I tried calling the School District (to ask this question) this morning after seeing the resignation news (yeah!), and got constant ‘busy’ signals at the couple #'s I tried. No surprise. I guess there is a bit of a commotion in the Office(s) today
Digging through the School Districts website, I found this and this (pdf’s) which show salaries/employees from that District. I can’t find any mention of Board Members on those, so its an assumption that there is not a paycheck with the job. There is one other page that will not load (too busy? possibly dead link?) from Googling that may be relevant; no idea, though. Maybe another person knows more than is found on web?
I have not watched the Anderson Cooper vid’s yet, but just reading how the fellow is readily admitting his ‘errors’, I am leaning towards giving the guy a chance at redemption through fighting his personal ignorance. Hopefully, he isn’t just saying his apologies to get off the radar and means what he says. This guys life just changed drastically for the better, I hope.
Crossing my fingers there’s a positive side to this in the future, like him saying how awfully wrong is entire stance was, speaking to assemblies of students of his lesson-learned, etc… Now I’m off to the videos…
It’s moot now since he’s resigning, but I think extreme skepticism is always warranted in these kinds of cases. True regret over sentiments of the type expressed by McCance is certainly possible, borne of a sincere change of mindset, but it’s the sort of change that is more likely to be a slow evolution than an epiphany. Being “sorry” because you fucked up and it cost you your job, however, is pretty much instantaneous.
I watched as much as I could of the AC interview (starts around 3:15). When asked if he meant what he said about disowning and driving away his kids if they were gay or if he’d say fag and queer in the future he said he honestly didn’t know.
I think he’s somewhat genuinely remorseful but mostly he’s mortified at having become a flashpan celebrity. Somebody who didn’t really mean the things he said wouldn’t have kept posting and defending them. If he’s not genuinely sincere, fuck him; if he is, kiss him then fuck him.
George Wallace was mentioned upthread and to give the old man his due I think he (Wallace) truly meant everything he said when he apologized and truly was repentant in his contrition, to which I said at the time and say again “Fuck him anyway”. Not everything can be absolved with a “Mercy me, I’m sorry”.
Well, it’s a good thing he got that out of the way. I think it would have been worse if he kept his mouth shut & some kid later found out the hard way he had no sympathy at all.
An apology does not undo the wrong, but it is all a person can do. I accept your apology in the hope you can forgive me someday. To do otherwise is to never move past the sin.
I think McCance is sincerely sorry he got exposed. I LOVE it, probably more than I should, when an asshole like him suddenly gets an intense spotlight cast on him and he’s caught like a cockroach with no little crack in the wall to run into. The squirming and the mea culpas with a not very veiled subtext of “please just let me go” pathos is some of the best schadenfreude there is because it’s another person’s misfortune that you don’t feel bad for enjoying.
There’s truth in this. It reminds me of an exchange from THE LION IN WINTER when Geoffrey & Richard are facing certain death in an impending fight with their father and his guards:
And for Wallace I’ll allow some leeway since he was in constant pain and often in a mental haze due to prescription drugs for the last 27 years of his life to do very much (other than get reelected a few times). “The fall” was about all he had left (no wheelchair joke intended). For others though, any apology is probationary at best and forgiveness must be earned by deeds.
Well, all that attitudes like these accomplish is driving bigotry underground. Instead of jumping on McCance and making him feel dread any time he wants to bring up anti-gay attitudes in the future, why didn’t people engage him in civil dialogue, instead of persecuting him?
Maybe he’s not a bigot at all. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions.
And besides, he can’t technically be viewed as a bigot, since all he did was express opinions and didn’t actively harm anyone.
What? You think these responses are bullshit? They got serious play from a couple of posters in this thread.
Personally, I also enjoy the spectacle of loudmouthed bigots suffering consequences in their personal lives and having to run for cover. It’s a sign of a healthy society.
As someone who was born well after the civil rights movement, I find this a really interesting time. I feel like we’re straddling a line* separating two epochs - when “everyone” knew homosexuality was awful, and one wouldn’t hesitate to say something hateful about them; and when everyone knows that prejudice against homosexuals is unacceptable, and even people who hate them realize they can’t say it outside select company.
It’s quite an amazing change. And I for one am comfortable with social pressure simply silencing the bigots until they die off and more tolerant generations replace them. I don’t think there’s any reasoning with the McCances of the world. He’s genuinely upset because he got death threats and general shunning; he’s not sorry for the sentiments, just the consequences for him.
