"To be or not to be..." GAY!

I know I wrote an insane amount tonight. That's what happens when I can't move from the waist up or turn my head. I'd apologize but somehow I'm not SORRY! 

NAME OF AUTHOR and TEXT 

Dennis Carlson and Gayness, Multicultural Education and Community

AUTHOR’S ARGUMENT 

Wants public schools to lay down the bricks to the path of a community that accepts diversity and multicultural aspects that would include sexual orientation and identity. That it is educators RESPONSIBILITY to make sure all voices are heard.

QUOTES

I’m not going to comment on every quote but I wanted to put a lot of quotes here that really stood out to me.

“The president of District 24 local school board in Queens declared, among other things, that the board would not "accept two people of the same sex engaged in deviant sexual practices as 'families" 

-This quite really popped out at me while I was reading. When I think of myself as an educator I have to remember that my students are probably going to come from a variety of families and for any educator to basically say that children of gay parents are not families really throws away everything that I believe an educator is. I feel like this goes back to when single mothers were not considered suitable as a family situation. Too many people say if you don’t look like my family, how can you be a family? It’s really a shame that the board of education is basically letting anyone who comes from a gay family is not a family.

“Three techniques of normalization and (hence) marginalization have been of primary importance in this regard: (I) the erasure of gayness in the curriculum, (2) the "closeting" and "witch hunting" of gay teachers, and (3) verbal and physical intimidation of gay teachers and students.”

“At the level of state educational policy, it is noteworthy that no state currently recognizes gays and lesbians as legitimate minority or cultural groups to be considered in textbook adoption or to be included in multicultural education; and a number of states explicitly prohibit teaching about homosexuality.”

- I never really noticed that there was practically no books with displays of homosexuality in the library or mention in textbooks. I wonder if kids ever really wonder why they’re aren’t any books that display blacks. When I think back to all the english assigned books, most of them were books written a long time ago, shakespeare, greek mythology. Or books that dealt with the holocaust, some slavery. Usually tragic events in a world course. I do remember the controversy of a Massachusetts librarian in fear of losing her job for reading “And Tango Makes Three”, a book about two male penguins raising a chick. She was warned for reading a book that suggested alternative living situations. I do not see why it is so wrong to show other kids other living situations since most kids come from different family situations for many many reasons. Again, I feel like this relates to the times when white families wouldn’t allow their children to play with black children. Now its, “Oh you can’t play there, his parents are gay.” Unfortunately, it takes far too long for society to catch up and stop being a hateful homophobic bigot. Hopefully it will come around. There are good people who are helping this movement move along.

“In 1993, for example, the gay rights movement claimed a major victory in the signing into law of a Minnesota bill that makes it illegal to discriminate against lesbians and gay men in employment and housing. But what got ignored in all the celebrating was a provision in the bill that prohibits teaching about homosexuality in the public schools (Kielwascer and Wolf 1993-94, 62).”

- I don’t even know what to say to this.

“Willard Waller, in his 1932 classic The Sociology of Teaching, argued that homosexuals should not be allowed to teach for several reasons. First, employing a disease metaphor, he argued that homosexual teachers represented a danger to their students since "nothing seems more certain than that homosexuality is contagious" (Waller 1932, 147-48). Much as communist teachers were to be drummed out of 'he teaching corps because communism was "contagious." so gay teachers were to be fired because they too were understood as contagious-and in the height of the McCarthy era in the late 1940s and early 1950s, homosexuality and communism were closely linked as threats to the "American way of life. Second, homosexual teachers were presumed to be lecherous and develop "ridiculous crushes" on students. Waller observed: "the homosexual teacher develops an indelicate soppiness in his relations with his [sic] favorites ... and makes minor tragedies of little incidents when the recipient of his attentions shows himself indifferent." 

- So what do about this, considering if homosexuals can’t teach because they’re perverts. What do we do with the heterosexual perverts that also prey on young students? hmm, looks like no one is allowed to teach!

“The official policy in most school districts is in fact identical to that of the U.S. military, namely: "Don't ask, don't tell." Interestingly, while this policy is being challenged by gays in the military, it has not been forcefully challenged by gay teachers in public schools yet, perhaps because they feel (probably rightly so) they could not win if they pushed their case.”

“We need to start holding the school accountable for failing to meet the needs of these youth.”

"They [the support group members] not only want to be gay but expect to be accepted by society as gay and lesbian. They do not know if they can achieve such a cultural life-way, but they are trying very hard to find out" (xiv).”

“First, and at the most basic level, multicultural education is linked to the protection and extension of certain democratic "virtues," including the protection of minority rights and individual freedoms, equity, respect for difference, and (in its fullest form) the development of interlocking webs of caring, supportive relations among individuals. “

There’s that favorite word... EQUITY.

“Within this world view, "real men" are separated from all women and from gay men. This is the reason why it so important for many straight men to "see" gay men as the Other, and this has been accomplished by understanding gay men as less than men, as feminized men, and as sissies.” 

“Straight women, because they have developed their own critique of patriarchy and because they can relate to marginalization, have generally been most supportive of the gay movement”

-I always wondered if it was true, that women were more likely to be okay with gay people than men were. And if that was true, what the why behind the reasoning was. I am guessing that the quote I posted right before this one is the reasoning. I find it absurd but I can see a male’s logic falling in those lines, as ridiculous as it is.

“but we have a responsibility as public educators in a democratic society to engage them in a dialogue in which all voices get heard or represented and ill which gay students and teachers feel free to "come out" and find their own voices.”

-Here Carlson is reiterating his belief of educators responsibility in including gay students to be heard in a diverse democratic society.

QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/POINTS TO SHARE

Obviously this topic is kind of a hot topic to talk about. I’m glad that I live in the times where in college at least, talking about homosexuality is a little more acceptable. Unfortunately, it has not yet trickled down the school systems. Until everyone realizes oh my gosh that gay people are people too, they will be treated like second class citizens who lack rights. Gay people will continue to live in a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell world which by the way also means Don’t Display. So while heterosexuals are enjoying their freedom to show public displays of affection the gays will have to keep theirs in the closet. I don’t know what the world is so afraid of, are they afraid of what they’d find?