"Queering the Schools" is the title of an article in the Spring 2003 issue of the Manhattan Institute's "City Journal," by Marjorie King. The Manhattan Institute is a conservative policy institute, but they're not rightwing nuts (they fed many reformist ideas to former NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani), so it was dismaying to see an article with the tag line: "Gay activist groups, with teachers' union applause, are importing a disturbing agenda into the nation's public schools." The article has already drawn favorable comment from National Review online.
King blasts academic "queer theory" and Michael Warner, the
Rutgers prof who says outrageous things about using "queer"
sexuality to undermine the social order. But she then attacks high
school gay-straight alliances as a plot to spread queer theory to
susceptible teens. The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educational
Network (GLSEN) is portrayed as part of this conspiracy, as King
writes:
Every course in every public school should focus on LGBT issues, GLSEN believes. A workshop at GLSEN's annual conference in Chicago in 2000 complained that "most LGBT curricula are in English, history and health" and sought ways of introducing its agenda into math and science classes, as well. (As an example of how to queer geometry, GLSEN recommends using gay symbols such as the pink triangle to study shapes.)
For the record, I think groups like GLSEN do good and necessary work for the most part, and I strongly support gay-straight alliances that offer refuge to gay students while promoting gay inclusion. I also favor requiring public schools to take reasonable steps to fight gay-bashing, as an appellate court recently upheld.
But let's admit that well-intentioned efforts can, and sometimes
do, cross the line into heavy handedness, telling students what to
think and feel, not just how to behave civilly. Such tactics are a
gift to anti-gay activists, who then brand all our efforts as part
of an extremist scheme -- costing us credibility and making it
harder to accomplish truly worthy goals, such as defending the
rights of students to organize gay-straight alliances. Note: This
does not mean that conservative attacks, such as the "City
Journal" diatribe, aren't deplorable (author King, while focusing
on activist excesses, shows she has no sense whatsoever how
miserable life for a gay or lesbian high school student can
be).
--Stephen H. Miller