ACCEPTANCE VERSUS TOLERANCE

Why Are We Still Hung Up on LGBT Rights?

When I was in high school back in the late ‘60’s, kids weren’t all that tolerant of gay students, so most who preferred to date someone of the same sex mostly kept this to themselves.  Oddly, one of the most popular plays we put on had one of our acting stars portraying Captain Hook as wildly gay.  This was a big hit (but didn’t cause anyone to doubt the actor’s sexuality).  Mostly, people tried to avoid talking about sex.  Either you were having it, and, for girls, not wanting to admit it, or you weren’t.  That was the bigger secret.

As time went on, we began to know people who were gay; they were our friends, neighbors, co-workers and family.  When you know people, you learn to accept them.  That’s better than tolerance, right?  Our definition of acceptable sexuality grew with our friendships, and over time, as being gay no longer was felt to be a security risk or a bad thing, hiring managers no longer cared.  In fact, in not too many years after my high school experience, no one cared about anyone’s sexuality (except perhaps of their own issues or lacks).  Guess what, LGBT people?  You won.  No one cares, unless you force your sexuality on others.  No one wants that.  In most cases, we don’t care who you love. 

The Problems with Pride & “Intolerance”

So, why are we still having “Pride” parades?  Whole months celebrating homosexuality?  If it’s as normal as any other sexual preference…and it is…this fight should have faded into the woodwork, as we saw interracial marriage and other things that were formerly at issue. 

But the fight has continued and doubled-down in schools.  In one Massachusetts school, middle school students were called intolerant and homophobic when they protested a Pride celebration at their school.  No one wanted their peers to feel ashamed, but equally, they didn’t want to be pushed to wear rainbow colors and participate in the Pride activities.  It wasn’t who they saw themselves to be.   Isn’t heterosexuality as normal as any other kind?  The Marshall Simmonds Middle School students were harassed for saying that their pronouns were “USA.”  These students claimed they were exhibiting “free expression” as were those wanting to celebrate. 

The goal when school integration became a campaign, was not to have minority students have special clubs, days, or celebrations.  The concept was to help every student

 to see their fellow classmates as people, equal and interesting all on their own, not to call them out for their differences.

You can’t actually integrate and move to acceptance when the guiding principle is to continually call out differences and insist on special celebrations for groups of students.  If you want to be truly fair, you’d have to have all kinds of special call-outs for those of different religions or different heritages.  Shouldn’t there be a special day/month for our Chinese students whose ancestors built our railroads, dying under the heavy work?  How about an Apology day/month for Japanese students whose families might have been interred or killed with the atom bomb?  Where does it end?

The Better Way

The idea of creating arbitrary groups of people isn’t new.  When I worked for a bank, the CEO sponsored a variety of “interest” groups, that somehow excluded any White male.  I called him out on it.  Better to have interest groups that bring people together, such as a sports league or a chess club.   As has been pointed out frequently lately, having Asians grouped together makes no sense.  And Asians would agree.  Someone from India doesn’t feel particularly allied with someone from Korea.

We need to move towards acceptance, which simply means recognizing the core humanity of every person.  Okay, there are Black students, Asian students, LGBT students, deaf students, smart students, dumb students and more.  But we’re all people.  Celebrations can embrace our humanity instead of calling out differences.  This doesn’t mean that learning about others in an age-appropriate way is out.  But this kind of study has to take place after everyone is assured a quality education in the things that make them successful:  reading, writing, math, geography, science, language, etc.  In other words, the core capabilities.

We’re cheating students by dividing them into arbitrary groups.  LGBT students who aren’t grouped by themselves may discover great friendships with heterosexual students.  Working groups in classes should embrace true diversity – diversity of thought – not arbitrary diversity as practiced now.  If we focus on the real person—good qualities, bad qualities and differences—we can bridge all kinds of gaps.  We won’t like every person, but to make it in the world, we need to work with a variety of people.  Dividing people doesn’t achieve that goal.  Thomas Sowell wrote a book that crushed the myth that America was the worst at accepting differences, showing other countries, like India, as being far behind on a better goal, as spoken by Martin Luther King.  “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”   We’re pretty close to that now.