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Should the Classroom be a Battleground Over Sexual Orientation?
I live relatively close to a community that just made national headlines thanks to a group of high school kids who reportedly decided to protest against gays in response to their high school’s “Day of Silence” — an event that’s supposed to raise awareness about LGBT bullying. I am not at all surprised at the situation, including the actions of both the students and the administration (at least as it was reported in Huffington Post.)
This is an inherently contentious issue — particularly, between liberals promoting the LGBT agenda and social conservatives — but I’m falling back on my previous experience in education. To put it bluntly, this battle is turning teens into pawns in an adult game of chess, and, unfortunately, those kids have no idea what is happening to them. While the liberals claim that they are trying to make schools safer for kids who are different, the bottom line is that they are doing them a disservice. The fact remains that they are trying to force radical change in societal norms and mores – something that we’ve seen before in history, after the abolition of slavery. The difference now is that instead of attempting to force acceptance of people who simply have a different skin color, they are trying to force acceptance of a behavior.
It doesn’t matter that anyone considers this activity a sin. The context here is our schools, the intended audience is immature teens, and the behavior in question is just different. That is more than enough to cause social problems and bullying. Even worse, all of the adults concerned—on both sides of the argument—seem to be ignoring a key fact: While we haven’t reached the point where we can specifically say exactly what causes homosexuality, one thing that the mental health experts agree on is that sexual orientation can be fluid. From Psychiatry.org:
Some people believe that sexual orientation is innate and fixed; however, sexual orientation develops across a person’s lifetime. Individuals maybe become aware at different points in their lives that they are heterosexual, gay, lesbian, or bisexual.
While there is general agreement on that concept in the field of modern psychiatry, there are at least a few arguments about when children develop sexual identities. Those arguments mean that even teens in high school may not be considered mature enough to fully understand their own sexual identities. Most experts seem to agree that kids have a clue before puberty, however they may engage in denial or experimentation well beyond their high school years. So, what is this “Day of Silence” really about?
Dr. Susan Berry’s article at Breitbart likened the LGBT movement to a cult — at least in some respects — and she may not be far off. This intense desire to have teens pigeonhole themselves and force everyone to validate everyone else’s lifestyle is dangerous. Negating the opinions of teens that are uncomfortable with the concept of homosexuality results in the “anti-gay” protests seen here in Pennsylvania. While there is nothing invalid about teens thinking that they might be attracted to people of the same gender, wishing to have nothing to do with those kinds of feelings and activities is equally valid. What everyone seems to be forgetting is that these are not adults.
Teens today are arguably far less equipped to deal with adult issues like this in anywhere close to a mature manner than teens of previous decades. Child-rearing in America has changed significantly over the past 30 years, and the end result is a generation of children who expect adults to take care of them well into their 20s or even 30s. We are arguing over whether or not children can walk to a playground alone, while simultaneously getting upset about teens not managing to deal with sexual identity issues in a civil manner! It could be said there’s nothing wrong with the kids; the adults are the ones in need of mental help.
It’s time to stop putting children, including teens, in the middle of this argument. Find a middle ground, and fast. If nothing else, stick with the science that professionals seem to agree on—that human sexuality is developing continuously through a person’s life. Society as a whole doesn’t need to weigh in on who is right or wrong, provided that those involved are consenting adults. (Yes, I know that’s a rough one for many social conservatives.) Most of all, teens need to feel that they can speak freely on sexuality to adults.
Perhaps a return to what liberals might call the dark ages is needed. Instead of schools encouraging teens to be open about sexuality with each other, we need to return to rules that discourage “public displays of affection” and sex talk among students. They’ll still talk and make out, of course, but that behavior doesn’t need to be in the spotlight all the time.
The funny thing is that most of the experts also seem to agree that kids, regardless of age, tend to hide sexual experimentation from adults. Who told the adults pushing all this open sexuality in schools that it was a good idea? It’s time to call those people to task for this, and ask them why they think it’s a good idea to force what had normally been a private part of development into the public eye.
Published in Culture
Public school classrooms are the battleground for all major social issues.
The whole concept of public education is essentially designed to serve that function.
It’s unavoidable, and it has always been thus.
“The philosophy of the classroom today will be the philosophy of government tomorrow.” – Abraham Lincoln
Exactly! As long as the schools are run by the government it will be so.
I could not agree more.
Thank you.
As a society, we have no right to promote sexual activity of any kind in our public schools.
School needs to become a desexualized environment for kids.
I stumbled upon an interesting bit of Horace Mann trivia years ago. He cautioned communities to avoid religion of all kinds in schools–prayers, everything–because he said the religious observance in schools would drive parents of different religions out of the public schools. He said the diversity was important. I agree with this, and I would apply it to the sexualization issue. The schools waltz dangerously close to promoting sexual activity in myriad ways. This LGBT education agenda is the last straw for many parents. I would tell parents to home-school their kids if they want to maintain any influence over them.
As a society, we have no business bringing up the subject of sexual activity in schools. That is the province of the family. So someone will say, “Some kids don’t have a family.” To which I would say, Then those kids need legal guardians. The school will never replace the one-on-one care and concern of a parent or legal guardian. Sex education is not the answer to that problem.
Besides, we can discuss birth control in biological fact-driven terms without encouraging or promoting sexual behavior in our kids. One of my kids attended a Catholic high school, and their health curriculum was amazing. It was informative without being suggestive. I was really impressed. Wish we would adopt it in our public schools. It was objectively presented, not subjectively. It instilled knowledge of the entire reproductive system and did so in terms of science. It appealed to the students’ intellect and reasoning, not their emotions. And isn’t that the entire purpose of education? To instill information with which the human being can control his emotions? Socrates and all that. The idea in our society in America was to replace government control with self-control, believing in the power of objective education.
We don’t need to sexualize our kids and rob them of their childhood, and we should not. It is none of our business.
No, but it will be. Especially nowadays, with the other side being so strident…
The next time I see a Rico complaining about the huge number of “gay rights” threads on the site, I’ll point out posts like this one. Other that Rev. Braestrup’s last post, I can’t think of another recent posting that could be called sympathetic, or pro-gay. This post is (no kidding) maybe the 500th SoCon thread about how the horrible LGBT agenda is after our kids.
Why are you so eager to consider teenagers as basically pre-sexual? Does that match up with your experience, or anyone you know?
Why are you so eager to focus on the 1% of gays or straights that might change over life, but the 99% who won’t or can’t are merely performing a “behavior”?
Why are you people so obsessed with gay sex? You can’t let the topic go for a single week.
Why do you have to drag the conservative movement into this fetish?
Oh, and if you want to know why some people call them the “dark ages”, ask someone who knows, like Cato, before you dismiss them as the good old days.
This is from the story from the link Liz posted:
Although the Day of Silence was observed April 17 nationally, McGuffey High School in Claysville scheduled their related activities for Wednesday, April 15 because of a planned field trip, BuzzFeed is reporting. This prompted the group of students to ask classmates to wear flannel shirts and write “anti-gay” on their hands on Thursday, April 16, in protest, according to WPXI-TV.
In addition, participants posted Bible verses on the lockers of students who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT), the news station noted. Meanwhile, some encounters between students who participated and those who didn’t even got physical, The Advocate pointed out, and snapshots of the flannel-clad group appeared on social media.
“We came into school on Thursday and found a lot of people wearing flannel and we couldn’t figure out why,” Zoe Johnson, a 16-year-old McGuffey High School who identifies as bisexual, told BuzzFeed’s David Mack. “People started getting pushed and notes were left on people’s lockers. …I got called a dyke, a faggot. They were calling us every horrible name you can think of.”
More troubling still was an alleged “lynch list,” which the group was reported to have circulated around the school, according to WPXI-TV.
So here’s the question: Do high school kids have the right to free expression in school or don’t they? I wonder whether the school would have been able to get the anti-gay protesters in trouble if they’d restricted their activities to the flannel shirts, the writing on the hands, and putting posters up in the halls rather than on specific kids’ lockers?
From the Lamda Legal Defense website (http://www.lambdalegal.org/sites/default/files/publications/downloads/fs_2015_day-of-silence-faq.pdf)
Can a school restrict student speech because it offends other students or parents?
No. So long as student expression isn’t lewd or profane, advocate violence or illegal activity and doesn’t harass others, schools can’t restrict it just because some students or parents find it offensive. “If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”10
If students aren’t even free to choose whether to be in school or not it seems silly to argue that they have the right to express opinions while in custody. Especially since the lunatics in charge of the asylum don’t have the option of kicking the boring little buggers out the door.
But if we want to maintain the illusion that schoolchildren have “Freedom of Speech” according to the guidelines cited by Lamda, then kids who want to be “anti-Gay” or “pro-White Supremacy” or “anti-Jewish” or whatever should in theory be able to do so, provided they don’t attack or directly insult other children.
My solution—because I’m a grumpy adult who finds adolescent opining tiresome— would be that kids in school should not have the right to express their opinions about anything, because they aren’t educated or experienced enough yet to have opinions worth forcing other people to listen to. (Students may, on occasion, be graciously granted the privilege of self-expression in the service of learning how to be a good citizen.)
In my school bullying would be addressed, sternly, as a breach of manners and civility, and all variants of “gender/sexuality” would be matters for expression someplace other than in school. Everybody would wear uniforms–khakis, polos and sensible shoes— that fit without revealing either undergarments or excess male, female or still-questioning flesh. No one would be allowed to wear makeup nor any item of jewelry larger than a thumbnail, so boys who want to wear sparkly eye-shadow and girls who want to deform their ears with those o-rings will have to wait for the weekend.
Harrumpf.
This wouldn’t be an issue of they weren’t trying to shove their lifestyle down our throats at every opportunity. The culture is so oversaturated with gay gay gay that some young people honestly think LGBT’s make up 25% of the population. Combine this with lawsuits targeting Christian businesses, the possibility that five unelected magistrates might redefine marriage with no input from the population, the death threats, real people losing their jobs… the assertion that this is nothing more than some SoCon obsession is willful ignorance at best.
I do not accept that the State has a right to say anything it wants to my kids.
Everything goes through me because I, and I alone, am responsible for the outcome.
Let me put it this way to you, State.
This child is either yours or it is mine. I am not sharing this responsibility.
If you will accept the responsibility for the outcome, then fine. I’m walking away. Until that day comes, I am in control of what goes into this child’s mind and body.
And I know in my heart you, State, will never accept the responsibility. You just like jerking people around.
You go where it’s fun to cause trouble, and then you walk away. You have your agenda; I have mine.
I am not going to walk away. I’m a parent forever.
The State has no right to interfere with me as a parent. None.
I do not accept that the State has a right to say anything it wants to my kids.
The first line of the article….
Pennsylvania high school has come under media scrutiny after a group of students organized an “Anti-Gay Day” in response to the nationally-observed Day of Silence.
Those were students, not the school (the State).
But also, if I have a child as a parent in a gay-parent home, would I have the right to pull my kid out of school that day?
This is my point. This parent control over what schools and everyone else say and do cuts both ways. It protects kids in gay-supportive homes as well as heterosexual-supportive homes.
The schools need to get out of the sexual activity-promoting business. They should not promote religion or marijuana or alcohol or sex. Period.
I miss when schools simply taught kids about the dangers of having sex, scared the hell out of them with nasty pictures of severe cases of STD’s, and quietly said after those lessons that if they must, use a condom. Also, they’d send things home to the parents to be signed and returned, that basically said “it’s up to the parents to determine what moral lessons kids must learn about sex. School just teaches the biology.”
Those were students, not the school (the State).
But also, if I have a child as a parent in a gay-parent home, would I have the right to pull my kid out of school that day?
This is my point. This parent control over what schools and everyone else say and do cuts both ways. It protects kids in gay-supportive homes as well as heterosexual-supportive homes.
The schools need to get out of the sexual activity-promoting business. They should not promote religion or marijuana or alcohol or sex. Period…..
My point is… That both are student led… Not state led…
April 17, 2015 is the National Day of Silence, a student-led action sponsored by Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network’s (GLSEN) in which thousands of students around the country will remain silent for all or part of the school day to call attention to the harassment and discrimination faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth.
I don’t have a problem with that, by the way. That is a very concrete idea. I like it.
However, I’d love to see the sensitivity-training teaching materials that go with it. I might have a problem with those.
Exactly. Me too.
Exactly. Me too.
Which wouldn’t affect what’s happened in regards to the subject of this thread… Since both were student led actions.,
Only one problem with laying this on the students. In this school, the anti-gay protest was student-led. The Day of Silence was school-sanctioned, at least that’s the word on the ground. The school isn’t talking. And the fact is that while something might start as a student-led activity, most schools require that the students obtain permission to do it. In my book, that makes it a school-sanctioned activity, as soon as the school grants permission.
That’s the one my daughter attends. I don’t think there are any “rules” about makeup, but it’s funny how peer expectations pick up where rules leave off when mutual and self respect is where the rules start.
I agree.
We had a similar accountability issue in my town. For years the schools didn’t give permission but turned a blind eye when the seniors gathered on the football field for a night of raucous celebration. One year, the drunken kids set fire to the field and vandalized the school. The parents said, “But you okayed this activity.” The school said, “No, we didn’t exactly. That’s why we called the police and had the kids arrested for trespassing, among other charges.” The parents demanded and got clarification for the future.
I miss the days when schools taught reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic.
I also miss the days when parents took responsibility for their children’s behavior and reinforced that school is about textbooks, literature and learning, not politics. It’s no accident parents are forced to spend thousands of dollars on SAT/ACT prep tutors because kids aren’t learning what they need to even in the best of private and public schools.
Gary McVey
The next time I see a Rico complaining about the huge number of “gay rights” threads on the site, I’ll point out posts like this one.
Why are you people so obsessed with gay sex? You can’t let the topic go for a single week.
Why do you have to drag the conservative movement into this fetish?
I was hoping it could be about students right to free speech in school, but if you take this thread together with Jennifer’s “Beautiful and Unique” post on Catholic marriage and the 500 (?!) posts on last week’s pro-gay marriage thread, it does seem like we’ve gotten back to our obsession with sex.
But what do we expect? No matter how highbrow we pretend to be, we’re all a bunch of chimpanzees who like to talk and opine and gossip about sex.
Hence, as I mentioned on another thread, the profitable practice of putting sexy words and images front-and-center on magazine covers and the one, iron-clad rule in Hollywood being that every show on t.v. has to have a scene in a strip club.
Plus, unlike the matter of what to do about ISIS, or whether we have too much, not enough, or just the right amount of government monitoring of our e-mails and phone conversations, sex is the one area in which we all believe ourselves to have sufficient expertise to join the fray.
Be careful what you wish for on the lack of politics in schools. Don’t forget about the piles of videos showing how little young people know about government, politics, and all the other things that happen to end up on citizenship exams. Also, don’t forget that we do let them vote without making sure they have a clue.
This is still sort of a First Amendment issue, or more precisely, yet another argument for limiting free speech of students in some cases. It just has a healthy dose of something else – responsibility and accountability of the adults that run the schools. It’s become too easy for school administrators to hide behind students and zero tolerance policies when things go desperately wrong in our schools.
Public schools are irremediably corrupt.
This is just another example for my contention that no matter if you are Right, Left, Centrist, or Libertarian; Religious or Non-religious; Straight, Gay, or Confused; Red, Yellow, Black, White, Brown, Rainbow. No matter what, get your kids out of the government schools before they ruin their lives with either a lousy education, some act of bureaucratic imbecility, or more likely both.
Civics courses can be historical and factual, not political.
Gary, the article about this topic was on Huffington Post, not exactly a bastion of socially conservative thought. And, the entire event, whatever you think of it, arose out of a protest conceived by gay rights groups to draw attention to their own alleged plight. This isn’t a fetish of the right wing. Gay rights advocates regularly force discussion of such topics at all levels of society. You may think the discussions are worth having, but you need to recognize that most social conservatives would prefer the subject of transgender identity never came up.
Is it really so unreasonable for gay kids to say, in effect, “gee, we really wish y’all would stop beating the shit out of us?”
No! But why are teachers expected to step in to do the job of the parents? American children continue to become less and less competitive if teachers are distracted from teaching.
I would have been grounded for a year for bullying and using the nasty f- and n- words that are so commonly tossed around now. Heck, I was unpleasantly chastised for saying “shut up” to my little brother as a child.
Well god bless your parents. But the fact is the “f” word has been a standard taunt for decades at least. And an awful lot of gay kids, or just kids thought to be gay, have gotten a lot worse. That’s what this is about. Unavoidably, somebody’s got to maintain some discipline in schools and teachers and administrators, being the adults present, have to take a lot of the responsibility for that. This movement is devoted to nothing more than getting them to notice the amount of abuse gay kids were taking and getting them to step in. And it grew out of an environment in a lot of schools in which the adults just accepted the mistreatment of gay kids as the natural order of things. It needed to change.