A week after students at St. Charles North High School in Illinois caused an uproar by wearing “Straight Pride” tees (adorned with kill-the-gays Biblical messages) to class, a new bout of homophobia: the school was tagged with spray-painted graffiti that said not terribly nice things about the gays.
Easily cleaned off, the vandalism is not yet being tied to the t-shirt fracas, says the school’s spokesman Jim Blaney. But might there be a glimmer of hope at St. Charles North?
Coincidentally, the school board’s Policy Committee on Thursday night discussed an amendment to its bullying policy that would forbid district employees and students from harassing or intimidating students based on their “gender-related identity or expression.” The proposed changes also prohibit harassment based on a student’s “association with a person or group with one or more of the aforementioned actual or perceived characteristics or any other distinguishing characteristics.”
Blaney said the changes would have been discussed regardless of the recent activities at North because the board is trying to more closely align its policies with the Illinois Association of School Boards. The committee took no action on the changes because they wanted clarification on the definition of “gender-related identity” since harassment based on a student’s “gender identity” already is included in the policy, Blaney said.
The “Straight Pride” shirts were not included in the discussion, board President Scott Nowling said. He noted, however, that the committee struggled with what a student’s “association” could mean. He said he gave the example of straight students being bullied for their participation in the Gay-Straight Alliance.
Matthew
School like this ban gay kids from wearing gay pride shirts but they allow straight kids to wear straight pride shirts? And it doesn’t even seem like they are working hard enough on finding out who wrote those homophobic graffiti. And to say the shirts and the graffiti aren’t tied together is ignorance.
Aaron
OMG WHO COULD HAVE EVER BEEN RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GRAFFITI??!1!??!1111!!1??2!1?
George
What do straight people have to be proud of?
Phil
I dunno, they birthed you didn’t they?
Blake J
Even without the biblical quote, this whole “straight pride” initiative is an attack on “queer” people.
Otherwise “straight pride” is for the fact that actual crimes like rape, murder, etcetera is disproportionately perpetrated by heterosexuals.
skzip888
There SHOULD be a genuine symbol for people who want to express their infatuation for the opposite sex, but this is not it.
Cassandra
“There SHOULD be a genuine symbol for people who want to express their infatuation for the opposite sex, but this is not it.”
Given the history of heterosexual marriage – the dollar sign seems appropriate.
Sid
The proposed policy of not harassing based on gender is good. They should adopt that. But it raises the question of which kinds of harassment they’re holding out to still allow. Could they not just make a policy against harassment in general?
Probably they already have one, and it’s already meaningless. Instead of drafting policy statements, they should commit to some actual concrete plans to do something about their problem. If they really believe there’s a problem, of course. By their actions (not their words), they don’t seem to believe that.
Daez
@Phil: Why in the hell would they be proud of that?
On a more serious note, you CAN NOT control other people’s behavior. Even laws do not control other people’s behavior. Laws simply provide a means for punishing those that have broken them. Stop obsessing about other people’s behavior and start focusing on your own. Its your reaction that “straight pride” or that graffiti that matters.