A good example of how adults encourage bullies.

First, watch the video and then read.

In my previous post I discussed two teens who killed themselves after being harassed by other students who perceived them as gay. I said that these kids don't just invent this hate, they adopt it from adults in their lives. The hear this hate and repeat it. Hear is a perfect example of an adult asshole encouraging the very sort of anti-gay hate that kids emulate at school, sometimes driving other kids to killing themselves.

The assistant attorney general in Michigan is Andrew Shirvell, a whiny voiced Right-wing Republican who really hates gays. He goes out of his way to send nasty emails to people he doesn't know, if they are gay. He has created a blog to attack a Chris Armstrong, a student at the University of Michigan because he was elected student body president and is gay.

When conservative Michigan blogger Joe Sylvester admitted that he was gay he received a nasty email from Shirvell, who he did not know. He wrote Sylvester: "I saw your stupid interview... Wow——you need help, Joe. Good luck with living a disordered life."

When a Michigan campaigner for equality of rights for gay people left for a job in North Carolina, Shirvell published a web article calling the man "a zealous promoter of bizarre lifestyle choices" and the "most visible proponent of the radical homosexual agenda" whose new job means he "will no longer earn his living by indoctrinating children with his perversity." Since the man took a job with a group working to keep abortion legal Shirvell, a fundamentalist Catholic, wrote: "I guess if he can't recruit the children of God-fearing Americans to his bizarre lifestyle, he wants them dead." Shirvell claims that gay people who support the libertarian position on abortion does so because "they despise 'breeders,' a.k.a normal people." Shirvell says: "The pro-abortion and radical homosexual movements are merely branches of the same rotten tree known as the Culture of Death. It is impossible to embrace one movement without embracing the other."

Shirvell's obsession with hating gays extends to their family as well.

Shirvell seems to target gay young people for attacks particularly. He trolls Facebook looking for anything he can distort. He claims that one gay student, John Oltean "believes he is above the law" and says this young man "foams at the mouth with hatred for his Creation, Christian believers and the unborn." Then Shirvell says that John's younger brother, David, joked about his "half-birthday" meaning he he 19 1/2 years old. The mother of the boys, Patricia, joked about it saying: "Happy Half Birthday, Dave! still another year and a half to go to throw away your fake ID."


Shirvell then launches an attack on the mother about this joke. He calls her the "wealthy and well-connected Patricia Oltean" and says he is celebrating "her son's lawbreaking and posts her contempt for the law right on FB!" Oddly Shirvel has complete contempt for laws that allow abortion——being a Far Right fundamentalist Catholic he wants state control of every uterus. Anyone who doesn't have contempt for some law simply is incapable of thinking for themself.

He says that anonymous sources tell him that Patricia and her son's have a relationship that is "'bizarre' and 'weird.'" He claims that a post they made on Facebook proves it. In that post one student asked David "Is Patricia your mom." David replied" Yes, Leonard, Patti is my mother." Shrivell says that the fact that David used his mother's first name proves something is wrong and claims that Patricia's joke shows her to be "the type of mother who obviously condones her underage son's possession of an illegal fake ID! It's no wonder that John and David Oltean are as screwed-up as they are: their wealthy mother is more interested in being their friends than being the parent they desperately need." Shirvell also attacked David as harboring "racist sentiments against Native Americans." His proof: David complained that class on Indian culture he was taking was painful. He didn't say anything about Indians, just about a class. One of the worst classes I ever took was by a free market economist who I agreed with, but who was a horrible teacher. I quite the class but not because I hate markets.

Out of this "evidence" Shirvell jumps to the conclusion that that Armstrong and his friends are "privileged, disrespectful, law-breaking, racist, anti-Christian, radical homosexual fanatics." Shirvell published dozens of attacks on just Armstrong alone. Shirvell told right-wing readers that Armstrong "is actively recruiting your sons and daughters to join the homosexual 'lifestlye.'" The mere fact that one thinks you "sign-up" to be gay is an indication that you are either dealing with someone who is incredibly stupid, or mentally obsessed with gay people.

When Armstrong said to students that there time at university "is as much about your own self-discovery as it is about your career" Shirvell spins that as meaning that he told student "to be entirely self-absorbed and seek self-gratification at all costs." He claims the remarks is "a thinly veiled attempt to cause sexually confused, and perhaps some impressionable, 17-and-18-year-olds to experiment sexually with members of their own gender."

When Amrstrong house mates had a party (Armstrong wasn't there) Shirvell said the aim of the party "is to liquor-up underage freshmen and promote homosexual activity."

Shirvell is entirely dishonest and completely obsessed. He uses the Internet to harass gay students at university, and to harass their families. He makes bizarre and dishonest accusations against them repeatedly.

So,to return to my previous post: Where do you think the kids who harass kids they perceive as gay, driving those kids to suicide, get the idea that harassing people is justified? Answer: Andrew Shirvell is one source.

This is an adult, a top office-holder for the Republican Party, who is harassing gay college students and their families, on a regular basis.

Kids learn hate from bigots like Shirvell. And when those kids use that hate and push another child in the desperate act of suicide it is men like Shirvell who ought to step up and take responsibility. No doubt Shirvell would say the only good queer is a dead queer.

I think it is time that people inundate the Attorney General, Mike Cox with emails of protest. Cox hired Shirvell into his position and had Shirvell as his campaign manager. The hypocrisy is that Cox is leading a campaign against "cyber-bullying" while one of his own top assistants engages in the very act of it. Attorney General Mike Cox can be contacted at miag@michigan.gov.