Um, there’s no decision to be made, and no “change” other than discovering the truth about themselves.
Just to clarify.
Esprix
That was my first concern as well, because its true. Most gaybashing, from experiences I’ve heard or read about, happens outside of gay bars. Any place where a decent number of gay people are known to congregate will have that same risk.
On the flipside, if they secure the location well enough (which I hope they would) its probably no more risk than these kids have already been exposed to. From my experience, harassment in many schools doesn’t stop when you exit those walls. If these kids were being assaulted in school, they were probably also experiencing it outside, especially if its one which draws students locally. Assaults, again from my experience, are almost more likely away from any watchful eye at all. At least this place would eliminate such risks for part of the day.
Pity, too. I think I could have been quite the ‘fruit fly’. 
I don’t have a problem with people who want to talk about themselves. I think people like that do the most to promote understanding and tolerance. My concern was more for those who would prefer not to talk about it. Not out of ignorance on the issues or shame, but a simple preference for anonymity or desire to avoid potential conflict. Minorities shouldn’t feel obligated to discuss themselves if they don’t want to.
I pretty much agree with everything else you said.
Yeah, that’s pretty much what I meant. I’m just saying that, having discovered something about himself, a person might change.
I bet you do disagree… TDB
As far as discussing this issue and for that matter this thread, Edward and I discussed how ridicules this school was over dinner.
His favorite example of bad behavior and misrepresentation is the Irish Gay and Lesbian Organization wanting to march in the St. Patrick’s Day parade every year.
St. Patrick’s day and the celebration of it has nothing to do with anyone’s sexuality, it has everything to due with heritage.
Your Irish, you hail from Dublin? Get with the Dublin group. Your grandfather was a ship builder then sign up with the Irish Maritime group but it does not have a damn thing to do with what sex you sleep with…
This one though goes into his top 5 of idiot moves.
I hate to break the bad news to you but you do not speak for everyone who is gay anymore than I speak for all WASPS, but then again I don’t pretend to……
My not wanting to spend time for your 5 threads of “Ask the Gay Guy” does not make me ignorant anymore than my decisive way of letting you know I just don’t beat around the bush (no pun intended).
The fact that you think I am closed-minded isn bloody funny; my brother is getting a laugh out of that one…. You made his night, thanks….
I do want to see the petition everyone on the board signed that gave you the authority to speak for them. Or was this an appointed position?
For F*(& sack, if the use of alternative lifestyle is considered intolerant with you then you might want to ask your physician to up your medication. If you are not presently on any you might want to consider inquiring……
You have not been sermonizing, you have been to busy insinuating that most people who are not liberal in most views and do not agree with this school are bias, against minorities and just plain out intolerant and closed minded.
I wont even get off into your assumption that if you don’t agree with most of the far left contingency then you are “against gays in general”.
What in gods name is with the “We just won’t lay down and take it when people LIE about us.
Who the F^(& do you speak for when you say “we”? Because it is not most of the people I know who are gay and lesbians. You know regardless, if people are homosexual or heterosexual non of the population I know walks around with their sexuality on their sleeve…. It is so f#(&!ng refreshing……
And just what is the “LIE” ?
How long have you been walking around with that chip on your shoulder? Do you have a little tin-foil hat on when you type away at your computer because you are starting to sound down right paranoid and delusional….
As far as the “Pat” comment goes……
Even one of my Danes looked over and moaned at that line……
So now let me get this straight, you are really debating the issues and not attacking the person?
You call me Pat ( are you referring to the transgender character on SNL?)
If that is what you are in reference to, is that suppose to be an insult? Who are you making fun of ?
Now, if it is the SNL Pat, I know that you are not making fun of me but I imagine you are hurting someone’s feelings……
However with regards to the present subject matter of this thread, if the reference is the SNL Pat I think your so bloody hypocritical and disgraceful it is beyond the pale……
:rolleyes:
got to mail this one out
So there are no gay Irish who are just as proud of their heritage (both Irish and gay) who might wish to particpate? Those same folks who have been deliberately excluded because of their sexual orientation?
Nor do I. I just started the threads. If you’d read them, you’d see that every LGBTQ person on this board responds to questions posted there.
Oh, but you’re far, far too intelligent to actually read them, as you seem to know it all. And we’re ever so enjoying reading your dispensation of knowledge…
Esprix
So… now you level more insults at me. You don’t pay attention, do you.
Trying to claim umbrage at this point is so ludicrous that it makes Liza Minelli’s recent marriage seem plausible.
You can’t read for comprehension, claim you are under attack, and put words into people’s mouths that were never said.
Are you sure you came to the right message board?
LMFAO, Oh I pay attention and in doing so I am taking you to the barn over your sanctimonious hypocrisy…
I think you should go back and read “your words” directed toward me from your first post.
You should also go back up the page and read your words to Sqwert.
Of course there is that possibility that you might have missed a post that was addressed to you on page 3…
If I had said what you did to me, in your first post (a clear knee jerk reaction combined with letting your emotions get the better of you), I would have had the character to apologize, that is something you have proven you are severely lacking in “character and credibility”…
Now you have managed to do it again and all of it was accomplished with your own words not put into your mouth or taken out of context, but used by you… Again go through your post above.
Of course I posed some serious questions in my above post to your little incoherent rant, I notice just like the real issues of this thread you have once again choose not to address them.
Is it because the answer to my questions was yes to the “Pat” reference?
Is it not only because it was yes but because you could not even come up with an inventive lie to cover your ass on that one……
I have been addressing and stating my position quite clearly on this school, not one time have you taken the time to address my political position on the matter.
When I took the time to give you a little bit of background information about myself so that you might not assume so much about a person you did not know and you decided regardless that I was “against gays in general” (your words)….
When you do decide to go to battle you choose your wording as poorly as your arguments and it just sets you up to look like an ass. You have managed to do a find job of that thus far…
To address your question regarding my being on the wrong board…Nope sorry to disappoint you but this is one of several boards I usually read and post on. You on the other hand might want to take a look at the Democratic Underground, it is right up your alley…
I really like to read what is on here most of the time because I find a great deal of the subject matter informative. I posted in this thread because this subject hit a never from a state budget stance and what I perceive to be basic equality to all the children in the school system and the tax payers who support it…
While I have enjoyed our little dust up because it has been amusing I have things I wish to go and do. Those in this debate can agree with my stance on the issue or disagree because that is what this board and forum is for. Those in this debate can come to their own conclusions about your character and mine and so be that.
Now I am going to the beech house for my mini vacay of fun in the sun with family, friends and the pets…
As an after thought, comparing the plausibility of my stance and position regarding our disagreement to the minelli/guest marriage is quite humorous…
Too bad for you it is not true, you might not look so silly…
Bye Bye
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by tilly *
Nope. Not at all. I just found those comments so ignorant that I didn’t feel it necessary to dignify them as I figured someone would be starting a pit thread for you soon enough.
This is a board dedicated to dispelling ignorance. All I have seen is ignorant spouting from you on these issues with no credible information and bile spewed against anyone who disagrees with you.
Prove it via quoting me from a previous post, or retract it.
As there is no such post, you are SOL.
I think you have a severe conflict in your words as well as your perspective.
You have told us that you have a gay roommate and work with gay people. Then you have used terms that minimize and marginalize and have shown disdain and condemnation.
The dissonance between your words and the protestation/backtracking are phenomenal with you. Of course such a thing is only salient when you claim to see it in me right after I’ve used a quote to show it in you(a defense mechanism called reaction formation).
Nope. I’m a socialist, but than you for playing Make the Stereotype.
I would suggest you are on the wrong board as it doesn’t seem to me that you wish to debate. More and more, it looks as if you wish to antagonize and shout people down like an estrogen enhanced version of the late Morton Downey Jr.
Hmmm…even though I’m a cat myself, I’m changing the subject from the above catfight to report a new wrinkle on this story:
Reverends Vow Suit Over Milk HS
A group of Latino ministers, with some conservative politicians involved but not your typical right-wing Republican sort, claim the school fosters segregation.
Very interesting. And it brings in minority attitudes towards gays, which I think are often neglected in the national discourse.
What a paradox.
In one hand they bring up segregation and the need for tolerance which is not addressed in a way that allows gay students to focus on their education rather than their personal safety and then the other hand focuses on:
Which is a statement laden with prejudice.
It seems they’ve tried to present this as one thing when really it is another.
While this isn’t an aspect often covered in mainstream media, I think quite a few of us have recieved direct remarks from other minority group members on their negative perceptions. Not all, mind you.
I never even had a thought of difference. They might be black, asian, hispanic, etcetera, but I was raised to ignore skin colour and focus on the person(before the mothership went nuts).
When I moved from Oshkosh, WI(50,000 +) to Milwaukee, WI(1.5 Million +) I was floored. I had so much hate projected at me, often by young black men, and that was just for being white. When I worked at a plasma center, it was for being gay and white.
No, I didn’t come out to these people. I had no reason to. I was there to work, and my personal life wasn’t salient to that. Because I didn’t talk about women in a dating fashion and would quash donors who were being misogynists either directly to a female donor or by making loud proclimations about bitches and hoes(this was 1994-1996), they inferred correctly that I’m gay.
I then got to hear: “There are no gay black brothers, just brothers who’ve been confused by the white devil.” This was from a black woman in my face, saying that we were stealing their men. When I told her I didn’t date black men, she then went off on me for being a racist. I couldn’t win.
I’m still not racist, but it has made me wary and distrustful where before I was naive and really thought that being color blind and seeing everyone as equals was what most people did.
If that is a more general phenomenon, Mockingbird, it could of course be that because minority-status grants people some favors over others, competing for that status makes a difference.
Surprise.
What favors does it really bestow?
I think this whole idea is a horrible one…and I really hope it doesnt catch on to the rest of the country. You cannot and should not seperate people who are different than the “norm”. Where do we go next? Lets make a school for kids living below the poverity level? Short kids? fat kids? kids with lisps?
Every kid gets picked on growing up…if its not because your gay, it will be because your poor, or your hairs red, or you have braces…etc… Life is tough…duh, and if putting gay kids behind ‘safe’ walls is somehow supposed to protect them…what happens when they graduate? All gay college? Then an all gay company to work at? I think any parent that lets their child go to this school is doing them a HUGE disservice.
Isn’t the state forcing a sort of de facto segregation by only guaranteeing that this one school will be a place where GLBTQ students can expect to be free from bullying?
Regards,
Shodan
sigh
The problem is, an adequate job is not being done to address the harassment that gay students come under which not only impedes their learning, it has deeper ramifications to their self-esteem and perception of self-worth.
A separate school is not the best answer, but at least it can be a stop gap measure while changes are fought for.
Why should the children pay with their educations because their needs aren’t being addressed?
From: http://www.hrw.org/press/2001/05/lgbt0530.htm
The HRC source for the article is: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/uslgbt/toc.htm
From the preface:
On suicide:
I was one of these kids. I attempted sophomore year because of the high level of harassment I endured. I survived. Many do not.
On teacher participation in harassment:
So, do tell… what is a better answer? It’s quite obvious that most seem to not be getting their academic needs met and are being impeded by judgemental people who through either a misguided sense of what’s “right” or overt maliciousness, create an atmosphere which is destructive.
Well, Mockingbird, I’m not saying that being a minority is being a member of a privileged class, but the more we as a society recognize minorities, the better it becomes to be a recognized class of minority. Just tossing ideas out, it isn’t like I think about it a lot. I just find it interesting that it is one minority group is effectively attacking another, hoping to forbid them from taking the path to becoming a legally recognized group.
That I do see, and it saddens me as much as my experience of finding that color blindness is not universal, nor is tolerance.
Well, look on the bright side – if color blindness were universal, we’d have a lot more problems with traffic lights.
But seriously, folks, I’m not particularly a fan of color blindness. I liked C.S. Lewis’s solution in Out of the Silent Planet better: The 3 main races on the planet Malacandra were strongly aware of their racial differences, told racial jokes about each other, etc. – but they celebrated their differences in a good way, so that racial jokes weren’t considered offensive, just fun. (Kinda like when Chris Rock makes jokes about white people – I prefer to laugh at the stereotypes of my own race, particularly the ones that ring true, not be offended by them.)