Homophobia

Claire · Nov 6, 2004

Found this on the gay forum.... Bloody Bush Country

LMoffet1 said:

This article got me really pissed off.... What the fuck are they trying to put into these kids heads?

Texas OKs Textbooks That Define Marriage

State Board of Education member Terri Leo, from Spring, Texas, speaks ...More...AUSTIN, Texas - The Texas Board of Education approved new health textbooks after the publishers gave in to last-minute pressure from some board members to define marriage as a "lifelong union" between a man and woman.

The decision Friday, which involves two of the biggest textbook publishers, is an example of Texas exerting its clout as the nation's second-largest buyer of textbooks. Officials say the decision could affect hundreds of thousands of books in Texas alone.

Board member Terri Leo, a Republican, said she was pleased with the publishers' changes. She led the effort to get the publishers to change the texts, objecting to what she called "asexual stealth phrases" such as "individuals who marry."

Leo charged that the proposed new books for the state's middle schools and high schools ran counter to a Texas law banning the recognition of gay civil unions because the texts used terms like "married partners" instead of "husband and wife."

"Marriage has been defined in Texas, so it should also be defined in our health textbooks that we use as marriage between a man and a woman," Leo said.

After hearing the debate Thursday, one publisher, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, agreed to include a definition of marriage as a "lifelong union between a husband and a wife." The definition, which was added to middle school textbooks, already was in Holt's high school editions, Holt spokesman Rick Blake said.

The other publisher, Glencoe/McGraw-Hill, changed phrases such as "when two people marry" and "partners" to "when a man and a woman marry" and "husbands and wives."

"The board expressed an interest in having us" make the change, Blake said. "We thought it was a reasonable thing to do."

But Blake said the publisher does not plan to add its definition of marriage in books that will be sold outside Texas. A spokeswoman for Glencoe/McGraw-Hill did not immediately respond to questions.

A list of the books that were approved by the board, as well as those that were not, are sent to school districts for guidance when they choose books.

Board member Mary Helen Berlanga, a Democrat, asked the panel to approve the books without the changes, but her proposal was rejected on a 10-4 vote.

"We're not supposed to make changes at somebody's whim," Berlanga said. "It's a political agenda, and we're not here to follow a political agenda."

Neither publisher added all the changes Leo initially pushed for. For instance, one proposed passage in the teacher's editions read: "Opinions vary on why homosexuals, lesbians and bisexuals as a group are more prone to self-destructive behaviors like depression, illegal drug use, and suicide."

Randall Ellis, the executive director of the Lesbian/Gay Rights Lobby of Texas, said the board overstepped its bounds in suggesting and adopting the new wording.

"Their job is to review for factual information and instead what we see is the insertion of someone's ideology and agenda into the textbook of middle-schoolers," Ellis said.

The board's approval caps months of debate over health textbooks. Much of the debate had centered on how much sex education should be included in high school books.

A controversy arose last year in Texas when the board approved new biology textbooks that contained Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, brushing aside opposition from religious groups.
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NailFog · Nov 6, 2004

Claire said:

Found this on the gay forum.... Bloody Bush Country
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What do you see the problem being?

Claire · Nov 6, 2004

whispers said:

sorry claire i just wanted to get to know you.............
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You did pick a bad time to start sending me random, weird pm's whispers.... right in the middle of me getting abusive ones...

It did look like you were stalking me round the forums...

It aint the way I like to get to know people...

I've made loads of friends on these forums but none of those friendships blossomed out of random pm's accusing me of ignoring them.

I don't always reply to pm's immediately, same with emails... especially if I am talking to a friend on msn as I was last night.

Try to put yourself in my position and think how you came across.

I hate falling out with people

NailFog · Nov 6, 2004

You should prolly be careful around Whispers. You never know.

monosphere · Nov 6, 2004

Claire said:

Found this on the gay forum.... Bloody Bush Country
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Yeah, I was reading that too. What do you expect from Bush's state? If this becomes a federal practice, I'm leaving the country. I figured there would be some states moving in a conservative direction. I just didn't expect it to happen this fast. I guess it's time to find someone who's willing to marry me and get me the hell out of here.

DoktorAtomik · Nov 7, 2004

monosphere said:

I guess it's time to find someone who's willing to marry me and get me the hell out of here.
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Canada's pretty progressive, and they've got a reasonably open immigration policy.

Claire · Nov 7, 2004

monosphere said:

Yeah, I was reading that too. What do you expect from Bush's state? If this becomes a federal practice, I'm leaving the country. I figured there would be some states moving in a conservative direction. I just didn't expect it to happen this fast. I guess it's time to find someone who's willing to marry me and get me the hell out of here.
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Just an interesting iccle article I found:

The Election Of Homophobia And Misogyny
It Is Time To Confront Theocratic Bigotry Head On

by Vijay Prashad; Samar 18: Fall, 2004; November 03, 2004 - Znet

Four years ago, Bush's Brain Karl Rove swore that he would not rest until the four million Evangelicals who did not vote then would turn out yesterday. And they did. They came in droves. They told those who did the exit polls that the issue that brought them to the franchise was not their own unemployment or under employment, or even the loss of their family members in a war of choice. They came to vote for "moral values."

After Rove told participants at an American Enterprise Institute seminar in 2001 that the goal of the Bush re-election campaign would be to make sure that all 19 million Evangelical Christians voted, his team hired Ralph Reed to take charge of the effort. Reed, the veteran of the Christian Coalition, mobilized his contacts and his good looks and went after the withheld votes.

The effort began to pay off by the summer of 2004 when the National Association of Evangelicals released a report, For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility. "Because Jesus is Lord over every aspect of life," the report argued, Evangelicals should take an interest in public policy and vote to enforce their "values" over the polity. There are two sections of the document that are helpful guides to "moral values": (1) "Christian citizens of the United States must keep their eyes open to the potentially self-destructive tendencies of our society and our government... We work to nurture family life and protect children," and (2) "We work to protect the sanctity of human life and to safeguard its nature." In other words, the report highlighted the twin "moral values" of anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion, of the preservation (of) marriage as a heterosexual institution and of the prevention of women to determine the fate of their bodies.

Bush ran an election campaign that appealed to this definition of "values." The fear of gay marriage and of abortion trumped all other issues, even a ransom-sized deficit and a murderous war. Some of this should have been predictable. The Pew Center for Religion and Public Life released a poll in August 2004 that showed 64% of those asked clearly saying that "moral values" is their most important issue.

Blinded by the enormity of the Iraq lies and the deficit, progressives and liberals could not see how significant this "moral value" problem would be. We took comfort in the aggregate data that shows how a large percentage of the population is actually not averse to abortion and knows someone who is gay or lesbian. But the aggregate poll might have been weighted to the coasts, and not to Kansas.

The Faith-Based initiatives, the ban on "partial-birth" abortions, the position against gay marriage, the refusal to fund stem-cell research, the "crusade" against Islam and Bush's personal story of transformation and forgiveness appealed to a population that is piously fundamentalist. Without meaningful work, with relatives and friends on the battlefield, with more and more corporations in domination over their lives, people who turn to Bush and to Evangelicalism do so for stability and order. As everything falls apart, belief provides organizations and institutions, and ideological stability. Religious organization offers the soul of soulless conditions.

Progressives are loath to offer a frontal criticism of the theocracy that has overtaken the South and the Midwest -- where under the command of tolerance we have to endure the intolerance toward women and their bodies, toward gays and lesbians, towards anyone who does not fit the compass of the "moral values" mass-produced by the established churches. It is time to throw off our forbearance and open a direct debate on the suppression of rational argument in favor of theocratic bigotry.

Homophobia elected Bush.

Misogyny elected Bush.

Unreason elected Bush.

Vijay Prashad is Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT. His most recent books are Fat Cats and Running Dogs: The Enron Stage of Capitalism and Keeping Up with the Dow Joneses: Debt, Prison, Workfare.
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Homophobia

Claire Senior Member

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Homophobia

Claire Senior Member

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monosphere Holly's Hubby

DoktorAtomik Closed For Business

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