Mercnbeth
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An East Texas parent who saw a secret homosexual agenda behind a school’s annual cross-dressing day successfully scuppered the tradition and now the kids are reduced to wearing camouflage instead, reports the Associated Press.
A lone parent in tiny Spurger, Texas thought the TWIRP (“The Woman is Requested to Pay”) Day, in which boys and girls reversed social roles and clothes for one day, was an effort to force a homosexual agenda on the kiddies.
"It's like experimenting with drugs," said the parent, who also has two children in the schools. "You just keep playing with it and it becomes customary. ... If it's OK to dress like a girl today, then why is it not OK in the future?"
At first, school officials were just going to let the parent keep her kids out of school that day but then they decided to scrap the whole thing altogether.
"I just think it's unfortunate," said a lawyer for the district. "It was just never intended to be anything other than just an innocent, fun day for children."
Wingnuts
November 16, 2004
Those Dastardly Scouts
The Pentagon will soon start warning military bases worldwide that they should not directly sponsor Boy Scout troops because the group requires its members to believe in God, reports the Associated Press.
To settle a 1999 lawsuit from the ACLU, the Pentagon agreed to warn bases not to officially sponsor groups of boys who pledge to do their duty to God and their country, to help other people at all times and to stay physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.
"If our Constitution's promise of religious liberty is to be a reality, the government should not be administering religious oaths or discriminating based on religious beliefs," said ACLU lawyer Adam Schwartz.
God Forbid
One Never Knows
Police in Atlanta were called to a dormitory at Emory University and spent an hour investigating and taking photographs of dry erase boards on which someone had scribbled the word “gay,” reports the Emory Wheel.
University officials said they are required by the school’s code of conduct to call police for any “act of intolerance.” Emory’s code defines an act of intolerance as any act “that has the effect of creating an offensive, demeaning, intimidating or hostile environment.”
Assistant Dean for Campus Life and Director of Student Conduct Andy Wilson said that because the word refers to sexual orientation, a protected class at Emory, Residential Life officials “had to err on the side of caution.”
College Life
All Vestiges
More than 10 years all images of the Confederate flag were banned from a Chicago high school nicknamed the rebels a new group of parents has zeroed in on a tiny vestige of the school heritage and demanded that it be removed as well, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.
Parents of students at Thornton Fractional South High School near Chicago recently discovered an image of the flag on a vest once worn by the Thornton principal on "school pride" days and still displayed inside a case at the school's front entrance.
The parents say the tiny patch is racist and offensive and needs to be removed.
Southern Discomfort
Heterosexism
The student government at Dartmouth College says the school’s reluctance to approve more co-educational housing is heterosexist and biased against women, according to the Dartmouth.
The Student Assembly voted to approve a resolution calling for more co-ed housing because the current dearth of it is insensitive to gay students on campus. Apparently, the current policy assumes that everyone is heterosexual or feels comfortable living with someone of the same gender.
Tim Andreadis, a chair of the assembly’s Diversity Affairs Committee, said he also believes that the current bias against co-ed housing stems from a belief that women will be unable to resist unwanted sexual advances from their male roommates.
College Life
Less Than Zero Tolerance
A high school in Wisconsin was forced to call off a fundraiser when school officials realized that the fishing kits donated to the effort contained filet knives and would not be allowed on campus because of the school’s zero-tolerance policy, reports the Associated Press.
A local businessman donated the 2,200 kits – dubbed Catch'Em, Cook'Em and Eat'Em -- to the Germantown High School band so they could sell them to raise money for a trip to Scotland in the spring. But band officials cancelled the effort when they discovered that each kit contained a six-inch filet knife.
Band leader Jim Barnes said no one was aware of the knives until a truck arrived with the shipment of kits.
"It seemed like a kit with a fishing lure, fish batter, a recipe book and a videotape," he said. "We were not aware of the filet knife. It was there, but it wasn't obvious. I didn't realize it until the truck came around."
Skools
When Art Attacks
An art project at California Polytechnic State University intended to spur discussion about gay marriage did just that by openly questioning it and offending a good chunk of the campus community in the process, reports The Tribune in San Luis Obispo.
The class project, part of a landscape architecture course, featured wooden cutouts of gay couples getting married. One of the cutouts featured a man in a tuxedo standing next to a dalmation and the phrases "Legalization of gay marriage leads to social disintegration"; Where would u draw the line?"; and "It's a slippery slope."
Students who saw the display called it disgusting, offensive and possibly in violation of a new anti-harassment law on campus. Others said they felt threatened by the sentiments expressed in the exhibit, which might incite violence. One even said it ruined his whole day.
College Life
The Sun is There
London’s Sun newspaper reports that a mall in Birmingham, England has given Santa the boot this year in order to avoid offending shoppers who don’t celebrate Christmas.
Officials at the Bullring, a huge mall in the northern city, tell the paper that they “wish to be sensitive to people of other religions over the festive period. There are a lot of people in the region who are not Christians and do not celebrate Christmas."
UPDATE: You think we would know better by now about The Sun.
Holiday Cheer
Tolerance Goes Both Ways?
The Live from Brussels weblog tracked down a report in the Dutch press about an artist who protested the murder of Theo Van Gogh by painting the words "Gij zult niet doden" ("Thou Shalt Not Kill") on a mural.
The mural was sandblasted down, however, after the head of a local mosque complained that the words were “offensive” and “racist.”
God Forbid
Role-Changing
The University of Washington has scrapped its tradition of having a Homecoming King and Queen in favor of non-gender-specific “homecoming royalty,” reports the Seattle Times.
The Associated Students of the University of Washington (ASUW), the campus
group that organizes homecoming, has broken from the annual tradition of a
homecoming king and queen in order to make the competition for a scholarship that comes with the titles more equitable.
"In our day and age, a lot of the traditional definitions of roles are changing, and this follows in line with that,” said Emi Nomura Sumida, one of this year’s winners. “Once people realize that this is not just a popularity contest but one based on qualifications, they'll hopefully understand and accept it."
College Life
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