Like PZ Myers' daughter, my high school-aged sons encounter ignorance and homophobia on a daily basis. I used to deal with it by intervening; my wife and I would call the parents of the people who made homophobic comments to express our outrage. We don't do that anymore, 1) because our kids (high school sophomores) are now at the age where they should be fighting their own battles; 2) because our intervention actually made the problems worse in some cases; and 3) because there are just too many of them.
I've tried taking the matter up with the administration, but all I get is gentle comiseration. If a student calls another kid a nigger or a kike within earshot of a teacher, he or she almost certainly gets a trip to the assistant principal's office. However, if a student calls another kid a faggot or a dyke within earshot of a teacher, nothing happens.
I don't expect the school to punish kids for expressing their odious opinions; I am very, very skeptical of speech codes in academe or elsewhere. I do think, though, that talking to the offending students would help some of the time. My sense is that lots of homophobia is a mile wide and an inch deep. A talking-to is not going to reform hard-core haters, but may make those who casually parrot hateful sentiments think twice.
As it happened, the principal of the school spoke to the kid. Now he's harassing me on my own website.
So much for success, eh?
Posted by: Skatje Myers | December 12, 2006 at 03:32 PM