One of the best-loved of all New Yorker cartoons shows a dumpy woman on the Jersey side of the Hudson River, with the magnificent Manhattan skyline out of her reach. She’s wearing a baggy sweat-suit with the legend: DKNJ. The caption reads “Donna Karan’s Worst Nightmare.”
Over in Jersey these days, school boards and the courts are sending mixed signals on anti-gay harassment in the public schools. On the one hand, they might award some money to a young person with the moxie to sue after suffering abuse. On the other hand, they take no actions to eliminate anti-gay abuse in the public schools. On the third hand, no matter what, we are not leaving Manhattan.
Eliminating anti-gay prejudice in schools is vital to the health of the gay community and to the populace at large. Can you imagine there would be any foot-dragging if Muslim students started landing into Christian ones, jeering at them, attacking them, relentlessly, day after day? Queerty urges you to talk about this issue, with a mind towards getting the law of the land to be that although anti-gay prejudice might still exist in some quarters (such as Roman Catholic churches), in public schools there will be zero tolerance of it, because it is wrong, wrong, wrong.
