Rutgers Student's Death Emphasizes The Need To Teach Tolerance in Schools

The death of an 18 year old freshmen at Rutgers is a reminder of our responsibility to fight against intolerance in our schools. It is uncertain at this point what the consequences will be for the individuals responsible for the prank. My take is school is for social learning. If we had a better balance in the academic setting to teach students tolerance, along with academics, we can reduce the amount of bullying within our society.

From the Home Page - Article on Teacher Hate.

I liked this post so much, I put a copy on this page for future reference.
As the Day of Silence program picks of speed and students come to school wearing their tags of protest, teachers around our country will have the following conversations.

Why does this have to be in our face?
Why do we not have a heterosexual day of silence?
Sarcasm, anger, and sadness will prevail.
For teachers who deny the importance of such days, here are the hate crime statistics that you refuse to acknowledge:

Hate Crimes Based on Sexual Orientation
1995: 13% of all hate crimes were motivated by sexual-orientation bias
1996: 12% of all hate crimes were motivated by sexual-orientation bias
1997: 14% of all hate crimes were motivated by sexual-orientation bias
1998: 15% of all hate crimes were motivated by sexual-orientation bias
1999: 17% of all hate crimes were motivated by sexual-orientation bias
2000: 16% of all hate crimes were motivated by sexual-orientation bias
2001: 14% of all hate crimes were motivated by sexual-orientation bias
2002: 17% of all hate crimes were motivated by sexual-orientation bias
2003: 17% of all hate crimes were motivated by sexual-orientation bias
2004: 16% of all hate crimes were motivated by sexual-orientation bias

Enjoy those teacher room conversations.

Intelligent Design Warning

In my book, I wrote a chapter warning about intelligent design. There is a danger of hate entering schools through a back door by allowing theology into the classroom. Consider the following:

State Rep. Sally Kern (R-Oklahoma City) is gearing up her crusade to dictate Oklahoma public school teachers turn their classrooms into narrow minded bastions of Christian extremism and fanaticism.

Kern, along with another legislator, state Rep. Mike Reynolds (R-Oklahoma City), are introducing similar bills, both named the Religious Viewpoints Discrimination Act, according to a media report. The bills will be considered in this upcoming legislative session.

I have written about Reynolds’ bill before. Kern’s bill is apparently another back door way to try to stop the teaching of evolution and the scientific method in our state schools. Essentially, students would be allowed to argue—without any penalty—against established knowledge in all fields using fundamentalist religious arguments.

For example, students might use pseudo science, such as intelligent design, an offshoot of creationism, to undermine basic scientific facts in a classroom. Teachers could be forced to sit idly by as religious fanatics hector their fellow students about evolution and other topics that do not fit into the small intellectual framework of the Christian fundamentalists.

Kern, whose husband is a pastor, and Reynolds say their bills are needed to ensure religious students are not discriminated against, but the real intent is to expand the right-wing Christian fundamentalist agenda in public schools here. These are dangerous bills that will lower the bar for Oklahoma students and prevent the basic dissemination of scientific knowledge. The insidious, disingenuous nature of these bills cannot be overstated.

According to an Associated Press story in The Daily Oklahoma, Kern, a former teacher, said, "There's a great deal of confusion out there. Any time a student says something about God or Jesus, they're immediately censored."

I challenge the veracity of this statement. School teachers, principals and superintendents in the state should challenge this statement as well. Students have never been nor will they ever be consistently “immediately censored” for talking about religion in Oklahoma classrooms. Teachers in Oklahoma do not attempt to stop their students from holding or expressing religious beliefs. This is a non issue.

Now watch the video on Sally Kerns to understand how hate can enter through the back door of a classroom.

How Unpopular is Fred Phelps?

If you think someone like Fred Phelps is alone in his viewpoints, check out his election results when he ran for Governor in Kansas.

Democratic primary for Governor of Kansas, 1990

• Joan Finney - 81,250 (47.18%)
• John Carlin - 79,406 (46.11%)
• Fred Phelps - 11,572 (6.72%)

Democratic primary for United States Senate, Kansas 1992

• Gloria O'Dell - 111,015 (69.20%)
• Fred Phelps - 49,416 (30.80%)

Democratic primary for Governor of Kansas, 1994

• Jim Slattery - 84,389 (53.02%)
• Joan Wagnon - 42,115 (26.46%)
• James Francisco - 16,048 (10.08%)
• Leslie Kitchenmaster - 11,253 (7.07%)
• Fred Phelps - 5,349 (3.36%)

Democratic primary for Governor of Kansas, 1998

• Tom Sawyer - 88,248 (85.28%)
• Fred Phelps - 15,233 (14.72%)

For those who deny hate is a problem in the United States, how do we explain such support?

The Reverend Fred Phelps

In my book, I discuss how Christianity and Hate can cross each other's pass. The Reverend Fred Phelps is a former Baptist Minister who converted to a strict doctrine of hate. Consider the following quote regarding Matthew Shepperd's documentary on his death.

The Laramie Project is a tawdry bit of banal fag melodrama – sordid, cheap, unaffecting, drearily predictable – without the least artistic or literary merit or redeeming social value. Indeed, its only purpose is to promote sinful, soul-damning sodomy by playing on the sick, maudlin emotions of doomed, godless America and thereby to recruit ill-bred teenagers to lives of sin, shame, disease, death and hell.

^{In order for Civil Rights to take the next step forward, the US needs to adopt legislation that ends non profit status for churches that have policies of hate.}

While Fred Phelps is an example of hate that is extreme, we need to discuss mainstream doctrines that exclude some from the table of equity.