Every now and then, something happens that makes you question the fundamental order of the universe, and the ability of presumptively normal, sane human beings to engage in stupidity of a most spectacular magnitude.
Today’s example is a Canadian activist group called STOP (Simple Truths Our Priority). Their website also sucks, but that’s another issue altogether. Their current (and only, as far as I can tell) cause is to prevent the teaching of homosexuality in public schools.
That in itself is not so remarkable. But using The Onion as a serious research source for “fact” requires a unique level of gullibility and humorlessness. STOP took a photograph from one of the Onion’s satirical articles and used said photograph on a pamphlet as an example of real classrooms in real public schools.
The Board of Trustees for the Thames Valley School District, which had agreed to meet with STOP regarding their concerns, was singularly unimpressed:
“Satire is apparently lost on rigid individuals,” said London trustee Peter Jaffe. “Taking something from a spoof newspaper and presenting it as reality crosses the line. (The photo) plays on people’s worst fears. I would hope this group will make a full and public apology.”
The reply given by STOP’s spokesperson shows the real level of clueless that is operating here:
“We knew it was a gay paper and we hold that even as a joke, the gay community is proud of their advancements into the safe schools program in the U.S.,” she said.
She thinks the Onion is a gay newspaper.
I’m afraid to start laughing because I might never be able to stop.
I became aware of this tidbit of news through the grace and courtesy of Fark, which is frankly one of the most useful news sources I have found on the web. The comments thread there regarding this story has some real gems:
“This is just retarded on so many levels, I am dumbfounded into silence.”
“I just want to smack the stupid out of these people.”
(with the follow-up comment):“That is going to be the longest, most exhausting endeavor I think I’ve heard in a while.”
“Great. This is the first thing I read on the internet today. Now my entire day is completely ruined because I have lost the last tiny thread of hope I had for humanity. I think I’m just going to go get drunk somewhere.”
“It is sort of refreshing to see some benchmark stupidity coming from Canadians rather than, say, Alabama, for a change…”
“I really farking hate people who think that typing 1.2 words into google is ‘in depth research’. These kind of ‘tards are the main reason why I no longer work in public libraries.”
Via Fark
UPDATE: Earlier today I sent an email comment to STOP through the link on their homepage. Just now I received a reply, which I think is somewhat interesting and does raise some legitimate points about how public education handles the socialization of children:
My Email to STOP:
Um, guys, The Onion is a satire news site. They’ve been around for over 12 years now. Everything on the site is fictional, and of a satirical nature. They’re not a gay newspaper — I don’t even know where to start with what’s wrong with that conclusion. That photograph you used isn’t real. It’s staged and photoshopped for comedy purposes. The “source” caption is fake. I feel stupid even having to explain this to you.
STOP’s Reply (I have edited the spacing a little for ease of reading, but otherwise this reply is unaltered):
Imagine our surprise, when we found out! Well, let’s hope they don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. I guess given the fact that we had little notice to throw together all of our concerns, along with recommendations, rationale, history of safe school policy, legal concerns, parental rights issues, study the Canadian educational laws, the teaching mandates, the school council mandates, etc, etc, etc,
Along with raising our families and working to provide a living…we were unable to verify that exact article. When we finally did verify it, we realized it was a hoax and removed it from our research…unfortunately too late for the deadline for the manual but not for the CD’s, it is not contained in them. The photo used although it was a fake, still embodied our concerns as parents. If you question the genuineness of our concerns, please go to google and type in FISTGATE. I think any parent would understand and perhaps find some empathy for our concerns.
Not once have we ever had a problem with the Trustees dealing with the issues of student safety. All children should be safe attending school, including gay students. Nor do we agree that they should be name called, harrassed (sic) or threatened. We believe that the safety of all children should be the board’s number one concern. But we also believe that this can be done through a bully and bystander program which empowers the bystanders and trains teaching staff to handle all cases of bullying immediately and consistently.
Unfortunately our concerns and recommendations have been largely ignored and Trustees would rather deflect attention by name calling and bullying those who oppose the implementation plan as it exists. We have a very large population of Muslims, Jews and Christians that are concerned about their parental authority being jeopardized if at school they learn it’s “okay to be gay” and at home their moral teachings differ.
This does not mean that we teach our children to bully or name call. In fact we teach our children to be tolerant to other points of view and all we ask in return is for mutual respect and tolerance. We believe if we had a zero tolerance to all forms of harassment, violence and name calling and the trustees mandated enforcement. The gay children would be protected. So would the obese child, the freckled face child, the short kid, the skinny kid, the nerd, etc.
We are grateful to those in the community who despite this faux pas believe that everyone has the right to be heard. Even if they don’t agree with the point of view. And hopefully the recommendations that STOP made to find a Common Ground approach to this issue will be considered. Because we believe that if all sides were involved from the beginning, we would have come up with a plan we all could live with.
Unfortunately this was not the case. We empathize with the gay parents and students and their concerns….we did not build the fence between us and them. But we believe a bridge can be built. But the Trustees must remain objective and impartial and help both sides to come together. Harrassment, (sic) bullying and name calling of the parents who oppose the plan is counter productive and does little to help public relations.
As to the other 296 pages in the 297 page document provided to the TVDSB…they present parental concerns and research, they ask questions, they re-iterate concern for all students, including gay students. They ask for a common ground approach. A majority of the articles contain footnotes/endnotes and give sources. No facts were ever presented from the Onion Newspaper to the public. The facts that were noted came from other sources, such as the New England Medical Journal, Princeton, Cornell Univerisity, American Journal of Medicine, American Psychiatric Association, etc.
For those who wish to do their own unbiased research we suggest that you go to google and type in FISTGATE or sexual diversity and safe school policy, or homosexuality and safe schools. We are not asking anyone to take our word for it. We encourage everyone to educate themselves on the history of safe schools across North America. There are articles for and against. We believe if we do not learn from History we are doomed to repeat it.
Our concerns that were submitted to the Trustees were in the form of questions. We simply want our questions and concerns addressed. Let us hope that with open hearts and open minds on all sides, we can come up with a solution to keep 100% of the students safe. And find mutual respect for differing opinions.
We put forth an honest effort to voice our concerns, we did not intentionally mislead anyone, we would hope all parties concerned will continue to keep an open mind and work towards a peaceful resolution to the issue at hand.
Sincerely,
STOP Committee
April 9th, 2004 at 1:02 am - Edit
ALL of your “NEWS” are belong to us….
The Laughing Wolf is going in for shoulder surgery. Send him good thoughts and your best wishes.
April 9th, 2004 at 1:18 am - Edit
But It’s the Finest News Source
Anti-gay group in Canada lobbies to prevent gay-tolerance education in the schools. Group publishes a pamphlet using a photo of a teacher in a classroom teaching the curriculum. Turns out the picture was from The Onion. Hilarity ensues. (Tip: Anne
April 9th, 2004 at 11:57 am - Edit
I love this:
“We knew it was a gay paper and we hold that even as a joke, the gay community is proud of their advancements into the safe schools program in the U.S.,” she said. “We don’t think homosexuality in schools is a joke.”
The Onion is a gay paper? Once again, it sort of calls into question their ability to match up their concerns with, you know, actual facts. Of course people should be proud of their accomplishments in promoting a safe environment for gay kids in the schools.
We have a very large population of Muslims, Jews and Christians that are concerned about their parental authority being jeopardized if at school they learn it’s “okay to be gay” and at home their moral teachings differ.
Well, if they want to teach their kids at home that homosexuality is wrong, that’s their right. It doesn’t mean they get to change the school curriculum to suit their prejudices.
Harrassment, (sic) bullying and name calling of the parents who oppose the plan is counter productive and does little to help public relations.
Where is this supposed bullying occurring? Sounds more like they’re just not getting their way. These STOP people remind me of the anti-desegregation people I grew up with who pulled their kids from the public schools so they could “protect” them from blacks. Next we’ll hear from white supremacists how they’re being discriminated against because the schools don’t teach that blacks are inferior.
I took a look at the “Fistgate” material, too. It’s same-sex educational material for teachers. None of it, as far as I can tell just from perusing the course list, encourages teachers to indoctrinate kids into being gay or even to present age-inappropriate sex ed.
April 14th, 2004 at 11:33 am - Edit
we were unable to verify that exact article. When we finally did verify it, we realized it was a hoax and removed it from our research…unfortunately too late for the deadline for the manual but not for the CD’s, it is not contained in them.
Doesn’t this sound like the Bush administration’s logic on Iraq: “We were unable to verify the reports of WMDs. When we finally did verify it and realized that there were no WMDs in Iraq, it was too late to pull our troops out.”
Also, isn’t it a little contradictory to “verify” something and then find it’s a “hoax” (can’t bring ourselves to say “joke,” we guess, because that would imply that it was on us).
The photo used although it was a fake, still embodied our concerns as parents.
“Weapons of mass destruction-related program activities …”
April 14th, 2004 at 5:21 pm - Edit
I agree with the fact that these parents groups have taken an extreme stance against agood idea to make gay and lesbian students safe and excepted. It’s crazy to think that straight kids will want to have gay sex becuse their teacher said so. However, in reading Fistgate and learning about their forums I have taken great pause to allowing them or others who share there radical views in on any policy changes. Fistgate, for instance has suggested that bringing homosexuality into middle school is a good idea. Notwithstanding it is okay for a middle school child to except and take sexual favours from adults. We have laws to protect children because they do not have the same ability to make informed decisions about life. Teaching them that they should fist each other and handing out fisting kits I think goes above and beyond education. I wouldn’t my kids doing that heterosexually or homosexually in middle school. We have two extremists here. STOP and the multitude of early childhood sex exploration advocates. We don’t want any more dead homosexual kids, we also don’t want all kinds of freaky sex (of either kind) going on in our playgrounds. Sometimes PC goes to far. I have had friends who are gay. MOst of them died of aids. If I were homosexual I would be terrified about contracting an STD. I am astonished that they are not. They should be angry that it is ripping through their community and killing them by the handfulls. They are not. They should be telling their gay kids about the inherint dangers of sexual activity, like the programs that used to exist a few years ago. They should not be telling kids that protection is optional and they should get fisted by adults. At the same time there is no need to bring back the pink triangle (like the Nazi’s used). They should be teaching tolerance. No more, no less. That we can all live together and be safe, without judgment, no matter our orientation.
April 18th, 2004 at 2:57 pm - Edit
Anti-gay Parents Say Satire = Evidence
The Thames Valley District school board in London, Ontario was considering expanding its safe schools program to include gay and lesbian students. A parents group, STOP (Simply Truths Our Priority) objected by presenting a 300-page compilation of Inter…
April 21st, 2004 at 9:16 am - Edit
Above Philippe Laurent wrote “If I were homosexual I would be terrified about contracting an STD. ”
This is the exact reason that this program is good in schools. Instead of Philippe teaching his children that homosexuals are STD infested, the school can outline the “facts” throughout childhood and into highschool. Starting with “dont get into strangers cars” in grade 1 to “STD rates in the general population” in Grade 12. This is not the 70’s Mr.Laurent, I suggest you make some new gay freinds and find out why you’re part of the problem.