Brittany didn’t look like most girls in blue-collar Anoka, Minnesota, a former logging town on the Rum River, a conventional place that takes pride in its annual Halloween parade - it bills itself the “Halloween Capital of the World.” Brittany was a low-voiced, stocky girl who dressed in baggy jeans and her dad’s Marine Corps sweatshirts. By age 13, she’d been taunted as a “cunt” and “cock muncher” long before such words had made much sense. When she told administrators about the abuse, they were strangely unresponsive, even though bullying was a subject often discussed in school-board meetings. The district maintained a comprehensive five-page anti-bullying policy, and held diversity trainings on racial and gender sensitivity. Yet when it came to Brittany’s harassment, school officials usually told her to ignore it, always glossing over the sexually charged insults. Like the time Brittany had complained about being called a “fat dyke”: The school’s principal, looking pained, had suggested Brittany prepare herself for the next round of teasing with snappy comebacks - “I can lose the weight, but you’re stuck with your ugly face” - never acknowledging she had been called a “dyke.” As though that part was OK. As though the fact that Brittany was bisexual made her fair game.
I went to high school in St. Cloud, MN, just north of Anoka. Both towns are in Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District, currently represented by Republican and uber-Jesus-y Social Conservative Michele Bachmann. I’m ashamed to admit to that, but I can’t erase reality. Too many of the people I grew up around are bigots and haters, self-professed “Christians” who understand as much of the teachings of Jesus Christ as I do of nuclear fusion.
Most any adult can remember how junior high school was as close to a living Hell as anything you might imaginable. There are few sentient being on this planet more cruel than 7th- and 8th-graders. Anything- even the smallest thing- that makes you different, renders you unique, or causes you to stand out in any shape, manner, or form can make a child a target or ridicule and derision. Bullying is not an abstract concept, and most adults have NO idea how deep the problem runs and how serious it can be.
As if all that wasn’t bad enough, Anoka-Hennepin School District implicitly declared war on gay teens. They had the power and the ability to make it clear that bullying and harassing students- whatever their orientation might be- would neither be accepted nor tolerated. Instead, they instituted policy that teachers interpreted as requirubg that they simply not acknowledge homosexuality or homosexual students. AHSD officially turned a blind eye to the suffering of students under their care. The ignorance of hatred of the community they served made that possible and acceptable…and now they have the blood of several dead teenagers on their hands.
[T]he Anoka-Hennepin school district finds itself in the spotlight not only for the sheer number of suicides but because it is accused of having contributed to the death toll by cultivating an extreme anti-gay climate. “LGBTQ students don’t feel safe at school,” says Anoka Middle School for the Arts teacher Jefferson Fietek, using the acronym for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning. “They’re made to feel ashamed of who they are. They’re bullied. And there’s no one to stand up for them, because teachers are afraid of being fired.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center and the National Center for Lesbian Rights have filed a lawsuit on behalf of five students, alleging the school district’s policies on gays are not only discriminatory, but also foster an environment of unchecked anti-gay bullying. The Department of Justice has begun a civil rights investigation as well. The Anoka-Hennepin school district declined to comment on any specific incidences but denies any discrimination, maintaining that its broad anti-bullying policy is meant to protect all students. “We are not a homophobic district, and to be vilified for this is very frustrating,” says superintendent Dennis Carlson, who blames right-wingers and gay activists for choosing the area as a battleground, describing the district as the victim in this fracas. “People are using kids as pawns in this political debate,” he says. “I find that abhorrent.”
A school district has a responsibility to protect students- ALL students under its care. I don’t know that anyone at AHSD made an explicit, overt decision to not protect gay students. No, their crime was more along the lines of an error of omission; they assumed that if they ignored gay students, the “problem” would go away on its own. By in effect turning a blind eye to what was going on, AHSD created and fostered an atmosphere which allowed gay students to be harassed and persecuted with something close to impunity.
AHSD reflects the attitudes prevalent in their community, where homosexuality is largely viewed as sick and wrong, an abomination in the eyes of the Lord. Because of this, children who self-identify as homosexual have no safe harbor, and they’re left to suffer at the hands of kids who’ve been taught to hate by their parents and their church.
For years, the area has also bred a deep strain of religious conservatism. At churches like First Baptist Church of Anoka, parishioners believe that homosexuality is a form of mental illness caused by family dysfunction, childhood trauma and exposure to pornography - a perversion curable through intensive therapy. It’s a point of view shared by their congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who has called homosexuality a form of “sexual dysfunction” that amounts to “personal enslavement.” In 1993, Bachmann, a proponent of school prayer and creationism, co-founded the New Heights charter school in the town of Stillwater, only to flee the board amid an outcry that the school was promoting a religious curriculum. Bachmann also is affiliated with the ultraright Minnesota Family Council…. Though Bachmann doesn’t live within Anoka-Hennepin’s boundaries anymore, she has a dowdier doppelgänger there in the form of anti-gay crusader Barb Anderson. A bespectacled grandmother with lemony-blond hair she curls in severely toward her face, Anderson is a former district Spanish teacher and a longtime researcher for the MFC who’s been fighting gay influence in local schools for two decades, ever since she discovered that her nephew’s health class was teaching homosexuality as normal. “That really got me on a journey,” she said in a radio interview. When the Anoka-Hennepin district’s sex-ed curriculum came up for re-evaluation in 1994, Anderson and four like-minded parents managed to get on the review committee. They argued that any form of gay tolerance in school is actually an insidious means of promoting homosexuality - that openly discussing the matter would encourage kids to try it, turning straight kids gay.
When parents hate homosexuals, they pass that hate on to their children, who often project that hate in manners far meaner and more cruel than most adults would consider. Children who are the target of this hatred are particularly vulnerable, because they’re still learning about who they are and defining their self-worth. When they’re surrounded and oppressed by an environment that openly treats them as “less than”, it doesn’t take long for that message to be internalized.
Anoka-Hennepin staff, in the course of their professional duties, shall remain neutral on matters regarding sexual orientation including but not limited to student-led discussions.
AHSD’s policy (unofficially known as “No Homo Promo”) provided no safe harbor for children under their care who self-identified as homosexual. By claiming “neutrality”, AHSD in effect create an atmosphere of carte blanche for children who harassed their gay peers. Teachers and administrators, who should have willingly and eagerly accepted the responsibility for protecting ALL students, looked the other way when gay students were hassled.
Four of the nine AHSD students who took their lives either self-identified as gay or were thought of that way by fellow students. They were bullied, and AHSD stood mutely by as the harassment continued. “No Homo Promo” meant that no one could or would stand up for gay students. AHSD official neutrality means that they were complicit in the suffering of students under their care. For AHSD to now claim that it’s “not a homophobic district” is as dishonest as it is reprehensible.
The truly sad aspect of this tale is that their hatred, ignorance, and harassment originated with those in the community who identify as “Christians.” People like Michele Bachmann and Barb Anderson can’t be held legally responsible, of course, but they are morally responsible for the climate their homophobia, hatred, and bigotry (all in the name of Jesus Christ) created.
I may have grown up in this part of Minnesota, but I no longer recognize it. Perhaps I was completely ignorant of this during my high school years, but I don’t recall there being such a preponderance of judgmental, hateful, hyper-religious bigots around me.
Yes, I may have grown up in this part of Minnesota, but I can no longer claim it as home, because I have no desire to be associated with hypocrites who can, will, and do condone hatred and bigotry in the name of their God. I hope that the good, God-fearing “Christians” of the AHSD community can live with themselves. I certainly would never choose to ever live among them again.
Reading this article tore my heart out. I grew up there, and while I don’t remember that atmosphere being prevalent during my school days, I understand the mindset that would tolerate and condone condemning a child for coming out as a homosexual. A member of my own family once told me that he believed HIV/AIDS to be God’s revenge against homosexuals.
Yeah, y’all might want to crack your Bible now and again…and read up on things like charity and tolerance.
These Christians are so unlike their Christ….
