Calendar Controversy™ Continues To Rage On

Over the weekend, I stumbled upon the Evening Bulletin’s coverage of The Calendar Controversy™, which appeared in Friday’s paper.

The Bulletin’s story (by Jim McCafferty) not only included James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin references in the lead — good show, good show — but includes a few more details that the Inquirer and Daily News, uh, whitewashed:

Robert Gray, of the African American Freedom & Reconstruction League, launched perhaps the strongest attack.

“We not only have the right but also a responsibility to set our own standards,” his letter to the board read. “No white person can tell us what our standards are, the ‘radical’ or the ‘right winged.’

“Consenting adults have a right to do whatever they want to do. When it comes to our African-American children, we are concerned about our children as much as you are concerned about your children, and we have a right to decide what will be taught to our children.”

“The problem for us then is not the month itself, but the claim it makes openly,” he continued. “The first claim is that Gay and Lesbian History month is the same as Black History month, and the second claim is the Gay struggle underline [sic] the African-American struggles for basic rights. When in reality the Gay and Lesbian history Month is introducing a lifestyle that is totally unacceptable to most people of African descent.”

He concluded, “[In] the struggle for black people’s rights, black people are the focus themselves and the primary benefit, and in the Gay struggle whites are the primary beneficiaries and blacks are on the bottom.

“In reality, the gay and lesbian agenda is not inclusive at all. It is a white orientated agenda using African-American children. The gay and lesbian agenda under Policy 102 has no place in the Philadelphia public schools. We will not allow our righteous struggle for freedom, justice and equality to be linked to their exclusive racist agenda.”

Now, nevermind that Gay and Lesbian History isn’t even being taught in the schools — here’s proof, from the school district: “Gay and lesbian history will not be taught as part of the curriculum.” — but somehow it’s part of a white separatist plot? I really do like Gray’s “righteous struggle for freedom, justice and equality” that excludes gay people. Nice.

The other paper’s didn’t even get the best quote Rashad Faheem Shabazz, who is the inspiration for next month’s special feature of Fornication Price Month. He called homosexuality “a disease or a disorder of the mind and insanity.” (He also called for a boycott of the schools.) Ho ho, Rashad!

But getting back to Gray. His first problem was the “claim is that Gay and Lesbian History month is the same as Black History month.” How does that work, exactly. Governments and other organizations recognize everything from Gay and Lesbian History Month to Black History Month to Colon Cancer Awareness Month to, oh I don’t know, Mathematics Awareness Month.

Mathematics Awareness Month! Is Gray going to attack them for making the struggle for math knowledge the same as Black History Month? I don’t even know how to define “equal struggles.” Just because gays were never, say, singularly singled out with slavery or Jim Crow laws doesn’t mean they weren’t discriminated against, nor does it mean they shouldn’t get equal rights because it says so in a book written thousands of years ago.

Perhaps Gray can shed some light on the subject while he mounts his campaign against Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

SRC Bitterly Clashes Over Gay History Month [The Evening Bulletin]