A meeting of the Omaha Public Schools board drew about 1,000 people and ended up in a screaming match that resulted in the meeting ending early. Why? It turned out that the school board was making some minor revisions to its existing sex education course (which is optional) by making it more gender inclusive and word had been spread that this new curriculum was being designed by the latest incarnation of evil, Planned Parenthood (which was a totally false rumor) and was going to be glorifying all manner of sex, and the abstinence-only crowd was up in arms.
WDAM-TV 7-News, Weather, Sports-Hattiesburg, MS
Jay Irwn, one of the people at the meeting, described what happened before the outbursts occurred.
We started with the superintendent giving an overview to the night and thanking folks for attending. Asst, Superintendent RaNae Kehrberg then took the stage to announce a FAQ sheet was being passed out (which said things like, no, we aren’t busing your children for abortions, no, planned parenthood is not writing the curriculum, etc.). Then Melissa Tibbits, PhD, gave a presentation about the findings of a scientific study on OPS parents’ attitudes on what should be included in their child’s curriculum, with over 90% of parents being pro-comprehensive education (only 5% said abstinence only, and less than 1% said they weren’t sure). She then went on to detail in specific topic areas (anatomy, reproduction, puberty, etc.) the rates of support for the topic area covered (all of the above mentioned, among others, were also well over 90% in support). The last topic area slide concerned people’s opinions about the need to cover sexual orientation and identity, as well as gender identity, in CSE.
But then the crazies took over, screaming about who would protect their children’s ‘purity’, and things went rapidly downhill.
Other outbursts were happening around the room. One woman was almost given a citation for breastfeeding her child in the audience, which is of course well within her rights. She had to speak up that breastfeeding was well within her rights, and that the police were there to ensure she was able to do so.
An athiest was physically assaulted because of her deeply held, personal beliefs and sexuality.
A group of young LGBTQ people were threatened with violence by a mother and her son for being there, for not apologizing for their sexuality, and for supporting education that was respectful of their identities. They were called evil, sinful, and told they were going to hell. The advisor that brought them, who is also queer identified, was told that she was teaching them how to be gay and that she should be ashamed of herself. When the advisor asked that the person be respectful, that’s when the treats of violence began. She ushered her groups out to make sure they stayed safe.
As he concluded, this must be frightening for the LGBT students in the schools and community.
I think, all in all, I feel so scared and sad for the young people who are the children of some of these parents, whether they were present or not. Or they are congregants at some of the churches that the adults attend. There is no doubt some of these kids are LGBTQ. They were given a very clear message from their parents and at least a segment of their community tonight. And that message is just flat out wrong. I wanted to scoop up every queer and/or trans kid and tell them how beautiful and amazing they are. That they deserve to have their identities not just tolerated, but fostered, and that they should have room to grow and explore their own sense of self in our public schools. To not listen to the (very vocal) minority who is still living in some by-gone time. That they are loved, valued, and vital to Omaha.
So, I’d ask, if you know one of these young people, and not only the ones who were there tonight, show them some love. They need some real support from adults right now. Because by and large, they were given a terrible depiction of adults in their community tonight. We must do better by our young people.
I am getting well and truly fed up with these loud, angry, intolerant people who seem to be gaining confidence that all they need to do to get their way is to shout loud and long in every public forum. The problem is that people who are thoughtful and reasonable about things would not dream of acting in a similar manner in support of their beliefs, and so these bigots get to control the floor even if they are a tiny minority.
moarscienceplz says
I feel very sorry for the five daughters of that screaming blond woman. What a nasty, cruel, stupid world she chooses to live in.
qwints says
Really weird and poor sourcing on this. Rawstory wrongly attributes the story to a Mississippi CNN affiliate that posted an early version of the story (note the typo: police for policy) from the actual local CNN affiliate. Here’s the actual local station’s coverage:
“1,500 people attend OPS discussion on sex education Tuesday”
OPS superintendent responds to Tuesday’s sex ed meeting
Lesbian Catnip says
Haven’t you learned a thing, Mano?! God will protect our children’s (read: daughters’) purity!
Who Cares says
Apologies for this spam post. Testing to see if logging in/out fixed the in ability to post.
Marshall says
How is everyone logging in to comment? I still can’t login. I’ve tried five different computers and three different browsers (IE, Firefox, Chrome). The only “Connect with” that works is Yahoo (Y!), which is the only services with which I do not have an account. I’d like to be able to login instead of posting anonymously! I tried technical support but they never responded nor fixed it.
Anyway, about this article: it bothers me that they’re taking surveys in the first place. Education should not be determined by the popular vote, so hearing about them calling and surveying parents is upsetting.
Mano Singham says
Marshall,
Who Cares @#4 said (in a private email to me) that logging out and logging back in solved their problem.
Marshall says
Man--logging out of what?? I can’t login in the first place!
Chiroptera says
Marshall, #7:
At the very bottom of the OP, on the same line as the post’s date, there is a link that says, “log in to comment”.
If you don’t have an account set up on FTB, you may be prompted to start one.
starskeptic says
The diligence of the school board in the detail of their presentation was wasted on this group.
anat says
When my local school board adopted a new sex-ed curriculum a few years ago I made sure to express my support (after reviewing the curriculum) just in case there was need to counter some people such as the screaming ones in this example.
Who Cares says
@Marshall(#5): I am logged in through WordPress.
I thought I got into moderation so I mailed Mr Singham asking to be released. The response was that I wasn’t put in moderation, but more importantly that I didn’t have any posts up for almost 2 weeks. In this time period FTB got DoSsed by that web scraper. It just so happened that I had to log in to FTB at roughly the same time.
I also knew that the website claimed that I was putting up posts (getting a double post warning, then a slow down you are spamming warning) but did not even get to moderation, let alone actually posting on the site.
This suggested that I’d been a casualty of the mitigation effort and that logging in and out would solve it (also it means I have not posted anything during that time on any blog here on FTB). And as #4 shows I was right about that in my case.
This might be the reason you do not get to tech support either. They never got your messages.
Marshall says
@Chiroptera (#8) — You are my savior! I didn’t see that “Log in to comment” link. All of the buttons work fine from that page. Thank you!
@Who Cares (#11) — Thank you, I wasn’t aware of the DOS. Guessing that’s what happened.