Suffer The Little Children

Richard Rothstein has another great post over at QueerSighted (http://www.queersighted.com/2007/07/26/suffer-the-little-children-part-5/) that looks at the issue of the treatment received by soo many LGBT youth in schools across the country. Here are a few highlights:

I continue to be amazed and appalled by parents and teachers who think of themselves as decent, right-thinking, Constitution-abiding Americans and yet question the value and "morality" of gay-straight student alliances in our public schools. The stated purpose of these non-curriculum groups is to diminish and prevent gay bashing in order to support a safe and welcoming learning environment for queer students. It's not a complicated proposition. How much hatred, stupidity, ignorance and self-delusion must one harbor in order to question the rightness of it?

These children are unsafe in school. They are insulted, harassed, pushed down stairs, beaten in the lavatories and locker rooms, targeted for bullying in school yards and too often driven to dropping out, substance abuse and even suicide. And then Americans who believe themselves to be decent people, confronted with these facts, turn their backs and say "so what?"

I agree that is amazing how people worry about the humane treatment of animals and all other types of issues somehow act as if gays, especially LGBT youth, are somehow less than human and could care less about brutality and abuse issues. Even worse, so many claim to be Christian. The are the modern day Pharisees.