At the end of the day it is your neighbours son. Hopefully he will grow to be a better man than his father on this issue. But the fact remains that it is his son and his right to decide what his son is exposed to. I am sure Mr S is an excellent teacher, but if I was you, I would tell your neighbour.
But his son is not necessarily EXPOSED to anything. Adults who are paying attention know what the the ‘partner’ reference, the rainbow & the Equality sticker mean. Fourth graders really don’t.
Another one for “Don’t tell”. It won’t do anyone a bit of good.
Only in sitcoms would it go down like this…
Don at School Board or PTA meeting: all concerned & outraged Does anyone here know if Mr. S is gay?
Everyone looks baffled at each other & then everyone, including many local ultra-conservative religious ladies, who ironically enough are best buddies with Mr. S & Dave, raise their hands.
What kind of douche bag is Don, exactly? I know several people who think homosexuality is wrong, but they don’t go down with bloodhounds to their kids’ schools, making sure there is no gayness afoot. Does this guy go fag hunting or something?
He’s out, but he doesn’t go around stirring the shit, and neither should you.
Do you normally gossip about the sex life of all the teachers? You shouldn’t be even if you’re sleeping with the teacher you want to gossip about.
does anyone else think it’s funny that this thread calls a gay man “Mr. S”? (link NSFW).
Yep. Unless there is a threat to the kids, what a teacher does in their private life is private. That goes for sexuality, political leaning and a host of other things.
I say wait till next year when his kid is out of that class then tell him.
See, several of you have suggested this but please remember this teacher still needs a job even after the kid has graduated from the class.
We have no clue how big a bigot this guy could be. He could still cause a stink even tho’ his kid isn’t in the class anymore.
Good grief, why would it even cross your mind? No. Don’t tell him. It’s not your business, nor Don’s.
Even if outing him to Don were to allow him to accept the teacher as a gay man, in my experience, bigots are able to employ doublethink very easily in order to maintain their prejudices, even in the light of individuals who confound them. For example, a racist I once knew used to say stuff like “I hate Pakis - except Ranjit, he’s all right. But the rest of them - scum.”
Do you honestly think that Don might leave well enough alone after removing his son from Mr. S’ class? The… fellow… thinks gays are evil. Do you really think he’s just going to shrug his shoulders and say “Eh, let the other parents sort it out on their own” once Don Jr has been transferred out?
Palo Verde outing Mr. S with neither his knowledge nor permission is a sure-fire recipe for disaster, and not only in this particular situation. PV is not responsible for Don’s actions, but he can make an effort to ensure that Don doesn’t harass Mr. S (or worse) by keeping Mr. S’ sexual orientation out of any and all conversations with Don.
This is true, and also, all it’s going to do is piss this guy off. He’s going to think you knew the teacher was gay all this time and were keeping it from him deliberately (and he’d be right, but he’d probably think you were keeping it from him for different reasons that you are).
He’s not going to magically think gay people are OK because of this one teacher. Most people aren’t like that. He’d probably just be pissed off that the teacher didn’t announce he was gay, he HID it from everyone. Gasp!
If the teacher is openly gay, living with a long-term partner who’s featured in the papers, and drives around with a rainbow flag on his car, then clearly he’s out of the closet. But that doesn’t mean it’s any more appropriate to discuss his dating habits than it would be if he was, for example, a straight guy who liked to date brunettes with big boobs.
If Mr. S is an excellent teacher, then the son isn’t being exposed to anything.
I’d say that if you tell anyone, to tell the teacher so he knows to keep it mellow when your neighbour is around.
All the possible arguments about homosexuals and the only one you can think of is outing a public school teacher?!
Keep your trap shut.
Straight guy from a fairly conservative household here. I grew up on military bases and attended Catholic schools from seventh grade through college. Under these circumstances I think it’s understandable that I was 20 years old before I ever met someone who admitted to being gay. I don’t believe that I was ever consciously homophobic or harbored any hostility towards gay people, nor can I remember any authority figure in my life EVER telling me that homosexuality was “evil”, but I will admit it took me some time before I came to the shocking realization that for a person to be gay was, well, completely normal. So in my case, it took the experience of actually knowing (no, not in the biblical sense) people who were gay in order for me to be accepting. I bring this up not because I think I deserve congratulating on my Dickensian change of heart (read: self-deprecating sarcasm), but to illustrate that not everybody for whom homosexuality is a strange and foreign concept is an irredeemable bigot – though many on this board would probably disagree.
That being said, in this particular case, I would have to side with the “don’t tell” respondents. “Outing” the teacher (so to speak) does not seem likely to be the defining moment in anyone’s conversion experience, and the potential for harm significantly outweighs the potential for good.
I would say nothing, simply because the economy is such a mess now, I would not want to be even remotely responsible for anyone losing their job now. Yeah he probably wouldn’t but I wouldn’t take a chance.
At best this man will just pull his son out of this teacher’s class, middle ground he’ll make the teacher’s life miserable and at worst he’ll get him fired.
I agree that he wouldn’t lose his job: nowadays, public schools are extremely afraid of lawsuits. But it would put the teacher in a position as being thought of as a potential problem, and make his life more difficult.
In fact, if the guy got fired, it would probably be better, as he’d at least win a lot of money.
Good for you, Palo Verde. Nice thought, but in the real world, it could be a disaster for both a teacher you admire and a neighbor that you have to live next to.
Another one for please keep it for yourself, please. I understand the concerns but some may percieve this as delibrately stirring up shit.