HHS students rising above intolerant history of community

Young people in Livingston County are doing what they can to overcome the county’s racist and intolerant past, and that is why students at Howell High School chose to put on the play “The Laramie Project,” a play about the aftermath of the beating death of a gay student in Wyoming in 1998.

The students will give their final performance of the play tonight at 7 p.m. in the drama room of the high school, 1200 W. Grand River Ave. in Howell. Tickets are just $5 and will only be sold at the door.

As predicted, the anti-gay hate group known as the “Westboro Baptist Church” plans to picket. It’s really just one extended family, and most likely it will be just one person showing up with a few disgusting signs to shout some of the same disgusting BS they spout at the funerals of service men and women killed in action. I hate to give them any more publicity, and I am only doing it to highlight the counter protest.

The Community Unitarian Universalists in Brighton are organizing a silent vigil to support the students, and that begins at 6:30 p.m. This group has done some excellent things in the community to support both human and gay rights in the community. If you go, please refrain from engaging the hatemongers because the Phelps family, like teabaggers, crave confrontation.

Ironically, it was an anti-gay hate group that helped give Howell and the school a bad name. The now defunct anti-gay hate group known as LOVE (Livingston Organization for Values in Education) was behind a book-banning drive more than four years ago.

The hate group was founded in 2006 by former school board member turned teabagger leader Wendy Day in response to a diversity flag they mistakenly labeled a gay pride flag.

So come out and take in the play for a mere $5 bucks or show your support by joining the counter-protest; or both. You can find them because they will have a banner that says, "Standing on the side of love."

Ignore the anti-gay hate group Westboro Baptist Church with a counter protest

The anti-gay hate group known as the Westboro Baptist Church plans to protest at East Lansing High School this Thursday for some unknown reason, but at lest one real church is working to deny the hatemongers the attention and publicity they crave.

All Saints Episcopal Church in East Lansing is sponsoring a counter protest from 2-4 p.m. Thursday at the church parking lot at 800 Abbot Rd. in East Lansing. These counter protests for other publicity seeking hate groups, like the Klan and Nazis, have been very successful because the groups thrive on the free publicity and the confrontation.

As you know, the Westboro Baptist Church is headed by Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kan., and they are notorious for their "God Hates Fags" website and protests. They gained infamy with vulgar and disgusting protests at the funerals of AIDS victims, but they really entered the mainstream when they began protesting at the funerals of servicemen and women killed in action in Iraq.

They claim their deaths are God's punishment for America's "fag-enabling" ways. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), that tracks hate groups like the Westboro Baptist Church, said they have picketed events ranging from theater performances to children murdered or killed in traffic accidents. “These protests share a simple theme: Attacking America's perceived tolerance of homosexuality and celebrating God's perceived wrath as just rewards for "fags" and "fag-enablers."”

The 100 or so followers of the so-called church are primarily members of the Phelps family, and they seek and love violent confrontation with some very personal and vile attacks that they hope will provoke you and will land you in court.

According to the SPLC, “Phelps himself is a disbarred attorney who was long known for massive litigation; at one point, he personally had almost 200 lawsuits pending in federal court. Although his congregation includes only about 22 adults, at least 14 of those have law degrees. In fact, “the church has its own law firm, Phelps Chartered, which is staffed by church members and which has repeatedly filed suit against its perceived enemies.”

Obviously people want to express their distaste for these disgusting tactics, but the best thing to do is to not give them the attention they crave. The good people at All Saints Episcopal Church are expecting up to 500 people at the counter protest, and they are asking for food donations for the protest. They are asking for things like doughnuts, apples, granola bars and other snack type food, and beverages like cider, water tea and coffee. Call the church at (517) 351-7160 to offer help.

There should be no tolerance for intolerance

There should be no tolerance for intolerance and bigotry, and that’s one reason I support the actions of Howell High School teacher Jay McDowell.

McDowell, who also happens to be the president of the Howell Education Association (HEA) that represents the teachers, was suspended for one day without pay last month because he sent two students to the office for disrupting his class. However, it's the subject matter that has, again, put Howell back in the national headlines in an unfavorable light for its prejudice and intolerance and launched a Facebook page with 943 members to date called “Support Jay McDowell.”

The incident occurred, according to the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus, on Oct. 20; the day people all over the country wore purple to support the end of anti-gay bullying that led to a rash of suicides by gay teens. Apparently, McDowell asked a student wearing a belt buckle sporting the Confederate flag to remove the symbol of racism, slavery, white supremacy and treason.

Another student, 16-year-old Howell High School junior Daniel Glowacki, “was ejected from McDowell’s classroom along with another student. The ejection occurred after Glowacki and McDowell argued about another student wearing a belt buckle sporting the Confederate flag.”

According to the newspaper, “on Nov. 8, the district’s Board of Education received a report on McDowell’s disciplinary action — which included a one-day suspension the high school economics teacher has already served — during its regular meeting.” District Superintendent Ron Wilson said the district, McDowell and the union are engaged in the grievance process. “Until that process is complete, Wilson said Friday in the Press & Argus, the district will not discuss the disciplinary aspect of the issue because it is a labor issue.”

Support for McDowell has been widespread, and many people have spoken in support of him during public comment at school board meetings. The district caught wind of a protest in support of him at their regular school board meeting last Monday, and they tried to hold them off with a special forum set for 7 p.m. tonight in the cafeteria of the Howell High School Freshman.

I, like many other people, are at a loss as to why a teachers was disciplined for maintaining control of his classroom by sending a disruptive student to the principal's office. “Sending a student to the principal’s office” has long been a discipline option.

The students asked to leave claim that homosexuality is against their religious beliefs. The only way that is true is if he is a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, and it’s still not the case.

Livingston County has an undeserved reputation for racism because Klan Grand Dragon and domestic terrorist Robert Miles once lived in the county near Howell and because of various isolated incidents over the years.

One such incident was the debacle over an anti-gay hate group when the now defunct anti-gay hate group called known as LOVE (Livingston Organization for Values in Education) was formed in 2006. It sprang up like a bad fungus in response to diversity flag they mistakenly labeled a gay pride flag. It gained Howell Public Schools plenty of bad publicity when they launched a long and, thankfully, unsuccessful book-banning campaign.

But it did saddle the district with school board member Wendy Day, who also happens to be a leader of the teabagger farce in Michigan that has it roots in racism. Its early grassroots support, before two Washington, D.C. lobbying groups started funding it, were militias, secessionists and neo-Nazi white supremacist groups.

I’m just happy we have teachers like Jay McDowell at HPS where my grandchildren go to school.

There is no reason the Islamic community center in lower Manhattan should not be built

The things the rightwing chooses to make an issue over never ceases to amaze me, as does why people, especially Democrats, listen to them.

One such non-issue is the plan to build an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan. It has been characterized by the right as building an Islamic Mosque at the site of the so-called Ground Zero at the site of the former World Trade Center where the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 took place, when the facts are it is not a Mosque and its three blocks from ground zero.

Even if it were a Mosque being built right over the top of ground zero, so what? This country was founded on religious freedom. Now, some rightwing bigots, like Steve Emerson, have made a career bashing one of the world's’ great religions, but this is just ridiculous.

The reaction is just typical of people like Emerson who promote racial profiling of men of Middle Eastern descent and make the false claim that all Muslim groups are terrorist front groups. The 9/11 terrorists were extremists and not representative of the Muslim religion.

Every religion has extremists that are way out of the mainstream. Christians do not embrace the idiots at the Westboro Baptist Church who claim God hates America because we offer, almost, equal rights to gays. Just because these idiots show up at the funerals of soldiers and sailors killed in Iraq and Afghanistan with signs that say “God hates fags” does that mean all Christens feel the same way or support that action?

To me, building a Mosque or a Muslim community center there sends a clear message to the world and the Muslim extremists that the United States is the greatest and most open and free country in the world, and no matter how hard you try, we will never give up an ounce of our freedom or civil liberties in the face of cowardly terrorism. If it doesn’t get built because of hate, prejudice and intolerance, then the terrorists on 9/11 accomplished their mission.

Clearly, if the community center meets local zoning laws and is approved by the local planning commission it should be built, and there is absolutely no reason it should not be built.