The Arkansas Department of Education
has condemned an anti-gay rant by Midland School District board
member Clint McCance.
In responding on his Facebook page to
Spirit Day, a day that encourages people to wear purple to remember
gay teens bullied to death, McCance
cheers the suicides, says he “enjoys the fact that [gay people]
they often give each other aids and die,” and declares he would
disown his children if they were gay.
“The Arkansas Department of Education
strongly condemns remarks or attitudes of this kind and is dismayed
to see that a school board official would post something of this
insensitive nature on a public forum like Facebook,” the agency
said in a statement Wednesday.
Because McCance is an elected official
the agency said it could not deal with him directly, but promised to
monitor the effects of his screed.
“The department does have staff who
investigate matters of bullying in schools and we will monitor and
quickly respond to any bullying of students that may occur because of
this, as we have with other civil rights issues in the past.”
Fort Worth Councilman Joel Burns, the
openly gay councilman whose video of a recent speech on bullying at a
city council meeting has gone viral on the Internet, labeled
McCance a bully on his Facebook page.