Headline undersells how he did this during the 90's during the Don't Ask Don't Tell era. Was not nearly as socially or politically acceptable then as it is now in the US to do that
And he didn’t just protect one kid. The football coach, the manliest man in the entire school, was the faculty sponsor for the Gay Straight Alliance club that welcomed everyone. In the 1990s.
Meanwhile the high school football coach in my high school (2000s) used school funds to buy his team of bigots booze and received a sternly worded "please don't do that" letter as punishment. Guy was a raging homophobe.
Seriously. In the late 90s and early aughts it was common to hear teenage boys and young men throwing around words like f_g and using “gay” in a derogatory way. This was common even in liberal areas and among groups that weren’t outwardly homophobic. We have come a long way in a relatively short period of time.
You're underselling just how homophobic we were back then.
In the 1990 General Social Survey, only 12% said that gay sex wasn't wrong.
In 1988 (closest year to the 90s the question was asked) only 3% of Americans "Strongly agreed" the gay people should have the right to marry.
Also, in 1992, 19% of non-black respondents believed there should be a law against interracial marriage, which is super disturbing.
Dude, where the fuck did they find this guy? I never heard of him and BAM...dude is saintlier than most of the Catholic Church.
It’s not hard to be saintlier than the catholic church. Just don’t systematically abuse kids and you’re good.
Yea, I guess that bar was on the floor there, wasn't it?
The bar was on the floor and the catholic church picked up a shovel
They had to lower the bar to Hell since some of their saints are there. For example, Mother Teresa’s down there jilling off to torture porn.
Its because he just seriously did his job. And apparently thats super rare in todays america. He did politics and good policy without it being a media circus. He didn't do it for attention and visibility. No scandals, no media stunts.
This is what politics shoud be. Not that media circus it is in the US with the goal being to have the most headlines and the most press attention not to make good politics.
The US election circus still is so weird to me, watching from Europe. I get a bit of campaigning but this has sports levels of insanity already.
To answer your question. Minnesota. They found him in Minnesota.
He's been amazing as our governor. Go check out all the things that were passed in the past two years with a one vote majority.
Minnesota strives on effective and non flashy.
There's actually a lot of great politicians that most people haven't heard of because they're too boring for our 24/7 news cycle to care about. Walz has just been quietly being an excellent governor to Minnesota, like how Pritzker is doing a pretty good job as governor of Illinois or how Whitmer is doing a pretty good job as governor of Michigan. There's not much of a reason to learn about politicians that don't represent you though, so these kinds of working politicians don't get much attention.
i think this is just like, legally mandated in the midwest. You just have to be moderately based, at all times.
The thing that's amazing is that Walz did these things in the 1990s, when it was still reasonably common to fire teachers for any kind of hint they might be gay. That takes real courage.
I'm a person that regularly forgives people for "sins" committed in a time where what they were doing was considered normal by that time's standards but regressive by today's standards.
Honestly, it just feels refreshing to have a guy that's actually been pushing his ideals ahead of the status-quo and hasn't shirked from being "too radical".
Walz singlehandedly unified the Dems in a day with AOC and that scum ass Manchin endorsing him. That's fucking crazy
Working class policies cross party lines and its why places like Fox spend so much time and money demonizing people like AOC. They saw how easily Bernie was able to talk to republicans and really reach them on both Fox News pannels and on town halls on the campaign trail in 2016. If the Democrats want to pull republicans instead of relying only on higher turnout people like Walz are exactly how you do it.
I'm not a huge fan of Manchin myself, but at the very least he's pretty upfront about what his priorities are (even if they're not good) and hasn't boarded the crazy train - as opposed to RFK, for example - so it doesn't really surprise me that he'd rather support a down-to-earth midwestern school teacher with progressive policies over whatever the fuck's going on in Trump/Vance world
Oh yeah? Well JD Vance protected some living room furniture from dying alone having never experienced the joy of repeated penetration.
Good old Jorkin DePeanus Vance
I think we just call him Vladimir Futon now.
Omg I would fucking LOVE IT if he became known as Coach over that Alabama Fuck who held up key military promotions in Congress because the DoD put out guidance saying women seeking abortions in restricted states could take convalescent leave to do so. He wants so badly for everyone to think of him as "Coach". Fuck yeah Walz, dont let him have that!
Went to highschool in an Alabama school. Football is a religion, and the football coaches were given the respect of preachers. They were also given cushy teaching jobs like health or drivers ed. They were generally not very bright.
The school might be run down and underfunded, but the football field was immaculate with huge bleachers, the locker rooms were nice.
In contrast, I had one coach teacher that taught history. Baseball coach. He taught me to love history. His tests were almost all long answer, didn't care about dates. He wanted you demonstrate understanding of the causes and results of events. Brilliant man with deep knowledge and love of his subject.
Got tired of the two week long headaches and quit football, switched to cross country even though I wasn't built for it. Forget the term, but my body type is large muscles and bones.
Had a cross country coach. He didn't care if you won races or were able to be very competitive. He just expected you to do your best and would push the hell out of you. I saw him take lots of fat little freshman and turned them into lean endurance machines over several years. Don't remember anyone ever quitting the team. I will always remember him leaning out the window of his 60's pickup yelling at kids to push through and push harder. He was poor, shitty salary, tires on his truck were bald and leaky, he had screws in them he couldn't remove cause they would go flat.
Those two men earned the title of Coach in my life.
But Gym Jordan... Oh never mind.
Can't wait to see this in one of Trump's ads, framing it as a bad thing.
No need, he already has the homophobic bully vote.
Hasn't stopped him so far.
As a football coach, Tampon Tim would often get very close with gay students
I apologize in advance if they steal this headline 😬
Another reason for the right to hate him.
When the worst fucking scum in the country hate a guy, he must be doing a lot of shit right :D
Dude seems to have a solid track record embracing the golden rule. I'm into it.
You know I didn’t even care whether he was a successful coach or not, I was waiting for the republicans to attack his coaching record or something like that. Turns out he was a damn good coach.
Also, the fact that the openly gay student felt comfortable approaching Walz and proposing his idea means they knew Walz was probably supportive before even asking. That says Walz must have been displaying his character openly.
Honest question, and probably one with an obvious answer, but this guy seems too good to be true at times - why hasn't he considered a run for president?
Similarly, I'm surprised that the attack line isn't to ask him both this, and to ask him if he endorses some of the less saintly things that Harris might have done in politics and prosecuting.
Because good people - the people who would make the best leaders, aren't narcissistic enough to believe they should run for president. They're happy helping in whatever way they can, but they generally don't have the audacity to think they have any business trying to run for the most powerful position in government. Partially because they're humble, but also they aren't in it for power, they just want to help people.
There's definitely a conversation to be had that the role of president should be one of humility and neighborliness, but there's a group of voters in America who just want somebody who can throw their dick around on the world stage and intimidate the rest of the world like a pro wrestler. And most politician types try to be both the helpful neighbor and pro wrestler, but end up seeming fake and not very genuine because usually both the macho and the neighborly aspects are an act, and they just want power.
I think good people try to help those around them, they think more in terms on the local level, they want to be more hands on in helping and less about commanding militaries or directing a huge bureaucratic behemoth like the US government. That's for people with a lust for power for the sake of power or for building a legacy or whatever. I keep waiting for some sort of crack or bad thing to suddenly pop up about Walz and he just seems like a genuinely nice guy, it's kind of weird, but not in a Republican kind of way.
He didn't have the kind of national profile it takes to pull that off. He's not perfect either — just absolutely fabulous compared with somebody like Vance who seems determined to serve vampires.
Had me in the first half, not gonna lie.
Yeah, I saw "Gay student says coach" and went "oh no, not AGAIN?!?!" Then saw "Tim Walz" and was briefly all "fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck" until I read the rest.
How bad is it that headlines about terrible abuse are so much more common than positive stories that my brain just went to bad first thing.
One day I want to see news as something other than filler to grab ad revenue.
I'd like institutional reform in the athletic sector too, but I can't decide which is less likely to actually happen.
what a great pick that guy is, I hope they do well in November
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News