Contemptible People

This week, as is so often the case, it's Focus on the Family, who support driving teenagers to suicide.

Three teens at a Minnesota school district have committed suicide over the past year after enduring anti-gay bullying. The Anoka-Hennepin School Board claims that they take bullying seriously, but they’ve refused to implement anti-bullying education programs aimed specifically at anti-gay bullying — which is precisely the issue that has led to three deaths this year. A group of anti-gay parents have formed a pressure group to support the board’s anti-gay stance, and they have the full backing of Focus On the Family:

Focus' so-called "education expert" Candy Cushman has been making the rounds to say that FoF is supports anti-bullying programs -- unless they include gay kids, because that's  "sexualizing" the issue.  (I don't know any gays who think about gay sex as much as the spokespersons for the Christian right.  I really don't.)  From the looks of things, I know more about education than Cushman does -- the difference being, I suppose, that I'm actually educated.

The Southern Poverty Law Center has taken a good look at Cushman's little campaign and come out swinging:

For the last few days, an “educational analyst” for Focus on the Family has been getting a lot of press. She’s been suggesting that anti-bullying efforts that draw attention to the harassment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students are part of a “gay agenda” to “sneak homosexuality lessons into classrooms.”

One can argue, as some have, that Focus on the Family is a fringe group that doesn’t represent the majority of Christians in the United States. That’s true. But it’s also true that Focus on the Family has an outsized impact on conservative thought in this country. And by using deception and spin, the group has managed this week to grab the media spotlight. The goal is apparently to make schools less safe for LGBT students and more safe for their harassers. That cannot be ignored.

That's just the first two paragraphs.  Read the whole thing -- it's pretty tough, especially the part where author Maureen Costello lays out FoF's agenda.  Jim Burroway has a similar take on what they're after:

The best way not to solve a problem is not to talk about the problem. And since Focus’ position is that we should not talk about the problem, at some point you have to wonder if, in some unspoken dark corner of their collective souls, they see these suicides as serving their purposes. Focus consistently portrays the “homosexual lifestyle” as synonymous with abject misery — rampant drug abuse, STDs, depression and suicide. And, coincidentally or not, they consistently oppose efforts to constructively address drug abuse, STDs, depression and suicide among gay youth. After all, if we really were to address drug abuse, STDs, depression and suicide among gay youth by actually talking about drug abuse, STDs, depression and suicide among gay youth with an eye toward identifying solutions to these problems instead of using those problems as a hammer, then drug abuse, ST’s, depression and suicide among gay youth might actually go down. And the “homosexual lifestyle” won’t seem so full of misery, will it?

Groups of professional bigots, armed with a full arsenal of lies and distortions, cost us.  They cost us a lot, and it's not just LGBT youth I'm talking about here.  Read this very moving post by Betty Greene Salwak about the lifelong aftermath of her father's suicide. Now imagine it's your kid.

And thank Focus on the Family.