Tag Archives: Schools

Rick Perry’s ties to PHC

An interesting article in the August 27, Huffington Post describes the relationship between Rick Perry and “conservative Christian” businessman and financier Dr. James Leininger.  The entire article is worth a read.  I’ll quote the section on Leininger’s largess to Patrick Henry College.  Readers may also want to note that Dimitri Kesari, Eugene Delgaudio, and his former aide Donny Furgeson all have Texas ties, as does Prison Fellowship Ministries.  The head of the Texas State Board of Education is a PFM “Centurion” (an activist who has completed a program of ideological training to implement the PFM/Chuck Colson “worldview”).

Leininger has also bankrolled a number of anti-abortion groups, including Texas Right to Life, Heidi Group and the Christian Pro Life Foundation. His charity, The Covenant Foundation, Inc., contributed at least $450,000 from 1997 to 2005 to the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, an abstinence-only advocate. In 2005, he gave $100,000 in support of an amendment banning gay marriage.

The Covenant Foundation, Inc., charity has also been another way for Leininger to project his money into Christian conservative causes. The biggest benefactor of the charity’s largesse in the past few years has been the conservative Patrick Henry College, which received $9.3 million in contributions from 2008 to 2009. Leininger sits on the Board of Trustees of the school.

And you think this is a virtue?

Crossposted at Equality Loudoun.

It’s not online, but Leesburg Today has a piece on a recent Community Levee Association essay contest, and the winning essay is on their site. CLA president Chris Stevenson tells the Leesburg Today “we thought there were pretty good deep insights into marriage, especially for a 12th grader.” The author makes a strong case for the emotional difference between marriage and something that falls short, disputing the idea “that cohabitation is a reasonable substitution for marriage.”

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The Laramie Project at Broad Run HS

Download this poster

Crossposted at Equality Loudoun.

Later update: There’s a Washington Post article.

Update to the press release below: We are fortunate to have living in our community two people who were present in Laramie at the time of Matthew Shepard’s murder, and who became intimately involved in the unfolding story. Stephen Johnson, a minister whose Unitarian Universalist church provided the only safe space for GLBT people in the Laramie area, was the basis for a character in the play. Penelope Thoms was Matthew’s chaplain at the Fort Collins hospital where he died. Penelope tells of their experience here. They will be present for the Saturday, June 4 performance and discussion.

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Loudoun Out Loud at St. James

Crossposted at Equality Loudoun

Sunday, May 22 at 11:00 am
St. James United Church of Christ
10 East Broad Way, Lovettsville

Loudoun Out Loud, the PFLAG support group, has now been meeting since January (See interview with Lori Stevens here, and Living in Loco has more links). Not only does LOL facilitate two monthly support group meetings – one for LGBTQ youth and one for family/allies – they have also provided appropriate resource materials for use in Loudoun County Public Schools, partnered with locovore eatery American Flatbread to raise funds for PFLAG, collected bikes for Bikes for the World as an Earth Day project, hosted a screening of the film Bullied, and probably more I don’t know about yet.

Lori Stevens and some of the youth will be sharing the stories that have brought them together to create this much needed group – and the public is welcome.

Pound foolish elitism

One third of the children in Virginia are overweight or obese. Not coincidentally, soft drinks and other “foods” containing high-fructose corn syrup are readily available in our public schools. And now, thanks to Governor Bob McDonnell’s veto, there will be no half hour per day of physical education for public school students. According to the governor, we can’t afford to take time away from preparing for standardized tests or the cost of additional instruction. Continue reading

No bears to poke

Crossposted at Equality Loudoun

Loudoun Out Loud Kickoff:
Leave a comment below if you want to attend.

A bit of background: As recently as 2005, some members of the Loudoun County School Board were discussing a policy that would have prohibited the presentation by our public school drama departments and clubs any work that acknowledges the existence of GLBT people. That ridiculous situation, largely created by former delegate Dick Black and some of his family members, was provoked by a student’s original work. See Equality Loudoun archive. Although the policy eventually adopted by the board did not include unlawful viewpoint discrimination, the debate (which included threatening hate mail and some atrocious behavior at School Board meetings) did result in a chilling effect. The message was, as one drama department head put it, “Don’t poke the bear.” That era of self-censorship has now ended with the announcement that The Laramie Project has been selected as the spring play at Broad Run High School.  This is wonderful news, and when we have all the details we’ll post them here. This award-winning play has been presented by many, many high school drama departments – as it should be.

Here is some more wonderful news: Loudoun will now have a PFLAG support group, and counselors in our schools will have appropriate material to provide to GLBT and ally students seeking support.

Metro DC PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), is starting a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth and parent support group to meet in Sterling.

Loudoun Out Loud Kickoff:

Sunday, Jan. 23, 4-6 p.m.

Leave a comment below if you would like to come and you will be provided location information.

The groups will meet every fourth Sunday during the same time.

It’ll be interesting to see who actually opposes these things and decides to make an issue of it. Would those really be good campaign issues? Advocating that kids be exposed to bullies and told they don’t deserve any help? Preventing parents and children from trying to keep their families together? I get the feeling there aren’t many bears left to poke, not ones of any consequence. We’ll see.

[Note: Meeting location information redacted at the request of organizers in favor of soliciting RSVPs. – P13]