Saturday, March 3, 2012

Lowlights & Highlights: March 3, 2012

ex. Principal Dorothy Bond
Lots of media this week was focused on contraception debates and Rush Limbaugh calling a women (about whom he knows very little...if anything) a slut. However, as bad as that was, it didn't hold a candle to what happened in one Tennessee school. This school's principal took it upon herself to say to the student body in school that if they are gay, they're going to Hell. She alo said if you get pregnant (as a teenager), your life is over. I can't begin to fathom how she thought this was appropriate talk anywhere, let alone in a high school. Obviously, this created a furor that resulted in this principal resigning. As I said when I mentioned this in a Wrap-Up this week, I would prefer her to have been fired for a couple of reasons. First, it provides a much-needed dark mark on her employment record. Second, it would have showed the school system to be proactive and the students would have known that the system was on their side. Her resigning lets the system just sit there and do nothing. Then again, this IS Tennessee and the state doesn't have a good track record on these things. Remember the "Don't Say Gay" bill? That's Tennessee.

Gov. Martin O'Malley
Maryland, on the other hand, became the 8th state to enact marriage equality when Governor Martin O'Malley signed the bill into law on Thursday. Granted, the bill will have to face a ballot measure to repeal it come November, so this victory is far from final. The real work has begun. For now however, let's celebrate the fact that a positive step has been taken in the fight for LGBT equality and give a big thank you to the Maryland legislators who voted for the bill, the citizens who helped to change some of their minds, the faith leaders who spoke up to make it known that not all religious people are small-minded, and the Governor who made this a legislative priority. Speaking of Governor O'Malley, you can read what he had to say about the bill's passage on Huffington Post.

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