Who Would Oppose an Anti-Bullying Event?

Apparently this is not something that we, as the unenlightened, are capable of understanding. Only when you surrender to faith-based reasoning does this sort of thing make sense.

Ah, yeah. If your kids have to relinquish your God-given mandate to call people fags! for one week, your first-amendment rights are being impinged. Because you can’t be a Christian and not insult gays. It makes sense. Really.

On a similar note, the parents of the kids who bullied me in grade school all agreed that I probably deserved it and that it would make me a stronger person. There’s more to it than the gay thing. It’s just the most legitimate front they can come up with.

I agree with Ollie.

I get the feeling that they are just opposing things like this out of spite now. There isn’t a rational reason to be against it, but a “damned liberal” thinks it’s a good idea so they have to be against it!

Just to play Devil’s Advocate and provide more context than Hemant either didn’t research beyond the soundbit or isn’t providing, this fundie didn’t just invent some grand homo-conspiracy, this is actually right on the About No Name Calling Week page for the website (note the absence of racism/religious bigotry/economic status but note what is very explicity included, highlight is mine)

No Name-Calling Week was inspired by a young adult novel entitled “The Misfits” by popular author, James Howe. The book tells the story of four best friends trying to survive the seventh grade in the face of all too frequent taunts based on their weight, height, intelligence, and sexual orientation/gender expression. Motivated by the inequities they see around them, the “Gang of Five” (as they are known) creates a new political party during student council elections and run on a platform aimed at wiping out name-calling of all kinds. Though they lose the election, they win the support of the school’s principal for their cause and their idea for a “No Name-Calling Day” at school.

Also, they do provide educational materials for K-4th grade and “promoting homosexuality” would be wrong at this level just like “promoting sexuality of any kind” would be wrong. But unfortunately for the Fundie, if you read the lesson plans there is no mention whatsoever of any kind of sexuality or even any specific group, racial, religious or economic, period. This guy is clearly misrepresenting what is actually going on.

He is right that this program does open the doors for teaching to K-4th graders that homosexuality is not wrong when they get older. They aren’t actually say that in so many words, but they are laying the groundwork for later in life when sexuality and those differences can become additional topics for bigotry.

So this “Look at the Fundie, he supports bullies” finger-pointing is a bit disingenuous, sorry but i have to call shenanigans on that.

This is a worthwhile program and should be applauded for what it does. Hell at 3rd and 5th grade, I’ve already had to have the conversation with my boys that “Gay does not equal Stupid”.

The book tells the story of four best friends trying to survive the seventh grade in the face of all too frequent taunts based on their weight, height, intelligence, and sexual orientation/gender expression.

Well, remembering my own experiences from elementary school, those are the major categories that name-calling fell into. A large girl in our class was called “dumptruck” by mean boys; another boy was accused of being a “girly boy” for playing jump rope; a girl who cut her hair very short was called a “lesbo” (I didn’t know what the word meant at the time and was very confused); I was called “Sarah plain and tall” when I hit a growth spurt and stood about a head taller than everyone else in my grade; short boys were ridiculed; displaying too much intelligence got you labelled a “nerd” or a show-off, and having too little got you called a “retard” or “dummy.”

I can’t really think of any mean name-calling that didn’t fall into those categories at my school. To be fair, the school I attended was rural and very WASP-populated, so there weren’t opportunities for racial slurs and I didn’t hear any until high school.

Skeptigator,

I was called “fag” “queer” “gay” “homo” etc all through elementary school and junior high, despite the fact that I was and am straight, merely because I was not good in sports. I got beat up a couple of times for “being a fag.”

Bullying and name-calling can sometimes have little to do with reality.

He is right that this program does open the doors for teaching to K-4th graders that homosexuality is not wrong when they get older.

What I want to ask is “where are these doors?” I mean, surely there are already older kids than k-4. Are they currently being taught that homosexuality is not wrong? If these fundies want to fight that, then they should fight that. It seems to me that they’re always fighting these “stealth campaigns” that only exist in their imaginations, like the one where Barney the Dinosaur and SpongeBob were supposedly pushing homosexuality because they were on a video meant to promote societal unity in the wake of September 11th.

If promoting not calling kids “fag” is “laying the groundwork” then instructing them not to beat up kids must really be laying some groundwork, eh?

Showing kids pictures of cute animals might also be “laying the groundwork” for vegetarianism. Teaching them about global warming might be laying the groundwork for a future career in ecoterrorism.

If things can be attacked not for what they do or do not accomplish, but by their mere ability to “lay the groundwork” for something more objectionable, isn’t that an admission that the current controversy at issue *actually isn’t objectionable enough* to warrant the outrage and national coverage?

As an educator, I might oppose it based on a cost/benefit analysis.

I know people here were earlier rejoicing about ending a minute or two of “silent reflection,” so we should be pretty much in agreement that public schools are not a place for reformers to waste our time by trying to force everyone into their mold if there isn’t a strong educational benefit to their programs. Surely multiple events over the course of a week would have a higher cost than a minute now and then (daily?). And with academic performance in public schools continually declining towards zero, we do have to be very aware of the costs of any such new program.

On the other hand, I expect the benefits to be about the same as those of a moment of silence: namely, near zero. I wouldn’t object to a small pilot program to test the educational benefits of such a program (e.g., if it reduces bullying which in turn increases academic performance, it’d probably be worthwhile). But this is the kind of program that exists in large part because of its name: if it turns out that it doesn’t have much of an effect, many people will nonetheless continue to support it because it “sounds like a good idea.”

Now, I haven’t studied this particular program in enough detail to know whether it’s good or not (and I’m not going to, since it’d take more of my time than it’d be worth since I’d be unable to effect the policy anyway), but I’d just like to point out that, theoretically, there may be good reasons to oppose such a program, and I hope that those actually involved in the decisions regarding this event don’t have a knee-jerk reaction about it, either in support or in opposition.

(e.g., if it reduces bullying which in turn increases academic performance, it’d probably be worthwhile).

Simply reducing bullying isn’t worthwhile enough for you? Don’t get me wrong, I understand what you’re saying… but not everything in school has to correlate to test scores.

Miko said:

I know people here were earlier rejoicing about ending a minute or two of “silent reflection,” so we should be pretty much in agreement that public schools are not a place for reformers to waste our time by trying to force everyone into their mold if there isn’t a strong educational benefit to their programs.

I didn’t oppose the moment of silence mainly because it was forcing people into a mold. I opposed it because it was religious and the First Amendment is supposed to protect people from religious promotion or religious discouragement under color of government authority.

Non-religious mold-forcing is not the same thing. Which is why I don’t object on legal grounds to the tub-thumping patriotism indoctrination that begins in public-school kindergarten.

Sad, sad, sad. It makes the baby Jesus cry. (And the big grown-up Jesus, too.)

This kind of thing is exactly what leads to people like Ted Haggard living pitiful lives in the closet.

Like Siamang, I was called “fag”, “queer”, “gay”, “homo”, and even “lesbo” (despite being straight and male … funny how confused childish bullies can be) because I was absolutely dreadful at any team sport. I got beat up ‘for being gay’ any number of times. Insults about one’s sexuality were the commonest insults heard at the schools I was at as a child. Much worse to be called a “fag” tnan a Nazi.

The conservative Christians want to defend that sort of behavior because they still engage it. They know repeated insults damage people – and that’s what they seek to do. They’re defending their ability to do harm.

The RRRWers oppose anything that dares to suggest they can’t hate on LGBT people.