Harvey Milk High School - New York City

First, I want to say kudos to those that created this school. I think this is great and wish you the best of luck!

For those of you that do not know, New York City opened the first high school for gays and lesbians. Of course, this met with much hostility from the straight community. This school is not a school to teach kids to be gay, but to allow gay and lesbian youth a place to learn without students beating on them for who they are. Gay bashing in schools is a major problem with more and more of our youth being more open about their homosexuality. These kids are being beaten and harassed and ultimately, dropping out of school for fear of their lives. I think that more schools like this need to be opened. I wish when I was growing up that there was a school like this. I wouldn't have had to live in fear of the other kids finding out about me.

Now, my problem. I was listening to Howard Stern on the radio, for those of you who do not know, he is a popular "shock jock" in the States. They were interviewing protesters outside the school asking them why they hate gays. They spouted all the usual twisted religious garbage, but not one of them could say exactly why gays are going to hell. Every one said "it says so in the bible" and Howard asks them "well, what page is that on?" Surprising, not one could give the exact page, or even a rough idea of where to find it. I like Howard, but today he made major points with me for putting these people in their places. He stood up to these people stating that he is very much into supporting gays. And he made every one of the people listening see how mornic these people are. And surprise surprise, not one of the people there had anything other than a southern redneck accent.

What made me even sicker though, was they interviewed an 8 year old boy who was walking around with a picket sign saying "Gays are going to burn in hell." They asked him what he thought about gays and he replied "they are going to hell because they are spitting in God's face." When asked what was wrong with gays he said "it's nasty." "Why is it nasty?" "Just because," he said. This made me nauseous. This kid didn't even have the option to make up his own mind, his parents taught him what to say and what to think and he just spouted back what they told him. Very nice. And Howard and his co-hosts said it best when they said that his parents should be reported for child abuse because that is beyond wrong! Think about it, what 8 year old kid would know "because they spit in God's face?" None. Because the parents drummed this into his head.

America, you need to wake up. We are here, we are not going anywhere. Our numbers are growing every day because more and more of us are deciding that we are not hiding in the closet or under the beds or anywhere else for that matter because we are here, we are proud and what exactly are we doing that concerns you? This I would like to know. I want to know who you think you are to tell me who I am. I have said this before, I was born, raised and baptized Roman Catholic. I spent my entire life listening to this prejudice against gays. Once I woke up and decided that I just cannot take it anymore, I decided to basically renounce my religion. I am not saying that I do not believe in God. I just do not believe in a religion that talks about "love love love" on Sunday and on Monday they are holding picket signs spouting hate outside a gay man's funeral who was killed (referring to the Matthew Sheppard funeral).

And I still find it amazing that the church that is so hell bent on condemning gays, but yet they molest alter boys??? Hmmm, can someone provide me with the passage that says "a man laying down with another man is a sin, however, if you are a man of the cloth, it is ok to have sex with the altar boys, as long as you read them bible passages telling them how homosexuality is wrong."

The Flip Side

A school for gay people only. Ok yeah. Sounds fab… or does it? Wasn’t the removal of the white/black apartheid celebrated in America by the majority of those with morals? Throughout much of the 20th century, Britain sent people with impairments to special schools, away from their natural peers. Only now are we starting a moral drive towards inclusion… a principle whereby all people are treated as individuals and work together in schools with differences been seen as a naturally occurring part of society.

How do straight people overcome their issues with gay people? Is it by hiding gay people from their view? How have we come this far, to a time where it’s nearly ok to be gay? It’s through those in the past who have stuck their neck out and said ‘yeah, I’m gay and I’m not going away’; those who have faced the crowd, lived through the discrimination and prejudice and still maintained their dignity. We have worked to become a part of society, to be recognised as equals and peers, with the same desires and objectives in life. In light of this, I feel that a separate school is a step backward.

How far do you take the concept? If gay people hold hands in the street the likelihood is that sooner or later, somebody will object and shout insults to them, or even use violence against them. Should we therefore have gay only streets? Taken to this extreme, it is obvious that the concept of gay only schools works to build a segregated society and emphasises the ‘us and them’ ethos.

Furthermore, by tackling bullying in schools by moving to a gay only school, we do not tackle the root cause of the problem, we merely remove the symptoms. The symptoms are the bullying that occurs in schools, but the root cause is the underlying misunderstanding of gay people and learned attitudes by some straight people. If we take the gay person out of a school, this does not change the attitude of the bully. In a way it could even be argued that by not tackling the problem and removing the gay person from main stream school, that we condone the negative attitudes. We’re saying ‘ah yes he’s getting bullied, it is only natural… but it’s ok because we’ve opened a school where he can be out of everybody’s way.’

I have no doubt that the founders of the school have only the best intentions and sympathies for gay people and the difficulties they face. However, I also think that the concept of gay only schools or gay only anything is misguided, and only serves to promote barriers to unity in society, rather than to fight to remove them.

Let's Flip It Back

Uh oh, here we go. Adam and I have our first lover's tiff! LOL Kidding people! Anyway, the sole basis of the school is not to leparize gays and separate them from the rest of society, but to allow those kids that are being brutally beaten by homophobic teens a place to get an education. No gay kid is being forced to go to this school. The sole purpose is allow those kids that have dropped out of school a place to go and feel safe. I know personally many gays that did not finish school because of the amount of torture they went through because of their being gay. Yes, every kid gets picked on, every school has kids that are beaten up, me being one of them. But, we are talking about kids that are being tied up in locker rooms, beaten within an inch of their lives on a daily basis. Kids that are hit with rocks and bottles and so on. Yes, this is extreme, but it is happening. I do not know how gay teens are accepted in other countries, but I see what goes on here. People do not want to see that these kids, in fear of "am I going to make it out alive today," drop out, end up working in low pay jobs and many of them fall into the drug scene and so on.

I am all for "stand up and be proud" and I am damned glad that there were people that stood up for my rights to get me where I am today, but not everyone is a fighter. Yes, at a gay event I will stand proud with the biggest gay flag that I can find and the biggest banner that states I am here and queer, but outside of that, in the "straight world" I am just your typical every day male (that does his nails and does facial treatments and worries about his figure LOL). There are some that are born fighters and some that are born to live in the background. And for those that are living in the background, such as myself, better be goddamned proud of those that are on the front line! Which I am.

Now that I took that off track, my whole point is that I do not see anything wrong with a school specifically for gays. Just like with everything else in our life, we aren't hurting anyone, why does anyone care? Let these kids do what they came there to do, lean and then one day better our society.