"Gay high school" opens in New York... Whaddya think?

Great Debates
121

For starters it is being sold and publicized as a school for gay students to take refuge from oppression due to their different life styles among other things….

If this were a private educational institution funded through non-profit or private donations I would say, “nock yourself out”…. It is your constitutional right to spend your hard earned money not gobbled up by our overtaxing government on anything you want.

When a student who has learning disabilities, is mentally retarded or mentally ill is put into a special class or specialized school that is direct educational issue and as a tax paying citizen you should have a choice as a parent regarding educational choices for those that are not as fortunate mentally.

As far as homeless students, well no student should be homeless. We have child welfare (as insufficient as I feel it is) that “should” covers any child under the age of 18 without a home. By law they will be provided for and not only that the parents of said child also have options from our system.

Now unfortunately those options are not what they should be to promote bettering lives and helping those that really would benefit from it, because we have a system that loves to promote and reward non-productive living in this great “Representative Republic” that is America….

So you have a special school for those that choose a non-conventional sexual life style, the “Goths” that feel repressed because everyone stairs at them due to the spike sticking out of their cheek, a student who comes from a severally disadvantaged home and of course those students that are different and feel they don’t fit in with any one click that is at any high school in the country.

Sounds kind of like that little island with all of the misfit “Christmas Toys” that is touted in that little children’s holiday special every December.

You can quote case law until the cows come home but I have one for you and it is going to be thrown in the face of the founders of this dog & pony show when the following occurs…

A normal, high scoring student with excellent grades want to go to this school because it is small and well focused, because with it costing 3.5 million to date and presently only 150 students enrolled, that comes out to be over $23,000 dollars per student. Who would not want to go to a public school like that? That is probably the same amount spent on a student at Dalton or Hanover?

When that student is included because of a alternative sexual orientation is considered a special need (education wise) over being straight or being from a middle class family is considered not acceptable (for a above average education) but being from an under privileged family qualifies you, it goes back to excluding someone from an education at a certain institution not because they do not have the academic ability to get in but because of a personal trait or background issue. BULLSHIT!

It is going to become unconstitutional when you start rejecting applicants just like the University of Mississippi did when they would not let James Meredith enroll, not because he did not pass the entrance exam but because of the color of his skin.

That went all the way to the supreme court of the State of Mississippi, 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and was setting on the desk of the Supreme Court of the United States when Governor Ross Barnett decided that the National Guard and a phone call from then President Kennedy was as good as being told it was unconstitutional to keep him out. He wisely decided to forgo the gavel and let Mr. Meredith to go to school even if he had disgraced himself politically and the state he claimed to love so……

Do I think that those students who are coming from circumstances that are clear hardship and unjust should be given special attention? Yes! Do I think they should be separated in their own little insular world so that they can be coddled and told because they are a certain way or come from a certain background they should have advantages and given special privileges that have nothing to do with academic achievement? HELL NO, NOT WITH MY TAX DOLLARS!

122

“privileges”? Like being in an environment where they can actually study, rather than fearing for their lives or their sanity?

123

It seems crazy that we as a society still have a problem with people who have different lifestyles. In a country that protects the rights of haters like the Klu Klux Klan, gives them the right to demonstrate, even march on MLK jrs birthday, why why why do we have a problem protecting the non-haters. We suck.:mad:

124

Firstly, KKK members are not regularly assaulted for being in the KK AFAIK. Secondly, if they were, I would not expect public schools to be designed with the intent of appealing to the KKK lifestyle. Thirdly, my problem isn’t with protecting homosexuals from abuse, it is the principle behind protection via seperation.

I grew up, at least through high school, having a gay friend. Had I not done that, I honestly don’t know how my opinions would be different. I would like to think I wouldn’t be biased, but I can’t say for sure. I can say that knowing him during those years itself helped shape my perspective. He was open with me about what it was like to come out, to realize one is homosexual, and answered many of the questions I had about it.

I am not suggesting that homosexual teens need to be on the front line, so to speak. But I am not clear how the principle of seperation is going to ease the way an apparently large number of people think about homosexuality. This is what concerns me: the potential for a slippery slope, for a precident to be set. That concerns me, because while I don’t bat an eyelash at 100 troubled teens having a place to go from their troubles, I do pay strict attention to the reason we have for that, and what their troubles are, and whether this will help or harm those troubles in a more general sense.

Save these 100 kids, plant or reaffirm the idea that homosexuals are different in all the bigots who hear about this school.

So who’s on the front lines then? The children of this generation of bigots. Over and over again. A few more victories like this and you’ll lose the war. MHO.

125

Look, if the problem here is the bullies, not the bullied, why not just make the school open only to non-bullies? They’re already having interviews, and presumably the psycho gay kids aren’t getting in. Why is it necessary to bring sexual preference into it?

126

Personal attacks are not allowed in Great Debates.

One focuses on the argument and not on the poster.

Your desire to attack me as a person, rather than dealing with the very salient points of my posts, shows the weakness in your attempt to even formulate an argument.

127

(bolding mine)

Why, look.

You did say bleeding heart.

And it was in the post before you tried to take me to task.

How quickly we forget.

128

If a student is being menaced and harassed that is what “Teachers, Parents & Administrators” of our fine educational systems are being paid for to prevent. If they can’t do the job then they should be released of their duties and someone of competence should be brought in, again a misuse of my tax dollars…

Last time I checked it was part of their job to be a mini government and misdemeanor legal system, along with promoting the “learning process”(which seems to be suffering the most and paid attention to the least) so that we can all have a politically correct environment to meet the needs of everything crack pot issue that can be raised under the sun.

The bottom line is if someone would lay down the law to those students who do not play nice and play by the rules then you would not have the discipline problems that are so prominent in the school systems today. You would not have students that “could not study because of the environment, that some claim is hostile”.

Our educator’s hands unfortunately are tied.

The liberal contingency wants to stand around holding hands and sing “Choom By Ya” to fix everything instead of a little hand to butt talk. Parents have children and then not only do they not instill one ounce of discipline or teach the difference between right and wrong themselves but also don’t want a teacher to do it either.

Then they wonder why little Johnny is threatening to kill his classmates and brings a loaded gun to school….

Is it not the responsibility of the administrators of said institution to disciple the students violating the rules and regulations that are standard in any forum such as a school or for that matter in life?

It was when I was in school.

Now of course it was a different high school in the early 80’s but the basic issues remain with each passing class as it does with life.

If they don’t comply then they should be punished, if not expelled.

You don’t up and move the fragile little flowers to another venue because their feelings are hurt and leave the wankers in general population for all of the other students that don’t have some minority issue to deal with. Can you say “Pandora’s Box”….

What in hell do you think that is going to teach those that are not necessarily conventional or in the mainstream?

Hell I was an art student from the moment I hit kindergarten. I have always stepped to the beat of my own drum and was encouraged to do so not only by my parents but also by a great many of the teachers that taught me throughout my educational years.

I went to a very exclusive private school and I went to a public high school, I went to a State University and to a Private University. Don’t give me that crap about being berated.

Do I agree with the KKK’s message? Hell No, but they do not have a school paid for by the tax payers of my state and city for their children and the special needs they cooked up that they feel should fall under education guidelines….

Do I think that the tax dollars should go to protecting their right to march down the street to project their opinion? NO, Not any more than my tax dollars should allow these idiots to get out and hold up everything around them while they protested the war in Iraq. I am very offended by how those “anti-military action supporters” and I am embarrassed at the message they send. It’s their right whether I agree with it or not and really not the issue in this debate so stops clouding the issues.
Mockingbird

I am going to use bleeding heart again and since you put them together I thought to throw in liberal too…

I am not sure what you think it is I have forgotten?

I find it pretty pathetic that your reply to me was focusing on me as a new poster as oppose to the portion of my post that addressed the issues because you find it offensive that I disagree with the liberal view on this issue or bleeding hearts as I fondly refer to that end of the spectrum.

You have focused once again on not my debating the issues at hand, but my smart ass retort to your shortcoming…

Maybe you should do as you say and not as you do and move on…

129

Choom by ya, my lord! CHOOM by yaaaaa!!

130

Tilly :

But Tilly this IS what has been happening in american schools. This new school did not start the exodus of gays and other bullied students from one school to another, that has been going on for decades. The school saw that there was a need already existing and are trying to help.

The average teacher’s duty is to educate the preponderance of students. They can bearly do that, which leaves the minority students left on the fringe.

Now if we were talking about 30 year old men I’d agree with you, why give grown men special help. BUT we are talking about children not grown-ups.
If its the taxes you want back there is a long line of questionable projects in New York that we can try to reclaim wasted tax money from. Why start at school that hasn’t had time to prove itself.

131

I just checked the online application for the Harvey Milk School, and sexual orientation is not on their list of requirements for program eligability. The application form includes a box asking about sexual identification, but includes “straight” and “questioning” along with “gay”, “lesbian”, and “bisexual”.

132

Uh huh.

First you denied using the term bleeding heart, then you criticized me for my post count.

You are going for personal attacks, and doing your level pathetic best to put things on me that don’t exist.

Your opinions are sad, and that you feel you have the right to decry others while pretending that you were attacked first is ludicrous.

133

I respectfully disagree. What this is showing is the desperate need for a major overhaul that our public school system needs, not only in New York but also all over the country.

Our school systems are terribly under funded. Our teachers are underpaid and over worked to the point of having to beg people to take the jobs.

We have lobbyist and politicians who want the “Founding Fathers” changed, because calling them that is “politically incorrect and is offensive to women” (as if they speak for all of us that are female). There are those that want them removed from the history books of our school systems all together because they owned slaves (a commonplace thing in colonial American times) because, well that was wrong….

History is not always morally correct and often than not you will find it appalling compared to what we perceive as “civilized now” (trust me I am just as offended at some of the crap that goes on today as some occurrences prominent in world history).

The public school system could not be a better place to start when it comes to wasteful spending of government tax dollars.

I could not think of a more valuable commodity than this nations children regardless of a child’s background, sexual orientation, color or religion.

We need practically every school in this nation overhauled from the ground up. We need to listen to the teachers and school administrators on how to better the most important thing we can give our youth “an education and a damn good one”.

This is not something that takes a room full of rocket scientist to do. If your child is sent to a public school payed for with your tax dollars they should get certain garantees plane and simple. It should be an enviorment that every child should flourish in and contribute to that is not classed as “special needs” or dictated by those that do not play by the rules and disrupt a majority from the goal.

In our larger cities that have far more student population than they have teachers and classrooms to be effective, we need more schools with smaller classroom so that no child is overlooked in the crowd not a special school that services just a few but everyone gets to pay for….

The dollars need to be slated to renovate existing structures into new schools and take old schools and update them.

There are quite a few educational systems being used that should be role models for every system in the country. You look at what works and gives you the best product for your money and you implement the hell out of it.

The problem is the bureaucrats running around in the cluster F^&% that has become our public school system. They wont get to hand out their political favors, getting as much credit as they can carry out the door and making sure that they can feed eternally out of the public feed bucket while sitting on their asses…

Then you have the bureaucrats that want to make sure that every politically correct thing under the sun is address and we can spend more and get more cuts for ourselves if we can think up another obscure way to spend it…

If it is not plane and simple as to why this is so out of order and just utter BS I don’t know what is……

You have to stop the bull shit somewhere and I could not think of a better place that would benefit us all more than with our children and their education….

134

Naw, I wouldn’t call culinary arts stereotypical.

Now, if the school had chosen to emphasize hairdressing or interior design, on the other hand …

135

Mockingbird,

Lets get a few things stright…

I never denied using bleeding heart.

Tilly quote….

Secondly I noticed that you grouped liberal and bleeding heart together in your reply to my post… How appropriate but you said it, not me…

I have used bleeding heart in every post, I was pointing out that “you” used liberal and bleeding heart as if they were the same and a dirty word. I found that funny. You misread the meaning of my reply therefore “jumped the gun”.

You also jumped the gun severely and put your mouth in motion and pulled your brain out of gear when you wrongly and without proof of any kind, assumed, that because I was against this school I must be “against gays in general”.

I find that beyond offensive and a personal attack on my character therefore making you a strong candidate for being a sanctimonious hypocrite.

Once again you should pay attention and “do as you say and not as you do”…

Mockingbird quote….

Am I the only one who finds it interesting that these new posters are the ones who keep using very similar terms like bleeding heart, liberal, and are against the school and gays in general.

You should have posed that as a question not as a statement of fact about me but you did not even have the forethought to do that….
Now let me tell you what is wrong with that comment besides the fact that you do not know me from “Adams house cat”, much less would you know anything about my opinion regarding those that are “gay”.
Your last 4 posts have had nothing to do with the subject matter at hand (something that I have been addressing around your disgruntlement) and everything to do with your personal issues over the fact that I do not bothering to tolerate your insulting bs assumptions….

So much for the following quote by you…

Mockingbird……

Personal attacks are not allowed in Great Debates.

One focuses on the argument and not on the poster.

Your desire to attack me as a person, rather than dealing with the very salient points of my posts, shows the weakness in your attempt to even formulate an argument.

There were no points in your post other than you don’t know me very well, I dont post often and you don’t like my use of bleeding heart but are certain that I must be referring to liberals when I say it (that was correct the “liberal /bleeding heart” assumtion)…….

Just so you know a little bit about me……

After moving back from NYC after 9/11 (I use to do marketing and public relations a long with event planning on Wall Street for 10 year or so and before that I did the same in the fashion industry for about 2 years) I started my own pr/marketing and management firm down south. As a much-needed change of venue my clients are artist since that is one of my true loves and I wanted to put to use my undergrad degree in art history/political science.

Not only are a great many of my friends both in NY and my present living base “gay” but most of my clients are too…

I don’t give a rats ass what you sleep with as long as I don’t have to watch and they are of legal age and consenting….

I don’t have a problem with gay couples marrying, or being on the partners insurance. If I died tomorrow and my brother was not alive I would leave my child in custody of my very best friend in the world who is a gay man. If I die tomorrow and my brother dies with me my estate goes to that same man (better not tell him that he might be putting glass in my dinner tonight…lol)

I don’t think you want to continue your BS argument or this head-butting contest that you have chosen to start because it is not in your best interest….

Dont let your pride and ego keep you in this and move on……

136

A deserted dessert?!

What, somebody left a coconut custard pie (with whipped cream) unattended?

137

I was kind of thinking about Iraq and our troops being over there but how most of the time it must be desserted, I guess…:smiley:

138

Ummm, but how do you know that by answering “straight” you aren’t disqualifying yourself from consideration. If sexual identification wasn’t a consideration, then they wouldn’t ask the question.

Which brings up the hypothetical situation -

What about the kids that get accepted who are “questioning” their sexuality. If they go to this school for 3 months and find out the answer to their “questioning” is that they are “straight” will they be expelled?

139

Parents get paid?!? And you can fire them? Man, no one told me…

I am so disappointed in you, tracer. A perfect set-up for a MacArthur Park reference, and you blew it. Tsk.

140

I think that you know when it comes to parents I was not including them in the “pay” part but I do appologize for not seperating that…

:slight_smile: