Friday, September 16, 2005

Creative Logic 

After 60+ students signed up to join the proposed Gay-Straight Alliance at Madison County High School in Georgia, a group of parents demanded that the principal and school committee bar the group from forming. To his credit, Principal Wayne McIntosh defended the group:
McIntosh and School Superintendent Keith Cowne told the irate citizens that it would be illegal discrimination to deny the students the right to have a club.
McIntosh told the meeting that the club could be a good influence in the school.
"We're hoping this club is a positive thing. This club offers support to these children and makes their life easier in society," he said. And as for the larger student body, "Kids have to live in the real world," he told the meeting.

Some of the 100 attendees at the meeting disagreed, and one spoke with what I find to be an unfathomably twisted logic:
"I do not agree with the club, with their agenda, and I believe the vast majority of the county would agree with me," he told the Banner-Herald after the meeting.
Chandler said LGBT students are setting themselves apart from other students [and] could be setting themselves up for violence, comparing the club to the Ku Klux Klan in its potential divisiveness.

Wow. So setting up an alliance between gay and straight students is actually the LGBT students' attempt to isolate themselves from the rest of the student body.

And reaching out to straight allies is an invitation to violence.

And establishing a group that embraces diversity is akin to joining a group that prides itself on pretty much hating everything that isn't exactly like yourself.

Can anyone out there follow this leap?

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Posted by Rogueslayer at 5:56 PM