Bill Maher once noted of young conservatives that it’s totally understandable that they’re assholes at the age of 14: They’re too young for sex and too old to carry a blankie around everywhere, so it’s a very stressful time.
If that’s the case, I’m calling for the school administrators at McGuffey High School in Claysville, Pennsylvania to start giving out Woobies or hookers in the next two days.
News reports have more than 100 students at the school taking part in a protest against the Gay-Straight Alliance club’s Day of Silence by hosting an “Anti-Gay Day.” The anti-gay crew drew crosses on their hands along with the word “anti-gay.” They also all wore flannel shirts, an irony among ironies if ever there was one.
The students also resorted to pushing gay students around and posting anti-gay posters on the lockers of LGBTQ students.
At least one parent came forward to support the anti-gay group, doing the traditional, “We have nothing against THOSE PEOPLE and we’re the ones really being persecuted by not being allowed to be majority-whoring ass-kickers” thing.
I think one of the dominant reasons these kinds of culture clashes occur in high schools (other than the Maher theory) is that Days of Silence and GSA-based events are different from every other form of event at a school. Every other event is about participation and becoming part of a collective:
Football pep rally? Be a cheering supporter for “our team.”
Spanish club? Learn to speak the language, embrace the culture and eat the food.
Forensics? Spend your Saturdays freaking out adult judges with your self-composed “I want to have sex with a tombstone” poetry or solo-serious acting piece titled, “Daddy, why are you touching me there?”
In other words, they’re all about recruitment and participation in that identity. The GSA club is EXACTLY NOT THAT. I’ve been to a meeting or two, I know kids involved in LGBTQ groups and I have yet to have ANYONE say, “Hey, thanks for coming. Wanna try blowing a guy? It’s fun!”
GSA members want to show support for one another as they live their lives the way they feel they must. That’s true of all members of that group, both gay and straight.
And yet adults in the conservative sphere have long told the tale that the only way gays can strengthen their ranks is to recruit. Like they’re a cult or a mega-church. Thus, gay kids gather in unsuspecting schools like they’re members of the Jedi Council and work on improving their grasp of The Force in hope of swaying weak and impressionable minds to come over to the Dick Side.
And this rhetoric against gay students works for one good reason: Kids at this age don’t necessarily fear “gay.” They fear being different or even being accused of being different.
Fear is why they react with violent anger and wicked backlash against anything that might put them at odds with their peers. They all play the same sports, date the same kinds of people, value the same things and act the same ways just so that they won’t be ostracized.
I would think that of all people, teens would get how hard it is when others mock them for being different. To that end, I would think that supporting people who are different should come naturally.
But that would totally make you a fag… Heh, heh… Hey look! Joey’s a fag! He’s hanging out with the gay kids. Hey, Joey, what did you eat for breakfast this morning, Queer-i-os? Heh, heh….
So instead they hide their own insecurities in hateful rhetoric and groupthink. And yet if you think about this, you really have to laugh.
I mean, could there be anything more “gay looking” to an outside observer than a group of boys who coordinated their outfits the day before and then got together, arm in arm, and took pictures of themselves in the school hallways?
As I was scrolling, it fell out of my head for a moment that I’d just read about the anti-gay kids all wearing flannel. Then the photo at the bottom came into view and I thought: Why did they blur the faces on the GSA kids?
It might benefit these mini-haters to know that at least one outside observer (with nod to your last paragraph) literally couldn’t tell the difference between them and the Evil Ones that they felt the need to ‘protest.’ They all look like a bunch of teenagers whom I assume are, much to my disinterest, desperately trying to do the underpants Charleston with any number of persons or things.