Tuesday, June 27, 2006
by Wayne Besen
The recent scene portrayed by Concerned Women For America in a
web article was chilling. The group wrote, "A mob of schoolchildren seized and beat the 7-year old son of pro-family activist David Parker behind his school,
Estabrook Elementary, in Lexington, Massachusetts, on the second anniversary of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts."
Concerned Women went on to say that the victim, first grader Jacob Parker, "apparently is feeling the heat for his father's opposition to forced homosexual education."
"When you tell children over and over that opposing homosexuality amounts to hatred, you're setting some kids up for this sort of abuse," said Robert Knight, Director of Concerned Women for America's Culture & Family Institute. "The school posted numerous slanted articles in the school library about Mr. Parker's dispute with authorities, and some parents went out of their way to stir up hatred toward Parker and his family.
"There is only one small problem with this horror story: It is a
fabrication so fictitious it could have been written by Stephen King. Virtually nothing is true and the distortions are a deliberate attempt to smear a school district, intimidate administrators and influence a curriculum that has the temerity to suggest that gay families exist and should be treated with respect.
The
trouble started in early 2005 when David Parker, a parent tied to the right wing political group
Mass Resistance, was upset with the school's pro-gay curriculum. He sent a series of unpleasant e-mails to Estabrook's principal, Joni Jay, saying that he did not want his son exposed to "beliefs contrary to the Word of God in our Christian faith."
On April 27, 2005, Parker met with Jay and presented the principal with a series of demands, refusing to leave campus until they were met. After three hours of protesting, Parker was finally arrested. As part of a headline-grabbing publicity stunt, Parker refused to post bail and spent the night in jail. More recently, Parker sued the school district in Federal court over the issue of teaching tolerance in schools.
While he likes to portray himself in the press as simply a father, he is really
an extremist who cares more about
politics than parenting. A newly minted martyr, Parker joined Mass Resistance leader Brian Camenker for six appearances in Maine in an effort to undo an anti-discrimination law in the Lobster State.
With a defeat in Maine and growing acceptance of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, Parker apparently grew desperate for notoriety, which leads us to the first grade "mob" scene. I interviewed Paul Ash, Superintendent of Schools, about the incident, reviewed his official report and found that the facts presented are not consistent with the way the incident has been reported by the right wing "media."
Indeed, to ensure he could not be accused of a conflict of interest for investigating one of his own schools, Ash formally asked the Lexington Police Department, the Middlesex District Attorney and the Department of Social Services to intervene. All three agencies swiftly concluded that the sensationalistic accusations were without merit.
For example, the "mob" of children turned out to be only one child, a friend of Jacob's. Not long after the fight, Jacob went over the friend's house for a play date. The motive for the fisticuffs had nothing to do with David Parker's anti-gay activism, but was a "disagreement over who would sit where in the cafeteria."This is hardly the violent liberal conspiracy darkly and breathlessly portrayed by the extreme right.
Still, the facts did not get in the way of the right wing launching a vicious
smear campaign full of inconsistencies and innuendo. The garbage spewed by Concerned Women for America and
Mass Resistance was also eagerly reported by
Rev. Lou Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition. This created a feeding frenzied
echo chamber, where zealots across the globe were duped into believing that school officials had conspired with progressive parents to have a mob of children punish a conservative father by pummeling his son.Similar to the right's intimidation campaign against Michael Schiavo, the yelling yahoos were provided with Ash's
personal information.
"I have received hundreds of e-mails, many of them threatening," Ash told me in our interview. "I even got an angry call from Japan at 4AM. It is one thing to attack my opinion, but this is a blatant attempt to terrorize."I asked the Superintendent if there was any validity to the right wing's claims. "Zero, this is
complete bull," Ash explained. "What these groups have done is taken a playground fight and used it for political goals."
Instead of focusing on the three R's, the school district now has to waste its time defending itself against the right wing's three D's: Deceit, Dishonesty and Deception.
4 Comments:
Welcome to our company which sells all kinds of holic gold, very cheap holic money, and the more cheap holic gold. If you have to buy some holic online gold, please come to our company, we can give you the best holic online money and best service.
posted by , at
9:55 PM
I get a lot of rohan crone and the rohan gold is very important for anyone who wants to play the net game. Most of the rohan online croneis the access to the net game. If you have the rohan online gold, you can make good use of the rohan moneyto enjoy yourself in the game.
posted by cool, at
8:12 PM
I always heard something from my neighbor that he sometimes goes to the internet bar to play the game which will use him some runescape gold
he usually can win a lot of rs gold
then he let his friends all have some runescape money
his friends thank him very much for introducing them the cheap rs gold. they usually buy runescape together.
posted by xhsjsss, at
8:20 PM
It is the shadow of legend Gold which make me very happy these days, my brother says sol gold is his favorite games gold he likes
, he usually buy some buy shadow of legend Gold to start his game and most of the time he will win the cheap shadow of legend Gold back and give me some shadow of legend money to play the game.
posted by derfefww, at
7:34 PM
<< Home
