In the red corner, the Civil Rights Team Project of West Virginia. Their goal: tolerance and reduced bullying.
And in the blue corner, the West Virginia Family Foundation. Christian Supremacists, right down to the AgapePress newsfeed on their front page.
Guess what happens when these two collide? If your guess included the words "homosexual agenda", then you're probably right. Back in August, the WVFF started screaming at the West Virginia Attorney General's office, calling the program "a veiled promotional tool for homosexuality".
Ah, the wonders of the fundie mind. (Such as it is.) What really makes me laugh is their reasoning...and an ACTUAL DEFINITION of the 'gay agenda'. "The gay agenda is the promotion and open acceptance of this chosen lifestyle as normal and on par with heterosexuality in every facet of society," said Kevin McCoy, the WVFF president.
No, really. He's saying that like it's a bad thing...like those people who are attracted to their own gender (or both) are suddenly less than human, and not worthy of love. What right does he have to be the arbiter of every relationship in the state?
It gets better, too...if, by 'better', you mean 'worse'. "The fact is the 'project' is really nothing more than hate crimes training for children under the guise of an anti-bullying program," McCoy claimed. Try to wrap your mind around that one, folks, because I sure can't. Suddenly, teaching students that gays are people too is a hate crime? These people are crazier than I thought.
And, according to the teachers involved in implementing the program, so are the charges. "The only mention of gay and lesbian and bisexual issues deals with the fact that all students should be treated equally in any setting, regardless of sex, religion, culture," said Travis Baldwin, project supervisor at Sissonville High School in Charleston. "It was a way of teaching tolerance and acceptance of the differences of the minority within the majority as well as those of majority within the minority."
"The charges I heard against the project were so erroneous, it was laughable," he added. "Some of these ultra-conservative groups don't even want the word 'homosexual' mentioned in the public schools at all." This would be a good time for that 'Lord, protect me from your followers' bumper sticker.
Finally, on a slightly amusing note, Peter LaBarbera, the Culture and Family Institute's senior policy analyst, says that the CFI has received complaints from harassed Christians, and suggests that the program add provisions for that.
Of course, given what I've seen on this site, one wonders what that 'harassment' really was.
