Classroom application

So how does the Westboro Church fit into classroom environments?

Being a math major doesn’t allow for a lot of moral lessons. When teaching a class in high school math, or atleast my personal experince, was that you would walk in, the teacher would lecture til maybe 5 minutes before the hour was over and then would assign homework. Or maybe even the teacher would spend sometime going over the previous nights homework. This isn’t really a subject area where one has to think something through in there head with what is happening. To do math there is a set way, and isn’t something that you to pull out main ideas or themes from or that you can believe or disbelieve happened. In math, and basically only in math you can claim something but you have to be able to prove it. In almost any other topic you can throw something out there, an idea or what not, and as long as it seems plausible and you can back it up then you can usually get away with it.

Most teachers would simply use the text book that there school has and tell the student to do this number, but most of the main people or ideal households in these problems are based on what the “normal” ideal view would be, such as a heterosexual couple or a family with a male who works and the children stay home with there mom all day. In my classroom when I assign homework, I would like to assign problems that I made up myself, that look similar to what the book has. In these examples I would throw out ideas that my students may or may not be used to such as a stay at home dad or a gay couple. My idea is that if you get children used to these ideas then it is something that they are more comfortable with and more comfortable talking about.

I feel that having the older students more comfortable talking about sexuality or about roles in a family would maybe open childrens minds to what is acceptable. I know from the way that all high school students are that there would be a discussion started about these subject matters at some point. There are always kids in a high school that like to make comments like “shut up and make me a sandwich” or “fag” which are highly inappropriate. These subjects would be something that would be worth stopping a class and dicussing, with what personal beliefs are and how a child is raised.

I would then think into connecting the Westboro Baptist Church, and how this church takes things a little out of control. The way that they put there own members at risk when they are out picketing, and the way they kick there own daughter out of the family based on there beliefs would be a , extreme, example of what happens when people take there views and express them in a very unprofessional and uncaring way.

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Post 6: Social Construction

When we say that something is socially constructed, we are focusing on its dependence on contingent variables of our social selves rather than any inherent quality that it possesses in itself. The underlying assumptions on which social constructivism is typically seen to be based are reality, knowledge, and learning-Wikipedia

The public makes things acceptable or not acceptable. The majority are people that define if it is okay or if it is not appropriate to act a certain way or be a certain thing. In “Night to His Day” The social construction of Gender Lorber breaks down what is acceptable to a women to/ look like and why, but this can also go into sexual orientation. Is it acceptable to be “gay”? Is there something that is wrong with it?

The Westboro Baptist Church breaks down what they think is acceptable for a man, and they think that it is acceptable for a man to only date a women, marry have children with and be the head of the household. They socially construct what the view of what a man should be and also they socially construct that being anything but straight is wrong. They make the rules deeming what is acceptable. There is no rule out there that says that a man must like a women and there is nothing that says that a man must be the head of the household, but if this is not the way that your house is run the people of this church look down on you. Not only do they look down on people, but they will go out of there way to make your life miserable to verbally hurt you and make sure they think that your doing is wrong.

Now what is the effect on a person from this? If something is socially constructed it usually causes people to go with what is deemed acceptable. A women is to wear a dress and act modest or she is a slut or a lesbian. That is not always right that leads to miss assumptions, but that is how social construction works. Society paints a picture of what someone or something should be and then everyone thinks that is what everyone should follow as there guidelines. It can also cause people to fear to be different.

This goes into the Cycle of Socialization (Harro).  Things do not change because people fear of what everyone else will say so they continue to go with the way that things have happened from the past.

The Westboro Baptist Church has created an idea of what is acceptable as a male and female and also for what one sexual orientation should be.

 

Harro, B. (2000). The Cycle of Socialization. In M. Adams, W. J. Blumenfeld, R. Castaneda, H. W. Hackman, M. L. Peters, and X. Zuniga (Eds.). Readings for Diversity and Social Justice (pp.15-21). New York: Routledge.

 

Lorber, J. (2000). ‘Night to his day’: The social construction of gender. In Adams et al. (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social justice. New York: Routledge Press.

Post 5: Discrimination

Lets start with the definition of what discrimination truly is! Dictionary.com defines it as “treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit”. So in my owns words I will define discrimination as looking or putting someone down for something that they do, or the way they are, me thinking this can go into social class race gender of sexual orientation and so much more.

 

Connecting to the Westboro Baptist Church I want to look into sexual orientation again and also look back into gender. The way that they picket and look down onto anyone who is not considered straight is definitely discrimination. The way they think that a women can not do what a man can do is discrimination. They look down on these people, in these examples gay lesbian transgender bisexual or even women. And in the case of women think that they are just not capable of what a man is capable of.

 

Looking into this I will look into “The Five Faces of Oppression” by Young, I think about the way that groups will be oppressed and how that causes others to be discriminated. Oppression is defined as “unjust or cruel exercise of authority or power” defined by www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary.

 

The Westboro Baptist Church is definitely a group that does not deserve to have power. They get there power by putting others down. They were not voted into power they were not born into power, it is power that they take amongst themselves to have and by that means take it amoungst themselves to put others down. The then discriminate against the members of other sexual orientation groups by hunting them down and telling them how much god hates them and how they will go to hell. They go out of there way to make people miserable. They even put themselves at risk since at many of there protests they are hit by drivers that disagree with them. Even though they are a minority group they are considered oppressed in this situation.

 

Young, I.M. (2000). Five faces of oppression. In Adams et al. (Eds.) Readings for diversity and social justice (pp. 35-49). New York: Routledge

Post 4: Intersectionality

Intersectionalityhas a great explionation here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality. But I will try to summerize it, intersectionality basically is like an intersection between two or more identity markers. It is making a connection from one, or seeing how one would affect the other.

In my example of the Westboro Baptist Church, I talked about the identity marker sexual orientation in blog 2 and gender in blog 3. Another identity marker that I may throw around in this intersctionality blog is religion because it is a major part of this group, however I made the choice not to make one of my blogs about it because I do not feel confident enough in the information that I know, or think I know, to tell other people about it.

Gender is male of female. SIMPLE DONE!. But then you get into sexual orientation, and most would say okay you can be gay or straight, but not. You can be lesbian gay bisexual transgendered or straight. To the public, it is known that men like women and that women like men. This is a dominant thought. This is the way most are raised, you like the opposite of what you are, you get married and have a family, where you tell your children to marry people of the opposite sex. However, guys can be with guys, and women can be with women. It happens! Also there are people who like both men and women. Or even people who have both parts. Is there something wrong with these people? The Westboro Baptist Chruch would say yes. They argue that because there religion says its wrong that it is wrong. Something to think about though is that not everyone believe the same thing. However the continue to go out of there way to pickett funerals of homosexuals, because “GOD HATES FAGS” as they would say. Although legal, is this morally correct, is it ever okay to put down someone else belief?

They intersect gender and sexual orienation by saying that is one is a man and carries the man role, then they marry a women and live what is a so called dream to be life. They do not care about what one chooses for themself because it is wrong. If you are a male you like women, and if you are not straight then your going to hell and the people of this church will be evil towards you.

 

Post 3: Gender roles in the Westboro Church

Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender)

After watching the first video that I posted, I thought about what the roles of these women that are in this church, I was lead to this blog. Also it caught my eye that in the interview they wear different clothing then most women of similar ages would.

http://thefbomb.org/2011/07/a-teen-feminist-calls-the-westboro-baptist-church/

This blog contains an interview that the writer of the blog had with a male member of the baptist church, where the man talks about how women should get paid equally do the same job, but men should always be the head of the household, and that “by the bible” men should have the say in every decision. So even though that the church does not just come out and say this, they do think smaller of women. When the man on the phone says that a women should not be in charge, that the man should this is an example of stratification (Lorber). Stratification is when men are “ranked” higher then women of the same race and class  (Lorber). Clearly the man in the interview thinks higher of himself, or uses religion, another identity marker, to say that men are the head of the house. Is there a reason they should be ranked higher? He even stated that they could do the same jobs and deserved the same pay, so who is to say a woman cannot run a household.

These people base who a person should marry, “be with”  a the opposite gender of what they are. This goes into intersectionality which is something that is discussed later but also needs to be brought up now.

The women of the Westboro Baptist Church still do play a huge role in the hate that they spread. It is mostly of the women that you see in any videos that you find, so why does the church think lower of them?

This video shows some of the women of the westboro church and what they belive. Are they even open to hearing what any of the students had to say? To me it sounded like it had to be my way or the highway, but I do not understand how they are comfortable being controlled by males there whole lives, and just standing by whatever they say. In the original video I posted, it showed the preacher disownign his own daughter for simply asking questions about the beliefs of this church. These members continually say everything is wrong because of the bible, so should they not just live the way that the bible wants them to. They are using this identity marker to put others down with is institutional discrimination (Pincus). The people of the church behaviors show that they are out to “harm” or simply put down people for what they believe, such as if you do not agree with how the interpret the bible, and think you could be a single mom or think you do you not need a man in your life that you will go to hell. They go out to put people like that down.

Lorber, J. (2000). ‘Night to his day’: The social construction of gender. In Adams et al. (Eds.), Readings for diversity and social justice. New York :Routledge Press .

Pincus, F. L. (2000) Discrimination comes in many forms: Individual, institutional, and structural. In Adams et al. (Eds.). Readings for diversity and social justice (pp. 31-35). New York: Routledge

Post 2:Institutional Homophobia

http://www.endhomophobia.org/homophobia.htm defines institutional homophobia (Blumenfeld) as the many ways in which government, businesses, churches, and other institutions and organizations discriminate against people on the basis of sexual orientation.

 The Westboro Church CLEARLY is part of this. The church bases whether or not you will be going to hell on your sexual orientation along with many other things that I will focus on in further week. The church tends to use the pride flag for opposite of what one would think when they saw it. They are using it to discriminate and in a way make an example of them.

In this video they compare being gay to being fat. How could these things even be comparable? They also compare this to a rapist pride. Being gay is something that they think you should be ashamed of. They think that there is no forgiving being a different sexual orientation. They pick out people that are of a different sexual orientation rather it be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender and use them as an example of what god does not want, and how they, along with many world, are all going to hell and how god hates them.

Also in this video is part of the clip to there parody of Lady Gaga’s song Pokerface. Did you know the Westboro Church Hates Gaga? They have a whole campaign against her actually. WHY?  Because Lady Gaga is a public figure who happens to be bisexual. They have even picketed at one of her concerts. They held signs outside of the concert using the demining term FAG saying “God Hates Fags” and “Fags Are Beasts”. They are picking out one group in this situation and basically saying that for being different that they are the only ones going to hell during this specific situation. However this church has a habit of telling everyone that they are going to hell and how as there sign would read “GOD HATES THE WORLD”. But they pick there prime time to pick on people of a different sexual orientation and use the public views that Lady Gaga has as there opportunity to spread there hatred and negativity.

http://www.towleroad.com/2010/07/westboro-baptist-church-protests-lady-gaga-concert.html This link has more information on the Lady Gaga picket.

These are just a few examples of the way that this one single church looks at sexual orientation and what they do to discriminate against the people that are of a different sexual orientation.

Blumenfeld, W. J. (2000). How homophobia hurts everyone, (pp. 267-275). In Adams et al. (eds), Readings for diversity and social justice, New York: Routledge Press.

Introduction

I will be bloging about the Westboro Baptist Church and there beliefs. This is the video I will base my blog on for the next few weeks.

This video is a great example of all ways one can be discriminated against. Not only is there the typical discrimination on race but there is hatred towards religions against the military people because they fight for America. This video also shows some examples of Gender roles, even though they are not as obvious due to the outrageous controversial attacks in this video. Another thing I will be discussing in future weeks in the hatred towards anyone that is a different sexual orientation. Another thing I would like to discuss is different racial roles in this church.

This video is a good example of social identities and how almost everything that defines a person affects how people look at another. Also the people of the church think that they have conferred dominance over everyone one else. This causes for everyone else to be oppressed by this group. Also this is an example of instutional discrimination due to them thinking that they have control over these groups. Also cultural imperialism is existent. It also makes me question the role that women play in the families in the church. There are examples of institution homophobia as well as homophobic conditioning. These will be the main things that I will be focusing my blog on for the next few weeks.