A Teacher Gives A Class In How To Be A Bully

Bullying is fun. It’s fun to taunt and harass people for their, real or perceived, differences. I mean, c’mon, call out the fat kid; trip the freckled girl. Drive the gay kid to suicide. It’s all in good fun, right? It’s all part of growing up, isn’t it? Don’t we, or haven’t we, all, at one time or another been both the bully and the bullied and then we’ve grown tired of it, and out of it, and moved on and grown up?

Not so much for a school teacher in Moss Point, Mississippi. She was giving a lesson in math class one day when she divided the class into two teams, boys and girls. Destin Holmes, a 16-year-old lesbian, however, was made t sit in the middle of the class alone.

You know, because she’s a lesbian, and therefore not a girl or a boy, or, apparently worthy of respect.

"She told me since she didn't know what I was, I should be on a team of my own."—Destin Holmes

The Southern Poverty Law Center [SPLC] has gotten involved—as should every single parent, teacher, student, school board member, and every single person in the state—asking that this kind of bullying, from an educator, be stopped at once.

Sadly, though, the epidemic of bullying doesn’t end.  Students and staff have regularly LGBTQ youth, says SPLC attorney Sam Wolfe: "Students face enough obstacles in school without also enduring violence and abuse for simply being different. They are entitled by law to attend school in an environment where they are not singled out and tormented because of their sexual orientation or gender nonconformity." He warned that the district immediately develop a plan to stop this nonsense, or face a federal lawsuit.

And that has me wondering? As an adult, as an educator, do you really need to be threatened with a lawsuit to make you stop bullying LGBTQ students? Is that what it takes? Is there no common sense?

Clifton Magee, Moss Point School District school board President, said a statement would be released, and then district spokesperson Stephanie Packer sent an email out which read: "The Moss Point School District has no comment at this time. This is currently an ongoing investigation."

Destin Holmes, who attended the junior high for 1 semester during the 2011-2012 school year, said she was forced to leave after being tormented by peers and faculty members. And, when she went to the principal to voice her complaints, he said, "I don't want a dyke in this school."

Holmes says that for the first 3 days of school, she was repeatedly referred to as "he" by teachers even though she told them she was a "she." She says teachers and students called her "it," "queer," "freak," "alien," "dyke" and "he-she," and teachers denied her access to the girls' restroom.

"They don't even know me."—Destin Holmes

We have an epidemic in this country of people, and groups, and schools, that think the taunting and harassing and bullying, even the physical violence, of LGBTQ students is just fine. We have an entire generation being tormented by the generation that came before them and has yet to catch up to the rest of the world.

And if we continue to just let this kind of thing happen, without real repercussions to the students who bully, such as removing them from the schools, and the teachers who bully, such as immediate termination, this will only get worse.

Since when is this okay? While we can sometimes, sometimes, forgive a child for bullying because maybe they don’t know any better, there is no excuse for a teacher to behave this way.

source

Read More

You Say Panic, I Say Murder

I remember it as clearly as if it happened yesterday. There was a woman in our town that had come out as straight, and she was quite open about it. Well, she and I struck up a friendship, even though she knew I was gay, and she would often stop by my house for a visit. One night, after a visit, she was giving me a ride in her car and, well, while it sickens me to say it, she made sexual advances towards me, and I panicked. She tried to assault me so I choked her, and then I beat her to death, and burned her body, then dragged to the side of a river, and dumped it there in the tall grass.

Thank god for the Straight Panic defense. I didn’t do any jail time.

Sounds pretty ridiculous, right? But that’s exactly what’s happening regarding the murder, and let’s be clear, it was a murder, of openly gay mayoral candidate, Marcus McMillian.

Lawrence Reed, the man who is accused of beating McMillian to death, burning his body, and then dumping alongside the Mississippi River says he did it because he Gay Panicked when McMillian made sexual advances towards him.

And, well, Reed may get away with murder, especially since the case is in the hands of Mississippi prosecutors, who cannot even try Reed for a Hate Crime because there is no hate crime statute in the state. And Reed’s defense of Gay Panic-slash-Self Defense, just may get him off.

McMillian [l] and Reed [r]

Reed and his family are telling the story that Lawrence Reed was “forced” to murder Marco McMillian in self-defense after the mayoral candidate made sexual advances and refused to take no for an answer. Reed’s sister is claiming that Reed showed up at her house moments after making a panicked phone call, covered in injuries suggestive of a fight, and that Reed strangled McMillian with the chain on his wallet because he panicked.

I’m not sure how panicked he was when, after murdering McMillian, he beat him, and burned him, and dumped his body like garbage. That doesn’t sound like someone who panicked, that sounds like someone who thought about what to do and how to do it.

But this whole Gay Panic thing isn’t a new defense, it’s been used before. The trial of the killers of transgendered Gwen Arujo ended in jury deadlock on multiple occasions because of a so-called “Trans Panic Defense.” And let’s not forget the murderers of Matthew Shepard who claimed they panicked when he came on to them and were forced to beat him nearly to death and then tie his body to a fence in Wyoming. Fifteen-year-old Lawrence King was murdered by a classmate for professing his love to the other boy.

Panic? Not so much.

This kind of defense makes it ‘okay’ to kill gay people, trans people, and get away with it. Just say the gay guy came on to you; just say the trans guy or girl made an unwanted advance. Then just say you had to kill them, because you had no other choice.

My story at the top of the is post was a great big fabrication, but Lawrence Reed wants us to believe that he panicked when Marco McMillian, a gay man, a friend of his with whom he had been socializing for a few weeks, made a pass at him and he had no choice but to strangle, beat, burn and dump his body. 

That’s some panic.

And it’s all a lie.

More Gay Panic Tales from ISBL:

This Is What Happens When People Pick And Choose Which Parts Of The Bible To Follow

Mucinex Is Deadly

Interesting News From The Land Of Lou

It's A Panic

Sixty-One Stab Wounds When A Simple No Thank You Would Have Sufficed

First Rant of '09

Read More

It's Not Gay Panic, It's Murder, It's A Hate Crime

Marco McMillian

Marco McMillian, an openly gay candidate for mayor in the small Mississippi town of Clarksdale, was beaten and burned, and his body dragged under a fence and left alongside a Mississippi River levee. The cause of death has not been released. An autopsy was performed, but toxicology tests are pending, and authorities say it could take two weeks to get those results.

McMillian's godfather, Carter Womack, says the family received the information from the Coahoma County coroner, though coroner Scotty Meredith has yet to publicly comment, and a spokesman for the Coahoma County Sheriff's Department is also staying quiet for now.

A statement released by McMillan’s campaign says, "We feel that this was not a random act of violence based on the condition of the body when it was found."

Lawrence Reed, twenty-two, has been charged in the case. He was arrested last month after he was found driving McMillan’s SUV after it crashed into another vehicle on U.S. Highway 49. McMillan was not in the car; his body was found the next day.

Police have ruled out a hate crime—something McMillian’s friends and family members want reconsidered due to the brutal nature of the homicide—because, sadly, Mississippi does not have a state hate crimes law, meaning that federal charges would be required.

Lawrence Reed

Apparently Reed and McMillian had known each other for about two weeks, and may have had an intimate relationship during that time. But, it is also being reported that Reed, who identifies as straight, may have “snapped” as a result of sexual advances on the part of McMillian. He may, in fact, use the Gay Panic defense.

Gay Panic. I’ve talked a lot about gay panic on this blog, especially after ALLEGEDLY straight men murder gay men with whom they were intimate. And I’ll say it again: there is no such thing as Gay Panic in defense of murdering someone, beating them to death, burning parts of their body, and then dropping the corpse off in the weeds like a load of garbage.

That took planning; that took preparation. That is not panic.

And, if we are to continue hearing of Gay Panic defenses, when will we hear the first Straight Panic case? I mean, say I, as a gay man, met a woman at a bar and we hit it off. If she made some kind of sexual advance toward me would I be allowed to beat her, burn her, drag her body to the river and dump it, and the say I did it because I felt a Straight Panic?

Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Well, that's how Gay Panic sounds to me. 

source

Read More

Mississippi Newspaper Defends Same-Sex Marriage Cover Story

Last week there was the story that, after nearly 150 years, the state of Mississippi finally ratified the 13^th Amendment, the one that abolished slavery. Yeah, that’s Mississippi, so behind the times, except ….

The Laurel Leader-Call, a newspaper in rural Mississippi recently published a story called ‘Historic Wedding: Women Wed In Laurel Through Smiles, Tears’ about the wedding of Jessica Powell and Crystal Craven.

No, that wasn’t a misprint; a rural newspaper in Mississippi published a story about a same-sex wedding ceremony. And then, when the proverbial sh*t hit the fan, and the ugly letters began pouring in, spouting their hateful comments about The Gays and The Sanctity of Marriage, the newspaper didn’t back down, and instead defended its decision to run the story.

Jim Cegielski, the paper's owner, wrote an editorial about the story, his decision to run it, and the backlash, saying in part, "We shouldn't have to defend every decision we make here at the Leader-Call. However, the intense reaction to our gay wedding front-page story, which led to a deluge of hate calls, letters, e-mails, Facebook posts, soundoffs and random cross stares thrown in my direction, warrants some sort of response. So here it is."

Cegielski continued:

We were well aware that the majority of people in Jones County are not in favor of gay marriage. However, any decent newspaper with a backbone can not base decisions on whether to cover a story based on whether the story will make people angry.

The job of a community newspaper is not pretending something didn't take place or ignoring it because it will upset people. No, our job is to inform readers what is going on in our town and let them make their own judgments. That is exactly what we did with the wedding story. Our reporter heard about the wedding, attended it, interviewed some of the participants and wrote a news story. If there had been protestors at the wedding, we would have covered that the exact same way … but there weren't any. We never said it was a good thing or a bad thing, we simply did our job by telling people what took place.

I took the bulk of the irate phone calls from people who called the paper to complain. Most of the complaints seem to revolve around the headline, "Historic Wedding," and the fact that we chose to put the story on the front page. My answer to the "Historic Wedding" headline is pretty simple. You don't have like something for it to be historic.

The holocaust, bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Black Sox scandal are all historic. I'm in no way comparing the downtown wedding of two females to any of those events (even though some of you made it quite clear that you think gay marriage is much worse).

[...]

We have stories about child molesters, murders and all kinds of vicious, barbaric acts of evil committed by heinous criminals on our front page and yet we never receive a call from anyone saying 'I don't need my children reading this.' Never. Ever. However, a story about two women exchanging marriage vows and we get swamped with people worried about their children.

I had at least 20 or so readers express to me they think gay marriage is "an abomination against God." We never said it wasn't. We never said it was.

We were simply reporting to the best of our ability. However, I can't help but be saddened by the hate-filled viciousness of many of the comments directed toward our staff … No one here deserves to be berated or yelled at simply because we were doing our job.

Fifteen readers canceled their subscriptions in protest, according to Cegielski.

But Cegielski stood strong, reporting a story about same-sex marriage; in Mississippi.

And, as someone who was born there, I couldn’t be more proud.

source

Read More

Random Musings

It comes as no surprise that I am not a fan of JLo, but even less so when you realize how much she copies steals from others in the spotlight. First off, she stole Angelina's Leg Pose, and we all know Angelina did it better.

But then she stole from Cher.

Cher .... Citches.

See, in 1986, Cher made Mask and won all sorts of awards for the performance, but wasn't nominated for an Oscar because many thought she wasn't a "serious actress."

That year, at the ceremony, Cher showed up in that outfit and said, "As you can see, I got my Academy Handbook on How To Dress Like A Serious actress."

This year, at the Grammys, after CBS released a sort of Dress Code for presenters, JLo appeared on stage and said this: "As you can see, I read the memo."

First off, stop stealing. 

Second off, if you're going to flout convention, flout it, don't just do a Cherelina and think it's something new.

You're tired, JLo, sit down.

Carlos and I finally saw ‘Lincoln’ this week—on President’s Day, no less—and really enjoyed it. I have long been fascinated by Abraham Lincoln and there were things in this film that I hadn’t heard before, so it was good entertainment and educational, which is always good.

But, then imagine my surprise to find out the next day that the great state of Mississippi—and in the interests of full disclosure, I was born there—never, never, ratified the 13^th Amendment to abolish slavery until, you guessed it, this year.

Now, also to be fair, the state’s Legislature did vote to ratify it in 1995—but the vote was never made official because lawmakers failed to inform the U.S. archivist, and so, they finally did so in 2012.

Nice to know that I was born into a state where slavery was, technically, still legal.

Just A Thought ....

So, Clive Davis write a book and the big part of the book getting press is his continuing feud with Kelly Clarkson for not doing exactly what he says when he says it. Making less noise, though, is Davis’ admission that he is bisexual, and has been in a homosexual relationship for the last seven years or so.

Davis, who is twice divorced, with three sons, a daughter and six grandchildren, acknowledges that his orientation is "something that my children and close friends have always known, but that I knew I would need to discuss in a biography.”

Also making less noise is Davis’ relationship with Whitney Houston, whom, he says, he discovered. If, of course, by discover, he means, something sent him a  demo and he signed her to his label, and not ‘discover’ like I was walking down a street and heard a woman singing and signed her to a deal.

One issue about Davis—who also plays up the gossip that he was like a surrogate father to Houston—is his story of being in the audience the night Whitney—cracked out and looking dangerously thin—performed at a Michael Jackson tribute concert.

His baby, his surrogate daughter, his meal ticket, looked like death warmed over so much so that producers of the TV show used CGI to actually beef Whitney up.

So, did Davis run backstage and tell her to get her act together? Did he demand she go into rehab or be dropped from the label? Did he try in any way shape or form to parent his ‘child’? No, he wrote her a letter that said he was worried about her; he doesn’t even know if she ever got it.

We all need a father like that, eh?

Oh, for the love of the Baby Jeebus.

Last week motor vehicle workers in Dayton called police on a man who insisted on wearing a pasta strainer—yes, you read that right—on his head during the taking of his driver’s license photo.

The man, Aaron Williams, told motor vehicle workers the strainer was a religious head covering and he had a right to wear it in his driver’s license photo.

His religion—and you’ll be reading this right, too—is Pastafarianism. He’s a Pastafarian. Also known as the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Pastafarianism opposes teaching intelligent design and creationism in schools.

Needless to say, after much discussion, and some police intervention, Williams agreed to have his picture taken without the strainer, although he did raise his Parmesan cheese grater defiantly.

I’m just guessing about the cheese grater.

Tweet Of The Week ....

I recall when former First Lady Laura Bush came out in favor of marriage equality, and I applauded this Real Housewife of the GOP for taking a pro-equality stance.

Now, sadly, the applause has died.

Laura is asking the Respect for Marriage Coalition to remove her from a national television, newspaper and online advertising campaign that launched this week. The advertising blitz shows a clip of Bush talking to Larry King on CNN in 2010 and saying, “When couples are committed to each other and love each other then they ought to have the same sort of rights that everyone has.”

But Bush spokeswoman Anne MacDonald said the former first lady “did not approve of her inclusion in this advertisement nor is she associated with the group that made the ad in any way …. When she became aware of the advertisement last night, we requested that the group remove her from it.”

You know, because even though she said it, way back in Ott-Ten, she doesn’t want to say it today.

Way to fall back into the GOP Inequality Goosestep, Missus Bush.

Just Because ....

Peter Porte played an assistant principal on The New Normal this week, and, well, he's quite nicely assisted, as evidenced by his Fantasy Sequence Striptease.

I wish my assistant principal had been as talented. I might have gotten in more trouble at school

Read More