October 27, 2010

Arkansas School Board Facebooker: Gays Should Die

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Image courtesy of Advocate.com Image courtesy of Advocate.comUPDATE: McCance apologized on CNN.com for his comments and announced that he will resign from the school board.

***

Did you wear purple on October 20 to call attention to gay teen suicides related to bullying? Well, Advocate.com reports that one Arkansas school board member was so outraged by the request that he support LGBT youth by donning a shade of prune that he wrote this on his Facebook page:

“Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers killed themselves. The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed thereselves because of their sin. REALLY PEOPLE.”

Thus far Cilnt McCance hasn’t explained his antigay remarks.

Meanwhile, a Facebook page is calling for McCance to be fired. The page had 17,589 members as of 3pm EST Wednesday.

The Arkansas Department of Education released this statement Tuesday: “The Arkansas Department of Education strongly condemns remarks or attitudes of this kind and is dismayed to see that a school board official would post something of this insensitive nature on a public forum like Facebook. Because Mr. McCance is an elected official, the department has no means of dealing with him directly. … “

Does this mean he’ll get to keep his job?

[H/T: Mother Jones reader Larry]

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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