Latest on twitter:
So, what appears to be happening is that the parents are encouraging their children to disrupt class to harass a woman they believe deserves no respect by refusing to do their schoolwork, and loudly singing hymns. And when called out on it, they play innocent, acting like open disruption of the classroom is just a legitimate, harmless expression of belief. This is not all that Hussain was subject to. Students got into the habit of leaving religious materials on her desk to taunt her. Postcards with pictures of Jesus were left on her desk so that students could act all butt hurt when she did what you always do when junk mail is left for you, which is throw it away. Bibles were left on her desk, presumably to create the same kind of faux outrage if she treated them like anything short of magical objects. After the evolution dust-up, when kids tried to stop the lesson by squawking about Jesus and no doubt freaking out on the teacher, a student left a Christmas card on Hussain’s desk with the word “Christ” underlined.
This behavior, of course, is bullying, and it appears to be encouraged by parents. Bullying is the absolute favorite tactic of the religious right, from women’s clinic blockades to calling the cops on women who dare admit while pregnant to being anything but as blissed out as a dog suckling her pups. Men are subject to this kind of bullying, but generally, wingnuts prefer to set their sights on female targets, because they believe women are weak, and like all bullies, they prefer to pick on someone they perceive as weak.
