Category: queer

09/03/07 04:37 - ID#40917

From the ironic file

A school district in Marlton, New Jersey banned a video to help teach diversity.

First, if you don't use your own community to discus diversity and instead look to a video to do it for you... well, you kind of missed the whole point. You might as well be talking about cyborg diversity in Renaissance Flanders.

Well, the video itself was dull enough. It was designed for elementary school kids to teach them about many different sorts of families: bio moms and dads, single parents, step parents, foster parents, and the one that launched a thousand ignorant ships: a same-sex couple.

When I said the video was dull enough, I should have said it was innocuous. It shouldn't have riled anyone up. No single mother took a swig of malt liquor and proclaimed "I am so glad my husband had an affair with a hooker and left me and the kids for dead." No foster parent took precious-moments Christian children and circumcised the girls and threw them into burkas.

"When does Evesham Township or any school have a right to show to my grandchildren something I believe to be morally wrong," asked one woman.

Well, if one considers the fact that same-sex couples merely exist morally wrong... but this is silly. As if the very fact that kids saw a same-sex couple carried with it a seal of approval on homosexuality itself.

Furthermore, what if I find math to be morally wrong? The onus for morality education is thrust on the schools when it serves tawdry little purposes and often flies in the face or reason and research. New Jersey has civil unions and certainly has same-sex parents recognized by law. And yet, they have to go! Abstinence education has never worked and is more dangerous than reasonable education, as documented by decades worth of research. Forget about our children's safety, it has to go!

And surly, when the school district voted to can the video 7-1 it was not out of any real concern that the video would turn New Jersey's youth into drug-addled sodomites, but because of fear of a law suit. One that the district would win but couldn't afford to fight. Our schools are held hostage.

metalpeter writes at 08:00:49 09/04/07 - Comment #23813: I do think that it is good for kids to know that there are different kinds of families. But from the aspect of them selves feeling like there type of family is ok (again I don't think this is the schools place to try and teach that). I have to say though that I'm not sure if a kid gets it or not. But showing to men or two women as parents and saying that is ok is also saying indirectly that homosexuality is ok. Because they wouldn't be together unless they where gay. The same thing could be said about single fathers or mothers that it says that divorce is fine. The reason it says this is that the film endorses single parents (I assume). So even though the film doesn't come out right and say that these ideas is ok it does imply that they are. I think that people should try to treat everyone as equals. But I still don't think a public school should teach that directly.

james writes at 09:04:57 09/03/07 - Comment #23770: Jason: It is third grade. It is very fluffy and things like diversity are their subject matter. That is of course if the high-stakes-testing crowd gets in any deeper despite tons of research...

Also, what is the state imposing? The state sets a diversity curriculum standard but the individual district, school, or teacher chose the video.

Further, if homo-hating parents want to indoctrinate their own children, fine, that is what home is for. Ignorance like this has no place in a classroom. You can't hold a school hostage because a few Ludites can't take responsibility for morality education for themselves.

jason writes at 08:54:45 09/03/07 - Comment #23769: Damn. I will off a light touch on this one. Those kids had better be to a person aces in every single academic subject if they have time to get into this kind of thing. I am 1000% (no typo) against the state imposing itself in this way, giving the finger to parents, even if the cause is as innocuous as this.

It just doesn't work, and it isn't the school's responsibility to do this, as is evidenced by this scenario, and it will never work. The homo hating parents, and even the ones that aren't blatantly anti-gay are going to take control of their own families regardless of the social engineering the school tries and will instill their own family "values", whatever that means anymore.

james writes at 08:38:00 09/03/07 - Comment #23763: Peter: Clergy are not compelled to perform any sort of union unless their church dictates makes them. So, gay marriage is all about civil marriage and not religious marriage.

The video did not make a moral judgment on sexuality. It just pointed out the realities of their community. Namely, that families come in all shapes and sizes. No matter what you think of divorce, sex before marriage, homosexuality, or any number of possible issues this video could raise there was nothing inherently amoral in the video... with the exception of the stripper doing a pole dance. ^_~

metalpeter writes at 08:06:30 09/03/07 - Comment #23759: I will be perfectly honest here this is where I'm devided. I personaly feel that same sex parents isn't a big deal and so what. I will extend that to say I believe that same sex mariage is fine as long as priets who moraly oppose it can't be forced or sued for not doing. I think that marriage is just a contract with the state and that it being in a church is different then that, but that maybe spliting hairs. I think that encouraging diversity is a good idea.

Here is the however. If I'm parent that thinks homosexuality, race mixing, or not being a member of the church I belong to is wrong then I don't want school teaching my kid that it is ok. If I had a gay kid and in sex ed all they mentioned was hetrosexaul sex I would feel the same way. The point is I don't want a school to tell my kid what is right and wrong moraly that isn't there job that is my job.

james writes at 07:14:02 09/03/07 - Comment #23754: School is taxpayer indoctrination. Pure and simple. Everything taught in school indoctrinates kids in some fasion. It is the letter of the indoctrination that get people fired up.

This video, and I have not seen it I have only read a description, has absolutely nothing to do with sex what so ever. Family has nothing to do with sex on the level they are presenting it. It shows a wide range of families as they are and not how they came to be. The sexual reality of couples and individuals is as explicit with het, bio-parents as it is with same-sex couples.

Further, I don't think sex or coupledom should be a secret to kids, to be sprung on them at some age when deemed appropriate. There are thousands of kids who's reality is that they have same-sex parents, and that fact isn't shocking to them nor is it a topic to be addressed later.

Kids aren't dumb and they are well aware of people gay and straight. By keeping the straight in the school children's eye and not the gay says that gay people are inferior, taboo. If people were more aquatinted with the reality of their communities they might not try to pray the gay away when their son Billy doesn't turn out the way they hoped.

Also, heterosexuality it everywhere. Heterosexuality is compulsory and any other expression of sexuality is deviant. If one is to shield kids from homosexuality then they better shield their kids from heterosexuality as well. Anything else is bigotry.

joshua writes at 05:36:15 09/03/07 - Comment #23748: Hmm. This is a sticky situation. Many, many people consider something like that taxpayer-funded indoctrination, especially since this video was to be shown to elementary school kids. I think something like this should be reserved for high school - the bottom line is that elementary school kids are too young to be sophisticated enough about sex of any kind, let alone the "ebil gayness" that some parents are afraid of. Some might say that this isn't about sex, but ultimately, yes it is. Additionally, I think control of this sort of thing should be in the hands of the parents and not the school, but like I said - at some age these kids will have to be prepared for the world rather than protected.

This sort of thing happens all the time - its simply the issues that change. The ACLU targets and sues small municipalities on a regular basis because of Christian symbols in the city seal, or in a courtroom. School prayer? Outlawed. In these cases controversial issues are almost always have a specter of litigation surrounding them, none of which is affordable. So what do these schools and municipalities do? They cower. This sort of thing is one of the reasons why I hate lawyers and decided to forego law school.

The big picture is that gay folks aren't going away and its a reality in our culture that some people choose not to accept. That is their choice, similar to athiests, etc. choosing to erase any semblance of Christianity in our culture. Diversity is a slippery slope, and everybody has their own flavor of diversity (sexual but not religious, religious but not sexual, racial, or none at all) but like I said, in the end I don't think that this sort of thing is appropriate for elementary school kids - they are simply too young and parents shouldn't be forced to have to address such a topic with a 7-year old because of what the taxpayer-funded school board has on their agenda. When these kids are older I think that they shouldn't be shielded from the realities of the world, however... but in the end that should be up to the parents.