GAY BASHING UPDATE….Y’all remember Thomas McLaughlin, the gay teenager who was harassed by his teachers and made to read Bible verses in order to instruct him in the error of his ways? The school district, not surprisingly, has declined to comment publicly, but this story in the Arkansas Times has more detail about how the entire story unfolded. Also not surprisingly, reading the additional detail just makes the whole thing worse.
But just to show that there’s a bit of humor in everything, here was the excuse that typing teacher Linda Derden gave for harassing McLaughlin:
Derden reportedly said she runs her typing class like a business environment, and discussions about topics like homosexuality are not appropriate.
Hah! I would venture to say that water cooler discussions of “topics like homosexuality” ? and I’m using the word “like” in the broadest possible sense here ? are perhaps the most popular conversational subjects in the entire business world. What does she think we do, chatter all day about whether federal deficits have a long term impact on interest rates?
Derden really needs to get out more.
