Ireland Moves Forward... The US? Not So Much....

Amazing  Public Service Announcement currently running in Ireland...



Meanwhile in the United States the ridiculously mis-named hate group "Focus on the Family" is launching a counter campaign that is PRO- bullying and is actually offering cash prizes to anti-gay Christian students who make the best video about how it's totally right to bully, shame, and ostracize gay kids for their sexuality.

According to Focus on the Family Spokes-bigot  Candi Cushman;  

,LGBT groups use bullying prevention to "promote their homosexual agenda, including the idea that homosexuality is normal. Focus on the Family education expert Candi Cushman said that the group is against bullying but that bullying prevention “is being hijacked by activists.” She claims that anti-bullying programs are gay activism in disguise and that these programs conceal their true purpose.

Eliza Byard, Executive Director, of the The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) had this to say about Focus on the Family's opposition to anti-bullying efforts in schools...

Focus on the Family has tried to discredit GLSEN's efforts to make schools safe for all students since our founding in 1990. These most recent attempts show that, once again, Focus on the Family either doesn't know what it is talking about or simply don't care about addressing bullying, or both. The policies we support - which, by the way, include protections for bullying based on religion - have been shown by years of research to make a difference in young people's lives. That is why nearly 70 national education, youth service and civil and human rights organizations endorse the Safe Schools Improvement Act. In terms of LGBT youth, we certainly hope that Focus on the Family agrees that the current environment in which nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT students experience harassment each year in school is simply unacceptable. But we won't hold our breath.

The wing nut social conservative Right knows that Anti-bullying efforts are a direct threat to their ability to fund-raise by dehumanizing Gays and Lesbians. Focus on the Family is desperate to get control of the Bullying debate and get control of it FAST. Because, if you say it is wrong that a kid was bullied because they were  gay, you are really saying there is nothing wrong with being Gay; and FOTF has too much invested in their hate, and can never allow that to happen. 

This in spite of the clear evidence that bullying based on sexual orientation was the direct cause of a number of tragic teen suicides across the the United States last year.

These people are insane bigots, They are so filled with hatred for people who don't share their sad twisted anti-American, anti-Constitutional world view, they would seek to stop efforts that could help save kids lives.

This past year, as this...American equivalent of the Taliban obsessed over DEFENDING the bullying to death of Gay Kids, the news was been filled with story after story, of a Gay Teen somewhere in America who was bullied into taking his or her own life.

Focus on the Family has spent millions of dollars saying that Gays and Lesbians are "attacking families" and are out to "destroy traditional marriage", that Gays and Lesbians have a "Radical Agenda" and are a"threat to children". So I am sure the LAST thing Cushman would want to do is have to answer for the impact that her "work" has had in putting the lives of American kids at risk in their own schools, every day.

While the rest of the civilized world continues to move forward  it is hate groups like  Focus on the funding..er.. I mean "family",  that  seek to turn the United States into  a theocratic backwater of hatred and intolerance.