Gays and First-grade teacher David Gaita never prepared a lesson-plan for coming out to his students.
But on May 17 when students in Mr. Gaita's class at Burr Elementary School in Newton, Mass., asked him about his personal life during a lesson on biographies, Mr. Gaita had to make an important decision. He could either lie to his students and pretend he was straight. Or he could answer them honestly and matter-of-factly in words and terms they would understand.
Mr. Gaita opted to tell the truth, and revealed to his class that he is gay. He explained it to them this way: If he had a partner— "someone you love the way your mom and dad love each other" —the partner would be a man. In response to more questions from the students, Mr. Gaita explained that he was proud of who he is and that he knows he is a good person.
I'd like to add that he is an incredibly brave one.
Aware of the sensitivity to his actions, Mr. Gaita penned a note to the parents of each of his pupils, and sent it home with them. The note explained how the issue arose in class, and exactly what Mr. Gaita's response had been.
There was not much commotion about Mr. Gaita's announcement from his room full of curious children. The same cannot be said for the parental response that followed.
Not surprisingly, the incident has caused a few parents and plenty of anti-gay right-wingers, including many who don't even live anywhere near Newton, to have apoplectic fits.
And as usual, they are trying to use the children as an excuse for their hysteria.
"A child's psychology isn't put together for any of this stuff," Brian Camenker, the leader of a conservative parents group and the father of a child who attends Burr Elementary School, told The Boston Globe.
Mr. Camenker is absolutely right.
Most young kids still in the first grade are not prepared to handle the question of homosexuality the way the rest of society is. That's because most of them haven't yet been indoctrinated into the prejudices and biases society holds against gay people.
Mr. Camenker's words reminded me of a striking billboard I'd seen years earlier. The message wasn't directed at society's prevailing affliction of homophobia, but it was certainly applicable to it.
The billboard consisted of a picture of a group of about half a dozen young children playing together. The kids looked young enough to be first-graders. The children were laughing and giggling, a few of them with their arms around each other's shoulders. Some of the children were white. Some were Black. Some were Asian. Printed below the photo was the message that bigots are not born, they are made.
Many people, even some who will claim not to be particularly anti-gay, argue that the topic of homosexuality is inappropriate for school children. The reason, they say, is that kids are "too young to understand."
Indeed, that's what some are saying about this case. One father of a child in Mr. Gaita's class was quoted as saying he was not protesting that Mr. Gaita is a gay teacher. His problem, he said, is that he is opposed to first graders being taught about sexuality, period.
But that line of reasoning—popular among many who don't want to appear prejudiced against gays and lesbians—crumbles upon a little reflection. If Mr. Gaita had told his students that he was married and had a wife, not a single parent or conservative crusader would have thought to raise an objection. And yet Mr. Gaita's statement about his own life told students nothing more or less about his sexuality than a statement of marriage would have told about a straight teacher. It simply told about a different kind of sexuality. So the truth is that it isn't sexuality that's the issue, but homosexuality.
Some detractors will be more honest about their protests, and admit fully that it is the discussion of homosexuality that bothers them. Inevitably, they fall back on the argument that these kids are too young to understand.
Maybe. But even if teachers never tell first-graders a thing about gay and lesbian people, America's kids won't be too young to learn about them for very long.
What they will learn, in the halls of their schools and on the playgrounds, is that it is OK to call someone you don't like a fag or a fairy. They will learn it is acceptable to pick on the boy who is smaller and weaker because he's a sissy. They will learn it's tolerated when they make fun of the tom-girl. They will learn this without it ever being taught in the classrooms or written in chalk on the blackboard. They will learn these lessons like the rest of America has—by example.
Gay and lesbian students who are suing one school in California for failing to protect them from anti-gay harassment recently did a litle study. They wrote down every time they heard an anti-gay or anti-lesbian comment. They calculated they listened to about 25 such derogatory statements every day ( some heard many more anti-gay comments ) . Their experience is probably the norm rather than the exception.
To me, Mr. Gaita is a hero because he did exactly what the religious right accuses us of doing all the time: recruiting young people. Willingly or not, Mr. Gaita recruited the minds and hearts of these first graders the way the homophobes have done for ages: by setting an example.
This frightens our enemies because they know that young minds are indeed impressionable. Our foes have every right to worry about actions like Mr. Gaita's, because actions like his plant the seeds of doubt that some of those children may draw on in the future to counter all the ugly things about gays and lesbians they will all too soon be old enough to understand and hear on the playgrounds and in the cafeterias and in the hallways of America's schools.
MubarakDah@aol.com
