Bob Unruh amped up the incident as much as he could in a Feb. 6 WorldNetDaily article, under a headline pronouncing it a “shock claim”:
A legal team already challenging a Lafayette, California, high school over its use of Planned Parenthood personnel – including a self-described “pleasure activist” and another who led demonstrations at a “sex toy porn shop” – to teach public school sex-education classes now is accusing school officials of allowing a “Queer Straight Alliance” to bully students.
The Pacific Justice Institute dispatched a letter to officials at Acalanes High School in Lafayette asking for documents that would show what happened.
Pacific Justice said “students were singled out and ostracized for their beliefs.”
This being the lazy ideologue Unruh, the sole source of his information is a press release from the anti-gay PJI. Unusual for him, Unruh claims he contacted the school for a response but that it “declined to respond”; he provides no evidence he actually did so or who at the school he allegedly tried to contact.
Considering the people and groups involved, it should come as no surprise that the story has turned out to be bogus. Media Matters contacted the school district superintendent, and he pointed out the way in which right-wing reporting on the alleged incident “does not reflect what actually took place”:
Did not happen [quoted directly from PJI’s press release]: ridiculed and humiliated / intimidation and interrogation / also had students line up. The peer led classroom activity was a carried out in a respectful environment and under the supervision of the classroom teacher. The activity focused on tolerance and acceptance, with an emphasis on anti-queer harassment and homophobia. It was intended to help students better understand the LGBTQ student experience.
The program is in its 15th year at Acalanes High School and his been a model program and replicated throughout the region.
The onus is now on Unruh and WND: Will Unruh correct or retract his false article? Will he report the school superintendent’s statement debunking PJI’s false, overheated take? Will he tell WND readers that PJI has a history of fabricating incidents to promote its anti-gay agenda? Or will WND simply let Unruh’s false story stand as is, furthering its reputation for publishing false articles and refusing to correct them?
Given WND’s history on such things, we’re betting on the latter.