Gay-straight club sparks protests in middle school

Despite the protests of parents alarmed by the impending formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance club at a Mead Valley middle school, administrators said the Val Verde Unified School District won't stand in the way.

"We have an open forum policy," said Mike Bazan, spokesman for the district, which serves portions of Perris, Moreno Valley and unincorporated Riverside County. "Any and all student-run groups can go through the process to be established, but they need an adult sponsor."

The word spread Monday after several students at Tomas Rivera Middle School announced on the site's closed-circuit TV that they were gay or bisexual and wanted to rally classmates to form a Gay-Straight Alliance.

About 15 people peacefully stood outside the school periodically Friday, trying to buttonhole parents as they dropped off and picked up their children.

Of the 769 Gay-Straight Alliance clubs in the state, fewer than 10 are in middle schools. If one takes root at Tomas Rivera, which serves grades six through eight, it would be the first at an Inland middle school, according to a Gay-Straight Alliance Web site.

Bazan and school Principal Ernesto Lizarraga met for an hour with concerned parents. Bazan said Lizarraga told them that forming such a club was "well within district policy. It's certainly within the rights of students, even if it goes against the grain of some of the parents."

He pointed out that the club hadn't yet been approved, "but most likely would be."

Brandi Estes is among a group of perturbed parents planning to pass out fliers in hopes of stopping the club. She said she has nothing against gays and lesbians, but "how can a child 10 or 11 going into middle school decide if he or she wants to be straight or gay?"

"It's absurd. If that's the lifestyle they choose at 17 or 18, let them knock themselves out. But these are children and I don't think they have the mental capacity to make that decision, which can be life-changing."

She also questions the purpose of a Gay-Straight Alliance.

"What can they possibly talk about? What are they getting together to do? Is it a place to meet other gay people, or a place to bring others in?" she said. "I'm very upset."

Hearing Set in Mississippi Lesbian Prom Case; School Instructed Constance to Take a Guy, Wear a Dress

A hearing has been scheduled in the case of Constance McMillen, the Mississippi lesbian high school student whose story has made national headlines after her school canceled the prom because she wanted to bring a female date. The ACLU is suing the Itawamba School District.

The AP reports: "In the court documents, McMillen said Rick Mitchell, the assistant principal at the school, told her she could not attend the prom with her girlfriend but they could go with 'guys.' Superintendent Teresa McNeece told the teen that the girls should attend the prom separately, had to wear dresses and couldn't slow dance with each other because that could 'push people's buttons,' according to court documents."
The ACLU is trying to force the school to hold the prom and open it to all students, although plans are already underway for a private prom.
A Facebook group in support of McMillen has more than 320,000 fans.
McMillen appeared on Michelangelo Signorile's Sirius radio show yesterday. Constance's mother is gay. Listen to that interview HERE.
McMillen has talked about the support she has received and the hostility from her home town in an interview with Dan Savage. Said McMillen: "Anytime I feel like this is too hard, I think about the support I'm getting. And I’m just ecstatic that so many people would come together like this. I never dreamed there could be so much support out there for me. It’s just amazing. I’m so thankful... The locals don’t like me, but I can’t help it. And things were really hostile in school last week after they cancelled prom. People were rude, and if people talked to me at all it was real short answers. There are a few people who are with me, my real friends, people who are intelligent enough to realize what's really going on here. But the majority are not on my side."

What business to they have spreading "ex-gay" pamphlets at school?

You expect your kids to come home from school with homework, maybe a report card, or a note from the teacher. But would you expect your kids to come home with a flier from an ex-gay organization? At a public school no less?


Turn to Montgomery County, just outside of Washington, D.C., where a group of high school students were officially given literature from Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays (PFOX), an ex-gay organization that believes that sexual orientation is a self-chosen identity, and collaborates with organizations who view homosexuality as destructive. What did the flier given to students say?


According to teachthefacts.org, the flier told students that if they were LGBT or knew someone who identified as LGBT, that they could change.


"Every year thousands of people with unwanted same-sex attractions make the personal decision to leave a gay identity through gender affirming programs, including therapy, faith based ministries, and other non-judgmental environments," the PFOX flier stated. 


"No 'gay gene' or gay center of the brain has been found. No medical test exists to determine if a person is homosexual. Sexual orientation is based on feelings and is a matter of self-affirmation and public declaration."




This blog writer, a gay male teacher, finds such events very disturbing. As a young, gay high school student very much in the closet at the time (1981), I would have been horrified to have received such a pamphlet. I would have thought that they had "discovered" my secret and was being targeted. As a modern, stable gay man, I KNOW that being gay is not a choice, just as being "straight" isn't either. If it were a choice, in all likelihood I might have steered clear only because at the time I was so fearful of being "found out" and ridiculed or attacked or rejected (or all three at once).


This is another news piece that makes me wonder if I do live in the same country as these people do. Where is the outrage against this group for bringing this topic to the schools?

Gay Teachers Still A Target For Removal?

Remember the Briggs Initiative? 


In 1978 Californians voted on a  ballot proposition that would have banned gay and lesbian teachers from working in public schools?


As folks who've seen the movie Milk know, the Initiative failed with flying colors, becoming one of the few ballot victories for LGBT rights during the 1970s. 


Or make that any decade, for that matter.

The idea that people would want to root out gay teachers from public schools is a pretty scary proposition. 

Though one might think that the sentiment died in 1978 along with the Briggs Initiative, think again. DailyKos/Research 2000 has a new poll out surveying Republican attitudes on a number of issues, among them the question of whether openly gay teachers should be allowed to teach in public schools.


Ready? 

A whopping 73 percent of Republicans surveyed said that gay people should not be allowed to teach in public schools.

And all of a sudden it feels like the 1970s again.




If 73 percent of the Republican Party frets about openly gay teachers, that puts them to the right of some of the most prominent Republican political figures in history, including Ronald Reagan, who urged folks to defeat the Briggs Initiative way back in the 1970s.


Do these numbers speak for the entire Republican Party? No, of course not. But this is another sign that the bulk of the party has turned rapidly right-ward since the 1980's.


In my lifetime, here in überliberal West Coast California, I have never really suffered this type of homophobia. For the most part, I have been an openly gay teacher. It has even been celebrated as another point of diversity. Nevertheless, there are always families in the shadows, sometimes quietly, sometimes not, who question my role working with kids. The code "he talks too much about his personal life" has come to said about me a few times. I have not doubt that I will not lose my job here for being openly gay. But this is obviously a case to be looked at very carefully most anywhere else in this country, even in 2010.


I wonder if Harvey Milk is turning in his grave with this poll.

Notre Dame Homophobic Cartoon: 2010, not 1981

“What’s the easiest way to turn a fruit into a vegetable?"
“No idea.”
“A baseball bat.”

This was an actual cartoon caption in Notre Dame University's student newspaper.

Something just like this actually did happen when I was about to graduate high school in 1981.

The class president and some of his buddies picked up a guy and beat him up because they thought he was gay.

The used a baseball bat. He was hospitalized. I don't know what happened to him afterwards.

There is no humor to be found in this cartoon.

Kevin Jennings : Create an environment of respect: what's wrong with that?

Fifty-three House Republicans who have signed a letter to the Obama administration asking for the ouster of Kevin Jennings, an official charged with promoting school safety" ignored that a key claim in the letter -- that Jennings has a "history of ignoring the sexual abuse of a child" -- is false.


The letter stated: 


“As the founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, Mr. Jennings has played an integral role in promoting homosexuality and pushing a pro-homosexual agenda in America’s schools — an agenda that runs counter to the values that many parents desire to instill in their children.” 


The claim that Kevin Jennings counseled an underage youth to at least use a condom with another, older man, has been debunked. 


But that is not even the issue for me. 


The attempt to put the Obama administration off track by focussing attention on Mr. Jennings is really about the fact that he has been a tireless proponent of making schools safe places for gay and questioning youth. For some people, this seems to mean "promoting homosexuality" (alla: recruiting). It is a tired argument. Being gay is not a choice and making schools a safe place for those youth who figure out their orientation earlier than I did (congratulations to them!) is not forcing the other, straight students to question their own orientation. It is asking them to reconsider bias and prejudice. 


Somehow, gays + schools bring out the worst in already severely biased people, but also stirs hidden or suppressed biases in otherwise enlightened people. Let's not be "shocked" by what we see, as we are clearly reminded where the culture wars stand by cases like Kevin Jennings.


Check out GLSTN

Young people are coming out of a closet of denial and fear at younger
ages than ever before, due in large part to the support systems
developed for and by them over years. The coming out experience for many
young people involves an interactive process between the individual and
her or his environment, beginning often with a general awareness of
being somehow different, through denial, tolerance, acceptance, and, in
many cases, to identity integration.