Friday, August 31, 2012

Religous right - the 49ers are wrong for helping bullied gay children

 Editor's note - The midday news briefs will be preempted because I have a doctor's appointment. I'm going to see if I can get some of those meds that Clint Eastwood was obviously on last night.

Recently, the San Francisco 49ers made a video speaking out against the bullying of gay teens.

You just KNEW someone from the religious right was going to speak negatively about it:

Larry Jacobs, managing director of the World Congress of Families, tells OneNewsNow why he has a problem with this.

"The problem with the 'It Gets Better' campaign is that it, again, is special rights -- singling out a particular group that is no more harmed than any other groups, and really singling them out for special attention and special rights, special things that should also be shared with lots of other people that are being bullied," he contends. "It really is, again, another example of money and resources being given to a special class, a group of people, and discriminating against many others who are being bullied."

Jacobs seems to want folks to engage in a game of pitting categories of bullied youths against one another.  I refuse to be defensive. In making the video, the 49ers weren't placing gay teens above any other bullied group.

That's like saying when you give money to fight breast cancer, you are saying that people suffering from other forms of cancer don't matter. It's an argument that doesn't wash.

The way I see it is this -  the bullying of children for any reason is a problem and whatever anyone can do to combat this problem - however large or small - should  be applauded, encouraged, and complimented.

That being said, if Jacobs feels that attention should be paid to other victims of bullying, then perhaps he get his organization to do something on their behalf.

That is if he can pull himself away from attacking the 49ers and bullied gay youth.

BTW here is the video that Jacobs is speaking of:






Bookmark and Share

3 comments:

JT1962 said...

I guess, according to his remarks, that I should be upset because breast cancer has such a huge deal of sponsorship and donations, while pancreatic cancer, which I have, has so little. If he and people of his ilk didn't single out LGBTs for so much criticism, then maybe we wouldn't need a program like "It Gets Better," right? He should practice what he preaches.

Anonymous said...

Actually, the bigot's criticism of the 49's' video is that it "singling out a particular group that is no more harmed than any other groups" and yet the video *does* contain language that specifies how gay students get bullied in unique ways. The language of "be yourself" means, do not allow anti-gay bigots to force you to live in the closet or to feel as though there is anything wrong with you simply because you are gay. Obviously, no heterosexual student has to worry about being pressured to stay in the closet with their heterosexuality.

NOM Comments said...

It's not "Special rights." It's not like ONLY gay men can marry another man, or only lesbian women can marry other women. These rights apply equally to everyone; a straight man could marry another man if he so wanted. There is no "orientation" requirement to be able to marry someone of the same gender.

That logic works, right? It's what I keep hearing from people on NOMBlog who insist that "gay men can marry women if they so choose as there is no orientation requirement for marriage".