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elfsI was rocking out to Laurie Anderson and flipping through the news when I stumbled across an anti-gay screed from the "Illinois Family Institute," in which the author wrote:
Does Higgins have any idea how much damage she's doing to her cause by mainstreaming the word "polyamory?" As long as she keeps doing it, though, I'm not going to complain.
Anyway, to answer her question: if those groups are identifiable as suspect groups then yes, they deserve mention and protection from bullying. If aggression, promiscuity, or sefishness leads to disruptive behavior, the school should take action. All of these conditions, including polyamory and homosexuality, exist within people individuals, and individuals must be trained to live with their feelings. It is homosexuals who, as a suspect group, are targeted more frequently than any other for bullying and violence, and yes, they deserve mention in anti-bullying curricula.
Maybe "adolescent heterosexual insecurity about my masculinity" should be added as well.
Those who believe in the legitimacy of including explicit mention of homosexuality in anti-bullying curricula need to ask whether they believe that other conditions defined by subjective feelings and volitional acts should also be included. Wherever homosexuality is mentioned in these curricula, let's replace the term with aggression, or promiscuity, or polyamory, or selfishness--all conditions that are driven by powerful feelings that are not chosen and which often emerge very early in life. After all, aggressive, promiscuous, polyamorous, and selfish students ought not be bullied either.The use of "polyamory" without sneer quotes made me sit up, but then I looked and saw that it was Laurie Higgins, the anti-gay writer about whom I blogged earlier.
Does Higgins have any idea how much damage she's doing to her cause by mainstreaming the word "polyamory?" As long as she keeps doing it, though, I'm not going to complain.
Anyway, to answer her question: if those groups are identifiable as suspect groups then yes, they deserve mention and protection from bullying. If aggression, promiscuity, or sefishness leads to disruptive behavior, the school should take action. All of these conditions, including polyamory and homosexuality, exist within people individuals, and individuals must be trained to live with their feelings. It is homosexuals who, as a suspect group, are targeted more frequently than any other for bullying and violence, and yes, they deserve mention in anti-bullying curricula.
Maybe "adolescent heterosexual insecurity about my masculinity" should be added as well.
