Wednesday, December 03, 2003

'Gay' as a bad wurd

Eugene Volokh on school behavioral intervention for talking about homosexuality:
"Marcus decided to explain to another child in his group that his mom is gay. He told the other child that gay is when a girl likes a girl. This kind of discussion is not acceptable in my room. I feel that parents should explain things of this nature to their own children in their own way."

I think, though, that to fully understand this, you need to look at the forms themselves, which the ACLU has put up here and here. It's just shocking, seeing the words there, not just in the teacher's own writing, but worst of all in the poor little boy's own (obviously prompted by the teacher). They can think whatever they please about homosexuality -- but what kind of schoolteacher and assistant principal would take this out on a seven-year-old, for heaven's sake? Utterly shameful.

Now you know how a Southern Baptist child feels in a New York City public school. Lafayette is the "Capital of Acadiana" and full of Cajuns and Creoles who have their own "cultural heritage".

The incident is a good argument against government schools but doesn't prove much else.

America's government schools are much more likely to preach against and punish Christian children or conservative children than the children of homosexuals. Banning religious expression by children, teaching earth worship, promoting left-wing political letter writing by children, teaching left-wing economics goes on every day in schools throughout the US without causing much negative reaction.

Why is all of that worse than this?