This blog originally posted Wednesday, March 14, 2007
"That's So Gay". This phrase is actually the source of a lawsuit in California. A young mormon girl was being teased by other students because of her religion, with comments like "you must have 10 moms" and such. Her response to this was, "That's so gay." The kids making fun of her didn't complain about it. She didn't complain to anyone about the rude jokes they were saying. A teacher overheard this and reprimanded her with a written note in her 'permanent record' (scary organ music plays). So, her father promptly sues the school to get the written reprimand removed from her record.
What a ridiculous waste of time and money on the part of the school AND the dad!!!!! The judge should fine both parties for wasting the courts time and pitch them both out on the street.
It is a simple fact - kids make fun of each other. Kids are rude. Teens don't have the fully developed social skills (and medically, their brains aren't fully developed either) to hold reasoned intercourse over disagreements. This has always been so. Yes, we have the right as a culture to teach them, but this could have been handled so much better by the teacher and school.
The teacher and the school should have dealt with this by talking to all of the students involved and making the point that it is not proper to make fun of people for any reason (religion, sexual orientation, the size of their nose, etc). This didn't require a write up for anyone, at least for a first offense. All students involved should have been warned and let it go at that.
The school also should be the bastion of reasoned thought, but a quote from one of its lawyers shows this isn't so: "The district has a statutory duty to protect gay students from harassment, In furtherance of this goal, prohibition of the phrase That's so gay' ... was a reasonable regulation. OK. That's great, but she wasn't making fun of homosexuals. The school has recognized the cultural shift in the term gay to mean a homosexual, but they haven't recognized the more recent cultural shift to gay meaning something ridiculous or undesirable.
An even funnier quote comes from a professor from Berkley (nuff' said); "I wouldn't be surprised if this girl didn't even know the origin of that term," he said. "The kids who get caught saying it will claim it's been decontextualized, but others will say, No, you know what that means.' It's quite talked about." I personally wouldn't be surprised if HE didn't even know the origin of the term - it is from middle english and possible Germanic origins for a light hearted person. Gee, neither of the previous examples fit that definition.
The silly truth about the word gay is that American English is an unregulated language. We have no Real Academia Española like Spanish does that decides what words mean. Our language shifts and flows constantly. Does anyone remember when bad became good and cool became hot?
Another funny note about what the District Lawyer said; "The district has a statutory duty to protect gay students from harassment." Doesn't the district have a statutory duty to protect ALL students from harassment. That would include religion. Oh, but that isn't politically correct. It is OK to protect every miniscule subclass of human life in school, except religion.
Probably the funniest note of all. This girl is 18. She is off on her own in the real world now. Nobody cares what she did or said in High School!!!!! Anyone who is an adult knows this. Your 'permanent record' (ominous music plays again) doesn't matter in the real world. As long as you didn't commit crimes (and even most of those are expunged), you get out of jail free when you turn 18 and graduate high school. Big deal, she got a write up in school. So did I (lots and lots).
I never sat a job interview and had the interviewer say, "Mr. Loar, we were going to offer you this job, but we looked up your school record and found that you called Billy Riley a pooh-pooh head in fourth grade; I'm afraid you just aren't our type of person." No, all that really matters in the real world is if I learned NOT to call people rude names while I was in school. Oh yeah, and I was supposed to learn math, science, reading, and other important life skills.
The Dad and the School have been the most irresponsible parties involved. I expect teens to say stupid things. That's the point they're still learning. The adults here need to grow up and act their age. The teacher made a mistake in making this a written write up and by not dealing with the other students involved in an equal matter. The principal should have just issued a warning and left it at that, or, at least acknowledged later that they made a mistake in not treating all parties equally. The school district should have said, this isn't worth a lawsuit, we will just give her a warning and warn the other students involved about their conduct too. The district lawyers should have said, this isn't worth wasting taxpayer money in a lawsuit, just remove the written warning or issue equal written warnings to the other students. The dad should have said, this ultimately means nothing to my daughter's future and isn't worth wasting my time and money or the taxpayers money and just let it go. Someone here should have stood up and taken the high road.
None of them did.
The truth of the matter is both adult parties here are caught up in their own political agendas, although both parties would deny it. The school district, like many others in the country are falling all over themselves to show that they are 'diverse' and that they will go out of their way to show tolerance - that is to anyone but religious people. The dad here is so caught up his anti-homosexual agenda that he can't even see how unimportant this whole writeup thing is. (there is a lot of history there. the Dad has been protesting the school's tolerance policies and sexual teachings since 2000 according to another article. The school has also harassed his daughter due to the pressure he has put on them)
There is no excuse for making fun of people for any reason. There also is no excuse for adults to act like kids and fight it out on the legal playground over such a minor issue.
Frankly, I'd like to sit both parties down and tell them, "That's so gay."
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