cleophite
2003-12-03, 05:20 PM
In La. School, Son of Lesbian Learns 'Gay' Is a 'Bad Wurd'
By Laura Sessions Stepp
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 3, 2003; Page C01
If you harbor any doubt how deeply troubled some Americans are by the idea of same-sex couples, especially couples with children, ask Sharon Huff. For that matter, ask her 7-year-old son, Marcus McLaurin.
Huff, a steakhouse waitress in Lafayette, La., was at home getting ready for her evening shift last month when she got a call from the assistant principal at Marcus's elementary school. Her second-grader had been scolded for saying a bad word to another second-grader, the assistant said, and was told never to use the word again. She could read the details on a school form coming home with Marcus.
Huff spent the next two hours fretting. Could it be a word he had picked up from television, even though she religiously screens his TV viewing? Could it be something he had heard her say?
As soon as Marcus's size-2 high-tops hit the threshold, she pulled the telling piece of paper out of his backpack. Marcus, teacher Terry Bethea had written, "explained to another child that you are gay." The word "gay" was underlined twice.
Huff, 27 and living in a relationship with another woman, sunk into a kitchen chair, speechless. She knew her Cajun neighbors would rather talk about crawfish or football than alternative lifestyles. But were school officials so wary of controversy that they were now forbidding children to talk about their families?
It's one thing to tell kids, as many teachers now do, that they cannot insult others with racial slurs or words like "gay." But in Huff's view, Bethea and Nicholas Thomas, the assistant principal at Ernest Gallet Elementary, were not attempting to stop bullying or even preserve political correctness. They meant to stamp out thought and discussion about a way of life.
"All Marcus was doing was talking about his family with a friend at recess," Huff said in a telephone interview. "It's like one kid asking another kid why he doesn't celebrate Christmas and the second kid saying, 'My parents are Jewish.' Would that kid get in trouble?"
.....
It was just such a matter-of-fact attitude that got Marcus in trouble. As he was standing in line for morning recess, his classmate asked him about his mother and father. He replied that he didn't have a mother and father; he had two mothers. When the other child asked why he had two moms, he said his mother was gay and when the questioner persisted and asked what that meant, he responded, "Gay is when a girl likes another girl."
Bethea, his teacher, heard the exchange and scolded him in front of his classmates, according to the ACLU, then sent him to the principal's office in place of recess. In her report to school officials, Bethea wrote: "This kind of discussion is not acceptable in my room. I feel that parents should explain things of this nature to their own children in their own way."
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you can read the entire article here :: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29820-2003Dec2.html
if the exchange that the two kids had is really what they describe here, this is shameful. the kid shouldn't be censored for using the word in a non-derogatory way. thoughts?
By Laura Sessions Stepp
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 3, 2003; Page C01
If you harbor any doubt how deeply troubled some Americans are by the idea of same-sex couples, especially couples with children, ask Sharon Huff. For that matter, ask her 7-year-old son, Marcus McLaurin.
Huff, a steakhouse waitress in Lafayette, La., was at home getting ready for her evening shift last month when she got a call from the assistant principal at Marcus's elementary school. Her second-grader had been scolded for saying a bad word to another second-grader, the assistant said, and was told never to use the word again. She could read the details on a school form coming home with Marcus.
Huff spent the next two hours fretting. Could it be a word he had picked up from television, even though she religiously screens his TV viewing? Could it be something he had heard her say?
As soon as Marcus's size-2 high-tops hit the threshold, she pulled the telling piece of paper out of his backpack. Marcus, teacher Terry Bethea had written, "explained to another child that you are gay." The word "gay" was underlined twice.
Huff, 27 and living in a relationship with another woman, sunk into a kitchen chair, speechless. She knew her Cajun neighbors would rather talk about crawfish or football than alternative lifestyles. But were school officials so wary of controversy that they were now forbidding children to talk about their families?
It's one thing to tell kids, as many teachers now do, that they cannot insult others with racial slurs or words like "gay." But in Huff's view, Bethea and Nicholas Thomas, the assistant principal at Ernest Gallet Elementary, were not attempting to stop bullying or even preserve political correctness. They meant to stamp out thought and discussion about a way of life.
"All Marcus was doing was talking about his family with a friend at recess," Huff said in a telephone interview. "It's like one kid asking another kid why he doesn't celebrate Christmas and the second kid saying, 'My parents are Jewish.' Would that kid get in trouble?"
.....
It was just such a matter-of-fact attitude that got Marcus in trouble. As he was standing in line for morning recess, his classmate asked him about his mother and father. He replied that he didn't have a mother and father; he had two mothers. When the other child asked why he had two moms, he said his mother was gay and when the questioner persisted and asked what that meant, he responded, "Gay is when a girl likes another girl."
Bethea, his teacher, heard the exchange and scolded him in front of his classmates, according to the ACLU, then sent him to the principal's office in place of recess. In her report to school officials, Bethea wrote: "This kind of discussion is not acceptable in my room. I feel that parents should explain things of this nature to their own children in their own way."
***************
you can read the entire article here :: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29820-2003Dec2.html
if the exchange that the two kids had is really what they describe here, this is shameful. the kid shouldn't be censored for using the word in a non-derogatory way. thoughts?