[Active-seattle-l] [Active-l] (ADDENDUM) Today's Cultural Warfare Update, Addendum

[Dara (R'ykandar Korra'ti)]

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---- actual message starts here ----
I left a few stories out that I had sent to myself in email. Sorry  
about that. Here they are! They aren't any fun either.

_The Laramie Project_, a play about the murder gay Wyoming man, is "too  
controversial" for the Yakima (!) school board;

Sound Politics, a local political blog, supports the school board  
decision, calling the play too "pro-tolerance" - apparently, a play  
that suggests murdering gay men for being queer might be, you know, too  
soft on t3h fags; the "controversy" over the "real" causes of the  
murder mostly come from an ABC 20/20 story which has largely since been  
shown to be inaccurate, but hey, let's "teach the controversy," right?;

Another local blogger chips in a few cents on the play and Sound  
Politics reaction;

And one more link to the GOP struggle over whether to blame a mythical  
gay mafia for the Foley scandal and purge the party of GBLT people,  
courtesy Andrew Sullivan ( http://andrewsullivan.com ) again, who has  
become quite aware of the dynamics of the theoconservatives who make up  
the biggest block of his party.


----- 1 -----
School District Pulls Play from Fall Schedule at Local High School
KIMA TV
By Maria Medina
October 6, 2006

http://www.kimatv.com/x3443.xml? 
ParentPageID=x3738&ContentID=x59335&Layout=KIMA.xsl&AdGroupID=x3443

YAKIMA - There was shock among several students after learning their  
fall play would be postponed until next spring or possibly  
indefinitely.

"We'd brought it up in the meetings...there might be issues we never  
really expected it was going to be the school district," said drama  
club president and Davis senior Kristie Prescott.

Prescott and several drama club students decided to do the Laramie  
Project last month at the start of the school year. It's a play about  
the aftermath of a young Laramie, Wyoming man brutally murdered by two  
men for being gay.

But soon after, controversy erupted in the high school's community with  
students, their parents and even staff.

[More at URL]


----- 2 -----
"Laramie Project:" Get Me Re-Write
Sound Politics
October 9, 2006

http://soundpolitics.com/archives/007057.html

School distict administrators in Yakima have put on indefinite hold  
plans by Davis High School students to stage "The Laramie Project"  
because of concerns the pro-tolerance play might be perceived as  
promoting homosexuality. Yakima Herald Republic reporter James Joyce  
III characterizes the play and the underlying real-life story thusly:

The play is based on Matthew Shepard, a University of Wyoming student  
who was brutally murdered in 1998 at the age of 21 because he was gay.

[...]

There is a legitmate question of whether we want public schools instead  
of families teaching tolerance. Regardless, any staging of The Laramie  
Project should also include a post-production discussion forum where  
the differences between the 20-20 report and the script are fully  
aired; and where the Leftist meme of "politically constructed  
realities" gets the full treatment it so richly deserves in this  
instance.

[More at URL]


----- 3 -----
The Laramie Project Project
by Goldy, 10/10/2006, 1:29 AM

http://www.horsesass.org/index.php?p=2085

Yesterday I abused the Yakima School District for canceling a student  
production of The Laramie Project, a play that explores the brutal  
murder of Matthew Shepard in Laramie, WY, and the impact the ensuing  
controversy had on the community. Like the media reports at the time,  
the play largely portrays the murder as a hate crime. a vicious,  
premeditated attack on the openly gay Shepard.

District administrators halted the production out of concern that some  
in the community might perceive the play as promoting homosexuality.  
you know, in the same way a recent broadcast of the movie Mississippi  
Burning caused so many of Yakima's youth to suddenly turn black.

Well apparently, (un)Sound Politics contributor Matt Rosenberg agrees  
with the district.s decision. Rosenberg suggests that such a  
"pro-tolerance" play might be inappropriate subject matter for a high  
school production, stating that "there is a legitimate question of  
whether we want public schools instead of families teaching tolerance."  
Yeah, because we wouldn't want to offend the values of those  
anti-tolerance families, I guess.

[More at URL]


----- 4 -----
'Values' Choice for The GOP
By Eugene Robinson
The Washington Post
Tuesday, October 10, 2006; Page A21

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/09/ 
AR2006100901037.html

It's possible that the Mark Foley scandal could finally end the phony,  
trumped-up "culture war" that the Republican Party has so expertly  
exploited all these years -- possible, but not likely. I'm afraid the  
Foley episode will be remembered as just another bloody battle, one  
with lots of collateral damage.

[...]

But some conservative activists are irate that the "values" party would  
allow such an arrangement. Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media, a  
conservative watchdog, thundered on the group's Web site yesterday that  
"House leaders permitted homosexuals to infiltrate and manipulate the  
party apparatus while they publicly postured as friends of family  
values and traditional marriage. The facade is now in ruins."

[...]

The culture war is supposed to be about morality, but really it's a  
crusade to compel Americans to follow certain norms of private behavior  
that some social and religious conservatives believe are mandated by  
sociology, nature or God. Republican officeholders have paid lip  
service to this crusade, all the while knowing that the human family is  
diverse and fallible. They know that the gravest threat to marriage is  
the heterosexual divorce rate. They know that Republicans drink, swear,  
carouse and have affairs, just like Democrats. They know that  
homosexuals aren't devils.

Most Americans know all of this, too, by the way. Main Street hasn't  
been Hicksville for a long time.

But Republicans positioned themselves as our national Church Lady and  
were rewarded with the support of the staunchest religious  
conservatives, who now feel betrayed. Faced with the spreading Foley  
scandal, the party has a choice.

[...]

Or the party can purge its gay staffers, maybe symbolically burn a few  
at the stake, and continue to pretend that you can legislate what is  
permitted to reside in American hearts and minds. Unfortunately, that's  
where it looks like we're headed.

[More at URL]


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