Special needs kids have a purpose in life, given by God. Gay kids don't. So said Diana Medley, a special education teacher in Sullivan, Indiana, when a controversy erupted about allowing gay teens to attend the school prom. What a concept - a special ed teacher who needs special ed herself, sort of like an unemployed actor teaching acting.
I thought this issue had gone the way of segregated water fountains and pet rocks, but then I forgot that the seething resentments of some small town "Christians" are alive and well, incensed at even acknowledging any students with superior decorating skills. When a group of students and parents decided to hold a separate "traditional prom" for straight kids only, Medley had this exchange with a local TV reporter:
Medley: "Homosexual students come to me with their problems, and I don't agree with them, but I care about them. It's the same thing with my special needs kids, I think God puts everyone in our lives for a reason."
Reporter: "So the same goes for gays? Do you think they have a purpose in life?"
Medley: "I don't. I personally don't, I'm sorry. I just, um, I don't understand it. A gay person isn't going to come up and make some change unless it's to realize that it was a choice and they're choosing God."
Boy, she walked right into that one, didn't she? Medley is, of course, free to believe how she chooses -- and, unlike being gay, Christianity is a choice -- but if she's going to practice what she preaches, gay kids too have been put in our lives for a reason and she's certainly not qualified to teach them. And if she doesn't "understand" homosexuality, what other issues related to kids does she not understand? Maybe it's time for some night school courses.
Since she doesn't understand it, please allow me to educate her: homosexuality is a normal and natural part of human sexuality that has been with us since the dinosaurs (which people like her believe to be around 10,000 years ago). Most professionals have come to the consensus that it is inborn and not a choice, and no one knows why. There is more proof that homosexuality is natural than there is that God exists. That's it. End of lesson, and I can't believe I'm writing this fakakta stuff in 2013.
I can just see where this is headed: Pro-gay forces will be outraged and demand her resignation. Medley will issue a forced apology, then become a martyr to the antigay Christian right who will praise her for standing up for her beliefs. Perhaps she'll take some of antigay beauty queen Carrie Prejean's old speaking gigs, or be interviewed by Mike Huckabee, who will assure us with his aw-shucks just folks sinister silkiness that she's one of the poor Christians victimized by demon Obama supporters. She could open for Anita Bryant in Branson, Missouri. Maybe she'll even get a Fox News gig, since most of its viewers have special needs.
This illustrates as well as anything the danger of mixing religion and public education. But a pleasant surprise is that the issue of gays attending a prom has come up at all in a town with less than 5000 residents. That's progress. There are obviously some brave gay kids in Sullivan who are openly dating. Send them your love. They're going to need it.
If Medley is such a Bible believer, she should consider this verse in 1 Timothy 2:12 - "I do not permit a woman to teach or hold authority over a man, she must remain silent. "