Teach Tolerance, Not Hate

How sad it is to me when I read about a group of high school kids in Pennsylvania putting hateful posters on gay kids lockers and writing up a lynch list. The homophobic students, mostly boys, all wore flannel shirts and wrote “anti-gay” and drew crosses on the backs of their hands. There was pushing and general scuffling with Gay-Straight Alliance kids and their supporters at the high school too. All this occurred in response to the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance’s Day of Silence that was organized to draw attention to and condemn bullying against gay students. It is hard for a school to provide a safe, supportive environment for all children when this kind of intolerance occurs and makes the school the antithesis of safe and supportive for ALL children. I’m not sure how big the high school is (Claysville’s McGuffey High School) but as many as 100 students at took part in the Thursday protest. The GSA kids and others tried to counter the Anti-Gay protest with signs that said “Stick with Love” and “It Gets Better” on the following Monday. Hope the parents, teachers, and students on all sides of this can find ways to replace hate with tolerance because people are people regardless of their sexual orientation and hate has no place in our schools.