6th Grader Can't Give Harvey Milk Report: Ignorance is the Malady

Photo by docjenIn America, while there are a great number of people who believe that all citizens should have the right to marry, unfortunately, the majority still opposes legalizing same-sex marriages. In a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released earlier this month, 54% of people questioned said that marriages between gay or lesbian couples should not be recognized as valid.

I believe that a lack of education and understanding is one of the contributors to this mind set. Now, when I say "lack of education," I don't necessarily mean in terms of schooling, but rather in the sense that many basic ideas and associations that opponents of same-sex marriage have about gay people are incorrect.

Whether people are simply blindly following the words of their pastor, regurgitating anti-gay propaganda, or have just never really taken the time to think about it at all, I am not sure, but it seems that there is a lot of ignorance as to the realities of what "being gay" entails. Of course, this doesn't apply in all cases. Some people are well-informed and simply choose intolerance and inequality, but I think that others are just ill-informed with the wrong picture painted in their heads.

One such example that I constantly find frustrating is the persistent connotation that GAY means "SEX." Please HEAR THIS! The word "gay" does NOT mean "sex." Sexual orientation and who you are attracted to is different than sex-sex. If you hear the word "straight," does your mind automatically wander to intimate activities? WHY do so many people associate any mention of the word "GAY" to sex? Case in point...

Last week in California (the week before the California Supreme Court decided to uphold Proposition 8), Natalie Jones, a sixth grader at Mt. Woodsen Elementary School in Ramona, CA, was called into the principal's office to talk about her Power Point presentation. Natalie had prepared a report about an historical politician for an assignment and had chosen a man whose birthday has been recognized as "a day of significance" in her state. That person was Harvey Milk, the first gay man elected to political office, in 1977, when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Principal, Theresa Grace, wanted to notify Natalie that permission slips would need to be sent home and signed by parents before she could give her presentation, because the children were being taught about sex.

Sex? Where did Natalie ever say anything about sex?? She wanted to talk about an important part of California history. ACLU's San Diego legal director said, "It's not about sex, it's not about sex education. It's a presentation about an historical figure who happened to be gay." The ACLU wants the district to apologize to Natalie and let her share the report to all students in the class, because she was only able to present it to eight students during a school lunch period.

Natalie's mom, Bonnie said, "Harvey Milk was an elected official in this state and an important person in history...to say my daughter's presentation is sex education because Harvey Milk happened to be gay is completely wrong."

It saddens me that this huge leap would be taken to assume that this sixth-grade girl's report content would automatically contain information about sex, simply because the subject of her project was gay. As Amos Bronson Alcott once said, "To be ignorant of one's ignorance is the malady of the ignorant." Let's educate the ignorant. It's long overdue.