From the state that’s trying to make Harvey Milk Day an official part of the calendar comes word that sixth grader Natalie Jones was prohibited from presenting a report on the slain civil rights leader. You know, because that would mean an entire classroom would have to be subjected to the words “gay” and “homosexual”! But then a little organization called the ACLU found out about it, turned on the fan, and starting shoveling poo into it.
AP: “[Mt. Woodson Elementary School in Ramona] Principal Theresa Grace concluded last month that the subject of the girl’s project triggered a district policy requiring parents to be notified in writing before their children are exposed to lessons dealing with sex, according to [ACLU San Diego legal director David] Blair-Loy and Natalie’s mother.” So now the ACLU is threatening to sue if they don’t realize their First Amendment blunder and rectify this sitch. More: “After the principal sent letters to alert parents about the “sensitive topic,” Natalie was allowed to give her 12-page PowerPoint report during the May 8 lunch recess, but not in class, Blair-Loy said. Eight of the 13 students in her class attended, he said. In a letter to the Ramona Unified District on Wednesday, the ACLU demanded that school officials apologize to Natalie and clarify its sex education policy. It also wants the girl to be given the chance to present her biographical account of Milk’s life and death in class. ‘It’s not about sex, it’s not about sex education. It’s a presentation about a historical figure who happened to be gay,’ Blair-Loy said.”
AlanInSLC
Does this really surprise anyone?
Topher
I guess it shows you how far it is from California (trying to make Harvey Milk a holiday) to Orange County (trying to censor a student paper about Harvey Milk).
martymartymarty
Sounds like the officials at this school need more fiber in their diet …
YiYo
Sadly, This is in San Diego. We seem to be ground zero for this crap latley. However for those who don’t know- Ramona is VERY rural & “small town” so I am not suprised.
What’s sad is that San Diego has an AMAZING LGBT community. One of the largest & most popular pride celebrations on the West Coast & is STILL the only county to have had two Gay mayors serving at the same time (Mayor of Chula Vista & the interm mayor of San Diego) When Prop 8 passed we had 20,000 people march to protest it.
but every goos thing shines a little less bright every time crap like this rears it’s uply head……
paulied
Unless the girl’s presentation included details of HM’s sex life, one has to ask…WTF?!
schlukitz
The more of this sort of thing I read, the more I am beginning to think that my school tax dollars are just going to fund a hotbed of bigotry and hatred.
Is that what our schools (and our tax dollars) should be used for, I ask?
Jason in WV
Shit like that happens all the time – especially in small, rural towns.
Wisconsin Gay
Frankly, should we be surprised that people can’t differentiate homosexuality from sexual activity?
This site, and most gay blogs, continually post eye candy where we make sexual comments like salivating dogs.
Pride parades have people flaunting sex, not sexuality.
Do straight people get to flaunt their sexuality and their sex? Yeah, they do. Should we stoop to that level on an equality principle only to hurt our movement for equality?
Lex
@Wisconsin Gay: Thank you.
Bri
@Wisconsin Gay:
+1
gerry
@Wisconsin Gay: Oh Please. SO we’re supposed to be neutered little caracatures ala Will in Will and Grace in order to be accepted? Bull.
Wisconsin Gay
@Gerry:
I didn’t say that. But we are paralleling Pride Parades (arguably, our most outward and powerful public statement) wet t-shirt contests and Mardi Gras, things that make most sensible people cringe with their outright objectification of the body and over-sexualization.
TANK
Like it or not, homosexuality does have something to do with the act itself. Hate the sin love the sinner proves that once again the radical right and the radical left share something in common.
The sexual acts are the satisfaction conditions of homosexual sexual desires. To say that homosexual sexual desires (which have satisfaction conditions whether satisfied or not) are not a part of homosexuality is a bit ridiculous, and should be ignored.
So, being gay does have something to do with sex, and gay civil rights is about being able to marry the person you love and not being fired for who you’re sexually attracted to, etc.
Now that can be true independently of this school principal’s choice being all wrong, and completely bigoted.
sdterp
Actually the act of sex has nothing more to do with homosexuality than it does heterosexuality. It simply states desire or attraction to ones own sex or ones opposite sex, respectively. By this logic, a presentation could not be done on anyone because of the implied nature of their orientation. Sexual desire is part of being human but I have to disagree with you when you make such a claim. All people (well nearly all) have sexual desires, but that doesn’t make a report on Jefferson a report on sexuality (unless perhaps you’re report is focusing on his infidelities). You’ve allowed yourself to be sucked into the rhetoric of the far right.
sdterp
@Topher: As for the comment about Orange county, they hardly represent CA at large. Orange County is very conservative.
Alec
@sdterp:
Except that Harvey Milk was a gay rights activist. It would be a bit disingenuous to omit that fact. I’m not saying it would be equivalent to sex ed, but on some level, sexuality is going to be part of the discussion. Age appropriate, of course.
TANK
Actually the act of sex has nothing more to do with homosexuality than it does heterosexuality.
Actually, they both have something to do with sex.
It simply states desire or attraction to ones own sex or ones opposite sex, respectively.
What does that desire amount to? It’s intentional state, to use a word you’ve never heard nor understand before. And intentional states represent things, or are about things (aboutness of thought), and have satisfaction conditions. And the satisfaction conditions of homosexual sexual desires are homosexual sexual acts.
By this logic, a presentation could not be done on anyone because of the implied nature of their orientation.
No…
Sexual desire is part of being human but I have to disagree with you when you make such a claim. All people (well nearly all) have sexual desires, but that doesn’t make a report on Jefferson a report on sexuality (unless perhaps you’re report is focusing on his infidelities).
But harvey milk was a gay rights activist, and gay rights do involve gay sex if they involve the orientation at all…because the orientation involves gay sex, just like sexual orientation in general involves sexual activity on the level of satisfaction conditions.
You’ve allowed yourself to be sucked into the rhetoric of the far right.
The rhetoric of the far right is “hate the sin, love the sinner,” driving a wedge between the activity and the person. I say that the orientation is a part of the person, and no such wedge can actually be inserted without splitting the baby, as it were.
TANK
Take the catholics, for example. Catholicism preaches that there’s nothing wrong with being gay just so long as you never act on it, because it is the act that determines the sin, not the orientation. But the orientation involves the act, inextricably, though no one need ever engage in same sex sex who is also gay…because the orientation determines the satisfaction conditions of the desires it is constituted.
schlukitz
Being Gay Has Nothing to Do With Sex.
Yep yep.
Just like being a Christian has nothing to do with Jesus!
Say what?
Phoenix (Who's Mocking Your Ignorant Abrahamic Belief System)
Pride Parades and Pride Week came from the Civil Rights movement. I don’t care if you show up in a three-piece suit or a rainbow lamé thong…so long as you are marching along with a “Equal Rights Now” protest sign in your hands. Pride has turned into a carnival, which is okay, but it needs to be a carnival of civil rights activism.
p.s. If Prop H(8) isn’t overturned, we should riot like it’s Stonewall or White Night. Seriously, it’s time to stop being civilized. It’s time to stop being Martin Luther King, and now it’s time to go Malcolm X on these assholes.
Brooke
Are you all skimming the article, or did you just not pick up on the fact that 8 out of 13 kids voluntarily missed lunch recess–the most enjoyable part of a kid’s day–to watch her presentation?
Even though the adults at this elementary school have decided to take a step in the wrong direction, the kids sure haven’t.
jordan_k
Is being gay defined by whom we have sex with? Geeze I hope not! In that case, for the last 4 months I haven’t been gay.
We’ve tended to buy into that definition because it’s the best way for homophones to demonize our community. Much the same way having sex with a woman turns my stomach, the idea that being gay is all about the act of sex is constructed to disgust people.
I put it to you like this. Being gay isn’t about who you have sex with, being gay is about who you’re attracted to, there is an element of desire and love. Who you’re attracted to is very different from defining it as who you have sex with.
I would kiss a man and know I was gay with him, neither of us would have to be undressed.
I have to also take issue with Wisconsin Gay who seems to suggest we’ve bought this association on ourselves.
I don’t know if you’ve flicked through too many sports magazines lately but they’re generally filled with naked or near naked women. So then are all men who play sports sex obsessed with women? Well maybe. You see my point though.
I came on this site to chat, not to look at images, and yet the images are there. Am I defined by them because I’m here?
nathan aaron
Wisconsin Gay, I COMPLETELY agree with you!!!