For some gay teens, heartland lacks heart

< Kerry Pacer was used to the whispering behind her back, the name-calling and the snickering when she walked down the hall. But when almost the entire student body at White County High School booed as she accepted a rose from a female friend during a Valentine's Day program last month, she knew it was time to do something.

Pacer, who said she never has tried to hide the fact that she is a lesbian, did what other gay students in schools across the country have been doing for more than a decade. The 16-year-old junior began trying to organize a chapter of the Gay-Straight Alliance, which promotes tolerance and acceptance of homosexuals.

But in White County, a hub of Christian conservatism nestled in the north Georgia mountains, the idea of a school-based group that supports homosexuality put the community in an uproar and thrust this quiet haven where Cabbage Patch dolls originated into the national debate on gay rights.

"There has always been a lot of bullying at school, and there was never anyone to stand up for me," said Pacer, explaining that she and other gay students felt a Gay-Straight Alliance club would promote understanding. "I knew there would be people who disagreed with it, but I had no idea it would grow this big."

With heightened national attention on family values as championed by Christian conservatives, students such as Pacer said they have felt pressure to keep their sexual orientation hidden, particularly in conservative Bible Belt states where many people believe homosexuality is a sin. Those attitudes were manifested in November when voters in 11 states approved constitutional amendments banning gay marriage.>

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/nation/11191808.htm

-- presented her with the rose.

Shame on them. Bad form, mindless cruelty.

Good for Kerry Pacer to have organized the gay-straight group and I hope it upsets every apple cart in that damn town.

where were the teachers and the principal or student deans when this occured? did anyone 'shame' those students who booed this young woman?

teachers either tacitly agree or fear for their jobs.
We live in a country of fear--from our own--terrorists are only a small part of the fear.

> Where were the teachers and the principal or student deans
> when this occured?

Probably booing with the rest of the (doubtless) Christians".

Tesha

(Sorry; didn't see Mountain Laurels' earlier, identical reply!)

When I was a high school teacher before kids, I ran into that kind of homophobia occasionally, and it always made me sick. I tried once to calm down a class (a kid had brought up that he thought that Shakespeare was gay because of the sonnets), and I totally failed. They just went off on how awful it is, how sick it is, yadda yadda. I finally had to quash the entire discussion and tell them that I would be open to discussing it one-on-one with anyone after class. No one took me up on it.

I feel so bad for those kids in that school, and I feel even worse for the teachers. I'll bet at least a few of them are just sick over the whole thing.

...large groups of hominids all clustered around a dying creed, emoting their fear at any other hominid who dares to break rank. The Romans loved stuff like this -- sick and crazy mobs humiliating, burning, and torturing whichever minority could not muster defensive numbers. Isolated, single individuals preferred. Ah, the roots of humanity -- shall we all bare our teeth and screech while jumping up and down? No -- these days just brandish your cross and claim righteousness -- but don't you look in MY closet, oh no no no... So many little Bob Boudelangs in our ludicrous ex-nation...

I don't give a shit anymore. I'm so fucking sick of hearing this all-out assult on homosexuals. These fucking people have no hearts and no brains. I fucking hate it. I fucking hate it. Did I mention I hate it? All I fucking hear is how much these "good, Christian folk" hate homosexuals. Well, I fucking hate them back. And I'm not even gay myself. I can't imagine how pissed I'd be If I were. This is making me sick to my fucking stomach. Fuck all those bigoted fucking retards with a one-celled brain. I can't stand this shit anymore.

To all you lurking retarded, inbred, ignorant, bigoted, prejudiced, fucking rejects with a negative IQ -- GO FUCK YOURSELF, YOU FUCKING MORON.

Okay, so this response wasn't very Christian of me, either.

I struggle against giving into it as it's unhealthy and doesn't build bridges, but I do understand where it comes from.

You're completely right. And I'm going to try to be better with it. But I'm most likely still going to fail.

Jesus had a short fuse when it came to that, too.

"more concerned with the log in our own eye, rather than the speck in another's"? I think judging other people is a sin. I don't know. I'm a new Christian, so I don't know much about the bible yet. :shrug:

Not about their rage. Yours is more Christian than theirs.

I'm saying that I don't think I'm supposed to judge them, just acknowledge their sin, but not judge. But I could be wrong.

For your anger. At least for me it is just par for the course. A day barely goes by when I do not read about a case like this I just shake my head and go on. I know it isn't right but I have come to the point where I just do not feel like fighting anymore. I have come to the conclusion that there are always going to be people who hate us. The real fight comes when we are trying to win our right to marry whom ever we choose.

I know what you mean about just "shaking your head and moving on." There are days when I flip out (i.e. my post above), and then there are days when I just say, "Oh they're just a bunch of stupid bigots," and move on. It really depends on how much energy I have. :-)

Then again, I'm an openly Gay teacher who isn't afraid to confront hatred of any kind...

It's very sad though, I'm the ONLY openly Gay teacher in a large high school near San Francisco... and that's in a district that is very supportive of dealing with homophobia.

Those teachers are probably terrified if they don't have support... But at some point, you have to do what's RIGHT.... no matter the consequences...

Since when?

I thought that the so-called heartland was supposed to Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, and such.

are called the "heartland"

They should be forced to give up that title for something more fitting - like the armpit or the asscrack.

It happens everywhere. Here in the bluest city in one of the bluest states in America, with all of our gay rights statutes, my 7th grade American History teacher was the subject of a witch hunt in the WASPy private school I went to. She was run out of the school on a rail because she was a lesbian. And the witch hunt was instigated by a small cadre of junior freeper students, at that.

It ain't just the South, folks.

On Edit: I should probably add that she used to give us handouts from Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. God, I loved her.

in my high school there was a schoolwide debate on political issues surrounding the 1998 elections, between a "liberal party" and a "conservative party". One of the topics was gay rights in the military.

The conservative speaker compared homosexuality to a disease. He was booed by the student body.

After each issue debate, the students got to vote on who won. The conservative lost 253 - 31.

But CT is miles away from GA.

Thankfully I live in the brainland.