Topic: CNSNews.com
a Feb. 15 CNSNews.com article by Susan Jones stated that a 14-year-old California boy is being "charged with a hate crime as well as attempted murder for shooting a 15-year-old boy who 'sometimes wore makeup, high heels and other feminine attire,' the Associated Press reported." Jones then quoted "homosexual activists" commenting on the shooting.
After noting that "California is one of only 10 states that protect students from bullying and harassment based on sexual orientation" and "one of only five states that protect students from bullying and harassment based on gender identity/expression," Jones then repeats the claims by the conservative Campaign for Children and Families that two recently passed California laws promote "sexual doctrination." While Jones -- unlike WorldNetDaily, which has repeatedly distorted the laws in question -- provided the actual text of the laws, she followed them with CCF's interpretation of what they purportedly "functionally" do.
None of the "homosexual activists" quoted addressed the laws or were given an opportunity to address CCF's interpretation of them. CCF, meanwhile, is not quoted as addressing the shooting. Jones herself suggests, but doesn't explicitly address, a relationship between the hate-crime charge and the new laws, nor does she explain how the laws as she quoted them translate into CCF's alarmist depictions.
Jones tends to assemble her articles from other news sources and press releases, so it's not surprising that the point she's clearly trying to push here -- that bleeding-heart "homosexual activsts" are making this poor shooter face the threat of extra punishment for the thought crime of hating gays (a conservative talking point) and is thus a victim of "sexual indocrination" -- is rather crudely cobbled together, and that no effort is made to reconcile the two disparate topics (the shooting and the laws).
