“We are not homophobic but we are not going to allow our children to be molded in a gay plan to mold our children to agree with evil and folks, this is what this bill does.” — AM 980 KKMS host Paul Ridgeway

Anti-LGBT activists are taking to Christian radio to rally against a bill that would strengthen Minnesota’s laws against bullying. They oppose the bill because it includes protections for LGBT students.

AM 980 KKMS’ drive-time talk program, On the Way hosted by Paul Ridgeway has become a focal point for misinformation about the Safe and Supportive Minnesota Schools Act and Minnesota’s LGBT community. Over the past two weeks, the program has hosted two representatives from the anti-LGBT Minnesota Child Protection League, Mimi Anderson and Michele Lentz. Also appearing on the program was Republican state Sen. Roger Chamberlain, anti-LGBT columnist Katherine Kersten, and anti-LGBT preachers Pat Hall and Dale Witherington.

On Mar. 5, Ridgeway hosted Pat Hall, a Burnsville preacher whose brother Dan Hall is a Republican state senator. Pat Hall also ran for state senator in 2012. Pat Hall says he’s been organizing pastors against the bill. He opposes the bill because he says its only for LGBT students which he says only constitute 2 percent of the population.

[sws_grey_box box_size=”100″] Hall: “We have laws already on the books that allows us to protect people, every single student can be protected. We don’t need a bill like this where now this is where all the money and this is where all the effort and this is where all the energy goes for teachers, parent, everybody and its just for a small 2 percent or less group of people and its way too much time, energy and effort into this group and it’s just very unfair let alone all the other issues I have about it.
Ridgeway: And you know Pastor Hall, this is a lot more than about bullying. There’a hidden agenda by a gay state senator who’s the chief author at least on the senate side, DFL liberals on both sides of this bill. Tell us what their agenda is?
Hall: It’s quite evident that bullying is not their goal here because if it was it would go after every kid. And it’s not and thats one of the issues that we as pastors have is it’s not for everybody, it’s for this particular protected group. But their agenda is once again to bring what I would call immorality into the world. We have immoral actors bringing immoral actions and they want doctrinate [sic] our children so that they can normalize their behavior and I find it ludicrous. [/sws_grey_box]

As TheColu.mn previously reported, the claim that the bill only protects LGBT students is a false one. The bill enumerates 19 characteristics that are frequently used to pick on students including race, religion, economic status, and disability among many others. Additionally, the bill specifically states that anti-bullying efforts be targeted toward “all students.”

Hall then made the claim that the anti-bullying bill mirrors oppression in Russia.

[sws_grey_box box_size=”100″]Hall: That’s another thing we are really concerned about Paul is lets take the kids away from our parents. Lets let the state indoctrinate us, lets get the parents out, lets remove the parents out of our values. The parents already are not being notified for way too many things and this one is just a major major problem for — should be for anybody, particularly American people who don’t like the government stepping in and raising their children like they did in Russia. I know that sounds radical, but I have some friend I was just talking with yesterday who said in Russia — he was there when it happened — when the KGB came in and removed these Christian children out of the home because they were teaching them the parents’ values rather than the state’s values. I don’t want to see that happen. This bill is beginning to emulate that.
Ridgeway: I don’t think it’s out of the question. I think when people use the term — this is really again the parents rights being taken away.[/sws_grey_box]

Ridgeway and Hall then repeated a misleading statistic.

[sws_grey_box box_size=”100″] Ridgeway: There’s a lot of myths out there about this bill. There’s a statement that we are in the midst of a bullying crisis, but like you said that’s not true.
Hall: No, and in fact, what all the statistics are saying is that bullying is down substantially.
Ridgeway: 93 percent, it says it’s been down 93 percent.
[co-host Gary Borgendale]: In the state of Minnesota.
Hall: So why are we spending so much and so why are they creating a crisis [/sws_grey_box]

That statistic comes directly from the Minnesota Child Protection League. That group put out literature that says that “bullying has decreased over the last 6 years and 93% of MN students say they feel safe.” The MNCPL gets its number from the 2010 Minnesota Student Survey which also found that 40 percent of students experienced bullying at least once in the last 30 days.

Finally, Hall repeated the claim made previously by Barb Anderson and the MNCPL that the bill would allow pornography in the classroom. There is nothing in the bill that dictates any specific classroom content, nor does it approve any sort of literature.

[sws_grey_box box_size=”100″]Ridgeway:From a family standpoint this could really rip families apart because what they are showing children sexually is really horrible
Hall: I’ve seen the approved literature and the approved literature has teachings for this which are not age appropriate but it says 10 years old on up and they are showing masturbation. To me what in the world is that sort of — how could they, the State of Minnesota, put a stamp on that. These values are values and educational pieces that should take place in the home and in the church and privately but certainly not publicly in our public schools. My church and the parishioners around the cities are saying they are attacking us. They are taking away our children they’re exposing them to things that could be — will be — in fact detrimental and we can’t do anything about it. We feel powerless. [/sws_grey_box]

 
 

Republican Sen. Roger Chamberlain of Lino Lakes joined Hall and Ridgeway and agreed with their assessments.

Chamberlain has been one of the most outspoken critics of the anti-bullying bill and Mar. 5 was his second appearance on Ridgeway’s program to criticize the bill. He praised the efforts of the group touring the state against the bill, presumably the Minnesota Child Protection League. He said it was done with “Christian love.”

[sws_grey_box box_size=”100″] Ridgeway: We are talking about a bill that really is lobbying for the gay community and what they are trying to accomplish really showing young people K through 12 things they shouldn’t know about or see about… it’s chief author is in fact a gay state senator from south Minneapolis.
—
Tell us what the real purpose of this bill is and why we should be concerned?
Sen. Chamberlain: We first started working against this and trying to organize back in the summer, you know, we got a group together and one of our goals was to approach this with Christian love and try to persuade people, let people know how bad this bill is and what’s really behind it. And there’s been some great groups working out there in rural Minnesota getting the word out and sharing information with Minnesotans all across the state. This bill itself is 20 pages long. It proclaims to want to protect children and prevent bullying in schools but it won’t do that. It just will not do that. We want to — our goal is to protect all kids in schools and as people have said the word all is very inclusive its all its everyone, short, tall, thin, fat, whatever, and that’s our goal. But the bill that is being presented by Sen. Dibble and Davnie, Rep. Davnie in the House is unworkable and will not protect all kids. It enumerates 19 — I think it’s 19 — different classes in the bill and when you start enumerated those classes you start leaving people out.[/sws_grey_box]

He added that it wasn’t about the bill’s cost but “culture.”

“This 20 page bill is one of the worst pieces of legislation in K-12 the last 4 years. It’s not just the cost. It’s culture,” said Chamberlain.

 
 

After Sen. Chamberlain spoke to Ridgeway, the station brought on Katherine Kersten, best known for her conservative columns in the Star Tribune criticizing the LGBT community.

[sws_grey_box box_size=”100″] Ridgeway: We have to stop this bill, what they call anti-bullying. Its far more than that. It’s a gay agenda and what your kids are going to be taught and told, how their records can be destroyed for their whole career, if they are accused of being anti-gay bullying. And there’s not parental notification in this bill. I was shocked about that and Katherine you are an attorney..
Kersten: That’s right and not only that what this really is about, I think and this is why you see these legally designated 19 protected classes with the LGBT and the gender identity and expression added, what this really is about is opening the way to so called anti-bias training in our K12 schools. That’s where this agenda would be imposed on kids and not just on kids but on all parent volunteers. You would have to be part of this training regimen which would clearly have a quote diversity focus with an LGBT kind of flavor to it. so its really about getting into the classroom and in fact schools would be required to quote consult with unnamed community groups as they put their policies together. Well guess who those community groups are going to be and its not going to be the Center for the American Experiment where I am a senior fellow. [/sws_grey_box]

 
 

After Kersten, Minnesota Child Protection League’s state coordinator Michele Lentz was on the program. She admitted that much of the claims that her group makes about the safe schools bill ushering pornography into the classrooms is actually based on sex education literature.

[sws_grey_box box_size=”100″] Lentz: They are very clear what their intention is and the intention is to cause a cultural shift by changing the values attitudes and behaviors of children and they will do that by telling schools to incorporate in Pre-K through 12 grade in every subject curriculum that among other things teaches an understanding of human sexuality. And so we looked at what does the State of Minnesota more specifically the Department of Education and the Department of Health, currently deem age appropriate and what we found that what currently meets their standard of age appropriate for a 10 year old actually violated Minnesota’s obscenity laws. However, our school teachers are exempt from our obscenity laws so you could take the example that we give which is actually a sex ed curriculum but is an example of what they deem appropriate for a 10 year old. If you or I were to show those pictures to a 10 year old, we could get into big trouble, but the schools do it with impunity. I think that is probably the most outrageous thing for a parent to hear and it is why parents are just rising up against this bill.
Ridgeway: Michele is talking about this House File 826 supposed to be an anti-bully but its really the gay community coming at us. [/sws_grey_box]

 
 
Stay tuned for part two.