An inkblot test with letters right-wing zealots find offensive—LGBTQ

Every year since 2018, the Fairbanks school board has made the declaration above. School Board candidate Jaimee Coon and Assembly candidate Miguel Ramirez, who have just now learned that this happens, are making many false claims about the resolution.

I don’t care about resolutions recognizing commemorative months, but the extreme overreaction of school board candidate Jaimee Coon and assembly candidate Miguel Ramirez to this routine school board resolution recognizing LGBTQ month deserves a public discussion before the October 6th election.

The school board approved the resolution Tuesday on its consent agenda—which is reserved for the passage of routine items that don’t need debate by board members. That was the right way to handle it.

The school board has adopted similar versions of this resolution with the identical “be it resolved” clause every year since 2018.

Every year the resolution’s approval does not change anything that is taught in our public schools.

It does communicate an important message to school employees and students who are part of the LGBTQ community. To others it’s a “live and let live” statement that is innocuous.

But to the right-wing zealots it’s an inkblot test with letters they find offensive.

My guess is that Coon and Ramirez did not read the resolution before they denounced it Tuesday night with such fervor.

I think they saw LGBTQ and created their own scare stories based on a lazy set of false preconceived notions to win votes from people who like that kind of thing.

If Coon and Ramirez read the resolution in advance, then they have a problem with reading comprehension.

The resolution bears no resemblance to their claims about it.

Jaimee Coon

Coon, who is running against incumbent Bobby Burgess and Robert Herrick for School Board Seat F, read from an anti-resolution she wrote opposing the resolution.

The former English teacher tossed in a half-dozen ‘whereas clauses’ including these:

“Whereas it is out of order to elevate sexual orientation and gender identity in our students’ classrooms as well as demeaning and demoralizing to the LGBTQ community to promote private personal affairs at the subversion of actual contributions.”

“Whereas the discussion, exploration and promotion of sexual preferences in our elementary classrooms is not only inappropriate, but licentious, given our district’s responsibility to educate our young people in the basics of academia.”

She concluded her proposed anti-resolution by saying the district “is not prioritizing the purity and innocence of our children by promoting October as LGBTQ history month in our classrooms.”

There is no reason to believe her claim that elementary school teachers are promoting sexual preferences with children.

There is nothing in the resolution that encourages or allows elementary school teachers to promote sexual preferences with children.

Coon should either retract her claim of licentious behavior or provide proof.

This is on the same level as Trump’s lies about immigrants that “they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats.”

She says on her ads that she is “pro-literacy” and “pro-academic rigor,” qualities that are missing from her anti-resolution.

State House candidate Barbara Haney, who is running against incumbent Mike Prax and challenger Pepper McFarland, thanked Coon on Facebook for “highlighting that the school district has gone off their main mission of academic excellence.”

Which just goes to show that Haney didn’t bother to read this annual innocuous resolution either.

Miguel Ramirez

Ramirez, who is running against Alexis Howell for Assembly Seat D, did not write his own anti-resolution, but claimed that the resolution pushes the LGBTQ lifestyle on children.

He also argued that it is discrimination to have an LGBTQ month and not a heterosexual awareness month.

“My family who have lived this lifestyle, have raised children and have asked me to come testify because they’re tired of seeing this pushed forward, pushed forward. I think this is a form of discrimination because there’s no hetero, heterosexual awareness month. This is a form of discriminating one group against the other,” said Ramirez, a Fort Wainwright housing manager, employed by the federal government.

“Also, many of us all sitting here because our grandfathers, grandmothers died. We get Veterans’ Day, not a veterans’ month. And most of us here, sitting here, being able to govern our districts and our communities because of our forefathers and foremothers that died for us to be here today,” he said.

“Why do we get a day and not a month? And to paraphrase Morgan Freeman, on an interview on CNN with Don Lemon, 30 days? Why does anybody get 30 days for the history of their background? I’m an American Hispanic heritage. It’s an insult to me that there’s only 30 days of Hispanic Heritage Month. I’m also Taino-Mayan Indian which not celebrated at all up here. But that’s not me. We’re all Americans. We’re all family. We need to go back to civics, mathematics, reading, teaching our kids the basics. That is the fundamental.”

He went on to complain about the proliferation of months, kids who graduate from high school who can’t tell time on clocks with “roman numerals,” how students can’t write cursive, and that families are taking their kids out of schools, etc.

Ramirez is part of the Tammie Wilson trio, which also includes Josh Leaders and Shelly Shupe, that Wilson is promoting as a team for the assembly.

A more informed and valuable perspective than that offered by Coon and Ramirez came from Carolyn Loeffler, who is not a candidate for local office, but the parent of three small children.

She said that the resolution advocates one thing only, which is made clear in the single “be it resolved” sentence.

It says that the board recognizes October as “LGBTQ History Month and encourages schools throughout the district to promote a community where all students and staff are supported and affirmed.”

“I’m having a really hard time finding the offending call to action in this resolution,” she said.

“There’s nothing in this language about making changes in the social studies curriculum or circulating LGBTQ materials,” she said. “The board’s simply recognizes the contributions of the LGBTQ people to our nation’s history and encourages our schools to be welcoming communities for all students and staff. That’s it.”

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Click on the video above to hear school board candidate Coon’s testimony. Check the video below to hear assembly candidate Ramirez.