Ah, These Times

New York's Harvey Milk High School is expanding. The first and only school for queer youth, at first thought, sounds great. If Notre Dame High, home of the Knights, in Sherman Oaks, Calif., was an all-gay school, god knows I would have enjoyed my time there much more. All those girls I looked at every day, lamenting over the fact that their hearts belonged to any number of the well-to-do jocks next to whom I sat every day, would have, instead, been open to a soiree or two with yours truly.I wouldn't have gone home depressed every day and the years between 14 and 17 would have been filled with much more interesting stories to write home about.  But that's just at first thought. As I began thinking more about this NYC school, I started thinking about segregation. It makes me think of that island that many folks throughout the world would love to send gays to. It makes me think of the hordes of teeny-bopping gay bashers who might want to wait outside Milk High's gates to taunt and terrorize the segregated homo teens. Sure New York is a bit more progressive than, say, Edgefield, S.C., but, still, the possibility exists. I wasn't terrorized in high school. Sure, it was probably because I had the propensity to scare most of the people who may have had a problem with me, so I don't know what it's like to be beaten up on a daily basis. Teased, yes, but not beaten. I wish that the school boards across our vast, free, nation would fight instead for tolerance. Implement programs that educate children. Don't hide the homokids for their protection. I can only see that it would make the terrorizers more rabid in their violence. There's a bigger problem here and creating "safe havens" isn't going to fix it. The children from whom the homokids are being saved will not be forced to look at their immorality. Their parents will not be forced to educate their children about full acceptance of everyone. But then again, even the pope hates the homos so this is still an uphill battle. The kids in the new school will apparently get a safe place to study. This is good. This is a right that every kid should be given. But we fought to get over segregation 40 years ago. It's sad, somehow, that we're going back there in the 21st century.