LGBT Education
-
Scholastic Reverses Decision to Exclude Gay Friendly Book from Fairs
-
Sarah Palin and Colleges that Ban Homosexuality
-
Making LGBT Students Feel Safe and Supported
Why Would Scholastic Book Fairs Ban Books With Same-Sex Parents in Them?
Published October 23, 2009 @ 09:32PM PT
You have to wonder why an organization dedicated to getting students to read would decide to make censorship such an important part of their work. You also have to wonder why one of the leading organizations dedicated to helping students learn would decide to wallop a giant blow of discrimination toward gay and lesbian families and children of same-sex parents.
But that's what Scholastic Books is doing by banning a book from its book fairs simply for the fact that the book contains a girl character who has two lesbian moms. The book in question is Lauren Myracle's book Luv Ya Bunches, a new book that wittingly covers the trials, tribulations and friendships that a group of young girls go through in school.
Scholastic offered to carry the book provided that Myracle edited it to change the fact that one of the characters has two mommies. In other words, they wanted to give the girl a heterosexual family. Myracle refused, since she actually has the chutzpah that Scholastic Books tactlessly lacks. Here's what Myracle said (h/t Mombian):
“A child having same-sex parents is not offensive, in my mind, and shouldn’t be ‘cleaned up.’” says Myracle, adding that the book fair subsequently decided not to take on Luv Ya Bunches because they wanted to avoid letters of complaint from parents. “I find that appalling. I understand why they would want to avoid complaint letters—no one likes getting hated on—but shouldn’t they be willing to evaluate the quality of the complaint? What, exactly, are children being protected against here?”
“Over 200,000 kids in America are raised by same-sex parents, just like Milla. It’s not an issue to clean up or hide away,” says Myracle. “In my opinion, it’s not an ‘issue’ at all. The issue, as I see it, is that kids benefit hugely from seeing themselves reflected positively in the books they read. It’s an extremely empowering and validating experience.”
She's exactly right. Same-sex families shouldn't be edited out of books simply to pacify a minority of anti-gay voices. It's appalling that Scholastic Book Fairs would cater to this type of thinking. This is an organization dedicated to higher learning for students. Instead, they're catering to an agenda that seeks to hide students from a undeniable reality in this world: many children have same-sex parents, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
You can take action now by signing this petition to Scholastic Books' Senior Manager of Communications (for Book Fairs), as well as their VP of Corporate Communications and President. The actions of Scholastic Books affirms a message that something is wrong with gay or lesbian parents. If you disagree -- and we hope you do -- send them a message now.
(Photo courtesy of PlayfulLibrarian's photostream on Flickr.)
Gay Penguins Fight Back
Published October 02, 2009 @ 06:14AM PT
And Tango Makes Three, the book about two gay male penguins that raise an adopted little penguin, sends shivers down the spines of anti-LGBT people, many of whom race to their nearest library to request that the book be banned from the stacks. The book is the most banned book in the world, according to official library statistics, but this year the penguins aren't taking homophobic rage lying down. Instead, they're the focus of Banned Books Week, a celebration of reading materials that are targeted by extremely conservative forces in communities across the globe.
And that celebration has paid off, literally. Because of the renewed attention on And Tango Makes Three during Banned Books Week 2009, the book has shot up the Amazon.com charts, racing to the top of Amazon's "Movers and Shakers" list, which monitors books that see sudden surges in orders and demand.
And that has both gay rights supporters, as well as the book's publisher, Simon & Schuster, feeling pretty darn smug (and rightly so).
"The current boost in its popularity during Banned Books Week will only spread its positive message to more families," Simon & Schuster's Ingrid Selberg told the Guardian. ""And Tango Makes Three is a charming picture book about love and family. We are proud to have it on our list."
Even more touching? The authors of And Tango Makes Three just became fathers themselves this year, proving that life imitates art, at least just a little bit.
(Image courtesy of Simon & Schuster Children's Books.)
Gay Marriage Doesn't Harm Kids. But Lies Do.
Published September 16, 2009 @ 08:50AM PT
Opponents of marriage equality in Maine took to the airwaves yesterday with an advertisement that said LGBT people (specifically, in their words, "homosexual marriage") would be a threat to children and taught in schools. The advertisement is dishonest, plays up on fears, and distorts the truth about Maine's same-sex marriage law. So what's an activist to do?
Hit back with an advertisement that completely disarms the negativity and misrepresentations championed by people who hate on same-sex marriage. That's what the No on 1 Campaign did today, with a new ad that tells the truth about same-sex marriage, and what will and won't be taught in Maine's public schools.
The ad features Maine teacher Sherri Gould, who has been teaching in Maine since 1983. According to Gould, what's taught in the classroom is fairness and decency. "We teach respect and Maine values. That will never change."
That's right. Respect. Fairness. Decency. Those are the things that are taught in Maine public schools. It's too bad that opponents of marriage equality in Maine can't go back and take a few classes themselves on these subjects. Instead they rely on tired and false innuendo to suggest that gays and lesbians pose a public threat. That's not decent or fair. It's downright manipulative. And Maine voters will know the difference.
Check out the No on 1 ad below:
Celebrating Gay Penguins and Other Banned Books
Published September 09, 2009 @ 04:32AM PT
You have to hand it to those gay penguins -- they really know how to rile up the right-wing. This year marks the third straight year that And Tango Makes Three, the book about two male penguins who take in and raise a baby penguin, tops the list of the American Library Association's most banned books.
It's odd that a book about the power of love and family continues to be despised by very conservative forces. But with each passing year, numerous right-wing parents object to the book because of its gay-friendly themes. In fact, LGBT themes and/or sexual themes are the reason most books end up banned, at least according to Deborah Caldwell Stone, the Director of the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom.
As a means of responding to parents that go on book burning crusades, the American Library Association created a "Banned Books Week," which will take place at the end of September (September 26-October 3, 2009). The goal is to promote the more than 1,000 books that have been banned since 1982 by the 'family values' crowd. Books for this year include And Tango Makes Three, of course, as well as The Perks of Being a Wallflower and Uncle Bobby's Wedding, both of which touch on the subject of homosexuality. Seven other books make up the top-ten this year, including the best-seller The Kite Runner.
Really? The Kite Runner? For goodness sake's...the book was sold in Starbucks it was that popular!
Guess that just goes to show the lengths some parents and folks will go to censor information from their communities. And speaking of, the American Library Association has launched a fascinating interactive map that allows you to see where in the country folks are getting their pantaloons in a bunch over books. You can see that in Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, wingnuts tried to ban The Great Gatsby and The Catcher in the Rye. Or in Waltham, Massachusetts, The Lovely Bones was moved to the faculty-only section because folks thought it was too scary for middle-school students. Or in Baxley, Georgia, where a minister objected to John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men.
It's almost embarrassing to think that all throughout the country, we're engaging in the type of book-banning that is popular in authoritarian countries. But then it's also kind of sad to realize that many communities get deprived of some of the best literature of our day.
All the more reason to celebrate Banned Books Week later this month, and get these banned titles out in front of eyes that otherwise wouldn't be allowed to see them.
Resurrecting Angels in America
Published September 02, 2009 @ 05:02AM PT
There's no cast put in place yet, nor any plans behind how to mount a performance of one of Broadway's epic shows in an intimate, off-Broadway theater, but Angels in America, one of the first plays to deal exclusively with the subject of HIV/AIDS and its onslaught within the gay (especially gay male) population is staged for a comeback in 2010.
The show, written by Tony Kushner, is set in 1985-1986 during the height of the Reagan administration and nearly five years into the HIV/AIDS crisis. Technically, Angels is two shows - “Part 1: Millennium Approaches” and “Part 2: Perestroika”. And it interweaves stories from those dealing with HIV/AIDS - a gay male couple, real right-wing lawyer Roy Cohn - as well as a story involving coming out amidst a heaping helping of religious indoctrination (a closeted Mormon lawyer, and his sedated wife).
The show is expected to open in late Fall or Winter 2010. Interestingly enough, the show comes back to life at a time when HIV/AIDS numbers are back on the rise. Perhaps a tie-in educational/advocacy campaign is in order?
We'll leave with one of the best quotes from Angels, from the protagonist, Prior. It's all about being addicted to life. Take it away:
But still. Still bless me anyway. I want more life. I can't help myself. I do. I've lived through such terrible times and there are people who live through much worse. But you see them living anyway. When they're more spirit than body, more sores than skin, when they're burned and in agony, when flies lay eggs in the corners of the eyes of their children - they live. Death usually has to take life away. I don't know if that's just the animal. I don't know if it's not braver to die, but I recognize the habit; the addiction to being alive. So we live past hope. If I can find hope anywhere, that's it, that's the best I can do. It's so much not enough. It's so inadequate. But still bless me anyway. I want more life.
Wise Latina is the New Queer
Published August 20, 2009 @ 10:11PM PT
During the confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, many conservative and right-wing pundits tried to make a big to-do over the fact that Sotomayor said the following statement: "[A] wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life." Conservatives wanted to paint this statement as racist and offensive. Pop culture instead has embraced the phrase "wise Latina," pushing the term into the lexicon of words, like queer, that have been reclaimed by minority groups as a means of empowerment.
Queer is a term that, for many, was an offensive slur that harkened back to the days of "Mad Men," when it was regularly used as a derogatory term to refer to LGBT folks. Now? For many, it's a cultural concept that means a rejection of labels for one's sexual orientation. Or, as some folks have put it, queer was a term that was reclaimed by the LGBT community as a source of power.
Exit queer, enter Wise Latina. The latter phrase was used by many a conservative politico as a means of trying to discredit Sonia Sotomayor. Sen. John Cornyn, for instance, said that Sotomayor's reference to being a Wise Latina was "antithetical to the whole idea of the rule of law." Rush Limbaugh called Sotomayor a "racist" for using the term Wise Latina. Glenn Beck said that Sotomayor's comment was "one of the most outrageous racist remarks" he's heard.
So how are people reacting to conservatives trying to criminalize the phrase "Wise Latina"? They're embracing the term as a badge of honor, and a proud descriptor. Booyeah.
AP notes that "Wise Latina" has become a pop culture phenomenon. And now it's being marketed on books, cups, T-shirts, and onesies, to name a few items. Charles McIlwain, a media prof at NYU, told AP that people are seeing this phrase as an opportunity to take pride in their roots, and reclaim it as something worth aspiring toward.
"I think one thing many people are doing, Latinas and the Latino community in general, is reframing the phrase and saying: 'Hey, when we talk about the wise Latina, we're not trying to show that somehow we're better than others, but we want to associate being Latino with something that's wise and good," McIlwain told AP.
What a great example of owning a phrase that haters tried to tarnish. Talk radio might want to demonize Wise Latina, along the same lines as words like queer were once demonized. But these are words and terms that can be reclaimed, and can be used to educate and inspire, rather than label or disparage.
Activism, Art, and the HIV/AIDS Crisis
Published August 20, 2009 @ 05:23PM PT
How do you commemorate the fear, anger, hope, challenges, activism, and organizing that occurred at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis in the U.S. more than twenty years ago? If you're the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, you host a whole semester's worth of programming and exhibits looking at the impact that groups like ACT UP had, and the vivid images that captured the country's attention and changed the way that HIV/AIDS was viewed.
Before there was social networking, there was guerilla marketing. And as the Carpenter Center points out, that tactic was deployed quite effectively by ACT UP, as well as artist collectives like Gran Fury, the Silence = Death Project, and Fierce Pussy (to name a few). These groups used the power of art to fight against HIV/AIDS, and specifically to fight against government inaction and stereotypes that made up the early history of the disease in this country. Whether it was explaining that kissing doesn't cause HIV/AIDS, or whether it was telling the Catholic Church that condoms protect against sexually-transmitted diseases, these orgs put their artwork where their politics were, so to speak.
"ACT UP’s demonstrations in the late 1980s and early 1990s reflected the group’s outrage against a governing establishment that ignored HIV/AIDS as a national health crisis; that failed to secure funding for medical research, treatment, and education; that profited from inflated costs for therapeutic drugs; and that perpetuated homophobic misrepresentations of HIV and AIDS," writes the Carpenter Center.
The exhibit itself? Well, it'll feature classic ACT UP advertising campaign posters, as well as a suite of over 100 video interviews with surviving members of ACT UP New York. Those interviews form the crux of an oral history project that captures a diverse movement birthed during the darkest days of HIV/AIDS. These are the organizers and activists who "transformed entrenched cultural ideas about homosexuality, sexuality, illness, health care, civil rights, art, media, and the rights of patients," and made the world a little - scratch that, a lot - better for everyone fighting against the disease.
In other words, the exhibit at the Carpenter Center will pull together some of the best social artwork of the last thirty years: the artwork and ad campaigns that helped end misinformation about HIV/AIDS, that brought about new strategies of political organizing, and that helped give voice to those living with HIV/AIDS. Better yet, it should help draw the connections between the organizing and activism at the height of the 1980s, and how lessons learned during that movement can be applicable now.
