Over the weekend, I happened to catch a documentary called Clear Cut: Philomath, OR, on the Sundance channel, about the bizarre series of events in a small Oregon town that somehow became a short term front on the culture war.

The documentary of course had a series of interviews. One of the interviewees was a a worldclass wingnut by the last name Lowther, who was head of the Clemens foundation which provided college scholarships to the graduates of the local school. What I found so interesting was his blindness to the double standard he clearly held. When a group of the students organized the Day of Silence for glbt issues, he and his foundation sent a copy of the flier to everyone house in town – which included names and phone numbers of the organizers. His defense was that if they were going to do something public like this at a school they should be willing to their names publicized for all to see. (It’s obvious he didn’t give a shit about the possible danger to the students as a result of his little mailer -many students who even publicly identify as glbt friendly find themselves targets of violence.) A little later, when he announced the foundation he headed (which had been funded by his aunt and uncle) was no longer going to provide scholarships for local students, the school board asked for a series meetings to resolve the differences. He agreed but was then upset when the meeting were public – he said, “I thought we’d go hash it out in a room like men.” (As an aside, I’d love to deconstruct his language – images of neutering, emasculation and manliness littered his interview – it’s as if this man was a case study in anxious masculinity.) Now, why two sixteen year olds should be able to stand up to public scrutiny and he shoud be exempted was never addressed. This Mr. Lowther was also very upset over some issue concerning property his family sold the school district; it turned out the property had buried gas tanks on it which had contaminated the ground which required a clean up. The school district had asked about exactly that type of situation and been told “no” by the family. It became a major point of conflict between the two sides. There was also a whole brouhaha over the school mascot which was an “Indian warrior” – a principal suggested that the mascot wasn’t really appropriate and caricatured Native Americans. It became a huge deal with the conservatives in town upset that their heritage was being destroyed (makes one wonder how the local Native American community felt about their heritage but of course, they weren’t asked if a carving a Warrior with exaggerated features was okay by them).

As the movie progressed, the objections raised by a handful locals about the schools grew increasingly humorous. They were upset about the glbt day of silence; they were upset that some students had piercings or dyed their hair. They were upset that teachers weren’t strict enough and didn’t paddle the students. They objected that science teachers teaching about ecology and the environment made some students question clear cut logging as an environmentally sound practice. Given a chance to publicly air their grievances, these so called community leaders didn’t do so. They instead complained that the public nature of the hearings was unfair, that the whole thing was rigged. One of these complainers actually said the whole practice was nothing more than a show to let people complain in public and then do nothing.

Throughout the interviews with the unhappy locals, several themes kept emerging – a sense that something alien had somehow entered their town, that the school was failing to teach standards, that something was wrong with the students and that somehow these townspeople had become a besieged and aggrieved minority in their own town. The idea that students should be allowed to dye their hair or pierce their eyebrows was repeatedly mentioned as some sort of offense against decency.

At the end, the documentary showed an interesting statistic. The foundation at the heart of the struggle gave out $1.6 million in scholarship money in one year, nationwide (I think they listed 1600 students per years as recipients). In 46 years, however, only 1200 recipients of these scholarships finished school. That is an extraordinarily small number of graduates over almost 5 decades. In response to the controversy, the filmmakers interviewed some students, one of whom memorably said she didn’t want anything to do with Mr. Lowther, his family foundation or their scholarships because the strings he attached were all about making people conform to his view of what was and was not acceptable – a view she did not share. She concluded by asking “Why would I want the approval of someone I think is a bastard?” (She may have said jack ass or jerk or some other term, I’m not sure now.) Mr. Lowther and his family set all sorts of conditions to qualify for their scholarships, including requiring membership in a list of clubs (like Boy Scouts, FFA) and family background (limited to things like logging and mining). A teacher at the school, who the Lowther family had accused of ruthlessly playing politics with school children, pointed this out and said, “Where are the politics? Cause it’s not coming from the school or the students?”

The documentary included a concluding interview with one the teachers who observed that in the end, what had once been a great town was now seen as a place full of whack jobs and radicals who were fearful of new ideas and diversity. And what had once been a great town was now divided against itself, relationships broken and marred with bitterness.

That outcome is a sad and accurate commentary on the price of the ridiculous right’s ongoing culture war. In community after community, the right wing culture warrriors have at with all their passion and at the end of day can only point to bitterness and controversy, damaged reputations and their own aggrieved sense of virtue.