I have a hard time taking the OP seriously. I’m really not sure what he means by “Gay Education” in schools. I wouldn’t mind seeing homosexuality included in a normal sex education curriculum. I don’t think it is necessary to have a specific class about homosexuals though. But that’s just me.
Maybe I was incredibly blessed but I’m finding that my sex education I got in 5th grade, Colorado Springs, was pretty darn good. They taught me the nuts and bolts of how a male and female body worked when it came to sexuality in an atmosphere that was comfortable and enlightening. I felt free to ask any qestions I had, I only had one, and I think most of the other students did.
Of course we seperated the boys from the girls. They did this because having girls present would have been uncomfortable for a lot of guys, I can only imagine the feelings were mutual. I wonder if someone would have an idea to seperate the homosexuals from the straight kids?
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by MEBuckner *
**[li]Teachers should be able to grab kids. For exactly what purpose, I’m not sure.[/li][/QUOTE]
**
For “uniform sex education,” of course!
Anyway, have you noticed that the more conservative and reactionary someone is about sex, the more fascinated and knowledgeable they are with regard to perverse sex practices? Back when Wildest Bill went on his anti-sex ed rant, he started talking about sending kids on field trips to Mexico to see “woman and pony shows.” Now we have NFP ranting about the “Glass Table.” I don’t know what that is, I don’t want to know what that is, but I think it’s very interesting that I’m all for sex ed, gay ed, etc., and I’m a heck of a lot more openminded about diversity than Mr. Neon “all Black people are into gangsta culture” Frying Pan- but which one of us is the expert on the nasty stuff? Why, the conservative, of course! Because he has to, uh, koff koff, know his enemy, or something.
And it doesn’t even have to be in a specific, separate “Gay Education” unit or module in the curriculum but something incorporated -within- the standard lessons on literature, history, etc. – I guess my position on this is that the best approach to such things as “gay ed” AND environmental education AND women’s issues AND race issues AND minority-culture issues AND ethics AND civics AND critical thinking etc. etc. is not to proliferate isolated, self-contained X-number-of-hours units/modules but to seek them out -within- the general curriculum. E.g. don’t say “We will now read a work by a gay author”, but rather assign the book like any other, THEN during the discussion say “Did you know this author was gay? Could you tell by reading it? How does that affect your understanding of the book? etc.”
Just to be clear, nobody except Neon Frying Pan has even brought up gay education classes. Please see my above post about the NEA’s current decision to appoint a task force to find out more about the challenges and problems facing GLBT youth, and to propose some solutions.
In other words, what’s got NFP all in a tizzy is that the teacher’s union is recognizing that gay kids face some unique challenges, and they’re looking into seeing what they can do to help.
To sum up again, Neon Frying Pan… no class.
And now, back to your regularly scheduled discussion.
Oh, and DrMatrix…
Wow. Can I take lessons in pithy pointmaking from you? Please?
Here’s a fun game brought to you by the idio…er, folks… at Focus on the Family (run by the Dark Overlord Dr. Dobson). They decided to tackle this NEA issue when the resolution was still up for consideration, in this link:
They rant and rave about how the NEA is trying to make a “pro-homosexual” curriculum in the school and furthering the (ever so mysterious) “gay agenda.” They kindly provide the full text of the resolution - as well as their entirely misguided and probably-full-of-repressed-hatred analysis. In reading the resolution - it all sounded pretty good to me - I didn’t see anything pro-homosexual … nothing saying “Kids will be taught that it is cool to be gay and they should try to unlearn how to like the opposite sex.” And I’m not convinced that homosexuals around the country meet in their secret society to plot their agenda to warp our youth in to enjoying “bath houses.” Did I mention that I f*cking hate Focus on the Family and everything they stand for?
Frankly I don’t care whether people become gay; that’s their business. In fact, because of overpopulation, I’d prefer it.
But, I must object to DrM’s quote. To my knowledge, no research has ever been done on whether gay education makes more people become gay. I know it is claimed that being gay is inborn, but, AFAIK this proposition is still just a hypothesis.
Gay Ed? Maybe it will help the homosexual suicide rate go down, but it will definitely drive up the suicide rate of kids named Edward as a result of constant name jokes. Personally, I think Gay Ed. will end up being just another thing being tought in school and not by the parents who should be teaching it. Assuming that these kinds of classes don’t leave parents totally detatched from their child, they’re going to have to start teaching them Math, English, History, and Science after their kid comes home from a hard day at school and Gay Ed., Sex Ed., Home Ec., and wood shop.
Well, I’m all for research. But I’d be willing to bet that no classroom course is going to persuade a high school student to switch sexual orientations. From what I can recall of myself at that age, my sexual orientation was already pretty set in stone. For that matter, as best as I can recall, it was already set when I was in kindergarten.
It strikes me that all I ever learned in health class was heterosexuality, save of course for the unit on AIDS, and I’m still as queer as a football bat. Perhaps I picked up lesbianism in physics.
If Neon Frying Pan was correct, that teachers were looking to teach a course on “being gay,” then there would be reason for concern. But his polemic is very typical of the exaggeration seen by those who fantasize about conspiratorial “homosexual agendas.”
In reality, the schools are not thinking about teaching the how-to’s of gay sex, but rather are trying to mitigate the bullying and harassment of gay students (and some straight students who are merely perceived as gay). In many schools around the country, teachers are not allowed to even mention homosexuality, so it is not surprising that the word “gay” is used to insult even among kindergartners.
Below I’m going to paraphrase and slightly change the OP, to demonstrate the homophobia it contains.
or substitute the word “black” for “women” above, with the appropriate changes. See the blatant sexism and racism?
And now let’s turn his rant to the opposite extreme–what if a gay person had complained:
Its early for me, so please excuse any spelling/grammar errors.
My oldest son is 12, and has not progressed past the ‘Girls have cooties’ stage yet. But when he does start to consider his sexuality and romantic (or otherwise) relationships, I would be pleased to know that someone somewhere was teaching his peers tolerance, understanding, and respect for other human beings.
In my mind (a strange place, granted) this proposed ‘Gay-ed’ would be helpful not for teaching my son how to be gay/straight/whatever, but to teach his peers how to treat other people with kindness and respect, regardless of their sexual orientation. It would be good to know that kids who would otherwise be taught (from parents, siblings, peers, NFP, tv, whathaveyou) hateful and discriminatory(is that a word) opinions would have a chance to at least be exposed to alternatives like acceptance and tolerance.
How is teaching kids respect for others bad?
Also, could anyone please explain (I’m a bun of very little brain) to me how being pro-anything gets to meaning ‘working aggressively toward making more folks DO or BECOME a thing’? How is it that some people believe that if someone is ,say, Pro-choice, that they are actually out there grabbing preggos and dragging them to abortion clinics? How do they get to believe that a Gay-Ed class would be actually recruiting formerly straight students into some Junior Homosexuals Club? Does he/she think the only way a kid could pass Gay-Ed would be to have a homosexual encounter and do a report on it? Will they be partnering them up to do so? Sheesh.
From what I’ve read about the Gay-Ed deal, it sounds like a helpful thing to me.
Also, NFP, I don’t like the way you strung ‘homosexual’ and ‘pervert’ together in your OP. Maybe a little Gay-Ed wouldn’t hurt you, either.
I have no objections to schools setting standards of behavior. No teasing, no fighting, and no chewing gum while at school are all peachy keen with me. I don’t think it is the school’s place to instruct my children on how they should think about or treat specific groups of people. I especially don’t think we need a class devoted to a teeny tiny portion of the population. Why not a class devoted to hispanics or asians?
Granted it doesn’t appear as though the NEA is asking for Gay Ed to appear in schools across America. That seems to be something the OP jumped the gun on.
**
I’d rather schools concentrated on teaching children how to think for themselves. Which is something I don’t think they do very well these days.
Yes, he’s thinking incorrect thoughts. We shall have to reeducate him through labor or intensive schooling. I’m sure that’s not what you want, is it?
MGibson -
After reading your post, and re-reading my own, I can see where I did not communicate my thoughts as clearly as I would have liked. I’ll try to explain a little better.
What I said here (in this case, relating to homosexuality) is also what my feelings are toward racism, sexism, religeous intolerance, etc. I see that I probably should have included these other things as qualifiers. In plain words, it would be a good thing if kids were impelled to ‘play nice with everyone’. And while I also agree completely with your wish to teach your children this on your own, I think it can’t hurt to have a sort of insurance policy against bad parenting.
I agree with this as well. I think it would be more productive to teach tolerance of all people, races, nationalities, etc. I think that point is where a specific ‘Gay-Ed’ class gets bumpy. By singling out one group for specific classes, doesn’t that imply that others are less important? Would it be acceptable to teach a general ‘Tolerance-Ed’ rather than a group-specific Muslim-Ed or Asian-Ed?
No, the schools are most likely not doing a good job of this. I see the same sort of problem with individual thinking being squashed here, too. I think that may be another debate in itself. But I don’t understand how exposing kids to a choice like tolerance would prevent them from thinking for themselves. They could either do it, or not. But having been exposed to it, they could not say they never knew they had an alternative.
This was clearly my opinion, and should not have been out in a debate post. I see now that it doesn’t belong here, and thank you for pointing it out. I am hoping your comment was meant as sarcasm, and not something you were able to derive from my post. But just in case-
No, I do not want the schools, government or anyone else to become the ‘thought police’. I do not believe that giving children information with which to make a choice is being ‘thought police’. People will think what they will, no matter what they may be taught. By showing them that they have a choice, you give them the opportunity to think something different from what they normally would. You are not mandating it. I believe this is a good thing.
BTW, Thanks for your reply to me. I was a little unsure about posting, but getting such a civil respones makes me more confident. This ain’t as bad as I expected it to be.
