No Pictures of Gay People!

[Tom Dempsey]

No Pictures of Gay People!

Category: Politics
Posted on: October 1, 2008 9:16 AM, by Ed Brayton

Here's your bigoted overreaction of the day: the Clovis school board in New Mexico is taking control of the yearbook to make sure that they don't repeat the horrible crime of include lesbian couples in a section of the yearbook on couples at the school:

The Clovis board of education will have final say on content in student publications under a new policy adopted about four months after the high school yearbook published pictures of lesbian couples.

The board voted 3-2 to pass the new publications code Tuesday. The code also gives school principals authority to review students' work before publication...

Photos of two lesbian couples, along with narratives describing their relationships, were included in a features section titled "Do you want to go out?" Also pictured on the two-page spread were nine heterosexual couples.

Well obviously they can't allow pictures of actual lesbians in the yearbook. That might send the improper message that lesbians are human beings and deserve to be a part of society with equal rights and stuff. That just will not do.

This story has been going on for a while now. The student editor of the yearbook is exactly right:

"We just wanted to show that there is a diversity, there (are) gay and lesbian couples in the school and they have a right to be in the yearbook just as much as anybody else does," student editor-in-chief Maggie Chavez told the News Journal.

Chavez and staff member Jessie Hardison told the News Journal that the decision to include two lesbian couples along with nine heterosexual couples in a feature titled "Do you want to go out?" was a conscious one and made after much consideration and discussion.

While school staff check content for obscenity, libel and other matters of legal concern, yearbook supervisor Carol Singletary told the News Journal that featuring gay couples "didn't violate privacy, it wasn't obscene, it wasn't libelous ... it didn't violate any of the district policies."

But the local Christian folk through a fit when the yearbook was published:

But former Lt. Gov. Walter Bradley, who described himself as a parent and a concerned Christian member of the community, said he was upset about the photos and the accompanying interviews.

"I think it's highly inappropriate to place that in that venue. That is no place for that type of negligent exploitation of our kids," Bradley told the News Journal. "I do not in any way believe this reflects the attitudes and values of this community."

Funny, a rational person would think that those lesbian couples are a part of that community. I know that bothers bigots like Bradley, but frankly that's just too bad. And you have to laugh at the fact that showing two lesbian couples is "negligent exploitation" while showing 9 heterosexual couples is not. Who, exactly, is being exploited here, Mr. Bradley?

more...

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2008/10/no_pictures_of_gay_people.php