Gay Only School

So the last few weeks in Toronto there has been talk about opening a new "Gay Only" elementary/high school. I decided to post on here with my opinion and hopefully you can all join in.

Personally, when news broke of this, I felt angered, upset and pissed off frankly. Don't get me wrong, I understand the reasoning behind it. They are trying to reduce the amount of gay bullying and hatred toward gay kids but this is not the way to do it. As a community, we have so many things going on that push towards equal rights, equal treatment and making us seem just as capable and deserving as everyone else. Again, don't get me wrong, things like pride where we are able to distinguish ourselves as different and celebrate this type of "diversity" are great, but to me, the whole idea of a gay only school is step backwards in our struggle towards equal rights.

Why do we push to be equal and treated just like everybody else at work, at school, in the community only to go and segregate ourselves. The statement this is making is we should be different and not have to be apart of the rest of the public because of our sexual orientation. Sexual orientation to me is not a culture, just like being straight is not a culture. If they were to make a "straight-only" school, what would our opinion as a community be. Outraged. Why is this any different? I think it is much more important to continue down the road we are fighting for education, and awareness of anti-gay bullying and things of that nature and even though it doesn't always work out the best way right now in time, I think opening a school like this is a step backwards.

There is no added educational value from this, there is no history of a culture that can't be offered anywhere else. In fact, offering these types of courses that educate on "gay rights" may be more beneficial in a regular public school environment. All we are doing is taking kids and putting even a bigger target on their back and the school. Sorry for my rant, this just really angered me.

Feel free to post your opinions. I apologize if any of this comes off the wrong way. If I can find a link to an article about this I will post.
Cheers.

---------- Post added 28th Sep 2012 at 06:19 PM ----------

Toronto may get queer-centric school