snowywolfowl | Let me get this straight? You are on the school board and you WANT students to kill themselves?

http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/10/28/arkansas.anti.gay.resignation/index.html?hpt=C1

Wow.

I'm going to tell you what I think here. First, here is what Mr. McCance posted on his Facebook site:

"Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers committed suicide. 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 therselves because of their sin." (sic)

Well, I'd like to first take the whole religion aspect out of it. I don't care what he thinks or feels there. He has my support to worship in whatever way he chooses. Whether or not you think homosexuality is odious or acceptable you do have a right to your own opinions, feelings and interpretations of theology. I'm not interested in "oh, but God is love! Its a sin to hate!" or "God hates gays" arguments here today because frankly, they are completely irrelevant. Religion doesn't matter here and to bring it in is a red herring to the real issue.

Secondly, I don't feel the least bit offended that he feels that I, along with the rest of those who have no issues with homosexuality, are stupid. I've been called more creative things by local drivers crossing the street, so the idea of anyone outside his community getting insulted is making a mountain out of the molehill. It's a waste of emotion.

Likewise the idea of him hating to wear purple is also fine by me.  I mean seriously, I can't even get up the drive to do Halloween anymore, let alone wear any specific colours that I just look bad in for a cause. Because of that I can't harp on a guy for saying "no way Jose" to wearing purple for a cause he doesn't care about. Frankly there are bigger issues in the world.

The only issue I have, and the reason he had to resign (or be kicked out immediately) is the damage he does through the perception of authority. If the local citizen oversight of a schoolboard honestly hates the children they are trying to educate and wishes them to die then how can the school provide effective support and prevention programs? You could use any number of analogies here to describe why his presence is no longer feasible:

           1. If he was called up for jury duty for a gay person's trial and said this he'd be dismissed as a potential juror immediately. And lest you worry that I'm being a bleeding heart liberal here lets forget the defence lawyer, if you're prosecuting do you want this mistrial waiting to happen taking up your time? Trials are expensive. You don't give the defence freebie appeals, especially those based on openly biased jurors.
           2. If he'd said this about Black History Month, and wished his African American students to kill themselves, well, I'm not even sure Gov. George Wallace in his early days would back him up on that. It would be such a bizarre take on "separate but equal" I'm not sure how it would work. Would it be "we all die, so we are all equal, just you die first so that we can be separate"? I'm finding that very confusing and I wrote the analogy. I can't imagine it for you the reader.
         3. Returning to lawyers again, this guy makes the entire school district the best looking lawsuit bait in the country. All it would take is one kid either getting hurt or self hurting and it would be a jackpot. I admit I'm not too particularly knowledgeable legally but I'd be terrified that a half smart lawyer would argue successfully that all the anti-bullying and student mental health supports failed because they didn't exist in a real world fashion. Imagine how ridiculous that defence would look: "No, your honour we provided every service possible to prevent the suicides of those worthless queer children we really wished would just kill themselves to spare us being contaminated by their filthy immoral lifestyle."

I could go one here but I think I've made the point.

This is perhaps a bit over the top  but frankly, I'm not surprised he's being pushed to resign.* The big surprise for me is that he thought Facebook was private somehow.

Ok.

Good bye Mr. McCance. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

*Would anybody reading this honestly NOT push him to resign after saying that, especially just considering legal liability?