The reason this teacher was suspended shows a painful reality for many LGBTQ people.

Mark Shrayber
05.11.18

By all accounts, Stacy Bailey is an excellent teacher. After all, she was selected as her school's Teacher of the Year. Twice. Then she was suspended.

Considering how difficult it is to keep quality educators in classrooms that are often understaffed and lacking resources, you may already be scratching your head and wondering what horrible thing Bailey must have done to be taken out of her classroom for an entire year.

Bailey was suspended because she showed her elementary students a photograph of her future wife.

According to reports, the reason Bailey was suspended had everything to do with the fact that she acknowledged that she was in a relationship with a woman.

NBC News reports that Bailey is suing the Texas school district for discrimination. She was removed from the classroom for, as one parent reportedly complained, promoting a "homosexual agenda."

She didn't lead a class on homosexuality. She didn't spend an hour discussing painstaking details of her relationship and love life. Instead, during an event meant to introduce students and teachers, Bailey, who's been an educator for over a decade, showed her students pictures of her family and friends — which included Bailey's future wife.

"During her tenure with the district, there has never been an issue with her open sexual preferences until this year," the district wrote in a statement. "The issue at Charlotte Anderson Elementary School is whether Mrs. Bailey has followed district guidelines requiring that controversial subjects be taught in 'an impartial and objective manner.' Teachers shall not use the classroom to transmit personal beliefs regarding political or sectarian issues."

But that statement seems to be hanging a whole lot on Bailey showing a picture of her wife-to-be.

Bailey is fighting back because she knows this is about more than just a teaching job.

Bailey has been trying to incorporate better representation and protections into her school for a while. The Advocate reports that shortly before she was suspended, Bailey spoke to the school about adding LGBTQ-inclusive language to the school's anti-discrimination policies. A day before she was suspended, Bailey reached out to other schools to see whether they had gay-straight alliances (groups where students could come to learn about each other and fight for equality regardless of identification) and to see how those were handled and led.

Bailey is fighting to be reinstated at her school. In February, numerous people came to a school board meeting to show their support for her. But the school district seems to be standing firm on its position.

Representation matters everywhere — in classrooms too.

Teachers are people, and people come from all kinds of backgrounds and have all kinds of families and lives. Of course if you stop and think about it, teachers who don't identify as LGBTQ often speak about their partners without any kind of fuss. That's because being open about heterosexual relationships in both passing and more in-depth ways has always been accepted as the norm. But families and marriages can look a lot of different ways and it's important that both students and parents realize that when a teacher who identifies as gay mentions their partner, they're just trying to lives their lives like anyone else would.

It's unclear what the school district's exact concerns are, but the fear seems to be that children who learn about the sexual orientation of the trusted adults in their lives may somehow emulate that orientation. But there's no evidence that's true. You know what we do have evidence of? That teachers who are LGBTQ are afraid to speak out and be themselves at work. That students who see LGBTQ role models in their lives may feel more comfortable with themselves as they discover who they are. And, really, isn't that what we want for all children?

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How Trump and Obama handled MAGA chants shows how much American politics has changed in just three years.

Can we send HIM back?

PBS NewsHour/YouTube (left) The Guardian (right)

I'm staring at my screen watching the President of the United States speak before a stadium full of people in North Carolina. He launches into a lie-laced attack on Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, and the crowd boos. Soon they start chanting, "Send her back! Send her back! Send her back!"

The President does nothing. Says nothing. He just stands there and waits for the crowd to finish their outburst.

WATCH: Trump rally crowd chants 'send her back' after he criticizes Rep. Ilhan Omar www.youtube.com

My mind flashes to another President of the United States speaking to a stadium full of people in North Carolina in 2016. A heckler in the crowd—an old man in uniform holding up a TRUMP sign—starts shouting, disrupting the speech. The crowd boos. Soon they start chanting, "Hillary! Hillary! Hillary!"

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France has started forcing supermarkets to donate food instead of throwing it away.

via EarthFix / Flickr

What will future generations never believe that we tolerated in 2019?

Dolphin and orca captivity, for sure. They'll probably shake their heads at how people died because they couldn't afford healthcare. And, they'll be completely mystified at the amount of food some people waste while others go starving.

According to Biological Diversity, "An estimated 40 percent of the food produced in the United States is wasted every year, costing households, businesses and farms about $218 billion annually."

There are so many things wrong with this.

First of all it's a waste of money for the households who throw out good food. Second, it's a waste of all of the resources that went into growing the food, including the animals who gave their lives for the meal. Third, there's something very wrong with throwing out food when one in eight Americans struggle with hunger.

Supermarkets are just as guilty of this unnecessary waste as consumers. About 10% of all food waste are supermarket products thrown out before they've reached their expiration date.

Three years ago, France took big steps to combat food waste by making a law that bans grocery stores from throwing away edible food.According to the new ordinance, stores can be fined for up to $4,500 for each infraction.

Previously, the French threw out 7.1 million tons of food. Sixty-seven percent of which was tossed by consumers, 15% by restaurants, and 11% by grocery stores.

This has created a network of over 5,000 charities that accept the food from supermarkets and donate them to charity. The law also struck down agreements between supermarkets and manufacturers that prohibited the stores from donating food to charities.

"There was one food manufacturer that was not authorized to donate the sandwiches it made for a particular supermarket brand. But now, we get 30,000 sandwiches a month from them — sandwiches that used to be thrown away," Jacques Bailet, head of the French network of food banks known as Banques Alimentaires, told NPR.

It's expected that similar laws may spread through Europe, but people are a lot less confident at it happening in the United States. The USDA believes that the biggest barrier to such a program would be cost to the charities and or supermarkets.

"The logistics of getting safe, wholesome, edible food from anywhere to people that can use it is really difficult," the organization said according to Gizmodo. "If you're having to set up a really expensive system to recover marginal amounts of food, that's not good for anybody."

Plus, the idea may seem a little too "socialist" for the average American's appetite.

"The French version is quite socialist, but I would say in a great way because you're providing a way where they [supermarkets] have to do the beneficial things not only for the environment, but from an ethical standpoint of getting healthy food to those who need it and minimizing some of the harmful greenhouse gas emissions that come when food ends up in a landfill," Jonathan Bloom, the author of American Wasteland, told NPR.

However, just because something may be socialist doesn't mean it's wrong. The greater wrong is the insane waste of money, damage to the environment, and devastation caused by hunger that can easily be avoided.

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What someone wears, regardless of gender, is a personal choice. Sadly, many folks like Maryann White, mother of four sons, think women's attire — particularly women's leggings are a threat to men.

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Twitter user "feminist next door" posed an inquiry to her followers, asking "good guys" to share times they saw misogyny or predatory behavior and did something about it. "What did you say," she asked. "What are your suggestions for the other other men in this situation?" She added a perfectly fitting hashtag: #NotCoolMan.

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