Out of Site, Out of Mind
A college production tells the story of Matthew Sheppard, a student beaten to death because he was gay.
And soon, it could be banned in Alabama.
Republican Alabama lawmaker Gerald Allen (pictured left) says homosexuality is an unacceptable lifestyle. As CBS News Correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, under his bill, public school libraries could no longer buy new copies of plays or books by gay authors, or about gay characters.
“I don’t look at it as censorship,” says State Representative Gerald Allen. “I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children.”
Books by any gay author would have to go: Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote and Gore Vidal. Alice Walker’s novel “The Color Purple” has lesbian characters. (source)
“I look at it as protecting the hearts and souls and minds of our children.”
From what? Me?
Alabama State Rep. Gerald Allen says that he’s alarmed over the “homosexual agenda.” My “homosexual agenda” is simple as far as children are concerned. I want them safe, first and foremost. I want them to be able to go to school and feel safe, without fear of harassment and bullying. I want them to be in a place where learning is first and foremost. I want them to be able to have their childhood and to understand and comprehend their world. I want them to learn to think for themselves and to go away armed with ideas, words, and a thirst for learning and a desire to see things in a new light.
They will not be able to do that if we spoon feed to them everything they learn, just because the author happened to be gay or lesbian. It’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s almost as though Representative Allen believes that the only thing gay authors create is pornography. Surely that is not the case.
I think what is more accurate is that he doesn’t want children to know of our contribution in this world (I know... he would call this concept the “radical gay agenda to recruit children to be homosexuals”, I suppose). If they know about us, they may want to be like us.
Ok. So you make children’s learning experience at school as sterile as possible (no mention of gays). My only question is, did you really prepare them to deal with the REAL WORLD?
Censorship. It’s truly a very frightening thing. You can make whole races of people disappear from a child’s reality, just by banning the books that talk about them, the books that were created by them, or the books that mention them. I believe that to be Representative Allen’s real objective.
See what you can do when you use words carefully? I’ve said all of this, without once ever suggesting that he might be a bigot.
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America scares me a LOT these days. There are states I won't even go to anymore because I don't feel safe there. Take this guy from Alabama. There must be backing for this in that state or he wouldn't be going after it. In the right circumstances if you were alone with someone with this mindset, it's not out of the imagination that he would do harm to you, just because he didn't like your existence.
To me, that is the America we live in now, at least for gay Americans.
This kind of crap is what makes me wonder about people. Are these kind of people really that ignorant? How do people like this get elected to office? By even stupider people I guess. America scares me sometimes.
Who decides what's okay, and how much of our personal life is going to be determined by the government. I am a heterosexual Christain, and the discrimination against homosexuals in this country sickens me. Prevented form being married, adopting kids,or entering the military ( some states even have laws banning homosexual sex between two consenting adults)it seems as though some people are trying to eliminate homosexuals all together. Since when did the Christain Right decide how people could and couldn.t live their lives. If this bill is passed it will indoctrinate a generation of children with the idea that homosexuality is wrong and that homosexuals deserved to be persecuted for their "evil" ways. Allowing children to grow up with these beliefs would alienate many and turn others into closed-minded zombies. Indoctrination of this type is too reminesciant of Nazi propaganda. How long before we advocate the mass killing of people based on their sexual orientation? It only takes one person with enough hatred in their heart, and enough people who are to blind to see what's happening, to result in the extermination of thousands.These so-called Christains (what happened to not judging others or forcing your religion on anyone)need a lesson in history. I pray to God that this bill doesn't pass, because with recent decisions about the treatment of homosexuals I'm starting to lose my faith in Americans and Christains.
It's appalling, and unconscionable. Gerald Allen should be run out on a rail for this. His Nazi plot to ban books, and thereby control what goes into the minds of the people should horrify even those who agree with his ideas about homosexuality.
Of course, that is what he really is looking to do. By erasing any literature that is sympathetic to the gay community, he can continue to nurture the hatred he believes he can hide.
Goddamn Klansman.
I am appalled that in the USA this type of thing goes on.I suppose this would mean that my last three years work, a study on the experinences of gay men living with HIV would be frowned on as well. What a load of rubbish claiming we have to protect our children from gay people. My best friend is a gay man and he has a hudge input in my childrens lives, he helps them with their homework, plays with them, takes them on outtings, my teenagers turn to him when they want advice and he is kind loving and gentle with them he is a very positive role model and I would challange anyone who disagrees with me. My youngest daughter is 10 and knows what it means when someone is gay, accecpts it as a normal part of life. I think that makes her a well rounded individual and she will have a better life as a result of knowing gay people and understanding what discrimination can do to people. Another friend of mine first tried to hang himself at the age 12 because he knew he was different, unaccepted and had no one to talk to. That was in the 1970's does the USA want that to happen to it's young people in 2005? Surely the governments of all countries should be concentrating on the people who really put our kids at risk. Sex offenders who roam the streets in search of vulnerable young girls and boys. Only yesterday a girl in my daughters class was followed and thrown to the ground by a man who then tried to sexually assult her, She is 14. These are the type of people we should be trying to protect our kids from .
Good story Fritz. Everyone of us come with our own set of prejudices. We all have them. People should challenge themselves to be bigger than they are today. It sounds as if your aunt finally did that. That is what counts. Perhaps she remembered some of the cruel things she said to the minorities that she taught, and then thought of you and your situation.
My family has said some horrible things about gays in the past, before they knew about me. That's all different now. Not all of them changed and there's still a lot of bigotry in my family. Some will never change.
I have an aunt who was a high school teacher in Alabama. I recall listening to her talk about her "colored" students back in the 1970s. At every opportunity, she'd go on a tirade about how she began each new school year by passing out a map of the U.S. and asking the class to label the states.
"I've never had a single colored kid get more than 10 right!" she'd say smugly. Her opinion was that whites are mentally superior. I'm sure her black students suffered great injustices in her class.
Once, she horrified the rest of our family with the details of how she'd had a black kid kicked out of school for dating a white girl. Not only was she a racist, she was heartless and cruel.
This was 30 years ago. Today, my aunt is like an entirely different person. Now, she publicly denounces racism and actually has several African-American friends. I think that the church she joined in the early '90s had a great deal to do with helping her overcome her racist attitudes.
Perhaps these anti-gay bigots will go through a similar conversion -- and realize the hope of that happening is the real "homosexual agenda."
My aunt floored me at a recent family reunion by telling me that she is proud of me for "being who I am." That may be the closest she'll ever come to accepting my homosexuality, but it is more than I would have ever expected of her.