Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community

Gayness, Multicultural Education, and Community
By: Dennis Carlson


Author’s Argument:
In this article the author talks about the normalization of gayness, how gay teachers are viewed in schools, and the representation of gays in popular culture. Also, the author mentions gay culture, a person’s desire to “be themselves”, gay people discovering their identity.

Quotes:

1. “…and a number of states explicitly prohibit teaching about homosexuality. In 1993, for example, the gay rights movement claimed a major victory in the signing into law of a Minnesota bill that makes it illegal to discriminate against lesbians and gay men in employment and housing. Yet what got ignored in all the celebrating was a provision in the bill that prohibits teaching homosexuality in public schools.”

• This quote is talking about how there are a few states in the United States that have laws that forbid schools from teaching students about homosexuality. Minnesota wasn’t one of those states and in 1993 a law was passed that made it illegal to discriminate against gays and lesbians when it came to employment and housing but hidden in the bill the state added on that they didn’t want homosexuality being taught about in their state either. So while the gay rights movement made a small step towards something they also got a right taken from them at the same time.

2. “To the extent that gayness is recognized in the curriculum, it is likely to be in the health curriculum, where it is associated with disease. For example, one of the most popular health texts on the high school market is Health: A Guide to Wellness, which mentions homosexuals or homosexuality once in acknowledging that “the first group in the United States diagnosed with AIDS were male homosexuals”

• This quote is saying that in the states and schools that do mention homosexuality in their curriculum it usually gets mentioned during health. Homosexuality gets related to health because schools relate it to disease by teaching kids that homosexuals were the first people to be diagnosed with AIDS.

3. “…nothing seems more certain than that homosexuality is contagious. Second, homosexual teachers were presumed to be lecherous and develop “ridiculous crushes” on students” (Willard Waller)

• This is a quote by Willard Waller, a sociologist, states that homosexuality is contagious like a sickness or a disease. He also believed that schools should get rid of homosexual teachers if they knew of them in their schools because their homosexuality was contagious, and because they would develop unsafe crushes on their students and the schools wouldn’t want that.

Questions/Comments:

This article was a little tough to get through. The parts about how homosexuality is viewed in the world of education were surprising and sort of upsetting to read. You wouldn’t like to think people were so intolerant of those who are different, especially those who are teaching the youth of our nation. Also, some of the things done and said to those teachers seemed very hurtful and unnecessary. We all have the right to be who we are, and not be discriminated against for it. It’s judgmental and wrong to say a gay teacher will develop a “ridiculous crush” on their students just because they are gay, and it’s INSANE to propose that being gay is contagious. It isn’t a sickness or disease. It’s a lifestyle, it’s a choice, it’s the way a person is born.