Anti-gay Hate Group disrupts Newtonville, MA school program [View All]

[Ian David]

Parents crash school's gay tolerance event
Fri Dec 17, 8:38 PM ET

Eric Johnston, PlanetOut Network

SUMMARY: Two parents, one of them a member of an anti-gay group, were ejected from an assembly designed to promote tolerance of LGBT people at a Newtonville, Mass., high school.

The disruption occurred during an assembly at Newton North High School called "To BGLAD: Transgender, Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Awareness Day." Held for the past 10 years, the event is one of several ways the school district promotes diversity. Students are not required to attend.

Camenker is a member of the Article 8 Alliance, an anti-gay group that seeks to unseat four Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court justices whose landmark 2003 ruling in Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health led to legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.

"While Mr. Camenker is free to feel however he wants towards gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered people, he doesn't have the right to prevent my kids, or any others than his own, from learning information that might save their lives one day," wrote Karla Hailer-Fidelman, a columnist for the Newton Tab newspaper. "The reality is, the reason we have programs like To Be GLAD is so that kids who are gay, lesbian, transgendered or bisexual --or have parents that fall into those categories -- don't have to live in shame or fear, which seems to be the way a handful of people want them to live."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/po/20041218/co_po/parentscrashschoolsgaytoleranceevent

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