Southern Poverty Law Center names Anoka-Hennepin parents group to hate list

[MineralMan]

http://www.twincities.com/localnews/ci_20158168/southern-poverty-law-center-names-anoka-hennepin-parents

A national civil rights organization has named an Anoka-Hennepin school district parents' group critical of gay and lesbian lifestyles as a hate group.

The Parents Action League joined the Ku Klos Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, the American Aryan Reich and Bare Naked Islam as some of the latest organizations to make the Southern Poverty Law Center's annual list.

The list was released a week after the center settled two anti-gay bullying lawsuits filed against the Anoka-Hennepin district. The Parents Action League has been the most vocal critic of the aims of the Alabama-based civil rights organization.

In an email seeking comment on the listing, the president of the parents' group called its inclusion "a privilege."

This is the school district that had a policy to simply ignore and never mention GLBT issues. Several students in the district had committed suicide over bullying at school. This scumbag parent's organization fought changes in the "fairness" policy of the district.

Edit to add: This school district covers some northern suburbs of the Minneapolis St. Paul metro area in Minnesota. Michele Bachmann's stomping grounds, actually.

[Brickbat]

1. Wow. That parents group is poisonous. I hope the school district can begin to heal and, you know,

focus on teaching all the kids, but it'll be long and difficult and not certain at all.

[MineralMan]

2. It's a conservative area, and there are morons abounding there.

The school district has modified its policy, but it's too early to tell if that will work. It's a toxic environment, so it's only natural that Michele Bachmann is its congressional representative. Feh!

[Brickbat]

3. Oh, I know Anoka. Mr. Brickbat did a lot of work there when we lived down there, and it's

like another world. Truly backwards.

[hifiguy]

7. Wall to wall snowbillies, for the most part.

It's embarrassing that they are so close to the Twin Cities.

[HopeHoops]

4. It is possible to cure ignorance. Stupid is a permanent condition.

[MineralMan]

10. And, stupid and mean is a dangerous combination.

Those words describe those people very nicely.

[HopeHoops]

13. We call them "wingnuts".

[Sabien]

20. Gretchen Carlson

I believe Gretchen Carlson is from Anoka, MN

[Mopar151]

5. These are seriously bad people.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/one-towns-war-on-gay-teens-20120202

No one saw the rest of them coming, either.

Sam's death lit the fuse of a suicide epidemic that would take the lives of nine local students in under two years, a rate so high that child psychologist Dan Reidenberg, executive director of the Minnesota-based Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, declared the Anoka-Hennepin school district the site of a "suicide cluster," adding that the crisis might hold an element of contagion; suicidal thoughts had become catchy, like a lethal virus. "Here you had a large number of suicides that are really closely connected, all within one school district, in a small amount of time," explains Reidenberg. "Kids started to feel that the normal response to stress was to take your life."

There was another common thread: Four of the nine dead were either gay or perceived as such by other kids, and were reportedly bullied. The tragedies come at a national moment when bullying is on everyone's lips, and a devastating number of gay teens across the country are in the news for killing themselves. Suicide rates among gay and lesbian kids are frighteningly high, with attempt rates four times that of their straight counterparts; studies show that one-third of all gay youth have attempted suicide at some point (versus 13 percent of hetero kids), and that internalized homophobia contributes to suicide risk.

Against this supercharged backdrop, the Anoka-Hennepin school district finds itself in the spotlight not only for the sheer number of suicides but because it is accused of having contributed to the death toll by cultivating an extreme anti-gay climate. "LGBTQ students don't feel safe at school," says Anoka Middle School for the Arts teacher Jefferson Fietek, using the acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning. "They're made to feel ashamed of who they are. They're bullied. And there's no one to stand up for them, because teachers are afraid of being fired."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/one-towns-war-on-gay-teens-20120202#ixzz1p0N6MC6N

[MineralMan]

6. They are, indeed.

Worse, they managed to get school board members elected who are sympathetic with their bigotry. The toxic school environment they created is the shame of Minnesota, in my opinion.

[lapislzi]

8. Proud of their hate.

I have no words.

[MineralMan]

9. That's what struck me, too.

That they would consider being named a hate group a positive thing is frightening.

[qb]

11. It's "a privilege" to join the Ku Klux Klan on a hate groups list?

I appreciate their honesty.

[Brickbat]

12. I see that Bradlee Dean's organization, You Can Run But You Can't Hide, is now also listed as a hate

group. Very interesting, especially in light of the attention his band, Junkyard Prophet, got here on DU a few days ago.

[MineralMan]

14. Yes, I saw that, too, but didn't associate that moron's group

with that band. I missed the thread.

[RZM]

15. 'Bare Naked Islam'?!?! Can't say I've heard of that one n/t

[MineralMan]

16. I haven't heard of it before, either.

On edit: I just went to the the http://barenakedislam.com site. Rabid anti-Islam rhetoric is what it's about. Ugly stuff, indeed.

[RZM]

17. I just checked it out too

Not a site I'll be visiting again.

BTW, I thought it was going to be some wacky NOI/Five Percenter thing.

[cbayer]

18. Good. Kudos to the SPLC for starting to shine more light on homophobic groups.

[MineralMan]

19. I heartily agree!