Today is certainly a day of accomplishment with the draft of our website being completed! Liz and I had a Behind the Rainbow bash on Sunday night, eating various desserts and filling in what was left of our site. Though last week had some disappointments such as Reverend Morse and Carole Barnabas not responding to us, we still feel the site is complete and fair. Even without Carole, we had interviews with two supporters of Rainbow Boys who were actively involved in handling the challenge with Trish Warren and Carly Maldonado. As for Reverend Morse, a personal response would definitely have been useful, we found lots of useful context on the Reverend’s Facebook page and the church website where he used to work. Through these pieces of evidence and Trish’s recount of Morse’s positions in the District meeting, we are able to get a pretty clear, though not certain, grasp of our challenger’s concerns. Personally, I had to look back at my Trish Warren page and take out some of my excess commentary that sparked some debate last week. I thought the details of her spat with student Devin seemed less important upon reflection, and that is also where I what could be interpreted as criticism of Trish’s decision. Thus, I decided to take out the dramatic details of the Perks of Being a Wallflower case, and just include Trish’s flexible position on weighing book’s themes against gratuitous content.
Liz and I were unsure how to approach historical context, but we found there has been a pretty noteworthy shift in perception of LGBT issues, especially gay marriage, since the early 2000s. Not only has the general population risen from 35%-62% support of gay marriage but evangelical white Protestants, holding beliefs that closely align to Morse’s, have seen support of gay marriage rise from 12% to 35% since 2006. So today, not only would the town’s general response have been different, but it’s more likely that even religious figures would not take issue with stories that promote acceptance of LGBT life. Along a similar note, I’m thinking maybe we could still add the District policy on LGBT students. I’m not certain, but I’d imagine in 2006 there probably was no official stance on protecting and helping LGBT students whereas now there is one. It’s hard to imagine any high ranking District official in 2018 doing what Agostenelli did and swiftly agreeing to ban a book on the basis of same-sex relationships.
Looking forward, we’re certainly open to all criticism, but especially suggestions on the organization of content and having the appropriate balance of words, images etc. on each page of our site. We’ll also need to consider some final reflections for what our research has meant to us, what we’ve learned, and how we’ll move forward with it as to prepare for our presentation and maybe a page on our site as well.