A Message to Our Kids

14 March 2008, 4:59 pm No Comments

Rants: A Message to Our Kids

This is another post by Stephanie, a long-time reader who resides in Columbia Heights, works as a teacher and should definitely keep writing for us.

Some laughed, some put their fingers in their ears and some listened with respectful curiosity. As I sat and watched my students listen to the volunteers who do a weekly health class at my middle school discuss homosexuality, I sat in the back somewhat anxiously and somewhat annoyed, both at my students and at the presenters. I myself have tried numerous times to talk to my kids about accepting and understanding homosexuality, and I felt empathy for the volunteers as they tried to talk through the giggling and as they stumbled for answers to difficult questions like, “Well, isn’t it a sin?” On the other hand, I couldn’t help but become more and more annoyed as the lesson went along without one simple point ever being made: It is normal to be gay.

After spending seven months as a middle school teacher in a school where many students come from zealously religious backgrounds, I have learned one huge social lesson: Getting people not to use gay as an insult (at least in your classroom) is useless if you can’t get people to understand that being gay is normal.

The lesson I listened to (which was to a class of all boys) went something like this: the students were asked to imagine what it would be like to be a young gay boy living in a straight world; they were given the definitions of gay terms; they were shown pictures of random celebrities and asked to decide from their appearance whether or not they were gay; and finally, they listened to the end of the story, in which the young gay boy ends up hating himself, and then asked to answer the question, “How could the boy have prevented this ending?”

Here were the highlights: one boy asking, “Aren’t all girls gay since they like boys?”; the unanimous agreement that Xena Princess Warrior is either a lesbian or a transsexual (“C’mon, look at that bone structure!”); an explanation that “when you call a person ‘faggot’ you are basically saying, ‘Because you’re gay, I want to burn you.’”

Here were some of my thoughts: God, I hate the word lesbian; it sounds so much like alien. I agree, look at that bone structure; furthermore, look at that sword. Are they really showing pictures of men in heavy eye shadow and matching tutus to make a point that you can’t use stereotypes to decide if a person is gay? Geez louise – is that really what you’re saying?

My last thought, however, was about the grand finale question – asking what the little boy could have done differently so that he didn’t end up hating himself. Nothing. No, he couldn’t tell anybody, because the story already explained that he knew his friends and parents don’t like gay people. No, he couldn’t just accept himself, because society as he knew it didn’t accept him. No, he couldn’t just realize that he was normal, because probably no one had ever told him that he is normal.

Let’s stop beating around the bush with our kids: gay people are normal. Once that point has been made, then maybe one day we can take it one step further and tell so many young adolescents what they really need to hear: you might be gay, too, that’s okay and here is some good stuff to know if you are.

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Ben said:

Wow. Great Post.

14 March 2008 at 7:20 pm

Mexjewel said:

Might I remind you that Jesus still defines sin as lack of love (Matthew 22:36-40). Fornication and adultery are unloving because each has a victim. What is unloving about a couple in a homosexual love relationships? Neither is victim, neither is unloved. Where is the hurt? Who is the victim being sinned against? These are not rhetorical questions. No Gospel writer nor prophet covers homosexuality because it is not a sin issue. (“Homosexual” was coined about 1865, so any translation using a form of that word is a lie that needs to be emended. In 1946 it premiered in an English Bible.) If God didn’t want men to have sex with other men, He would have said “Man shall not lie with man PERIOD That whole “…as with a woman” thing condemns straight men pretending to make it with a woman.

15 March 2008 at 1:30 pm

adam isn't here said:

wouldn’t it perhaps, be more productive to teach our kids that being “normal” isn’t that great, or important? or even necessarily a something that exists?

17 March 2008 at 5:34 pm

adam isn't here said:

wouldn’t it perhaps, be more productive to teach our kids that being “normal” isn’t that great, or important? or even necessarily a something that exists?

17 March 2008 at 5:34 pm

adam isn't here said:

wouldn’t it perhaps, be more productive to teach our kids that being “normal” isn’t that great, or important? or even necessarily a something that exists?

17 March 2008 at 5:34 pm

adam isn't here said:

wouldn’t it perhaps, be more productive to teach our kids that being “normal” isn’t that great, or important? or even necessarily a something that exists?

17 March 2008 at 5:34 pm

adam isn't here said:

wouldn’t it perhaps, be more productive to teach our kids that being “normal” isn’t that great, or important? or even necessarily a something that exists?

17 March 2008 at 5:34 pm

adam isn't here said:

wouldn’t it perhaps, be more productive to teach our kids that being “normal” isn’t that great, or important? or even necessarily a something that exists?

17 March 2008 at 5:34 pm

adam isn't here said:

wouldn’t it perhaps, be more productive to teach our kids that being “normal” isn’t that great, or important? or even necessarily a something that exists?

17 March 2008 at 5:34 pm

adam isn't here said:

wouldn’t it perhaps, be more productive to teach our kids that being “normal” isn’t that great, or important? or even necessarily a something that exists?

17 March 2008 at 5:34 pm

adam isn't here said:

wouldn’t it perhaps, be more productive to teach our kids that being “normal” isn’t that great, or important? or even necessarily a something that exists?

17 March 2008 at 5:34 pm

adam isn't here said:

wouldn’t it perhaps, be more productive to teach our kids that being “normal” isn’t that great, or important? or even necessarily a something that exists?

17 March 2008 at 5:34 pm

adam isn't here said:

wouldn’t it perhaps, be more productive to teach our kids that being “normal” isn’t that great, or important? or even necessarily a something that exists?

17 March 2008 at 5:34 pm

adam isn't here said:

wouldn’t it perhaps, be more productive to teach our kids that being “normal” isn’t that great, or important? or even necessarily a something that exists?

17 March 2008 at 5:34 pm

adam isn't here said: