by Robert A Bernstein:
After 20-some years as a non-gay activist for LGBT rights, I have been privileged to see a virtual sea change in society’s attitude toward homosexuality. But I can still be surprised, even shocked, by the residual tenacity of homophobia. And I’m often touched by evidence of the emotional pain it can still trigger.
A current example of the staying power — and know-nothingness — of homophobia is litigation in Nassau County, Fla., where the school board refused to allow a Gay-Straight Alliance in its Yulee High School. In its formal letter of denial, the district superintendent explained that the board was particularly disturbed by the use of the word “gay” in the organization title. The word itself, it seems, was sufficient to blind the board to the fact that the alliance’s mission is to promote understanding and mutual respect, and the well-being of a significant number of its teenage charges.
Such Neanderthal thinking is not confined to the South or rural areas. Almost by definition, by virtue of its high levels of education, income and social sophistication, Montgomery County, Md., is relatively low on the discrimination scale. But even there, homophobia can thrive. As recently as a year ago, for example, fundamentalist groups brought a legal action against the county’s sex education policies, espousing psychiatric treatment to “convert” gay youths.
Jill Karpf, a longtime librarian in the county schools, affirms that raw homophobia persists among significant numbers of teachers, officials and staff.
Karpf, recently retired, served in various elementary, middle and high schools. She recalls one incident that reflects both the persistence and the painful results of anti-gay feelings in a supposedly enlightened school district where — officially — sexual orientation is among the categories of banned discrimination.
A LONGTIME ACTIVIST on behalf of fairness across the board, Karpf filled her library windows and bulletin boards with posters targeting all types of discrimination. One, for example, stated, “In this classroom, all people are treated with respect,” specifically listing people of all races, national origins, ethnicities, ages, mental and physical abilities, sexual orientations, gender identities and spiritualities.
But Jill, though generally not explicit with her students, never concealed her own lesbianism from her colleagues. And at one school, when she requested that the guidance department put a poster in its office window for Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League, she was called on the principal’s carpet for a tongue-lashing in the presence of another staff member with whom Jill had always been generally friendly. She also received a demerit on her record — never mind that the poster was a potential antidote to one of education’s presumed major concerns, teenage suicide.
A UNION INTERVENTION ultimately erased the demerit. But what had disturbed Jill even more than the demerit was the failure of the colleague present at her belittlement to speak a single word in her defense.
She would have been disappointed by the failure of any of her fellow staff members to speak up on her behalf. But in addition, this particular man, although married, was generally assumed by most of the staff to be a closeted gay.
When Jill confronted him to ask why he had remained silent, he was unable to answer. Rather, he choked up and tears filled his eyes.
The tears, of course, spoke more eloquently than any words. Whatever his personal predicament, whatever his reasons for marrying a woman or feeling compelled to remain in the closet, the tears told the story of the profound pain and confusion inflicted by cultural bigotry.
Perhaps, like the Nassau County School Board members, he was simply terrified by the mere mention of the word “gay.”
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