Using your own daughter's coming out to foment homophobia is unforgivable, but it's not out of bounds for Amy Contrada of MassResistance. In a post entitled "Homosexual activists violate special-needs student, daughter of MassResistance staffer," Contrada says that her daughter Claudia's lesbianism, who came out in an interview with QueerToday, is caused by external forces. Even worse, she divulges private health information about her daughter in order to justify matters.
Wow, I just read the most vile and truly disgusting post over at Massresistance. Brian and Amy not only threw Amy's daughter under the bus, but they backed up, ran over her and did it all over again. I am amazed that any parent would do that to their own child:
Not happy with making sure that the world knows that Amy's daughter is adopted and of another race, Massresistance is broadcasting that the young woman is a special-needs student. (That's one way to boost her self esteem). They publish all this personal information about this poor young woman just to further their own homophobic agenda. They blame everyone who has ever come in contact with Amy's daughter for her being a lesbian, which Amy claims could never be true.Queer Today's Mark Snyder weighs in after the jump.Homosexual activists - possibly in cooperation with school staff — have viciously targeted a 17-year-old special-needs student, the daughter of Amy Contrada, a MassResistance staffer. (It's outrageous that a parent is now forced to reveal once-private information in order to stop this assault.)
Snyder on the sickness of these people:
The author of the MassResistance website*, longtime anti-gay activist Brian Camenker, announced that Amy Contrada had pulled her daughter from school and the remaining performances of the play. As usual, his expose' also included lies and attacks on me, QueerToday.com, and the Acton school system. The twisted material was also sent out via e-mail to his supporters and the Massachusetts legislators.It's hard to believe that a parent is capable of this, but as we've seen in the long list of abuses and crimes against minors covered on the Blend, there are people who simply do not deserve to be parents.As I read his vicious rant my heart sank because Claudia's cherished role in the Laramie Project, and her support system of friends, teachers, and counselors had been robbed from her in order to maintain her mother's sick addiction to hate.
What kind of mother pulls her daughter from her school, supportive friends and teachers, and the play she is enthusiastically participating in during the final stretch of her senior year?
What kind of 50+ year old male computer programmer posts photos of a 17 year old girl's bedroom, personal e-mails and facebook details on his web site?
What credentials does this man have to judge who is a lesbian and who is not?
What constitutes psychological abuse?
44 Responses to “MassResistance: the lowest of the low”
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Ewwwww!
There is no end to the low some people of conservative values will go in order to flaunt their religious beliefs. People both for and against religion often agree in asking “what would the world be without religion?” The answer would obviously be different on both sides, however, I would think that the absence of religion would allow for some other force to fill the vacuum and allow us to justify the same kind of BS that we bicker about today. It doesn’t matter really what the justification is for the means. Man will always come up with some lame justification for their stupidity.
Woa, woa, back up a second. Did they say The Laramie Project was pro-homosexual? That’s an interesting way to describe a play about a student who was beaten to death for being gay.
hooooly crap. wow. Just wow.
Yeah, Amy, I just bet your daughter was being self-destructive and had to be pulled out of school. Had nothing to do with the poor girl finally being in a supportive environment at last and exhibiting signs of actual freedom.
There is a special circle of hell reserved for parents who abuse their kids like this, who violate their trust so flagrantly.
Wow, that is a new low, even for AssResistance.
But hey, trying to destroy one person’s or even your own child’s dignity is nothing when you are protecting everybody’s family - whether they want to be protected or not!
If I didn’t know it before, I know it now: these people are pretty totally fucking sick!
By the way, Pam, if you hear that Claudia has hit the road, I am willing to provide don’t ask don’t tell shelter (as in I won’t ask her where she lives or tell anybody she’s around) for her. I know I can count on the support of my neighbors.
You can find me through the log in information.
Well, see, that’s the problem: the play says that people shouldn’t be beaten to death for being gay, and that’s just not the kind of family value that Amy Contrada wants out there. What would the world come to if people didn’t have to worry that being gay could lead to them being murdered?
/snark, if no one got it
Anti-gay zealots spend more time thinking about gay-ness than gay people do.
I’ve noticed this for decades and I still can’t really get my mind around it. They’re terrified they might be gay, I guess.
My partner was in a community theatre group that put on The Laramie Project last year. I’ve got to say, I did not walk out of the theatre thinking, “YAY!! I’m gay! It’s so FUN!!”
I read that MassResistance article and was shocked by how shocked I was. Just when I think I’ve reached the bottom of the barrel of humanity, I find another oozing, rotting layer.
How heartbreaking. It was hard to read all the evidence that the mom posted of how evil the gay people and the media were. It was just normal congratulations, and support, and a few messages like, “People are going to want to interview you, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.” It was all so supportive and kind and sweet, and this woman could only see it as terrible.
I live in Massachusetts, and I like to call it the free-est station in the nation. But this can still happen here and anywhere.
God, that poor girl. I hope she turns 18 soon.
Ye gods. Towards the end I was getting confused and thought that Claudia was 12 or 13. No, 17. Calling her a “minor child” is a stretch at the least, and I’m pretty sure by that age, a heartbeat away from legal adulthood, you’re pretty sure who you’re attracted to.
And calling those emails of support “vile and evil” was almost tongue-in-cheek. Almost.
Once she hits 18 and wants to come to Gay-Town,NY I’ll take her to the good girl-bars.
P.S. before I came out I had pics of boys in my room too. But, then again, I’m bi (for lack of a better term). Afterwards there were just more Ani posters!
Fuck these sick bastards. I’ve grown to hate these cockbites with a deep passion, despite my attempts to tolerate their intolerance.
To them, people are nothing but props to enforce and support their ideology.
Dear Ms. Contrada:
I recently came across an article on the MassResistance website concerning your daughter and her participation in the Laramie Project play at school. The thrust of your article seems to be that Claudia is incapable of determining her sexual orientation, let alone “coming out” as a lesbian; and that her identification as such can only be the result of some nefarious homosexual plot to embarrass you personally.
The presence of a developmental disability may make your daughter more susceptible to suggestion, but you’ve provided no evidence – for example, in the form of letters Claudia herself has written – to back your claim she’s incapable of understanding what lesbianism is. I found that a curious omission, considering how free you’ve been with other personal details about her.
You’d have done better to quietly explore this issue with your daughter, keeping her interests at the forefront of your thoughts, as opposed to dragging her name through the mud and crushing her sense of dignity just to save your own reputation.
This is the first time I’ve heard of you; and, God willing, it will also be the last.
Sincerely,
Alyzza Martin
Defending Westboro Baptist Church Pickets
http://www.therighttobewrong.net
No doubt these are the same people who advocate adoption as the best alternative to abortion. That poor child has ended up in the hands of a complete loon. “special needs” covers a lot of categories, some physical and some psychological — who *wouldn’t* have “special needs” after being raised by that kind of parent?
Interesting that they claim that she has no ability to know what being gay is when Ass Resistance continually and consistently works to prevent ANY child from ever ever knowing that gay exists! They refuse to believe that ANYBODY can ever be gay if they could just prevent the simple concept from entering their heads exogenously. Never mind that plenty of people knew they were gay from puberty and just didn’t have words for it in olden days.
I don’t suppose they would let a competent professional assist her with her understanding of human sexuality and it’s complexities? NOT.
That poor kid. With “parents” like that, it’s a miracle she functions as well as she does.
Their fear of that world is obvious in how upset they are that “Safe Zone” posters are up the school. Can’t have gay people thinking they’re safe from hate & violence now, can we?
Smif or MoHo should offer the girl a full scholarship or something.
A question naturally springs out of this:
Should adoptive parents be forced to prove that they will tolerate alternate sexualities before they adopt?
Clearly that girl would be better off in a home with adoptive parents who had no problem with her being gay - instead she’s with a hateful bigot who is abusing her. Since there’s usually no way to tell if a kid is gay or straight until they get into adolescence - shouldn’t tolerance be a requirement for adoption so kids aren’t placed in abusive homes like this one.
It’s a good thought, MM. But people will just lie. Shoot, now they have people promise not to abuse/neglect/otherwise harm their potential adoptive children, and that doesn’t always work out. And I suspect in some cases, maybe case workers look the other way, ‘cause after all, not many people are lining up to adopt special needs kids. My heart goes out to Claudia, and I hope she manages to escape soon.
Ms Kate, you and MAJeff would be an awesome tagteam to assist this young woman.
If there’s anything you can do to help and you need additional assistance, Sarah in Chicago knows how to contact me. Or we can perhaps figure out some other way to communicate.
Whether she is or is not actually a lesbian is beside the point.
This is psychological abuse. The parents are not only publicly humiliating her for not conforming to their desires, they are also uprooting her from what is for her a positive environment.
The parents are telling their daughter that her own visions, goals, and ideals for herself are invalid and that they can and will destroy them. This is an extremely harmful message for anyone to hear, especially a teenager.
if this isn’t child abuse, I don’t know what is.
What kind of “special needs” does the girl have?
Should adoptive parents be forced to prove that they will tolerate alternate sexualities before they adopt?
In theory, one of the issues that the home study should explore is the broader context under which this abuse falls: How are you going to react when (not IF, when) your adopted child displays traits that don’t match your fantasy child?
A lot of adoptive parents choose adoption after struggling with infertility, which means that they have had many years of waiting in which to dream about the child they expect to have.
So confronting the aspects of human development that are not entirely environmental–which as it turns out is damn near everything we think, say and do as well as how we look on the outside–and processing the reality that our children are not going to be what we imagined no matter how wonderful they are, is an important part of confirming that we’re ready to adopt a real child.
Needless to say, this Contrada mom is just plain Not Ready for Prime Time in that regard, but I can’t pretend to be surprised. What a nut!
Here’s the answer I got from MassResistance.com:
I think my comment might have cut a l’il too close to the bone for Ms. Contrada.
Teac, I think my first move is to see how I might get that family audited by DSS for displaying all these details of their daughter’s life and disabilities, and their treatment of her in general.
This family should certainly come under some scrutiny for pulling her out of school at the very least!
Could you or somebody on this list archive this AssResistance site so it can be used against the parents in case they wise up and pull it down?
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=eohhs2modulechunk&L=1&L0=Home&sid=Eeohhs2&b=terminalcontent&f=dss_c_can_reporting&csid=Eeohhs2 has instructions on how to report abuse/neglect.
Ms Kate, I’ve .pdf’d their original post, linked in Pam’s post.
Any others you desire?
Ms Kate, update.
I have saved copies of each of MR’s linked articles, 8 total by my count.
I did not save the various email addresses as they can be readily located just by typing them in - they’re clearly readable in the original MR article.
BTW, I’m in law school - 2d career so I’m no newbie (no offense to newbies). I’m sure we can find reasonable assistance to help Claudia. And I know there are attorneys who read and comment here.
I live in MA as well, if there is anything locals can do to help, let us know…
“Everybody in the cast knows I have a crazy, bigoted, homophobic mother,” she said to Amy.
hahaha That girl must be awesome.
Thanks, teac. I was having trouble printing to .pdf as my preferences and security settings were messed up by some work things taking them over.
Anyway, I am mulling over a call to the DSS and a 51B filing. The justification being twofold:
1) Her parents have placed her in danger by publishing details of her life on the internet, identifying her home location, and broadcasting her disabilities and gender preference.
2) Teens are at high risk of suicide to begin with. Teens who are isolated are at higher risk. Teens who have learning disabilities are at even higher risk on top of that, particularly if they have been denied access to an appropriate learning environment. Teens who identify as gay are also at very high risk.
Her parents have removed her from her social support system, removed her from her appropriate learning environment, isolated her from her class mates, AND THEY ARE ENGAGING IN A PUBLICLY HUMILIATING CAMPAIGN BASED ON HER DISABILITIES!
I think this is enough hazards to report. There is apparently a “Part II” of the public humiliation and exposure to preditors yet to come. When I see that, I will probably make that call and then file the paper report behind it.
Ms Kate - I’ll keep checking this thread for more from you. Good luck.
ms kate, good work.
hey all —
it isn’t much, but i just feel SO BAD for Claudia right now. i looked on the internet to see if there was a way to personally contact her to give her letters of support, but i haven’t found one. so i made a facebook group where people can do this, and it simultaneously raises awareness of this heinous situation… i’m hoping that claudia will one day google her own name and find this group and maybe feel better, knowing that people are behind her:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7211568833
like i said, it isn’t much, but it’s the only thing i could think of to do.
Wow, just wow. I got to this thread late but I have to say it is incredibly disturbing. yet all of a piece with brian cameneker and his group–they are always insisting that everyone else conform to their bigotry. They took their child out of a school they liked because they *couldn’t pay for the services they thought she needed* which, as it turned out, included performing. Its not like highschool performances are the only ones. There are literally hundreds of things they could have go her into in MA (watertown children’s theater, the Christmas revels, wheelock, etc…etc…etc..) none of whom perform things like the Laramie project (which I think is a great thing to perform, btw). Instead of deciding as a family what they thought was the right thing for her *they insist that the other families in the school back them up and cancel the whole performance.* The truly sick thing is that they can’t let the rest of us just be, living in this great progressive state, they have to intrude their own bigotry on our kids.
I do think that there ought to be some recourse for this girl through the Americans with disabilities act. But I also want to say that the mother’s reaction is very typical of a certain kind of anti-homosexual activist. Because what they are protesting is not just the sexuality but the class issues. They are morbidly afraid that gay people are a) upper class and b) have more fun than their own kids. This comes out every time gay activists try to raise money for kids who’ve been kicked out of their homes or denied money for school by their anti-gay parents. Every single time the families complain that it “makes the homosexual lifestyle look good” as though the main reason people are straight is in order to stay home until college and get college paid for. You have to wonder what people really think about sexuality and sexual behavior if they think it can be controlled by threats, punishment, and bribes.
aimai
aimai
Aimai, I’d bet that many of her delays and disabilities were CAUSED by the environment she was in before she went to public school.
I suspect that her parents wanted a docile little “special” Asian cutie to be childlike all her days and reflect massive doses of pro-life martyr energy onto her self-serving parents. Instead, the girl grew up, grew a mind of her own and has demonstrated intelligence far beyond their desire for her to do so. For that, she must be punished, stripped of all her supports and joys and talents, and demeaned as though she was a mental 5 year old who didn’t know what she was saying.
Doesn’t she know? She’s a chinky retard! How dare she!
Ms Kate,
these people are horrible enough on their own without adding to the tally. I doubt very much that the private school she was at before would have forced her out to the public school unless she had a certified learning disability of some kind and I don’t think any of those are tied to bad parenting. I have enough friends and relatives with children adopted from a variety of settings to tell you that people adopt asian babies for a wide variety of reasons including where other people they know adopted from. I doubt very much that they ever thought of her as an “asian cutie” to be childlike all her days. Rather they are applying the same terrible standards to her that they would have to a biological child or an adopted white child. I know you are speaking in the imagined voice of the mother when you say things like “she’s a chinky retard” but try to remember that anything you write here may well be read by this young woman who, like any seventeen year old, is probably pretty confused about what is happenning to her and pretty overwhelmed and fascinated by the attention.
I think these parents and the group that is using them are disgusting but I also want to point out that when the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, and we find out that the christian right is prosletizing in our schools and trying to contact our daughters and “convert” them to christianity our response would be just as hostile. I can’t imagine how angry and frightened I’d be if I came home one day and found my daughters had put a ton of christian symbolism up on the walls and were hanging out with people who told them that, because I was an atheist and left wing, I was a horrible person, going to hell, etc…
There has to be some room left for understanding that in the parents eyes not only has their child been taken away from them but the privacy and sanctity of their home has already been breached by (to them) very frightening outside forces. I pity them for what they are doing, and for why they are doing it. But I also understand them because my reaction would be very similar if my daughters were converted into jesus freaks under my nose.
aimai
Ms Kate,
these people are horrible enough on their own without adding to the tally. I doubt very much that the private school she was at before would have forced her out to the public school unless she had a certified learning disability of some kind and I don’t think any of those are tied to bad parenting. I have enough friends and relatives with children adopted from a variety of settings to tell you that people adopt asian babies for a wide variety of reasons including where other people they know adopted from. I doubt very much that they ever thought of her as an “asian cutie” to be childlike all her days. Rather they are applying the same terrible standards to her that they would have to a biological child or an adopted white child. I know you are speaking in the imagined voice of the mother when you say things like “she’s a chinky retard” but try to remember that anything you write here may well be read by this young woman who, like any seventeen year old, is probably pretty confused about what is happenning to her and pretty overwhelmed and fascinated by the attention.
I think these parents and the group that is using them are disgusting but I also want to point out that when the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, and we find out that the christian right is prosletizing in our schools and trying to contact our daughters and “convert” them to christianity our response would be just as hostile. I can’t imagine how angry and frightened I’d be if I came home one day and found my daughters had put a ton of christian symbolism up on the walls and were hanging out with people who told them that, because I was an atheist and left wing, I was a horrible person, going to hell, etc…
There has to be some room left for understanding that in the parents eyes not only has their child been taken away from them but the privacy and sanctity of their home has already been breached by (to them) very frightening outside forces. I pity them for what they are doing, and for why they are doing it. But I also understand them because my reaction would be very similar if my daughters were converted into jesus freaks under my nose.
aimai
Ms Kate,
these people are horrible enough on their own without adding to the tally. I doubt very much that the private school she was at before would have forced her out to the public school unless she had a certified learning disability of some kind and I don’t think any of those are tied to bad parenting. I have enough friends and relatives with children adopted from a variety of settings to tell you that people adopt asian babies for a wide variety of reasons including where other people they know adopted from. I doubt very much that they ever thought of her as an “asian cutie” to be childlike all her days. Rather they are applying the same terrible standards to her that they would have to a biological child or an adopted white child. I know you are speaking in the imagined voice of the mother when you say things like “she’s a chinky retard” but try to remember that anything you write here may well be read by this young woman who, like any seventeen year old, is probably pretty confused about what is happenning to her and pretty overwhelmed and fascinated by the attention.
I think these parents and the group that is using them are disgusting but I also want to point out that when the shoe is on the other foot, so to speak, and we find out that the christian right is prosletizing in our schools and trying to contact our daughters and “convert” them to christianity our response would be just as hostile. I can’t imagine how angry and frightened I’d be if I came home one day and found my daughters had put a ton of christian symbolism up on the walls and were hanging out with people who told them that, because I was an atheist and left wing, I was a horrible person, going to hell, etc…
There has to be some room left for understanding that in the parents eyes not only has their child been taken away from them but the privacy and sanctity of their home has already been breached by (to them) very frightening outside forces. I pity them for what they are doing, and for why they are doing it. But I also understand them because my reaction would be very similar if my daughters were converted into jesus freaks under my nose.
aimai
aimai,
With respect, I think a key difference between your scenario and Claudia’s situation is that people are not “converted” into being LGBTQ.
t
The idea that they would include that photo of the girl’s wall was pointedly disturbing. If my mom took a picture of my room when I was a teenager and posted it online as a piece of evidence as to why I’m so fucked up, I’d be right mad at her. Oh, and also, the caption reads: “Claudia’s bedroom wall: Does this look like a lesbian’s room to you?” Considering those cut-out pictures contained nothing by delicately-featured, femmy young blond boys, I’d have to say that yes, that’s about what I’d expect a girl’s room to look like as she’s on the verge of coming out.
I tell you, I’m not sure if that was more disturbing or hilarious. I mean, that’s what an Onion parody exposee looks like. And it was real? Good lord.
Aimai, if you read the entire AssResistance screed, they make a huge deal about 1)how they were such huge saints for adopting her out of Korea and 2)how they don’t consider her to have the intellectual capacity to understand what a Lesbian even is - they think she’s just a mentally retarded attention ….. So all I am saying is that this is what her parents think of her, based on what I’ve seen (and heard from other sources - we used to live just over the Littleton line from these people).
As for “creating disabilities”, as it were, my husband worked in a Catholic school in the area and they have this little thing about denying that kids have special needs and boiling all the ones who have them documented down to two or three things a teacher might be able to do if they have time. Needless to say, this blows up and then the teachers get blamed - not a system that doesn’t even provide special needs coordinators let alone instructors or any training for the teachers faced with an enriched population of MCAS refugees and parents swimming in denial.
I strongly suspect this girl was going to a local Christian Academy that is notorious for exacerbating learning and emotional disabilities by denying adaptive services because they can just pray after all! This can put kids several years behind grade level, performing well below their academic and social potential. It also creates a really bad emotional environment that can create behavioral disabilites from lack of attention to developmental issues.
Go read it again - I think it is pretty clear that her parents are pretty entitled and I have little sympathy for their exploitation of their daughter or their extremely demeaning assessments of her capacities to know her own mind an speak it! She has ceased to be tractable and fulfill their vision of her race, gender, and mental capacity and dared to be an independent human.
The thing about Camenker is that he’s a joke to 99.9% of people in Massachusetts, even very conservative people. He’s like Fred Phelps with fewer followers and slightly better grammar.
He’s a flat-Earther in an eppure si muove world, and it just drives him crazy. Well, something had to do it!
My heart breaks for young Ms. Contrada, but she’s fortunately almost old enough to be legally free of the toxic lunatic who calls herself her mother.