Seriously, USA?

gaywrites:

The Boston Globe has recovered documents showing that former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s administration blocked an antibullying guide from being published in 2006 because it included the words “bisexual” and “transgender.”

At the time, Romney said that the public school antibullying guide wouldn’t be published because it was lengthy and needed review. But the Globe located an email from a public official saying otherwise:

“Because this is using the terms ‘bisexual’ and ‘transgendered,’ DPH’s name may not be used in this publication,’’ wrote the official, Alda Rego-Weathers, then the deputy commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

This appears to have been part of Romney’s strategy to distance himself from the LGBT community as a way to gear up for his first presidential run and appease social conservatives. About 10,000 copies of the guide were ultimately printed in 2008 after Romney left office, containing information for teachers and administrators on how to stop bullying and hazing. 

“Romney put his own political interests ahead of the safety of vulnerable youth,’’ said Don Gorton, a gay-rights advocate and author of the 120-page antibullying report, which was not printed and distributed until after Romney left office.

Well this is certainly good to know. Every piece of information that surfaces about Romney’s past gets more terrifying. 

separability:

A must-read in general. One fantastic response:

I think that it’s important to consider the implications that all of this unpaid (and likely stemming from the upper-class) labor has on society as well, especially within the industries that largely require entire chunks of time and resources from those aspiring to join them. Particularly within the public sector, one glaring example of this is the field of legislative aide job opportunities that are often only handed out to those who have toiled away for months (and indeed sometimes years) on end as campaign volunteers. 

This creates a setup where an entire profession (any job offering Congressional support) effectively shuts out the very large proportion of the college-aged population who do not have parents (or some other richer benefactor) that can afford to subsidize living costs for however long they need to gain the extensive and unpaid experience necessary to enter the good graces of a Congressman or Senator. The implications of this are far-reaching and structural; and reinforce the culture of privilege already rampant in Washington D.C. where not only do federal lawmakers themselves often lack valuable perspective on the issues plaguing lower- and middle class Americans that constitute the majority of the nation’s citizenry, but also with the advisors and assistants working for them, who by virtue of being able to land their jobs in the first place already were fortunate enough to have been born into the nation’s wealthy economic minority. This creates a cycle of dissonance between the real world economic reality that Americans face and what the legislative class in Washington understands the proper solutions are to those very problems.

THANK YOU. I went to my college’s career services (and I have an EXTREME amount of privilege to even have access to something like that), and they told me that I needed internships to get hired. Well, I don’t have the means to take an unpaid internship - but that doesn’t matter to them, or to potential employers. So I’m graduating a week from tomorrow, unemployed, while my wealthier friends (whose parents bankrolled their summers of unpaid internships) have job offers. Sweet deal.