Student Newspaper Calls For Death of Gays

Pro-and-con editorial pages have a long if not particularly storied history in student newspapers, though they're not quite an exercise in journalism. They're actually kissing cousins of the forensics club. One student is directed to pen an article arguing for the existence of anthropogenic global warning or for the benefits of cow-cloning, another is told to argue the contra. Minds are sharpened, debating skills are honed, and nobody much reads the things anyway.

It's a fine tradition -- until, apparently, an editorial calls for the death of a classmate's parents.
In a pro-and-con editorial package in a recent edition of Shawano High School's Hawk's Post, in Shawano County, Wisconsin, students debated the merits of gay adoptions. According to The Green Bay Press Gazette, the "con" writer contributed these words:

... if one is a practicing Christian, Jesus states in the Bible that homosexuality is (a) detestable act and sin which makes adopting wrong for homosexuals because you would be raising the child in a sin-filled environment. Leviticus 20:13 states "If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woan, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltness is upon them."

The author went on to cite Leviticus three more times. (You can read the whole screed via a PDF downloadable at the Gazette.)

The article wound up in the hands of a 13-year-old in the Shawano school system named Tanner, who's being raised by his dad, Nick Uttecht, and Uttecht's partner, Michael McNeilly. Tanner showed his dads the story. They were not pleased.

Uttecht, who has three other children in the Shawano school system, contacted school administrators and obtained a swift apology from the district superintendent, Todd Carlson, who promised to review the paper's editorial procedures. "Offensive articles cultivating a negative environment of disrespect are not appropriate or condoned by the Shawano School District," Carlson said.

The Gazette story has attracted more than a few unfriendly comments, which has led young Tanner to enter the discussion. He's a smart kid. In the face of really shocking condescension -- such as that issuing from the keyboard of a Ms. Judy Hurta, who wrote:

Good thinking Tanner. But you are a rare child. An understanding boy. But the rest of us don't see homo people as being normal and take offense to the realization that they are amongst us. Sodomy is an sex act that is not love but sex. Your dad loves you but so did that coach at Penn state love the boys he violated. To normal heterosexuals it is an abomination that you children are allowed to be raised in a home of love and sexual preferences that regular people don't indulge in. Where are the mothers in this picture? How did the dad's get the children and not the mothers? I am sorry to feel as I do but I do think sodomy is wrong and parents should be a man AND a woman.

-- Tanner has maintained grace and good cheer, writing:

I understand that this article can get a lot of hate. My father and my mother had told me that when we decided to send it in as a story. I cannot belive that my school newspaper would post such a story, saying gay people can't raise kids, it just makes me laugh. There is nothing wrong with me,even though one of my parents is gay, i am not emotionally disturbed, nor do i underachive. My parents teach me real values, to love everyone as they are.

CBS Airs Anti-Gay Group Focus on the Family Ad During Tim Tebow’s Broncos v. Patriots Game

CBS has once again aired a commercial by the vehemently anti-gay extremist group Focus on the Family during one its nationally broadcast football games between FOF Poster boy Tim Tebow’s Denver Broncos and The New England Patriots.  (You may remember last year that CBS aired an anti-abortion commercial from FOF which actually starred Tebow and his mother.)

The commercial entitled John 3:16, the biblical quote numbers that Tebow wears under his eyes is the quote that “God doth love the word” and FOF uses children to promote it.

God may so love the world but so is not true of Focus on the Family. 

FOF is anti-choice, anti-gay, and against sex education curricula. FOF also focuses on religion in public schools, encouraging Christian teachers to establish prayer groups in schools although it points out that it doesn’t support teacher-led prayer for fear that a teacher would encourage Christian students “to pray to Allah, Buddha or the goddess Sophia against the wishes of the parents and/or students.”   FOF is a strong supporter of the Defense of Marriage and works against “special rights” for homosexuals and hate crime legislation, and supports “reparative therapy” for homosexuality, which has been widely discredited and rejected by the vast majority of doctors and physicians. FOF sponsors “Love Won Out,” conferences held around the U.S. that claim to prove that “homosexuality is preventable and treatable,” where many of the speakers are “ex-gays.” “Love Won Out” is from the title of a book by John Paulk, an “ex-gay” who is the host of the conferences and is an employee of Focus on the Family.  For those ex-gays who cannot change, FOF considers sexual celibacy another option. FOF regularly asserts the idea that there is a “homosexual agenda” and associates homosexuals with pedophilia and recruitment of children as sex partners.
This is the group that CBS allowed to air a commercial.   And to make matters worse at the end of the commercial FOF has a plea for donations.

A petition has already been posted on Change.org that demands an apology from CBS.  But an apology is not enough.   CBS and the media in general need to learn that enabling hate groups that that hide behind religion to to support a hateful agenda is not okay.
Oh and by the way the Broncos LOST yesterday.  It seems that God does not like his name being used to support hate.