Hypocrisy and Hysteria Alert. Big Brothers-Big Sisters of America Inc. (BBBSA) finds itself at the center of a storm over its new rule requiring all 500 U.S. affiliates to allow gays and lesbians to serve as mentors to children. Funny how all the right-wing groups that argued that the Boys Scouts of America, as a private organization, had a right to order its local chapters to exclude gay men from serving as volunteers, suddenly feel justified in condemning the gay-inclusive decision of a different child-mentoring organization.
According
to the Culture and Family Institute:
Children who are involved in BBBSA programs are primarily from single-parent homes. Many of these kids are emotionally fragile and desperate for attention and affirmation from an adult of their own gender. "While gay activists insist that there is no connection between homosexuality and the sexual abuse of children, the evidence indicates that a substantial number of gay men seek adolescent males or boys as sexual partners.
The alert from the American Family Association is, if you can believe it, even worse, leading off with a purported threat by gay activists to "sodomize your sons."
Increasingly, this level of discourse can only appeal to the true hard-core fanatics. So, in a sense, it's a sign that these anti-gay groups have given up trying to move broad public opinion and instead are focusing exclusively on feeding red meat to, and soliciting funds from, their base. But it's still ugly to behold.
Censorship or Civility? The AP reports in a July 30
story that a recent graduate of an Ann Arbor high school is
claiming "censorship" because she wasn't allowed to oppose equal
rights for gays and lesbians during her speech for the school's
"Diversity Week" program. And a conservative legal foundation is
bringing a federal lawsuit on her behalf. The school, for its part,
says it merely asked the girl to reconsider the critical paragraph
of her remarks.
The problem with events such as "Diversity Week" is that if you"re a religious conservative and you believe homosexuality is a sin, you don't want the school telling your kid otherwise. On the other hand, public schools don't let kids from racist or anti-Semitic homes express their opinions. The difference, alas, is that opposition to homosexuality still carries religious weight, whereas racism and anti-Semitic views are nearly universally condemned in today's America.
The AP story doesn't make clear what the diversity folks were saying about gay people. Possibly it was just a bland exhortation against prejudice and discrimination. Maybe something more, and maybe something less. The school says during an "open mike" students were free to express any opinion. And some student organizers of the event said the "views of people who oppose homosexuality are often heard, and therefore they sought panelists who supported homosexuality," the AP reports.
A public school is an institution you are forced to attend (unless your parents can afford the price of a private alternative). School officials can search you locker, test your urine (under certain circumstances), and make you get naked and shower publicly. Which is to say, public schools are not a great respecter of personal rights. While the purpose of education should be to work through competing ideas, all schools have certain values that they impart as part of the educational package. Which is why the "gay" issue (and, for that matter, the "God" issue) provokes such heat.
Let's hope that in this little microcosm of the culture wars the
legal brouhaha will at least prove educational, as the parties try
to adjudicate where, as far as public schools are concerned,
civility ends and censorship begins.