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Loading ...California school district billed over lesbian minister controversy
07.02.2009 3:00pm EDT
(California) A school district has been billed $14,700 in law-suit related costs by a Sacramento legal firm representing a group of angry parents. The billing comes after the parents sued the school district, demanding materials related to a “Days of Diversity” presentation by a lesbian minister that caused a stir earlier this year.
“We think the fees are outrageous and we want documentation,” said Maggie MacIsaac, assistant superintendent of curriculum for the Castro Valley Unified School District. “We feel we were on the working end, accumulating materials and sending it to them. Their action was requesting information.”Rev. Arlene Nehring spoke to Castro High Valley students earlier this year about her coming out process and the importance of accepting alternative lifestyles. A group of angry parents sued the school for information regarding the presentation after an email blast was sent to parents saying Nehring gave “step-by-step instructions on how to become gay and transsexual.”
The Pacific Justice Institute, the legal firm representing the angry parents, claims that a powerpoint presentation of the minister’s speech had been altered before it was sent to them.
“There was supposed to be a frame that said something to the effect of ‘Come out to yourself, come out to your friends, come out to your family and come out to God,’” said Kevin Snider, chief counsel of the firm. “There’s a community interest to find out what was shown in the classroom.”
Read the full Hayward Daily Review here.
Perhaps all of us could send this group a bill for $1 million for aggrivation?
Post their address – let’s start sending out the invoices!
I gotta wonder–outside the US, if you had somebody who was so obsessively fixated on something that had nothing to do with them (str8 people fixated on gays), then it would get a clinical diagnosis. Even in the States, it has been diagnosed as a clinical issue (think it’s a subcategory of OCD, but I’m not a walking DSM). It’s no different than somebody who has a reflexive hostility to women, or someone with different skin color. Some of these people–self-described “Christians”–some really can’t help themselves. Because it’s religion, though, we have to tiptoe around it. Hell, these people have lower-grade mental illness, and if they refuse treatment, they should be treated the same as someone with schizophrenia who chooses to go off meds. If off-meds or not treated leads to impaired function, you’re just as culpable for your actions as if you were drunk.
I thnk the school students there ought to form a GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance)to befriend one another and to send the message that gay students are valuable people.
I hate that “lifestyle” thing. The only thing different about my lifestyle is the gender of my spouse. Otherwise, it is the same crap different day, like everyone else. When are these people going to get that?
I think their getting pissed off for the simple fact they have a step by step program for hate, which is contradictory to one of coming out and love and accept who you are by telling the truth.
step by step process to becoming gay AND transsexual.
1. Cut off penis
2. Poke hole in crotch. YAY Now your a woman.
At least this is what angry parents are probably looking for. Here’s an idea. You wanna know what was said? Get off your lazy asses and go to your child’s classroom.
Wow, if these people believe anyone could tell students how to become gay or transgender they must think she has a direct line to God… I’d love to know why the term Lifestyle is still being used in conjunction with ones sexual orientation, it’s NOT a Lifestyle, it is NOT a choice!
Drewski,
It’s always “Mormon season” in my ‘hood.
I see them on almost any given day around town.
Wow–where would I get one of these handy dandy “step by step instructions” on becoming gay? And where were they when I was 16 when I was flailing about in an awkward stupor hoping my friends wouldn’t disown me?
These people shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce without constant supervision.
Morgan–it’s Mormon season there too? Just saw two yesterday. It’s fun to watch clean-cut white kids walking through the ‘hood.
I’m guessing that the school board would have to approve this, so it’s not like the school just slid this in as some under-the-radar gesture. I think the school should petition to have the suit dismissed, then approach the prosecutor to take action against them for what is a gesture of intimidation.
sick parents make sick children
these religious freack should not be allowed to indoctrinate their kids
‘Come out to yourself, come out to your friends, come out to your family and come out to God.’
They equate that with “step-by-step instructions on how to become gay and transexual?” Maybe they’d be less confused if they attended the presentation.
To clear up this matter, maybe the judge should ask them to demonstrate/explain “step-by-step instructions” on how to become gay because I certainly didn’t get that memo. When they can’t, which I am sure will be the case since it doesn’t exist, then he should simply tell them to get the hell out of his courtroom. Preferably, in those words.
We need to find out their Achilles Heal, maybe (adultery), and take up a signature campaign to ban that behavior of theirs. Use that to take away the rights they so cavalierly vote to take away from us. They will not stop trying to put us all in camps. They a simply anti-American.
Have I missed something? According to the article, the pro-LGBT presenter was a UCC minister and her opponents are angry parents. If the intolerance is coming from right-wing evangelicals, I’m all for calling them fundamentalist Christians or the Christian Taliban. However, the Christian is on our side this time.