Tavares, FL - Friday, Dec. 27, 2013
Update Dec. 28: Lake County School Board member Bill Mathias posted an illuminating comment to this article. Be sure to read it.
Both local Lake County newspapers published a column or editorial this week supporting a second attempt by the ACLU legal bullies from Tampa to sue the Lake County School District & Board for not allowing an EIGHTH grader, in a MIDDLE school, from forming a Gay Straight Alliance student club. This is round two.
I personally don't have a gripe with gays who live their own life. But I do resent having TV shows and movies constantly adding scenes to portray their lifestyle without warning, or the ACLU using legal bully tactics to force local school Boards to allow formation of clubs to indoctrinate Middle School kids in the gay lifestyle. I don't like legal bullies of any type, but ACLU has it down to a science. Another example is CAIR, which uses legal loopholes to sue in order to spread Islam. And, now that I mention it, there is the EPA who are also legal bullies who take land from owners for environmental reasons. Then there is Common Core, which is being rammed down every school district's throat using legal contracts signed by the States to get grants.
Do you see a trend there - they all are liberal groups who believe they can use intimidating legal tactics to violate individual & local freedoms and decisions and force you to live their way.
So, on Christmas day, Lauren Ritchie in the Orlando Sentinel wrote a column once again supporting her liberal viewpoint that the ACLU legal bullies were to be trusted and were right.
Then today, the Daily Commercial wrote an editorial with non-relevant facts and also said the ACLU legal bullies should be agreed with, the School Board should roll over, not spend any money to fight them, and let the gay lifestyle club be formed. Their website would NOT let me post a response, saying to remove the "profanity" when there was none exept mentioning liberals and gays and the ACLU.
Why don't they instead request the club be an "anti-bullying" club, rather than a gay straight club, since the founding student did say the purpose was to "educate students about bullying".
But, no, both papers want a gay straight club to indoctrinate middle schools in the Gay lifestyle. They don't want to hear from parents or conservatives, or allow the local School Board to decide, and only quoted ACLU viewpoints and other liberal sources.
Last year the ACLU showed up with supporters from outside Lake County, with speakers who did not have kids in the local schools, and had callers from Miami and California inundate the Board with calls and emails trying to force Lake County Schools to allow a club to indoctrinate MIDDLE schoolers on the gay lifestyle. Due to the ACLU bullying, the Florida State legislators passed a law supporting local school boards defining the general types of clubs that could be at MIDDLE Schools, and the Board followed local sentiment and prevented non-curriculum based clubs from being formed at Middle schools. They ARE allowed at High Schools, just not middle schools.
So now the ACLU legal bullies have filed another lawsuit as a test case, and I think to use it as a Saul Alinsky crisis to raise funds from supporters.
We should be proud of local elected officials who stand up to legal bullies from outside this county.
Here are links to Laurent Ritchie's rant, and to the Daily Commercial unsigned editorial.
And, here is my response to the Daily Commercial editorial that they would not let me post (a similar response was posted following Ritchie's Rant) :
Vance Jochim
Tavares, FL