty of killing that person’s soul.

[Y]our attempts at “loving” the object of your disapproval always seem to come off as a self-righteous assertion of your moral superiority (at best), or downright antipathy (at worst). 

 Saying you love someone as you punch them in the mouth, or standing by (while cheering or remaining silent) while somebody else punches them in the mouth or loudly fighting for laws that will continue making punching them in the mouth legal in the name of “religious freedom” isn’t love. 

A cursory reading of the Gospels suggests that, for those of us who follow Jesus, love isn’t the perpetual need to make everyone else conform to our understanding of righteousness; it’s the merciful realization that Jesus has freed us from the responsibility of thinking that’s even our job. 

I will be honest.  I do not like or respect Christofascists.  They are horrible, self-centered people, many of whom can't stand the thought of having to think for themselves.   They would rather harm others and childishly follow the dictates of often parasitical clerics rather than use their minds and think for themselves.  They deserve no place in decent society.

The 11-Year-Old Who Rocked Hampton Roads Pride Block Party

I will be posted photos shortly from yesterday's PrideFest event which unfortunately had to close early due to violent thunderstorms that moved into the area halfway through the event. However, a friend on the Pride Board just shared this Youtube video that I found very touching.  What is ironic is that at one point, we were dancing close to him.  He was having a ball.  This is his mother's post that goes with the video:

My son Quin is 11, he has Asperger Syndrome and has been bullied for being different. When he heard we were going to the Pride Block Party at the Scope Center, here in Norfolk, Virginia, to celebrate the passage of national equal marriage he asked to come. "I relate to not being accepted, bullied and having to not be who you really are," he said. "I'm happy the law is changed. I'm happy people can be who they really are and love who they really love. Let's party!"
And he sure did.

Quin's enthusism and happiness was shared by the thousands of others who were at the block party.  It was an amazing event.  There was far more joy and kindness towards others at the event than what you see in most church services, especially Southern Baptist services, I suspect.

Religious Conservatives Are Not the Victims of Bullying

This blog has looked at the myth of Christian persecution that is being fanned by the professional Christian class a number of time.  What they describe as persecution actually comes down to restrictions on their ability to bully and persecute others.  Anything that restricts the rights of the "godly folk" to trample on the rights of others and treat others despicably magically becomes anti-Christian bullying.  Like most of what comes out of the mouths of these foul, self-centered people it is all a lie.  In a piece in The Daily Beast, Bishop Eugene Robinson - whose ordination caused "conservative" Episcopalians to leave the leadership of the Episcopal Church USA and swear fealty to African bishops (one of whom is suspected of ordering the slaughter of 600 Muslims - takes these liars to task.  Here are column excerpts:

It is understandable that religious conservatives would feel uncomfortable and unsettled by recent developments in the church and in the culture. But are they victims? Is there, as many would claim, a “war on religion?”

In American religious communities, across every denominational demographic, support for equal rights for LGBT people, and particularly support for marriage equality for gay couples, is on the rise. In most denominations, that rise has resulted in majority support even when the denominational hierarchy disagrees.

[T]he result of knowing someone gay is that most people are now unwilling to believe or accept all the negative things said about us. The sky has not fallen, nor have church roofs caved in, just because gay marriage is legal in 17 states, plus the District of Columbia. Life goes on pretty much as normal, and in fact, people are seeing that marriage equality strengthens the institution of marriage, rather than undermining it.

For those religious conservatives who see something sinister and immoral in gay and lesbian couples having the right to marry, it must feel as if the moral universe has gone awry. The reaction to this development has engendered a fear that cultural morality is veering out of control. Nothing is as it should be. And it must feel to them that if such a proposition as marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples is accepted, nothing will now stop the world from careening out of moral control. That would be a pretty scary place for a religious person to live.

But I have to ask: are religious conservatives confusing the pain of finding oneself “suddenly” in the minority with actually being a victim? Both feel uncomfortable, even painful, and are fraught with anxiety. But they’re very different.

Here’s what victimization looks like: every day, especially in some places, LGBT people face the real possibility of violence because of their orientation or gender identity. Young people jump off bridges or hang themselves on playground swing sets because of the bullying and discrimination they face. In 29 states, one can be fired from one’s job simply for being gay, with no recourse to the courts. In most places, we cannot legally marry the one we love. Some of us have been kicked out of the house when we come out to our parents, and many young LGBT people find themselves homeless and on the streets because of the attitudes of their religious parents toward their LGBT children. And did I mention the everyday threat of violence?

Compare that to the very painful realization that one’s view of something like homosexuality is in the minority after countless centuries of being in the majority. 

[A]s a society, we would do well to distinguish between real victimization and the also-very-real discouragement felt by those who now find themselves in the minority.

I do not mean to brush aside as inconsequential the feelings of those who find themselves in the minority, whether it be around the topic of gender, race, or sexual orientation. But I do mean to question characterizing such feelings as discrimination, violation of religious freedom, and victimization. It’s time we called out our religious brothers and sisters for misunderstanding their recently-acquired status as members of a shrinking minority as victims.

 Personally, I cannot feel any sympathy for these supposedly bullied Christofascists.  For decades - actually centuries - they have made life hell for others and cause all kinds of pain, suffering, violence and suicides.  That the larger society has finally recognized them for what they are is not persecution.  If anything, it is karma belatedly giving them back as they have done to others. 

Virginia Judge Allows Anti-Gay Bully and Negligent School Aministrators Off

Yesterday Circuit Court Judge R. Bruce Long dismissed a lawsuit against administrators at Grafton High School in Yorktown who failed to intervene and stop the incessant bullying of Christian Taylor (pictured at left) who eventually committed suicide on May 31, 2010.  Despite repeated complaints to school officials, the bully in this instance was never suspended and no meaningful steps were taken to protect Taylor.  The message to would be bullies and negligent school personnel- especially in reactionary areas like York County, Virginia -  is have at it, bully all you want and look the other way because there will be no consequences.  One can only hope that Taylor's family appeals this travesty.  The reality is that Virginia's anti-bullying policies remain a joke and seem more focused on protecting school personnel and bullies than their victims.  The second reality is that the lives of LGBT individuals and those perceived to be gay have little value to many in the state's judiciary.   Here are highlights from the Virginia Gazette on this sad result:

A judge on Friday dismissed a $10 million wrongful death lawsuit against three current and former Grafton High School administrators that alleged they did not stop the bullying of a student who committed suicide in 2010.

Circuit Judge R. Bruce Long dismissed the lawsuit after a jury determined the student, Christian Taylor, did not kill himself as the result of an irresistible impulse. Under Virginia law if someone who committed suicide is found to be of sound mind at the time when he or she died — or did not die as the result of an irresistible impulse — it is considered an illegal act, which means the lawsuit could not go forward.

Taylor, who was 16 at the time of his death, was found hanging in his bedroom closet on May 31, 2010. His mother, Alise Williams, filed the lawsuit in July 2010, which alleged the school administrators should be held liable for her son's death because they did not adequately stop the bullying of her son.

The ruling comes after four days of testimony from school officials, Taylor's mother and friends, a psychologist, psychiatrist and former school superintendents from New York and Hanover County who testified as experts in school administration.

Attorney O.J. Labell on Friday told the jury the case had come down to a "battle of the experts" between the testimony of psychologist Earl Flora, a witness for Taylor, and psychiatrist Dr. Eileen Ryan, a witness for the school administrators.

On Friday, Ryan testified that she did not think Taylor was suffering from the clinical diagnosis of major depression nor did she think he was of "unsound mind" at the time of his death or that his death was the result of an irresistible impulse.

In short, to Ryan - who I am certain was paid by the school system - and the judge, Taylor was the law breaker, not his bully or the school administrators who allowed his torment to continue.  As one who had two serious suicide attempts in the past myself (each sent me to the hospital), how any supposed mental health care professional can say that one is of a "sound mind" when they take their own life is ludicrous.  One is at best temporarily not of a sound mind and also likely suffering from depression.  Moreover, many suicides appear in good moods shortly before they act because they have finally decided to act and have a sense that their pain is about to be over.  Again, I've been there.  In my opinion, I pity anyone receiving mental health care treatment  from Ms. Ryan. They should find a new health care provider immediately, in my opinion.

I have said many times before that I would not recommend that any LGBT consider moving to Virginia.   That still holds true.  I give the same advice to any progressive, modern business seeking to relocate.  If Virginia is on your list, you need to seriously reconsider.  Virginia could be a wonderful state, but that will never happen until the power of the Christofascists and the Republican Party of Virginia is broken.  Until that happens ignorance and bigotry will remain hallmarks of the state.

Obama Responds to Bullied 10-Year-Old's Letter About Her Gay Dads

While it may seem trivial to some - especially those in the Christofascists ranks who ideally would like to see LGBT citizens either forced back into invisibility or, better yet exterminated - Barack Obama's response to a 10 year old girl with two gay dads symbolizes what is at stake in this election today.  On the one side are Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, George Allen, Scott Rigell and the ranks of the GOP who would deprive Sophia Bailey Klugh and millions of children like her basic financial stability and increased access to health care.  Arrayed on the other side are Barack Obama, Joe, Biden, Tim Kaine, Paul Hirschbiel and the ranks of Democratic Party who offer something very different: recognition of same sex relationships, equality under the law, and protections against job loss based solely on one's sexual orientation.  The contrast and choice does not get much more stark.  Huffington Post looks Obama's response.  Here are excerpts:

Tomorrow, Election Day, we have an extraordinarily important decision to make. Many look at the economy and wish the recovery were happening more rapidly. Some would like to see a larger return on their stocks. And a select few look at their families and hope each day for the same protections that almost every other family in the country currently has.

You might remember a letter posted here last week from young Sophia Bailey Klugh. Ten-year-old Sophia penned a letter to President Barack Obama in which she told the president how happy she is that he agrees with her on the topic of marriage equality. You see, young Sophia has two dads. She went on to ask the president an important question:

I am so glad that you agree two men can love each other because I have two dads and they love each other, but at school kids think that it's gross and weird, but it really hurts my heart and feelings.... If you were me and you had two dads that loved each other and kids at school teased you about it, what would you do?

Well, lo and behold, in the middle of his fight to be reelected, the president took some of his important time to share a little advice with a little girl:

Dear Sophia,

Thank you for writing me such a thoughtful letter about your family. Reading it made me proud to be your president and even more hopeful about the future of our nation.

In America, no two families look the same. We celebrate this diversity. And we recognize that whether you have two dads or one mom what matters above all is the love we show one another. You are very fortunate to have two parents who care deeply for you. They are lucky to have such an exceptional daughter in you.

A good rule is to treat others the way you hope they will treat you. Remind your friends at school about this rule if they say something that hurts your feelings.

Gov. Mitt Romney's campaign recently stated that he believes that the ability of gay and lesbian families to visit one another in the hospital is a privilege, not a right. Additionally, he has spoken out against gay parents adopting children. Finally, the governor has pledged to write discrimination against LGBT people into the U.S. Constitution.

I hope that young Sophia wakes up Wednesday morning to find that there's someone in the White House who believes that her family should have the same protections as every other family in the country.

I too hope that tomorrow morning we will see that we have elected a president who supports the rights of all Americans, not just the wealthy, the Christofascists and gay-hating Mormons.

Quote of the Day: Romney Has Lived a Lifetime of Bullying

A letter to the editor in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in my opinion seems to sum up pretty well Mitt Romney both as a person and in terms of the policies that he supports:

The true story of Mitt Romney bullying a boy in high school and cutting off his hair fits with the same Romney of today, who still believes that there are rich, important people in the "in crowd" who count, and then there's the other 99 percent.

In business, Romney picked on struggling companies and fired many in their work forces in order to make profits for the owners and his buddies at Bain Capital. In politics, he would have "let Detroit go bankrupt" with thousands of job losses, would raise taxes on the bottom 20 percent of taxpayers and would lower them for the top 1 percent, who currently pay the lowest marginal tax rate in the last 80 years. 

These attitudes and policies would help the "in crowd" and bully 99 percent of Americans -- the ones who don't count.

 No doubt some readers will howl their disapproval of this, in my view, correct analysis.

Bullying, School Shootings and the Right

Bullying is a huge problem for LGBT youth both inside and outside of the nation's schools, but the problem extends far beyond just LGBT youth. And as a piece in Salon reports, bullying ties directly to the alarming rise of school shootings. As does the growing economic and social viciousness supported by conservative elements in society and, of course, the Republican Party where the poor, the immigrant, the gay, and all those deemed as the "other" are viewed as discardable and unworthy of the rights of citizenship. What makes this picture all the more disgusting is the way in which far right Christians want a free pass to denigrate and bully anyone who doesn't conform to their religious/world view. Here are some article highlights,

As the details of this week’s Chardon, Ohio, school shooting emerged, they seemed eerily familiar. . . . Once again, the alleged shooter, T.J. Lane, a 17-year-old fellow student, was described as a “loner” with a “troubled” family history. And, once again, other students described him as the victim of “bullying.” And so Chardon joins the long list of violent school incidents with a connection to America’s rampant bullying problem.

According to Jessie Klein, the author of the new book “The Bully Society,” it’s a problem that’s only getting worse. In her excellent examination of the school bullying epidemic, Klein, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at Adelphi University, takes a broad approach to the subject. She first lays out the scope of the problem, before explaining how kids’ changing attitudes towards masculinity, the birth of child-targeted consumerism and the erosion of our compassionate society have all helped to create a culture in which children are increasingly feeling overwhelmed and helpless, and, in some cases, prone to violence. Most provocatively, she ties the rise of bullying behavior to America’s economic move to the right.

Between 1979 and 1988 there were 27 school shootings. From 1989 to 1998 there were 55 and then they continued to increase from 1999 to 2008 to 66, so there were 148 shootings in the three decades from 1979 to 2008. What’s most disturbing is that in the three years since 2008 there have been 43 shootings, and that’s almost two-thirds of the number of shootings that occurred in the preceding decade.

I started studying the school shootings when I first heard about a school shooting in 1997. I was really struck by why he said he committed the shooting. He talked about how he had been picked on, and called gay, and harassed for being fat.

We have an increasingly high depression rate, anxiety has increased among children. There are so many different ways that the children are acting out their despair — suicides, self cutting, substance abuse — and so much of it relates to school bullying. So, what I try to show in the book is that school shootings are the most horrific response to school bullying but they’re not the only response at all, and mostly they magnify what’s happening at schools. You know, most of the kids who committed shootings really wanted to tell the world that they were so miserable and they were treated so badly and this is what they felt forced to do.

When school shootings occur people like to say, “Oh that person was a psychopath.” And it’s a way of personalizing the issue and not taking responsibility as a society. As Durkheim, a classic sociologist, said in his seminal work called “Suicide,” when you see the same thing happening over and over and over again, you can’t keep blaming the individual. You have to look at the social environment and say, why is this happening over and over again?

These kids really were willing to do anything to increase their respect in the school. They’d been so harassed and so degraded. It was such a miserable experience that they thought if they picked up guns they would finally feel powerful and gain some respect. And I think that is a very sad statement in our society that kids get that message: To get respect they need to be dominate and aggressive and violent.

[W]hat I show in the book is that masculine values of aggression, violence, dominance are not specific to men. Girls and women are increasingly pressured to demonstrate those values as well.

[W]hat’s fascinating is that social isolation has increased. It’s tripled since the ’80s, and depression and anxiety statistics are extremely high. These are, I think, indicators of what’s going on in our society more generally.

There are many people who do believe that the more you help people, the less they will work, the more lazy they will become. . . . society has gotten more and more harsh in that way and I think people feel strongly in our country that that’s the way to get ahead. We’re the only country in the industrial world that doesn’t have a paid leave for women who have children, whereas other countries in Europe go out of their way to make sure there’s a long paternity leave.

[P]eople here believe that if you make money you’ll get support but if you don’t make money, you’re pretty much on your own. And I think that’s what kids in schools feel. A lot of the school shooters said, “The principal wasn’t doing anything, the guidance counselors weren’t doing anything, so I had to take things into my own hands.” And that’s pretty much the message that people get, whether you’re an adult or a kid.

The cultural dialogue around school shootings seems to have shifted in the last decade and a half. When Columbine happened, video games and violent movies were really being blamed. This doesn’t really seem to be the case anymore. It’s more about bullying.

We’re going through this election cycle in which, once again, welfare recipients are being demonized, and the GOP primary has become a race to out right-wing Mitt Romney. . . . Right now kids are trained to be heartless and pursue success at any cost.

I suspect that it's not lost on teens and youths that the least compassionate and most bullying prone are conservative Christians who, in my view, are well on their way towards killing the Christian brand all together.

Bigots at Suffolk, Virginia Schools Draw National Coverage

Earlier in the week I described the effort at the Suffolk City Public Schools - apparently spearheaded by a lone school board member (pictured at left) - to create a solution to a non-existent problem and in the process trample on the rights of transgender students in particular. Now, the story has been picked up by MSNBC and the Hampton Roads area is again getting coverage that makes all of us look like knuckle dragging Neanderthals. As noted before, while not the most reactionary of the local communities, Suffolk is certainly no pillar of modernity either and is best known for its peanut festival - at least until now. before it's over, I won't be surprised to see the school division getting sued and wasting funds on legal fees when the moneys could have been better used for education. The Bible beaters always claim to care about others but prove by their actions that it's really always about themselves and forcing their beliefs on others. Here are highlights from MSNBC:

A Virginia school district is considering a ban on cross-dressing by students to minimize what administrators say are “safety risks, disruptions and distractions.”

The Suffolk School Board studied the proposal at a meeting Thursday night, but members did not vote on it. The proposal explicitly bans “clothing worn by a student that is not in keeping with a student’s gender and causes a disruption and/or distracts others from the educational process or poses a health or safety concern.”

School district representative Bethanne Bradshaw told msnbc.com that Board Vice Chairwoman Thelma Hinton first raised concerns about students’ cross-dressing.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia said that, rather than banning the “nonconforming behavior,” schools should instead address the bullying or harassment. In a letter to the school board, Rebecca Glenberg, legal director of the ACLU of Virginia, called the gender-related dress restriction “unlawful and unfair to students.”

The ACLU believes that, while schools may impose a requirement of proper attire, “to mandate dress based on notions that girls must wear one type of clothing and boys another is impermissible.”

In the letter, Glenberg also brings up a recent case in a Mississippi public school that refused to publish in its yearbook the senior portrait of a female student wearing a tuxedo. The ACLU sued the school in August 2010. As part of the settlement, Copiah County School District decided to ditch gender-specific outfits for senior portraits and instead require all students to wear a cap and gown.

Diane Ehrensaft, a Bay Area psychologist who studies gender and child development, told msnbc.com that the proposed ban is “a subtle form of harassment” and the school district should focus instead on monitoring bullying. . . . . “To blame the victim by saying you can’t dress that way anymore is inappropriate,” Ehrensaft said.

[N]o other school district in the southeastern region of South Hampton Roads includes a cross-dressing policy in its student dress code.

It would seem the real problem is Ms. Hinton and other closed minded bigots. I hope the attention she is receiving isn't helpful to her political career.

FRC Continues the "Persecution of Christians" Lie

The dishonesty and lies of self-labeled "Christian" organizations truly makes me want to vomit at times - and never refer to myself as a Christian again in my life time. Who wants to be associated in any way with such foul people. One of the big lies now being disseminated by the Christian Right is that Christians are being "bullied" and "persecuted." In the objective world, that means that people are beginning to stand up and oppose Christianists from inflicting their hate and fear based religious beliefs on all of society. Is this bullying or persecution? Not hardly. For a glimpse of true bullying and persecution one need only look at yesterday's post with the video of the 15 year old Ohio student being beaten as the attacker yelled anti-gay slurs. Nonetheless, the Christianist liars and hate merchants continue to play the victim card even as they seek to bully, disparage and victimize gays, immigrants, Muslims, non-Christians and racial minorities. Here's a sampling of FRC's disingenuous bullshit:

I've had the pleasure of chatting in person with Barry Lynn and the man is amazing. He knows his facts and data and equally importantly, he believes in the concept of separation of church and state. A concept that hate groups like FRC and its allies would like to eradicate. One can't help but wonder when Congress is going to stop giving a platform to groups like FRC. Would they allow testimony from the KKK or Aryan Nation? FRC and its allies should not receive any different treatment than the KKK or other white supremacy groups. Hate and bigotry is still hate and bigotry even when wrapped in the Bible.

Recognizing Bullying in Its Many Forms

I continue to be haunted by the suicide death of Jamey Rodemeyer this past week. Like other teen suicide deaths caused by bullying, his death could have been avoided if he had spoken up more, if our society recognized that bullying isn't just "part of growing up," and religious based anti-gay bigotry was confronted across the board and anti-gay religious beliefs were not routinely given deference instead of being labeled for the hate that they are in fact. One other factor that we will never know may have factored into Rodemeyer's death is that he appears to have been raised Roman Catholic - or at least his funeral was in a Catholic Church. Having been raised Catholic while growing up gay, I know all too well what a mental/psychological/emotional clusterf*ck that is for LGBT youth. Whether Catholics like it or not or not, growing up even nominally in a religious tradition that views gays as "inherently disordered" and "motivated toward evil" could not have been good for Rodemeyer's psychological well being. An op-ed in the New York Times looks at the pressing need to pay more attention to bullying and to hold bullies accountable even when they don't want to see themselves as bullies. Here are some excerpts:

THE suicide of Jamey Rodemeyer, the 14-year-old boy from western New York who killed himself last Sunday after being tormented by his classmates for being gay, is appalling. His story is a classic case of bullying: he was aggressively and repeatedly victimized. Horrific episodes like this have sparked conversations about cyberbullying and created immense pressure on regulators and educators to do something, anything, to make it stop.

Adults need to start paying attention to the language of youth if they want antibullying interventions to succeed.

Jamey recognized that he was being bullied and asked explicitly for help, but this is not always the case. Many teenagers who are bullied can’t emotionally afford to identify as victims, and young people who bully others rarely see themselves as perpetrators. For a teenager to recognize herself or himself in the adult language of bullying carries social and psychological costs. It requires acknowledging oneself as either powerless or abusive.

In our research over a number of years, we have interviewed and observed teenagers across the United States. . . . . Teenagers repeatedly told us that bullying was something that happened only in elementary or middle school. “There’s no bullying at this school” was a regular refrain.

This didn’t mesh with our observations, so we struggled to understand the disconnect. While teenagers denounced bullying, they — especially girls — would describe a host of interpersonal conflicts playing out in their lives as “drama.”

Teenagers say drama when they want to diminish the importance of something. . . . . Dismissing a conflict that’s really hurting their feelings as drama lets teenagers demonstrate that they don’t care about such petty concerns. They can save face while feeling superior to those tormenting them by dismissing them as desperate for attention. Or, if they’re the instigators, the word drama lets teenagers feel that they’re participating in something innocuous or even funny, rather than having to admit that they’ve hurt someone’s feelings.

And when teenagers like Jamey do ask for help, they’re often let down. Not only are many adults ill-equipped to help teenagers do the psychological work necessary, but teenagers’ social position often requires them to continue facing the same social scene day after day.


Like Jamey, there are young people who identify as victims of bullying. But many youths engaged in practices that adults label bullying do not name them as such. Teenagers want to see themselves as in control of their own lives; their reputations are important. Admitting that they’re being bullied, or worse, that they are bullies, slots them into a narrative that’s disempowering and makes them feel weak and childish.

When teenagers acknowledge that they’re being bullied, adults need to provide programs similar to those that help victims of abuse. And they must recognize that emotional recovery is a long and difficult process.

Interventions must focus on positive concepts like healthy relationships and digital citizenship rather than starting with the negative framing of bullying. The key is to help young people feel independently strong, confident and capable without first requiring them to see themselves as either an oppressed person or an oppressor.

Here in Virginia, there are no effective laws on the books and even watered down policies are rarely enforced - ask Christian Taylor's mother - because The Family Foundation and Christianist organizations demand (and the Republican Party of Virginia supports such demands) free rein to make the lives of LGBT students and adults a living Hell. Yes, better work is needed in working with students to end bullying. Equally important, however, is ending the ongoing message that hating and abusing LGBT individuals is perfectly okay. And this latter effort will require confronting haters in pulpits and "family values" organizations head on.

Bullycide Victims - A Photo Gallery

Some may wonder at my passion/anger when it comes to teen and youth suicide that arises from malicious bullying. Take a good look at this gallery of photos if you need a wake up call. NO ONE has the right to make someone else's life a living Hell. Yet that's the precise message that is disseminated daily by false Christians and whore like professional Christians who make a living spreading hatred towards LGBT individuals and perpetuating deliberate lies. And, yes, I mean folks like Maggie Gallagher, Tony Perkins, Scott Lively, and GOP elected officials who place pandering to Christianists ahead of saving young lives. They all literally have blood on their hands and the y continue to oppose effective anti-bullying laws and policies under the lie that suck laws and policies would promote homosexuality.

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Not all of these "bullyside" victims were LGBT, but a number of them were or were taunted for being perceived as gay by their tormentors. Conservative versions of Christianity and Islam are a truly toxic and deadly force in the world more often than not.

York County, Virginia Schools Won't Stopping Bullying Despite Student Suicide

I have written about the ongoing bullying problem in the nearby York County, Virginia, school division in the aftermath of the Memorial Day weekend suicide of 16 year Christian Taylor last year here and here. One of the problems is the apparent total indifference to well being of all students in the ranks of the school administration. The second and even larger problem is that Virginia's laws more or less absolve both the bullies persecuting other students and the indifferent and negligent school administrators. Only actual physical assault or utterly gross negligence will open the threshold for accountability of the bully and school administrators, respectively.

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But back to Christian's family eight months after his death. Given Christian's suicide, one would think that the York County schools would go out of their way to protect his surviving siblings from harassment and bullying. But sadly, such is not the case as is evidenced by this story on WVEC-TV 13 by a reporter friend, David Ham ( a print version of the story can be found here):

As a parent, the school division's obscene disregard for Christian's siblings - and I suspect many other students as well - makes me furious. EVERY child deserves to be able to go to school without harassment be they gay, lesbian, black white, Hispanic, Christian, Muslim or Hindu, etc. Is this simple right too much to ask for? I hope readers will widely disseminate this story and force York County to clean up its act if not for the right reason only so as to stop the negative publicity.

Virginia GLBT Bills Face First Test This Week

A number of bills that would afford LGBT Virginians protections against discrimination and bullying have been introduced this legislative session. Traditionally, opponents of LGBT equality - indeed even treating LGBT Virginians as fully human - seek to kill bills in committees so that they can be killed outside of public view and often solely on voice votes that allow the prostitute like Republican legislators to kiss the ring of The Family Foundation and similar hate merchants without ever even going on record in a recorded vote. Equality Virginia has disseminated a schedule of the first round of committees that will determine the fate of these bills. I wish I could say that I am optimistic, but given the past track record of the Virginia GOP, a stray dog or feral cat can expect better treatment than what these GOP delegates and senators have given to LGBT Virginians in the past. Here is a summary of the bills in question:

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Employee Benefits Legislation, SB 1121 - Senate Committee on Local Government; Tuesday, 2pm, Senate Room B
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Nondiscrimination Legislation, SB 747 and SB 797 - Senate General Laws Committee; Wednesday, 2pm, Senate Room B
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Anti-Bullying Legislation, HB 1575 - House Education Committee; Subcommittee #2; Thursday, 7:30am, 5th Floor East Conference Room

Marshall-Newman Amendment Repeal, HJR 625 - Rules Committee; Subcommittee #3; Thursday, 4pm. 6th Floor Speaker's Conference Room
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Blue Virginia has coverage of a press release issued by Virginia Democrats. These bills are not radical - especially when compared with protections and rights afforded to LGBT citizens in more progressive states. Here are some highlights:
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Richmond -- Senator A. Donald McEachin, Senator Mark Herring, Delegate Adam Ebbin, Delegate David Englin, Delegate Joe Morrissey and Minority Leader Ward Armstrong spoke about legislation pending in the General Assembly about non-discrimination. They were joined by Captain Anthony Woods, a graduate of West Point and Harvard's Kennedy School of Government who has served this country valiantly in Iraq, James Parrish, Executive Director of Equality Virginia, and Reverend Robin Gorsline, president of People of Faith for Equality and pastor of Metropolitan Community Church.

Delegate Ebbin, who has been, as Senator McEachin said in introducing him, "a rock for this movement" spoke of his legislation, House Bill 2046. "Our state is behind the voters. It is simply the right thing to do." He stressed that it is important for all public employees, including teacher and college professors to receive protections, especially in light of the Attorney General's actions against colleges last spring.
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Senator Herring, who is carrying Senate Bill 1121 with Senator McEachin, explained that their bill would allow local governments to have non-discrimination policies for their employees. "As a former supervisor," he added, "I know how important it is to be competitive with the private sector and this will make a big difference."
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Delegate Morrissey explained that his legislation, House Bill 2345 is in opposition to the proposed ban on LGBT citizens serving in the Virginia National Guard. He explained that he is confident that LGBT Virginians have "the strength, the character, the courage and the conviction" to serve us well.
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Delegate Englin mentioned his bill to repeal the Marshall-Newman amendment and said that although it is an uphill battle, he is confident that Virginians want their fellow citizens to be able to live "in dignity" and have civil unions available to them. He also advocated for his anti-bullying bill which would strengthen procedures for school districts to combat bullying. "Sexual orientation and perceived sexual orientation continues to be a problem. The responsibility to fight this bullying is all of ours."

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Be assured that Victoria Cobb and her fellow religious extremists and bigots at The Family Foundation will pull out the stops to kill these bills. Anything that might restrict the ability of such false Christians to malign others and force their religious views on others will be decried as restrictions on "religious freedom" and/or the promoting of homosexuality and sexual deviance. The true deviants, of course, are Cobb and those like her who claim to support the U. S. Constitution while in reality trying to destroy it.