www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/01/24/national/main668665.shtml
Sue Anna Yeh (left) - a student at First Colony Middle School in Sugar La nd, Texas - won a prize for her "No Name-Calling Week" poem, in a compet ition which is part of the event.
The program, now in its second year, has th e backing of groups from the Girl Scouts to Amnesty International but ha s also drawn complaints that it overemphasizes harassment of gay youths. The initiative was developed by the New York-based Gay, Lesbian & Straigh t Education Network, which seeks to ensure that schools safely accommoda te students of all sexual orientations. GLSEN worked with James Howe, th e openly gay author of "The Misfits" and many other popular children's b ooks. "Gay students aren't the only kids targeted - this isn't about special ri ghts for them," Howe said. "But the fact is that 'faggot' is probably th e most common insult at schools." "The Misfits" deals with four much-taunted middle schoolers - one of them gay - who run for the student council on a platform advocating an end t o nasty name-calling. GLSEN is unsure how many schools will participate in this week's event, b ut says 5,100 educators from 36 states have registered, up from 4,000 la st year. Participation in a related writing-music-art contest rose from 100 students last year to 1,600 this year; the winning poem was written by Sue Anna Yeh, a 13-year-old from Sugar Land, Texas.
"No Name-calling Week" takes aim at insults of all kinds - whether ba sed on a child's appearance, background or behavior. But a handful of co nservative critics have zeroed in on the references to harassment based on sexual orientation. "I hope schools will realize it's less an exercise in tolerance than a pl atform for liberal groups to promote their pan-sexual agenda," said Robe rt Knight, director of Concerned Women for America's Culture and Family Institute. "Schools should be steering kids away from identifying as gay," Knight sa id. "You can teach civility to kids and tell them every child is valued without conveying the message that failure to accept homosexuality as no rmal is a sign of bigotry." In Iowa, complaints by scores of parents about the gay themes in "The Mis fits" prompted the Pleasant Valley School Board to rule that teachers co uld no longer read it aloud to elementary school classes, although it co uld remain in school libraries. In Colorado, lawmakers last year rejected a proposal to declare a statewi de "No-Name Calling Week" in conjunction with the inaugural GLSEN-backed event. House Majority Leader Keith King said he was concerned about fos tering a "victim's mentality" and argued that children should be taught to ignore taunts. Jennifer Granholm issued a proclamation recogn izing the event, and more than 40 national organizations have enlisted a s partners, including the Girl Scouts, the national associations of elem entary and secondary school principals, and the National Education Assoc iation. "People who would criticize this, regardless of who came out with it, are people with bad hearts," said Jerald Newberry, who directs the NEA's he alth information network. "This is as vanilla as you get in terms of creating safe environments in schools," Newberry said. "To criticize this program would, almost withou t exception, be a political attack, not an attack on its content." James Garbarino, a Cornell University professor who has studied school bu llying, said harassment based on sexual orientation "ought to be No. Such taunting has led to v iolence and suicides, he said. Whether programs like "No Name-Calling Week" work depends on whether staf f and students heed the lessons yearlong, not just during special events , Garbarino said. "When it's done in a mechanical, mindless way, when it 's just for show, kids see the hypocrisy of it," he said. GLSEN executive director Kevin Jennings agreed that schools should do mor e than hold a one-week event; he hopes to evaluate systematically whethe r the initiative indeed reduces name-calling. "Every week should be 'No Name-Calling Week', but having one week at least raises the visibility o f the issue," he said. One of GLSEN's most persistent critics is Warren Throckmorton, director o f counseling at Grove City College, a Christian school outside Pittsburg h His skeptical comments about "No Name-Calling Week" have been widely circulated this month on conservative Web sites. "There's no question middle school can be a difficult place - I'm not adv ocating that any group gets mistreated," Throckmorton said in a telephon e interview. "But it will definitely make traditionally oriented teachers and parents and kids feel very uncomfortable, if they happen to object to homosexual ity on moral grounds," he said of GLSEN's program. "If you disagree, you 're hateful, you're bigoted, you're a homophobe. "The use of 'The Misfits' as a basis for this teaching puts the emphasis on the subgroup of the harassment victim instead of on the perpetrator o f harassment - the bully," she said. But Howe said critics of "No Name-Calling Week" seem reluctant to acknowl edge the scope of anti-gay harassment in schools. "Homosexuality is not a moral issue - it's a fact, and kids who are gay, or maybe just different, need to be allowed to grow up in a safe environ ment just like everybody else," he said. This mater ial may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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