carl-walker-hoover

Focus on the Family attacks anti-bullying efforts as part of the “gay agenda”

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Carl Walker-Hoover took his own life because of homophobic bullying.

There’s nothing like an interest group claiming to know what’s “best for the children” that completely disregards actual and real youth issues. What’s even better is that in efforts to push forth their own anti-LGBT bullshit, they’re claiming anti-bullying efforts by LGBT organizations are all a part of a “gay agenda”:

“We feel more and more that activists are being deceptive in using anti-bullying rhetoric to introduce their viewpoints, while the viewpoint of Christian students and parents are increasingly belittled,” [Candi] Cushman said.

Public schools increasingly convey that homosexuality is normal and should be accepted, Cushman said, while opposing viewpoints by conservative Christians are portrayed as bigotry.

Eliza Byard of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) rightly responds: “The word ‘f*ggot’ is not part of any religious creed.”

This is the kind of scare tactic bullshit, “The Gays are Coming to Turn Your Kids Homosexual!” that we’ve seen for years and just keeps getting older and older. But that message is also getting more and more dangerous as LGBT rights progress and more kids are coming out and/or expressing their personal identities more openly. In fact, the second most common form of bullying in the U.S. are actual or perceived sexual orientation and non-conforming gender expressions (the first is physical appearance such as body size or disability).

For these groups to use “what’s good for the children” as a guise to promote their intolerance only puts kids further at risk of serious harm — and we’re not just talking about hurt feelings; children are dying because of it. So if saving children from killing themselves over hatred that Focus on the Family is trying to protect is a “gay agenda,” then yeah, that’s exactly what schools need.

Focus on the Family has always been consistent with their anti-choice and anti-LGBT bull, but putting youth at risk with this kind of propaganda is just the lowest of the low. They should be ashamed of themselves — tell them so.

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