Quietly seething
Jul. 31st, 2003 09:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kitanziI live and work in the South now. I'm a Damn Yankee to my coworkers, though they are polite about it. I know perfectly well that my lifestyle, were I dumb enough to talk about it at work, would label me a freak and a deviant.
Right. So, I'm sitting here quietly sick and furious at myself after the discussion that was underway when I came in. NYC has opened a high school for GLBT students. The consensus in this department, with NOT ONE DISSENTING VOICE, is apparently that not only is this ridiculous, but "those people" should take the consequences of their choice of sexuality, and having children exposed to homosexuals will only corrupt them and cause them to be homosexual. Further (and coming from a half dozen black women, this seems the cream of it to me), "People should live with the laws as they are and not try to get new ones made to give them any more rights." They consider themselves very progressive for allowing "those people" to do what they want in their own homes, as long as they don't have kids or in any way affect the upbringing of any kids, since everyone knows that's what makes kids gay, and that's a terrible thing to any right thinking Christian.
I'm not making any of this up, and I don't know if I'm angrier at them, or at myself for sitting here and shutting up. Mostly I feel sick. I genuinely think that if I made the comments I made above, it would start a shitstorm that would end in me apologizing for everything I said (that I believed, and that would make me more sick than just not talking), or being fired for making trouble and being "racist".
I like these people, though I was considering just yesterday how none of them really feel like friends. Some of this was coming from the one person here that I seriously respect. I knew I didn't fit here - I had not had my face slammed into it quite so hard before, though.
Right. So, I'm sitting here quietly sick and furious at myself after the discussion that was underway when I came in. NYC has opened a high school for GLBT students. The consensus in this department, with NOT ONE DISSENTING VOICE, is apparently that not only is this ridiculous, but "those people" should take the consequences of their choice of sexuality, and having children exposed to homosexuals will only corrupt them and cause them to be homosexual. Further (and coming from a half dozen black women, this seems the cream of it to me), "People should live with the laws as they are and not try to get new ones made to give them any more rights." They consider themselves very progressive for allowing "those people" to do what they want in their own homes, as long as they don't have kids or in any way affect the upbringing of any kids, since everyone knows that's what makes kids gay, and that's a terrible thing to any right thinking Christian.
I'm not making any of this up, and I don't know if I'm angrier at them, or at myself for sitting here and shutting up. Mostly I feel sick. I genuinely think that if I made the comments I made above, it would start a shitstorm that would end in me apologizing for everything I said (that I believed, and that would make me more sick than just not talking), or being fired for making trouble and being "racist".
I like these people, though I was considering just yesterday how none of them really feel like friends. Some of this was coming from the one person here that I seriously respect. I knew I didn't fit here - I had not had my face slammed into it quite so hard before, though.
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ARgh!
Date: 2003-08-01 12:46 am (UTC)As someone who has decided that for all practical purposes she is "straight - but easily bent" (as my roomate used to say) I would be thrilled if my gay friends could legally marry and I can't see how it would hurt anyone. Ironically one of the things this religious guy was saying was how gay marriage would weaken us as a society because it would weaken family values and promote promiscuity!! All I could think was "ok, so if you happen to want to have sex with someone of the same gender it will somehow weaken family values if you want to do it permanently and under the same type of legal and social public comitment that marriage brings in our society?" sigh...
My initial reaction to reading in your post about the NY school was "cool!". The seperate but equal argument is compelling though. What makes it reasonable to have a seperate "high school of performing arts" but not a LGBT school? I guess the prejudice associated with the latter? Ok - enough rambling mew - go back to bed!
Re: ARgh!
Date: 2003-08-01 09:45 am (UTC)As far as the school goes, my immediate gut reaction was that it was a bad idea for a number of reasons, including that students would automatically be outed just by attending. I don't know how they're setting this up - is this something where the students get to elect to go? Or will faculty at other schools try to dump any student they think is gay (and therefore, of course, trouble) over there? Still, a possible precedent would be a number of single sex schools. They're rarer now, but i'm given to understand that a lot of women only colleges, for instance, turned out a lot of strong, intelligent women who credited them for that. You can probably name me some - were the "seven sisters" in MA for women only? I can't recall. They are less common now - maybe the need is less now. I don't really know that that's a valid parallel, but it's the closest I can think of. My gut reaction is still that it's a bad idea, though. *shrug*