Boston Herald: Newton mom ousted for taping gay acceptance ‘lies’. In the middle of an optional student assembly that was put on as part of Diversity Week, a mom in the Boston suburb of Newton decided she didn’t want what she was hearing from the stage, so she started videotaping the discussion—presumably so she could have a record of what she called “propaganda, false information, and lies.”
Lots of nasty bits here. First, the mom, Kim Cariani, had already kept her kids home that day. —Which itself brings a question: why home? The article says that kids who didn’t want to attend could go to the library or the computer lab. Was Cariani afraid that being in the same building with the speakers would contaminate her kids? —Anyway, Cariani wasn’t objecting because of her children. This was definitely a woman with an agenda.
Second, the moment that supposedly pushed Cariani over the edge was when one of the speakers on the stage first discovered that he was gay, in particular describing the first moment he was attracted to another man. Was this the “false information and lies” that Cariani wanted to have a record of?
Third, what was she planning to do with the tape exactly?
I think there’s no question that the principal at Newton North High did the right thing. In general preventing taping of students without prior parental permission is an intelligent thing to do, and especially in an assembly like this where the kids who want to learn, or who may be coming to grips with some feelings of being “different” themselves, could get scarred by feeling that they were being watched by disapproving eyes.
This overzealous parent wasn’t thinking about the children, though. She was thinking about her own agenda, and to hell with anyone who stood in her way.