High school-y goodness

NYC is about to invest a relatively large amount of capital in expanding a public high school for the LGBT youths of the city – that’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered for those of you who live solely in the country. I am having a very hard time with this, I know it’s a bad idea but I can’t come up with one good, unassailable argument why. I guess the do-gooders claims of the need for a “safe environment ” for these kids is a reasonable argument but how about considering the following:

• The SCOTUS just leapt merrily through more loops than a typical croquet court in order to find that diversity of viewpoint – which can apparently only be gained through enforced racial discrimination – is a compelling state interest and therefore trumps Constitutional guarantees of equal treatment. Not to lump all LBGT folks into some sort of massive stereotype but surely there is a severe loss of diverse viewpoints in excluding heteros from the bulk of daily life. Admittedly, I don’t know what the teaching staff will be but it seems peculiar to me that segregating these people while enforcing integration for others is considered a good thing.
• And while we’re thinking on good things, how positive a thing is it for these kids to be divided up based purely on their sexual identities at such a young age? I lean more to the nature side of the nature v. nurture argument when it comes to debating the causes of homosexuality but still, shouldn’t we be attempting to shield kids from their sexual natures until their old enough to comprehend their whole selves? I know it sounds touchy-feely but if we’re all-fired up about teen pregancy and underage sex, etc why in the hell would we be supporting the skiving off of an entire subset of kids based on their sexuality?
• Like I mentioned before, the safety argument is the only one that holds any water in favor of this hare-brained scheme. Still, doesn’t safety derive in part from learning how to live within the rough and tumble confines of society? One cannot expect the rest of the world to bend themselves in such a manner as to accomodate all of one’s wishes. Surely it’s better for everyone to have to learn to get along? If that means toning it down a bit and keeping your head down more often than not, so be it. I had to learn, often the hard way, I see no reason others should be molly coddled and protected from the slings and arrows of normal life.
• Finally, make no mistake about it, this is segregation. Granted, these kids – or their parents – are willingly consenting to the segregation but not only do I think this will have a negative impact on the kids that attend Harvey Milk High but how about all the other kids out there in the normal public schools who will not have contact with gay folks on a daily basis? So much for tolerance. Remember how rough we all were on the kids that road the little bus? Or the ‘tards that had to toddle off to the special classroom to struggle through Dick and Jane? How the hell are straight kids, particularly in that developmental stage, supposed to learn tolerance if they don’t go to school with gay kids, work with them in class, eat lunch with them and all the other myriad daily opportunities for interaction that leads us to learn and grow?

Not that any of this will make a difference. The goal of the left is for each of us to see ourselves as part of some small subset of humanity deserving of special treatment due to our uniqueness. There has been talk for years about resegregating schools for black kids, offering classes in made up languages (remember Ebonics anyone?), splitting the sexes, etc. Why not a school for red heads? Hell, we’ve been persecuted! A judge in Ireland actually handed down a stiffer sentence to a fellow with red hair because, as we all know, red hair means a bad temper. How about fat kids? Skinny kids? Don’t they have unique problems too? Don’t they get picked on as well?