Alvin Orne: Let school boards weigh in on LGBT rights without recall threat

I recently received a flier in the mail from the group Maine First Project. I don’t usually respond or comment on these types of things, but I feel a little differently about this one.

It’s a notice for a vote to recall school board members due to the fact they support LGBT rights at the school level. I do not generally support this; I think school board members should be allowed to have their opinion without being tossed off the board. It’s like if I don’t like my son’s, daughter’s or friend’s opinion, I disown them.

This issue should be allowed to play out and then be decided by a vote of the school district parents.

The Maine First Project website said there is much misinformation of “fake news” about this subject across the country. The flier also contained fake news. It states that there have been cases of sexual abuse due to trans people using locker rooms. I searched for hours and can’t find any at all.

To me this is fearmongering and spreading lies to try to scare people. That seems to be the way of the world these days.

My last comment is, has anyone thought about who this affects the most: the students. Mental health issues and suicide are climbing among these people. It seems like we should be doing something to curb that.

Pushing them into a closet or silencing them so they are isolated is not my idea of how we should handle this.

Alvin Orne, South Paris