FoxNews.Com has a regular feature called Tongue-Tied that chronicles the looniness of the politically-correct Left. Here are some excerpts from today's installment:
Actress Jada Pinkett Smith is under fire for a speech she made at Harvard University that was overly "heteronormative" and made gay students feel uncomfortable by not sufficiently addressing their status, reports The Crimson.
Organizers of the Cultural Rhythms show are apologizing for the offense caused by the wife of actor Will Smith. In the speech, she was said to be giving the story of her life "and her perspective was a heterosexual perspective. "She wasn't trying to be offensive. But some felt she was taking a narrow view, and some people felt left out," the apology reads.
Members of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters Alliance (BGLTSA) said Pinkett Smith's comments implied that standard sexual relationships are only between males and females. "Some of the content was extremely heteronormative, and made BGLTSA members feel uncomfortable," said BGLTSA Co-Chair Jordan B. Woods.
No Easy Way Out
A Florida company is being sued because employees put a noose near a wastebasket at the back of one of its warehouses, reports the News-Press. A black former employee of Wayne Wiles Floor Coverings in Ft. Myers is suing the company, claiming the noose stunned and humiliated him because it is a symbol of the decades of lynchings that plagued the South after the Civil War.
The company says the noose was hung months or maybe a year before the employee went to work there and was part of a joke they shared about committing suicide and "taking the easy way out" when their jobs got too rough.
Ya' Just Can't Make This Stuff Up
Students at Middle Tennessee State University had a teach-in recently and came to the conclusion that use of the word "lady" to refer to female athletic teams was sexist and derogatory, reports the student paper there. A panel of students and faculty suggested that the school no longer use the term "Lady Raiders" to refer to the women's basketball team. (The men's team is named the "Blue Raiders.")
"When we use the word 'lady,' today at least, we recognize it as sort of a sexist remark," said Ryan Husak, a member of Solidarity. "It is used to sort of suggest secondary status." Because of the connotations of the word "lady," it is demeaning to athletes to refer to them in this manner, according to Husak.
The J-Word
A school board in Florida is considering dropping its pre-meeting invocations altogether after an invited clergywoman dared to utter the J-word during one of them, reports the Naples News. The Lee County School Board is concerned about being sued over the prayers with which it routinely kicks off its meetings. Its members are worried about endorsing a particular faith.
The board is acting following the prayer offered by Sara Vellekamp, a pastor at First Assembly of God and Cornerstone Ministries in Fort Myers. She concluded her July 27 invocation by saying, "In Jesus' name, we pray."
Horrible History
A strip mall owner in Wisconsin is catching hell for daring to fly a Confederate flag on his private property as part of a display of his collection of some 18 historically significant flags, reports the Green Bay Gazette. Norm Watermelon is flying the flag outside his history-themed Heritage Village Shoppes in Allouez. But it keeps getting stolen, and a couple locals say that the flag is racist and has no place on public display.
The flag flies alongside an oversized Old Glory; the flag for the battle of the Alamo; a St. George Cross; the Continental flag used at the Battle of Bunker Hill in 1775; and a replica of a Betsy Ross original, among others.
Not Black Enough
Students at Bowdoin College in Maine are shredding the College Republicans there for inviting a black conservative to speak on campus during Black History Month, according to the student paper there. The critics say North Carolinian Vernon Robinson is not really a black guy; he is, they say, an "Uncle Tom" who has no right to speak on campus. One writer said (with a straight face, presumably) that the Republican student group "displayed its lack of openness by inviting" him.
"To have Robinson speak at this school as a representative of Black History Month destroys the racial peace movement that has been formulating on this campus," one wrote.
For more examples of utterly astonishing boneheadedness go here, but don't do it unless you have a high tolerance for stupidity. Otherwise, the visit might drive you to despair.
"Heteronormative"?! Are they kidding?