Parents and press can’t view school gay forum

I mentioned earlier this month that Newton North High School was going to host a “Transgender Bisexual Gay & Lesbian Awareness Day”. I recently read Article 8’s take on the event. Apparently, some parents and a reporter got kicked out “for the safety of the students”, when all they wanted to do was record what the childen were being exposed to. And of course, it’s not clear that the parents got much of an indication of the what the event was about ahead of time.

Feel free to comment, discuss, or ignore.

12 thoughts on “Parents and press can’t view school gay forum

  1. Look, this event was put on by students for students. Like any student group, they had access to some state funding — big deal. I think it’s awesome that these kids took the initiative to put on a presentation about something that mattered to them. Further, it looks like nobody was forced to go.

    I trust your sources about as much as I trust that helpful life message found at the end of almost every bastardized Asian dinner.

    This isn’t a movement. This isn’t an agenda. This is a bunch of students who think there’s a real problem in their schools today. What’s more, this material wasn’t being displayed to children, but young adults whose minds should be mature enough to make their own decisions. Newton is a wealthy city, and their teachers are top notch. I think you’ll find the students there adequately sophisticated to avoid undue influence.

  2. I can see that the school would be worried about some fanatic beating up the presenters, and therefore not want it videotaped. However, the fact that they did not offer the parents a videotape with the faces of presenters obscured suggests that they were primarily trying to stop publicity, not stopping the videotape as they claimed.

    What bothers me about the content of the forum is that they appeared in places to use hedonism as a reason to support homosexuality. For example:

    An adult male school counselor who described at length how he “came out” as a homosexual by going to Taiwan and having affairs with males there. He stressed how important it is to feel free to come out if you feel different. “It’s just where your hormones lead you to,” he said. He asked for a show of hands of kids who’ve ever felt “different.” “You may not admit it to yourself,” he told the kids. “But unless you do something about it, it just hangs and rots inside of you…For me, coming out was an extremely hard process.” He added, “I want to reach kids at 12-13 years old. I want to be supportive.”

    A track coach and counselor who talked about how his brother who was 10 years older was a role model to him. The brother came out as a homosexual in high school, so he also came out in high school. “Being gay is just one part of my life,” he added. Then he described how he fell in love with his sister’s husband.

    Of course, Article Eight may have quoted the presenters out of context.

    There are many times when civilized people need to restrain emotions for long-term benefits. For example, society encourages monogamy to help parents focus on their children instead of flirting. The gay forum argues that if you have an emotion (such as homosexuality), you should follow it. This idea, if applied in other contexts, could be much more harmful than homosexuality. For example, drug use, unprotected sex, or extramarital affairs.

    -wjs

  3. I think it’s awesome that these kids took the initiative to put on a presentation about something that mattered to them.

    Sure, but then why couldn’t the parents or the press watch it as well?

    Further, it looks like nobody was forced to go.

    Perhaps technically, but it seems likely to me that there were probably students who didn’t want to go but were afraid to ask since they would probably be called “intolerant”.

    I trust your sources about as much as I trust that helpful life message found at the end of almost every bastardized Asian dinner.

    Well, Article 8’s take on the matter is certainly biased, but they linked to newspaper articles and such.

    This is a bunch of students who think there’s a real problem in their schools today.

    And what about the parents who think that there’s a real problem in our schools today?

    young adults whose minds should be mature enough to make their own decisions

    I wish I had your confidence.

  4. but it seems likely to me that there were probably students who didn’t want to go but were afraid to ask

    Haha, which is analogous to students who might not want to put up with prayer in their public school classrooms (and that is where people like you want to go). How does your own medicine taste?

  5. Sure, but then why couldn’t the parents or the press watch it as well?
    Oh, they were all welcome to watch, as I understood it. The principal made a decision not to make a public circus out of their students by having a videotape of them paraded before the media. It was a controversial decision, but to suggest that this decision was done for any other reason than to protect these students (and yes, openly gay people need some measure of protection even in Massachusetts) smacks of Conservatism on the wrong side of the aisle.

    I wish I had your confidence.

    Funny. I wish you had my lack of confidence. ;-)

    I wish I could stick my mind into the backbone of the universe and channel the power of an absolute certainty that transcends time and space.

  6. Well, I’m not really in favor of organized prayer in a public classroom, although I have no problem with “a moment of silence”, which we had even in my old high school. Students should be given the opportunity to pray if they want to, and I don’t think that having a moment of silence is on the same level as having a school-wide assembly.

    I’m not aware of any recent organized prayer activity that occured during class time at a public school, altough there are certainly extracurricular activities. (And I don’t really have *that* much of a problem with the existence of the group doing their extracurricular activities. I don’t like it and wouldn’t want my kids going to it, but I agree they have the right to be there.)

  7. *sigh* I said I wasn’t going to comment on these anymore, but you have made a technical error. This was an “Awareness” day, not an “Appreciation” day.

  8. Students weren’t “forced” to attend anymore than they are “forced” to pretend they’re praying.

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