"Saying gay people deserve to die is so far beyond the pale it is horrifying, and any time we learn of someone with those views, we must do what we can to make sure they are not directing the education of young people. GLSEN is the country's leading education network on LGBT issues. "It is horrifying to realize there are people in leadership roles in education who hold these repugnant views," GLSEN executive director Eliza Byard said to me. As such, the insensitivity of this school principal was beyond my ability to grasp. I am a frequent and outspoken advocate for disenfranchised young people - someone who cares deeply about making sure that every kid feels included regardless of sexual orientation (or anything else that makes them different from the mainstream). I wondered how an educator of young minds - a school principal - could not only think such terrible things about gay people, but go a step further and post them on a stranger's loving photo only hours after the massacre. My heart sank as I clicked on Kenney's Facebook page to see he listed himself as the head of Center Academy in Pinellas Park, Fla., just 100 miles from where the Orlando massacre took place and where the Tampa Bay Rays would honor the dead later that week. While Kenney was clearly not harming anyone physically with his post, and while it would be hyperbole to suggest there was any actual intent to do so on Kenney's part, I thought about how religious doctrine was again at play, as it had been just 36 hours earlier in Orlando. Yet the insidious post that ultimately has led to me write this column sent shivers through my mind, particularly given the timing, literally hours after the Orlando shooting: A school principal calling a gay couple "sick" for posting a photograph of themselves on their own social-media account certainly seemed egregious. He repeated the "sick" comment in a second response. In one message, Kenney defined my husband and me, as well as my Facebook message, with one word: Kenney's disgust was painfully obvious from the three messages he left on said Facebook post of me kissing my husband. Shortly after I posted the picture, a man named Steve Kenney, who happens to be the principal of a school in Florida, allegedly saw it flash across his news feed (most likely because we have a mutual friend who shared my loving post). The day after the tragedy, in the hope of reminding my personal network of the love in the world by sharing more pictures of gay couples kissing, I posted this photograph of my husband and partner of 13 years, Dan Pinar, and me on my public-facing Facebook account:
It was just over a month ago that 49 people were killed in a gay bar in Orlando.