I am so sick of this! Another outrageous example of school administrators abusing children. Officials at the Wesson Attendance Center (what's up with that name?) refused to allow an openly gay student to use her picture of choice in the school yearbook because she was wearing a tux, not a dress. Her Mom enlisted the ACLU to petition the school to change their position. They didn't. Worse, when the yearbook was printed officials simply excised all mention of Ceara Sturgis, a 12 year honor student, from the book. It's as if she didn't exist.
I bet these homophobes are also anti-abortion and yet they have aborted this 17-year-old child.
I say, burn them! Seriously, let's make hompohopbia a capital offense and let's bring back the stake. The world can get along nicely with fewer bigots, so let's burn their asses.
Here are two takes on the story, first from the Jackson Free Press and then from the Advocate.
This is Tom from Toledo.
ReplyDeleteThis is horrendous. I think we have to re-commit ourselves every day to speaking truth without fear, to this kind of violence to young people. So often, I remain silent when a word needs to be spoken regardless of the effect upon a friendship, the atmosphere in an office or a family. It's not about us, it's about the welfare of those being dehumanized.
I'm not sure that burning at the stake is the answer, only because it's not effective--too much chance of creating even more kindling. Violence ALWAYS begets more violence, more oppression, more chances for sympathisers to excuse the oppressors.
Thanks, Walter.
If there was a way to burn them in such a way as to NOT create a larger carbon footprint and contribute to the overall energy use (maybe shut down some coal powered plants), I am all for it. And, it appears there is a HUGE supply, so it would be a really good energy source!
ReplyDeleteAs for Ceara, she is out already, she is smart and she is supported not only by her mother but apparently but classmates as well. She will do well but this slight will stay with her, I suspect. It is an age where so much seems so important.
Things are changing. Too many will resist the inevitable with their last breath, which, with luck, will come soon.
THIS MOMENTOUS DAY!
ReplyDeleteNot one day in anyone’s life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s syndrome child.
Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example.
Each smallest act of kindness – even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile – reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away.
Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will.
All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined – those dead, those living, those generations yet to come – that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands.
Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength – the very survival – of the human tapestry.
Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days for which we, in our dissatisfaction, so often yearn are already with us; all great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in THIS MOMENTOUS DAY! – Rev. H.R. White
Excerpt from Dean Koontz’s book, “From the Corner of His Eye”.
It embodies the idea of how the smallest of acts can have such a profound effect on each of our lives.