Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Close Call at the CRC Corral

The Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum started as a web site: RecallMontgomerySchoolBoard.com. It had a message board that became a laughing-stock across the Internet, other sites would go there for humorous material, outrageously ignorant rantings by wild-eyed haters, over-the-top hyperventilations of a grand sort. So they closed off the message board from the public. After, y'know, apologizing to the school board for threats, stuff like that.

By the way, I notice that if you go to www.RecallMontgomerySchoolBoard.com now and type the word "gay" into their search engine, it takes you to sites that advertise things like "XXX Sex Match: Men & Women Looking for Hot Sex. Video Chat, Hookups, & Much More," and "Teen (18-19) Boy Videos: The beauty of first love Exclusive hardcore Video..." I hope the CRC is making a little money off that, at least.

Then they had a blog. Sort of. They didn't allow comments, for obvious reasons, and the ... what shall I say? The intellectual level of the posts was somewhat unsatisfying. I mean, we all slip occasionally, but ... I don't know who over there was writing that stuff, but pretty soon people stopped reading it, and it looks like it was July, 2005, when they finally gave up the ghost. Didn't even delete it, just left that rotting hulk there on the Internet.

Then they had an online forum. This was pretty nice, the software behind it was powerful and fast, the interface was pretty, it was well organized. At first people went there to read the articles, mostly posted by "CRCPrecious" (Retta), the usual batch of rightwing nonsense, but usually with an angle that was somewhat relevant to our Montgomery County sex-ed controversy. The point of a forum is that people can discuss, they can post their own comments and go back and forth. There were even a few people who disagreed with the CRC. The administrator immediately found reasons to kick them off, one by one, and pretty soon there was nobody left.

For months, I mean a lot of months, any time I have checked the CRC's forum, I have been absolutely the only person logged in (it shows you in the corner who else is logged into it). Fifty-gazillion people on the Internet, and this site gets zero of them. Still, CRCPrecious continued to post the drivel from AgapePress and the Family Blah Blah organizations.

This week I noticed that somebody had left some comments there. The first in a long, long time. This other user was called uallarenazis. Woops, bad sign. They left a few posts, like, one said "Are you supporting hate crimes?" That was the whole post, a comment on a story where some group was saying that gays are using "their political power to exaggerate the extent of hate crimes committed against homosexuals." Another uallarenazis comment was about the new curriculum. This poor person made the mistake of taking them seriously, and tried to ask them a question. They wrote:
Can't you just take you're child out of the curriculum? When I was in school we had to get a parent to sign a permission slip before sex ed. So if you don't want you're kid in the program, don't sign the slip. Worry about your own kids, not everyone elses. Some people don't want there kids to grow up and be ignorant intolerant idiots like the people who created this board.

You guys are teaching a message of hate. Against homosexuals, liberals, democrats and everyone else who doesnt believe the same things you do. Thats what the nazis did. This is america, people have the right to be gay. Kids have the right and the reponsibility to learn about it young so that they don't grow up to be ignorant.

The worst part is you do it in the name of religion.

Uh, yeah, tough question. Can't you just take your child out of the curriculum?

The answer, actually, is, no they can't take their children out of the curriculum, because hardly any of them have kids in the public schools, and the ones who do wouldn't let their kids take sex-ed anyway.

So this uallarenazis person appears to be a rookie. They ask this question as if they thought the CRC was actually concerned about their own kids. No, it's not about that, it's about our kids, the kids who actually will take health in the MoCo public schools.

Anyway, so what do you supposed the reponse was?

Heh-heh.

Here's Administrator responding to uallarenazis:
Your registered name uallarenazis is considered in violation of this forums terms of service which you agreed to when registering. Those service terms were:

Access to the CRC FORUM, is granted subject to the provisions of this agreement.

You agree, through your use of the CRC FORUM, that you will not post any material which is false, defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy ...

Several paragraphs of boilerplate follow. The rules of the forum, they have your IP number, the site will put cookies on your machine...

Then the Beloved Administrator gets to the point:
Consequently, your registration has been voided.

Didn't like the name.

Man, that was close. If somebody else had been reading the forum, it was possible that they may have had a discussion of the issues.

Thank Administrator for preventing that!

19 Comments:

Blogger andrea said...

Didn't CRC once makes some crackpot claims about some website just because when you put "gay" into the search engine, sites such as you mentioned came up. Well, taking the CRC's own tack- they are promoting gay sex on their website. Who would of thunk we'd see the day?

Say I heard Peter Sprigg is not ex-gay? Is that true?

March 13, 2007 4:54 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Jim, this paragraph of your post caught my eye:

"By the way, I notice that if you go to www.RecallMontgomerySchoolBoard.com now and type the word "gay" into their search engine, it takes you to sites that advertise things like "XXX Sex Match: Men & Women Looking for Hot Sex. Video Chat, Hookups, & Much More," and "Teen (18-19) Boy Videos: The beauty of first love Exclusive hardcore Video..." I hope the CRC is making a little money off that, at least."

I recall Retta coming to the BOE and testifying that she had gone to the webpage for a GSA (at Walt Whitman, perhaps?), had typed the word "gay" into the search engine, and had come up with exactly the same kinds of links. The horror! Montgomery County Public Schools allowing students to form sex clubs and use the schools' internet links to find hot stuff on the web!

So now the CRC is doing the same thing, right? Using the donations they recieve from trusting people to create an internet source for hot stuff on the web?

I wonder if Retta is going to go back to the Board and complain about the CRC, or if she has figured out how this stuff works.

March 13, 2007 5:00 PM  
Blogger JimK said...

I think it was mainly Steina Walter of the CRC who complained to the school board because you could use the school web sites to find "hot gay men to have sex with" or something. Retta and the others, as I recall, defended her and insisted this was an offense, that you could use some school clubs' web pages to find gay "services."

But their own web site now does that, links to hot boys and XXX women and all the rest of it.

I assume they still own the domain name there, so there is some irony in the fact that they themselves are linking to gay escort services and such. It may be overly cynical to think that they may be making money from those links, but it is a commercial web site. Somebody should be paying somebody every time a user clicks on one of those links.

And, yes, Andrea, Peter Sprigg did insist during his talk at the CRC's meeting last week that he is not ex-gay.

JimK

March 13, 2007 5:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

That's right - it was Steina, not Retta.

I love fresh irony; I hope they appreciate it as we do.

March 13, 2007 6:10 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have found it mystifying and yet very satisfying that various CFCers (two, maybe three) have not posted here for a couple of weeks now. Other than out-of-state Orrin, it has been strangely quiet!! I can only assume that they don't want to say anything that might come back to bite them in the gluteous Maximus when, or if, they attempt to bring a suit against MCPS. Nothing worse than being caught in a lie!! As my granddaddy used to tell me..."losers are always losers"
Bob

March 13, 2007 7:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,258649,00.html

Curious to hear your thoughts on this one Jim.

March 13, 2007 10:51 PM  
Blogger JimK said...

I admit I have not been following this story. It seems to me that every divorce is tragic and complicated. What agreement did the couple have? I wouldn't know. How well is the mother taking care of the child? I don't know. The idea that she'd pay him child support seems unusual, but how uncommon is that these days? I don't know.

It is really not my place to comment on this -- that's what Nancy Grace is for. (Is that her name? The lady on TV who pretends that people's private tragedies are news?) Somebody's going to win and somebody' going to lose, and it's heartbreaking all the way around.

If you were asking my opinion about a gay father raising a kid, well, you see that every day, we ought to be past that by now. That's not the issue here.

JimK

March 14, 2007 7:05 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Bob said "I have found it mystifying and yet very satisfying that various CFCers (two, maybe three) have not posted here for a couple of weeks now. Other than out-of-state Orrin, it has been strangely quiet!!".

Yes, I've been wondering about that too, I figured they just got discouraged from the lack of luck in pushing their crap.

March 14, 2007 3:13 PM  
Blogger JimK said...

Theresa, if you're responding to my comments, I said I don't follow that story. If the anonymous person wanted to know what I thought, I really don't have any more to go on than what was in that article. If the guy cheated on his wife I don't know about it, and I thought I made it clear, I really don't have any opinion on this matter. I'm sorry that the people were divorced, and I'm sorry if children have to go through this.

Maybe I need to watch Nancy Grace more, so I'll have answers to these kinds of questions.

And maybe not.

JimK

March 14, 2007 4:58 PM  
Blogger andrea said...

Yea, sure Theresa- I heard you had 50 people at the meeting- wow, overwhelming. I truly doubt that you have 1900 signatures from MC residents with kids in school, much less kids in MCPS. But you go ahead and believe.

I do miss Ben P from BOE meetings- kind of rabid(or just foaming?)

March 14, 2007 5:03 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Theresa said "The CRC's who usually post here have been swamped guys..."

Well of course Anon's been swamped. It's tax season. He took time off in March and April for the last two years.

Now that Theresa's outed him, I guess we can call Anon "Ben P."

PTA

March 14, 2007 7:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Theresa...your remarks about promiscuity (as a sort of gay failing) makes me wonder if you have any family members, neighbors, friends who have been divorced because of the promiscuity of a spouse, or even just divorced (now there's a good family value!), or who are inadequate parents because they perpetuate their own ignorance, or who abuse their children? Unless you live in some sort of bubble, I would bet you do. And I also suspect they are heterosexuals, too.

March 14, 2007 9:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Now that Theresa's outed him, I guess we can call Anon "Ben P."


****

Or Wyatt who is also busy at tax time.

Purist

March 14, 2007 11:35 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

CRC Theresa said

Ok, I have work to do.

Good night.

***

Yes just spreading the love all over anti-gay land.

Purist

March 14, 2007 11:38 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just look at the NBC4 tape of CRC's anti-gay fest and you will see on tape a significant number of empty seats.

Asking for 130 chairs to be set is not the same as filling them CRC Theresa.


Quite a few just came to to see the CRC sideshow to see if they are as big of bigots as others say.

CRC did not disappoint.

Peter Sprigg and the ex-gay stuff is too much.

Purist

March 15, 2007 12:28 AM  
Blogger andrea said...

Peter Sprigg is not ex-gay. He said himself. I wonder why it wasn't in the paper

March 15, 2007 9:59 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Theresa said...
The room was set for 130 and full.
Well mostly full, I didn't have a chance to count.
---------------------------

I sat behind the four TTF supporters and counted 10 people who left as the circus dragged on. There were at least 10 media people there. That's at least 25 who came to see the freak show.

March 16, 2007 2:11 PM  
Blogger JimK said...

I counted six rows of 11 chairs on each side of the room = 132 seats. I would generously say that half were occupied = 66. I talked to a reporter who said there were about 75 people, counting people in the hallway etc., and I'm willing to go with that.

As just noted, at least ten of those people were media, about a half dozen were with us, and ten people left during the meeting.

There are a few people who will come out for these kinds of rightwing events when the emails start zipping around, but the CRC will never get anywhere based on numbers. Their hugest big grand event, the March 2005 town hall meeting, may have drawn 200 people, with nationally-known speakers and widespread publicity. With the fall of the Bush regime and all that has changed politicaly since then, there will not be SRO at their events.

JimK

March 16, 2007 2:27 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

See Jim, I don't think even if it was 75, on a school night, with a couple days notice is bad at all.
Theresa said March 17, 2007 1:03 AM (celebrating St. Patrick's Day a wee bit early?) on this thread.

That's 75 minus at least 25 who came to see the freak show.
MYOB said March 16, 2007 2:11 PM

they're flooding the Internet with emails soliciting people to work at the computer and help them out.
Jim said Wednesday, February 07, 2007 5:01 PM on http://www.teachthefacts.org/2007/02/attempted-drive-by-number-two.html

You are right, 1000's is correct Jim - but they aren't random email addresses, they are folks who contacted us or who asked to be on the list.
Theresa replied February 08, 2007 4:25 PM on http://www.teachthefacts.org/2007/02/attempted-drive-by-number-two.html

So a chorus of around 50 out of "thousands" of self-identified anti-glbt MoCo residents showed up so CRC could preach to them.

Wow! That is impressive Theresa.

Not!

March 17, 2007 9:31 AM  

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