Talking Point #3

Gayness, Multicultural Education and Community
By: Dennis Carlson


Premise:
- Gay = Ignored
- Sexual identity
- Privileged
- Homogenous
- Separate
- Marginalized
- Schools
- Silent spaces
- Normalizing
- Homophobia
- Text books
- Gay teachers/students

Author's Argument
- Carlson argues that people who are gay are "invisible" because the community, especially the schools systems, tries to pretend that "gayness" doesn't exist.

Evidence
- Carlson discusses how text books never actually touch on the subject of homosexuality or how it is never brought to peoples attention that some of the most famous authors in history were gay.
- People that are gay have had to form their own groups because they are ignored by the "normal" groups (Page 234).
- Teachers who have been found to be gay have been fired because the school officials think gayness is wrong and students should not be exposed to homosexuality.

Questions/Comments
- To be honest I did not like the article very much. I agree that Carlson made some good points but, it was hard to understand what he was trying to say. It took me forever to read the article. I kept getting lost in the words and I just could not follow. One situation that I thought was unfair was that gayness is typically associated with disease. Through my schooling experience I have found this to be true and I agree with Carlson that this is part of the problem of discrimination against people who are gay. I also agree with one of the remarks a teacher made about students. I agree with him that some children just are not mature enough to discuss homosexuality.
There were some parts of the article that I did not agree with. First of all I found it to be completely shocking that the student called the homosexual teacher a faggot. I could not believe that there are children who actually think it is okay to do that. I guess that's just the way they were brought up. One other part of the article that I did not agree with was the part about homosexuality being contagious. I do not exactly understand what Waller means by that but, I would definitely like to know more about why he thinks that and where he is getting his information from. For the most part the article was good, just hard to get through.