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Loading...Troy Mayor: Tell Bullied LGBT Kids That They’re Diseased
Janice Daniels, the mayor of Troy, Michigan, has landed in hot water over alleged comments directed to LGBT students. Mayor Daniels said she would address anti-gay bullying and teen suicide by inviting students to “a panel of psychologists who would testify that homosexuality is a mental disease.”
It would be interesting to see Daniels’ roster of supposed experts. Both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association Council of Representatives declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder in the 1970s. A majority of individuals who still champion this out-dated view, such as infamous “ex-gay” Richard Cohen, aren’t licensed therapists.
Skye Curtis, 17, attended the Monday city council meeting where the mayor spoke. She quoted Daniels’ statements to the Detroit Free Press. Curtis is co-president of the Gay-Straight Alliance at Troy High School. Curtis and another student, Zach Kilgore, were invited by Daniels and hoped to recruit the mayor for a school forum on bullying and suicide prevention.
Unsurprisingly, the two students are no longer interested in the mayor’s participation. “We decided it would be dangerous to have her around kids who are already upset and worried about who they are,” Kilgore told the Free Press.
Added Curtis, “We brought up the fact that, if we’re trying to have an event about suicide prevention, we shouldn’t really be telling kids they have a mental disease. I don’t want my freshmen hearing that.”
Daniels denies making the remarks. She said the meeting was recorded and she’s reviewed her statements on tape. “What I said was, there’s a higher incidence of (overall) disease in the homosexual community,” she told the Free Press. “I believe in full disclosure.”
However, the mayor declined to play the tape for the Free Press.
Last month, Mayor Daniels stirred controversy with an anti-gay Facebook post. “I think I am going to throw away my I Love New York carrying bag now that queers can get married there,” she wrote. Many Troy residents have called for her resignation over the incident.
“While I do believe marriage should be between one man and one woman,” Daniels told radio station WXYT-AM, shortly after the offensive post surfaced in the media. “It was meant to be a joke, silly, a funny thing.”
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Read more: anti-gay, bisexual, bullying, civil rights, gay, gay rights, gay straight alliance, gay teens, GSA, high school students, homosexuality, it gets better, Janice Daniels, lesbian, lgbt, lgbt rights, lgbt teens, michigan, queer, republican, teen suicide, teenagers, trans, transgender, Troy, Troy Michigan
Photo credit: Caitlin Childs (Creative Commons)
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86 comments
+ add your ownA "joke"? Yeah right. Just as funny as Polish jokes, Blonde jokes, and racial jokes. Get a grip, lady. That was no joke. Full disclosure ... ??? I believe THAT is the true joke here, ya big liar. Hmph. These people have no place in leadership. Vote the bums out!
Non sta molto bene di testa il sindaco.
How do these homophobes keep getting elected? Even if the mayor believes this crap she's spouting, wouldn't a halfway intelligent politician have learned from her last "joke" about NYC? Why do we keep electing idiots as well as homophobes?
THE TRUTH IS THE TRUTH EVEN IF IT'S CALLED A LIE...........JUST AS.......
A LIE IS A LIE EVEN WHEN IT;S CALLED TRUTH!!
Don't these ignorant people realize that they are the problem, not the gay and lesbian population! Mayor Daniels, stay out of New York if you don't like our policies! I, for one, never invited you anyway! As far as that goes, all those who agree with your stupidity can do the same. You and your fellow hater, Jack Conkling, should be held accountable for all gay suicides for the next 15 years! Maybe that would be long enough for you to learn the facts that you so easily disregard due to your own insecurities and total stupidity! Your public inflammatory comments are exactly why young people of a different life style from yours... I think...may find themselves taking their own life's rather than grow up into adulthood where you might represent all the other adults! Are you so damn sure you are right? Are you sure enough to bet the lives of others, younger, more impressionable, and for believing your garbage, more foolish?! Wake up lady, do your homework and until then close your hateful mouth!
What an ignorant woman. I certainly hope she gets voted out, why would the city need such a bigot!?
Sick
Troy Mayor has got it all wrong
Since I believe in reincarnation, I wish for him to be a transexual in another life. He will change his attitude against gays. I think he is disgusting and a bad example. Impeach him!
Biggotry and prejudice is the brain-rotting social "disease".
This mayor should seek a shink and perhaps sit in a mental ward to be evaluated if she is fit to teach, with all her PHOBIAS. aka mental disorders. Homphobia to start with.
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