Dan Savage says Diana Medley, the Indiana high school special needs teacher who said gays have no purpose in life, “should be fired.” Medley was speaking to a local Sullivan County NBC affiliate about a group of parents and students who are trying to hold a separate prom that would officially ban gay people from attendance.
WTWO reported:
“Homosexual students come to me with their problems, and I don’t agree with them, but I care about them. It’s the same thing with my special needs kids, I think God puts everyone in our lives for a reason,†said Madley.
“‘So the same goes for gays? Do you think they have a purpose in life?’ No I honestly don’t. Sorry, but I don’t. I don’t understand it. A gay person isn’t going to come up and make some change unless it’s to realize that it was a choice and they’re chosing [sic] God,†said Medley.
“Yeah, yeah: she believes her gay students are going to hell,” Savage on Monday wrote, adding, “she believes being gay is a sinful choice, she’s happy to be the public face of an effort to create prom that bans her gay students, and she doesn’t think her gay students serve any purpose in life—but, you know, Medley cares about her gay students. She cares so much.
Savage, who is the co-creator of the It Gets Better project, also wrote, “now we know that this bigot is actually interacting with gay students and may be doing them real harm.”
Diana Medley should be fired.
Sign the petition calling for her dismissal and send an email to Mark Baker, the superintendent of the Northeast School Corporation and Diana Medley’s boss. Tell him to fire Diana Medley.
Of course, Medley should be counseled and the superintendent should determine if she is capable of keeping her anti-gay opinions out of the school environment. She poses a serious emotional threat to any LGBTQ student, and it would be best for everyone if she resigned. Fired? If it’s determined she’s creating or has created a hostile environment for these kids, then yes.
Any adult in a position of power of minors needs to be careful they don’t abuse their position and poison the minds of kids, especially LGBTQ kids, who suffer depression, homelessness, and attempt suicide at rates far greater than their heterosexual peers, exactly because of attitudes like Medley’s.