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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Ok. Harvey Milk is a gay friendly high school in New York. It's been around for a while. Chicago is now considering opening a gay friendly high school.
The reason for the schools is, of course, student safety. Gay students routinely miss more school than others due to safety threats. Students volunteer to attend the school and anyone meeting the entrance criteria is welcome; you don't have to be gay.
Is this the way to go in the long run?
Is this necessary as a stop gap until all high schools are made safe for gays?
Should these schools ever have been started?
For the sake of argument, I have these reasons why gay friendly high schools are a bad idea;
1. It's too much of a 'ready solution' for schools that can't control the gay hate on their campuses.
2. Separate but equal has been tried in the US South, to segregate the races. It was declared illegal, because 'separate' and 'equal' seem to be diametrically opposed.
3. It makes kids attending the school an easy target for hate groups.
4. After high school these kids will be thrown out into the same cruel world. Years of a safe environment ends abruptly. They will have less experience in dealing with a non-friendly gay world and might have difficulties adjusting.
5. Advanced placement and other special education resources, as well as clubs, sports, and other extracurricular activities are not as available to the special schools as they are to the regular schools due to the smaller enrollment.
6. It reinforces the popular prejudice that gay students are different from every one else, and require special handling.
Macky
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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The reason for the schools is, of course, student safety. Gay students routinely miss more school than others due to safety threats. Students volunteer to attend the school and anyone meeting the entrance criteria is welcome; you don't have to be gay.
BL: Depends on how schools enforce policies that ensure the safety of LGBT kids. By and large, in school districts all over the United States, the school systems have failed miserably to protect the LGBT and other students at risk for being bullied.
Is this the way to go in the long run?
BL: Speaking as the father of a Gay son, I'd strongly disagree. If this country or any country is going to end hatred and bullying of LGBT students, the student bodies must be inclusive.
Is this necessary as a stop gap until all high schools are made safe for gays?
BL: If this is a stop gap measure, then the Superintendent or Chancellor needs to be removed and somebody with nerve and honest foresight should be placed in that position. This is NOT a good idea.
Should these schools ever have been started?
BL: At the time, maybe. Now? NO!
For the sake of argument, I have these reasons why gay friendly high schools are a bad idea;
1. It's too much of a 'ready solution' for schools that can't control the gay hate on their campuses.
BL: It is NOT just an LGBT issue. It is a bullying issue and the schools are not 100% culpable. There is little or no accountability by the parents and the churches which is where a great deal of this stems from.
2. Separate but equal has been tried in the US South, to segregate the races. It was declared illegal, because 'separate' and 'equal' seem to be diametrically opposed.
BL: This is NOT a Civil Rights issue. It is way past that. Not fair to compare as these are apples & oranges.
3. It makes kids attending the school an easy target for hate groups.
BL: That would happen no matter what until the community was held accountable and appropriate action was taken.
4. After high school these kids will be thrown out into the same cruel world. Years of a safe environment ends abruptly. They will have less experience in dealing with a non-friendly gay world and might have difficulties adjusting.
BL: Colleges are NOT as tolerant as some would suspect given the so-called liberal slant people ascribe to academia. As far as the Non-friendly-Gay world? Greatly depends on the individuals and the circumstances and where you are in some cases.
5. Advanced placement and other special education resources, as well as clubs, sports, and other extracurricular activities are not as available to the special schools as they are to the regular schools due to the smaller enrollment.
BL: That is a pain in the ass budget problem regardless of school. Especially these days.
6. It reinforces the popular prejudice that gay students are different from every one else, and require special handling.
BL: Again, that depends on the communities. Bottom line is that if you want ALL people to play nice in the sandbox together... The key is that they have to be in the same bloody sandbox to learn that lesson.
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Macky wrote:
> Ok. Harvey Milk is a gay friendly high school in New York. It's been around for a while. Chicago is now considering opening a gay friendly high school.
> The reason for the schools is, of course, student safety. Gay students routinely miss more school than others due to safety threats. Students volunteer to attend the school and anyone meeting the entrance criteria is welcome; you don't have to be gay.
This is a half arsed idea. It's like educating cripples in a special school away from the eyes of the real world. It's repugnant and deeply offensive to all sectors of society. It provides another ghetto.
> Is this the way to go in the long run?
No. It passes the duck test for being wrong. It looks wrong, feels wrong, sounds wrong and gives out all the wrong messages. Ergo it is wrong.
> Is this necessary as a stop gap until all high schools are made safe for gays?
No. It was not ever necessary and is not necessary today. What is needed is a rock solid and inclusive school administration. If a principal can't make a school safe that principal needs to be fired. And ths entire school board goes if they appoint principals who can't do the job. Discipline and safety is a major part of the job.
It seems to me that the Shepard-Byrd law can apply to a principal who stands by and watches violence, or emotional bullying, too.
> Should these schools ever have been started?
They are a namby pamby do gooder idea. LGBT kids are not a freak show. Schools like this exclude them, us, from mainstream society. How do we integrate if we are already self ghettoised in separate schools?
"Let's get the queer kids. You know, the ones that go to that queer school for queers!"
"Yes, let's petrol bomb a classroom or two! Fry a Fag Today!"
[Updated on: Sat, 31 October 2009 08:50]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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"This is NOT a Civil Rights issue. It is way past that. Not fair to compare as these are apples & oranges."
But if you look at civil rights in its purest sense, as in when the phrase was developed as a watchword for Negro rights, isn't this situation the same?
How do you see that gay kids going to a special school as not against their civil right to attend any high school, just like everybody else?
Macky
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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