School Board President Notoriously Anti-Gay
Monday was Logann Pruneda’s 16th birthday, but that didn’t stop someone from throwing juice boxes at her after a fire drill at school, leaving a noticeable mark on her neck. She was also called “a faggot, a queer, a lesbo” by an unidentified male whose voice she doesn’t recognize.
“They were pretty hard throws,†Logann told the Fresno Bee. “All I heard was them calling me really mean names that involved my sexuality.â€
“I know who I am. I know I am gay, but I don’t want to be treated unfairly,†she added. “But they just keep going at it, and it breaks my heart.â€
Gina Pruneda, Logann’s mother, says her daughter came out when she was 9, and she supports her.
“This is a daily thing. She comes home, and I ask how her day was, and she says a kid said ‘lesbian’ under his breath while she was giving a presentation,†Gina Pruneda told the Bee. “Last year, she pretty much spent every day eating lunch in a classroom because of the bullying. It’s not easy for her, but she’s learned to deal with it.â€
Anti-LGBTQ verbal or physical attacks and harassment should never be a daily thing.Â
Logan attends Bullard High, part of the Fresno Unified School district. School board president Brooke Ashjian has been under pressure to resign after making anti-gay comments and even claiming that sex education could make students gay.
In August NCRM reported on Ashjian, who suggested his freedom of religion was being challenged after being criticized for his remarks.
Ashjian had told The Fresno Bee that month that his “biggest fear in teaching” sex education is “you have kids who are extremely moldable at this stage, and if you start telling them that LGBT is OK and that it’s a way of life, well maybe you just swayed the kid to go that way.”
That is of course false – and wildly offensive.
“It’s so important for parents to teach these Judeo-Christian philosophies,†Ashjian added, as if being LGBT is immoral.
That month the school board held what turned in to a five-hour meeting during which parents and students spoke out on Ashjian’s remarks – some for, some against. It has been a very lengthy story and in the news every few days, with calls for his resignation by various groups and in editorials and op-eds.
The Fresno Bee reported: “In a two-page letter that Ashjian read into the record, he said LGBT leaders were attacking his faith and trying to silence him and force him from his school board, tactics he said were akin to what the Ottoman Turks did to Armenians leading up to the 1915 genocide.”Â
A Trump supporter, Ashjian concluded his remarks by saying open debate is what “makes America Great.”
At the time, NCRM warned that Ashjian, in his defense of his comments and positions, did not mention what effect his remarks might have on young LGBTQ children or teens, or what lessons might be taught by his very public display of animus against them.
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