Have you
punched a gay middle-schooler for Christ today? Well, you'd better do it fast,
because Barack Obama is trying to take this God-given duty and religious right
away from you.
It's no
secret that LGBT students get bullied at school. In fact, it's no secret that
kids who get bullied at school are often accused of being LGBT, even if they
aren't. And while a lot of folks think that all of this bullying is really not
conducive to learning, others, like the Liberty Council's Matt Barber,
apparently thinks it's just a trial by fire to determine who is righteous.
As you
may know, the White House recently held an anti-bullying summit which provoked
outrage amongst the anti-gay right. On his Faith and Freedom radio program,
Barber likened anti-bullying programs to a "Trojan horse," saying that
all of this talk about "safe schools" was really code for a
"homosexual activist political indoctrination agenda and a curriculum of
pro-homosexual propaganda."
That's
right, folks. Anti-bullying = pro-gay. And not just supporting gay students,
but mandating homosexuality. You've got two choices: a school where kids are
total violent assholes to each other or a peaceful school where everyone's gay.
The fact
is, anti-bullying problems are unfair to Christians. Forcing Christians to not
bully their gay and lesbian classmates is unChristitutional, or whatever.
"We
have a situation that this creates where those who they accuse of being the
bullies become the bullied," Barber laments. "People with traditional
values, Christians, kids who happen to believe what every major world religion,
thousands of years of history and uncompromising human biology hold to be true,
that sexual behavior is appropriate within the bonds of marriage between a man
and a woman."
Barber
is, I think, confused about what it means to be bullied. No one is saying that
kids can't believe what they want about gays. But it shouldn't be acceptable to
make a gay kid's life a living hell just because your pastor says gays are
evil.
Shawn
Akers, Barber's co-host, points out that if you really wanted to stop bullying
you'd work to "grow Judeo-Christian ethic."
"Even
if you disagreed with someone's lifestyle, the Judeo-Christian ethic would be
the first to tell you you're not going to bully, you're not going to beat up,
you're not going to abuse anybody," Akers says.
Ah, so
the problem is that kids aren't Christian enough. It couldn't have anything to
do with so-called Christian groups like, say, the Liberty Council, portraying
LGBT people as sick and damaged that contributes to the bullying against them.
So when a Christian kid gets the urge to beat up one of these disgusting
queers, Judeo-Christian ethic steps in and says, "You leave that godless
piece of trash alone," and everything's fine.
Most
enlightening was Barber's suicide prevention strategy. He says that sexually
active teens, gay and straight, are more likely to commit suicide than their
chaste peers.
"We've
had this spate of kids who have committed suicide and some of them it has been
apparently because they have been bullied. A handful have actually also been
kids who self identified as gay or lesbian," Barber says. "Kids who
are engaging in homosexual behavior, I think often look inward and know that
what they are doing is unnatural, is wrong, is immoral, and so they become depressed
and the instances of suicide can rise there as well."
So
Barber, spinning some of that Judeo-Christian ethic magic, is essentially
arguing that since gay kids are twisted and wrong, it's no wonder they want to
off themselves. If anything, bullies are really just doing gay kids a favor.
"What
Obama should be teaching rather than promoting the LGBT agenda that pushes
pre-marital sexual activity, be it homosexual or heterosexual," Barber
continues, "is advocating on behalf of abstinence education and
encouraging kids to remain pure until marriage. That is the best way to prevent
kids who are engaged in sexual behavior from committing suicide."
Abstinence
education as suicide prevention tool. Very novel. Very sure-to-work. What could
go wrong? Keep in mind that gay people, for the most part, can't get married.
Which means there's no room in Barber's equation for them. And that's exactly
how he wants it.
Anti-bullying
programs are a problem precisely because they acknowledge that gay kids exist.
And if gay kids no longer have to hide in the shadows, it'll be a lot harder to
convince them that they're horrible and damaged. And the more gay kids who feel
like they actually matter, the harder it's going to be for Barber and his ilk
to lie about who and what they are, which is, of course, the "(anti-gay)
activist political indoctrination agenda."