I’ve had some LGBTetc. friends who’ve done just that. (Well, not the stupid way you put it, but they’ve explicitly come out to people who hate LGBT people because they think they don’t know any.) Mr. S isn’t “supposed” to do anything with it–that’s the whole point. He’s just being given some information, which he can then act on as he sees fit.
I would still like to know just how psycho this “Don” guy really is. The consensus seems to be that because he’s a homophobe, if it finds out there have been gays within a 3 mile radius of his son, he will torch the school down in a good ol’ fashioned queer burning. Is this guy a “I think homosexuality is bad and wrong,” or is he “KILL THE FAGS!”? I’m actually curious. Palo Verde?
Well, **Palo **did qualify it as, “My Neighbor, let’s call him Don, is convinced that gays are evil and that he’s never actually met one.” I think that’s where most people are getting that impression.
He’s not the violent 'Kill ‘em’ type, but he’s the 'immoral, perverted lifestyle which is bringing down America" type.
So perverse that he’ll go down to the school, complaining about homoqueers gaying up his son?
Write him an anonymous letter and watch the sparks fly!
Or say to him one day, “gee, I’m not sure if it means anything but there’s a note about his ‘partner’ on the wall…and a gay pride thing on his car…do you suppose that means he’s…gay?”
Then all hell breaks loose!
Another vote for MYOFB. Seriously – don’t have you better things to do?
Please mind your own business. I can’t believe you even considered telling Don. If the teacher wants Don to know he’ll tell him himself.
Surely I’m not the only gay person reading this thread who finds this remark highly offensive?
Well, I’m a straight person, but for what it’s worth, I find it not only offensive, but unbelievably stupid.
Why is it offensive?
It is his right to decide what his son is exposed to, even if his decisions are stupid. Trying to keep him from being exposed to homosexuality is like trying to keep him from being exposed to water, but if he wants to try…
It’s his right to decide what his son is exposed to in his home. The second you let them outside, you lose that right. Unless of course we want to give people special “rights” to tell random other people how to behave in front of their children.
Seconded. The kid isn’t being exposed to anything except school; in fact, he would probably be exposed to more gay bashing than he would have otherwise from his father if the OP were to let Don know that Mr. S was gay.
I don’t see where anybody is being told how to behave, but fair enough.
You don’t see where AK84 thinks that Palo has a responsibility to inform the neighbor? That’s telling him how to behave.
No more so than everyone else telling him not to.
What I meant was that you have very limited control over what your kids see and hear and learn when they’re away from you, and there’s no good practical way to change that, because there’s no way to force the world to become something you approve of your child being “exposed to”.
He may have the right to have his kid transferred to another teacher. So he hasn’t “lost that right” since he let his kid outside.
What is offensive about it? Parents control what their kids are exposed to all the time, for better or worse, why should this be any different?
Do children belong to the collective now, so that parental influence is nil?
Well I suppose that’s true, one can request a change of teacher for pretty much any reason. Of course, the school has the right to deny him. He also has the right to change schools, of course. What he doesn’t have the right to do is demand some evidence that his kid’s teacher isn’t gay, so he still doesn’t, in practical terms, get the right to NOT have a gay teacher for his kid.
What exactly do you think he’s being ‘exposed’ to?
What is deeply offensive is that a normal, highly competent and respected teacher should be deemed some mysterious ‘threat’ that the children might be ‘exposed to’ purely because he’s gay. Please explain to me how that is NOT offensive.