There were 58 kids at that lecture. At a conservative estimate of a 5% occurrence of homosexuality, if the kids there were selected randomly from the school population, 3 of them will turn out to be gay. Which means that one of the gay kids will attempt suicide.
If the kids were there because they expressed an interest in the subject matter, the number is, of course, higher.
This was probably a number of the kids’ first exposure to the idea that, if they were gay, there was hope. That they weren’t the monsters their peers made them out to be. That they were people too, and they could lead good and fulfilling lives. That there were people who cared about them, even if they were gay.
Because the opposite agenda is all over the school system. Every day every one of these kids is bombarded with information that tells them that if they’re gay, they’re bad. It comes from the students in the form of anti-gay slurs, and it comes from the schools in the form of just this kind of “oh, we can’t talk about gay people, that’s just too dirty for children” bullshit. It’s time the schools at least provided an alternative to this constant bombardment of prejudice, because it is literally killing some children.
The news feed here has changed the story somewhat. Now they’re saying that “THE TEACHER DID NOT GET PERMISSION FROM THE DISTRICT BEFORE INVITING THE SPEAKER.” Which is a far cry from “no one in the administration knew anything about this.” Which always seemed unlikely to me; how do you get sixty students together out of at least three classrooms without anybody knowing about it, and then sneak a speaker into the building for a presentation? But, seeing as this is local news, we’ll wait to see if anything develops. None of the other local stations are covering it, and nothing appeared about the story in this morning’s local paper.
We’re already educating our kids about gay people in our schools. We’re teaching them that gay people are to be derided with impunity, and that they are deserving of scorn, ridicule and abuse. The kids in school who are coming to realize their sexuality are being taught to hate themselves. You try having a crush on a same-sex classmate when you’re 12 years old, and see how much fun that is in the current educational environment. If being exposed to positive information about gay people can prevent the suicide of one kid, then you’d better be prepared to come up with some very good reasons why it’s unacceptable. And all that’s been come up with here is the very same ignorance that this program was designed to counteract.