PSA: Anoka-Hennepin School District and the Victims of the Politics of Hate

Things don't often get very political around here, although it's doubtful any of the regular readers here couldn't surmise my leanings.

Today is an exception.

Justin Aaberg, Anoka victim of gay bullying who hanged himself in 2010

In the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone, there is a devastating story about an epidemic of pre-teen and teen suicides in the Anoka-Hennepin School District, which includes the high school from which Michele Bachmann graduated. While Bachmann doesn't currently live within the school district, it is located in Minnesota's Fighting Sixth which she represents, and the spate of suicides is largely tied to the district's policies* in regards to dealing with homosexual students, or rather refusing to deal with them.

*These policies are largely driven by people involved with the Minnesota Family Council, whose president blogged that one of the victims of unchecked bullying who committed suicide had only one root cause to which blame could be lain: his gayness. One of their researchers, Barb Anderson, was the woman who co-authored the Anoka-Hennepin School District's "No Homo Promo" policy. The MFC also has ties to Bachmann, who has been a keynote speaker at their dinners alongside Newt Gingrich. 

The story is horrifying and is endemic of a much larger issue with the religious right and their perversion of Christ's message to forward a rhetorical and political platform of hate and intolerance, which flies in the face of everything the Messiah whose name they so love to invoke actually stood for, namely love. The politics of hate have real, innocent victims.

Regardless of your beliefs, read this story. A little empathy can go a long ways.

Stop preaching hate.

Second Wind

This post will be a short departure into the realm of politics, so you are forewarned...

For much of the past few months, it has been hard to stay intently focused on the election. The drawn out democratic primaries did much to sap my energy, in that I am certain, but much of the post-primary season has found me with a waning interest. That can no longer be said.

As the debates are starting to come at a once-a-week clip and the candidates are at the stage with no middlemen filtering their message into 30 second clips, the public is finally getting to see the two tickets facing off squarely against one another. And sure, we're still subject to post-debate wrap-ups in which we're subjected to the spin zone and GOP strategists exclaiming that a routinely outmatched Palin won the debate because she didn't flounder embarrassingly (Is there any other country in the world where such mediocrity is embraced?), but the debates themselves at least allow us an uninterrupted and unbiased view at the candidates (even if CNN does have that ridiculous emotameter at the bottom of the screen...).

That being said, 538 is sating a statistical hunger I've had since fantasy baseball ended. I guess it's only fitting that Nate Silver, a Managing Partner at The Baseball Prospectus, is heading this outfit.

Everything 538 has to say seems to be encouraging for Obama backers. Things are currently looking up. Let's hope this holds.

I would like to know what the hell is going on in Minnesota. Polls are showing insane disparities in the Coleman/Franken Senatorial Race with the Star Tribune coming out with a poll today seeming to refute every other poll that's out there. I hope this poll is not somehow erroneous because--as divisive as I think Al Franken can sometimes be--I cannot stand that turncoat Norm Coleman.

Also, Minnesota is somehow a close race according to much of the polling that has been going on, and I just cannot fathom what could be happening that could turn the tide against Barack Obama in a state that has not voted for a Republican Presidential Candidate since 1972. That being said, I doubt McCain actually pulls off the upset in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

This guy's excited about politics again. Maybe it has something to do with having recently finished Dreams from My Father, post about that coming soon, seriously.