Hannah Hecht's Blog

The Rolling Stone article “One Town’s War Against Gay Teens” was shocking and disturbing to read. The article described the plight of a few different LGBT individuals in a Minnesota school district. This school district has an incredibly high rate of suicide which is connected with the district’s attitudes toward LGBT students. The local evangelical churches pushed for and passed legislation that required teachers to exhibit “neutrality” on the idea of homosexuality. As a result, bullying based on sexual orientation flourished and played a huge part in many of the suicides.

This article and the school district response were an outrage to read. As educators, teachers ought to teach both equality and love for all people, regardless of sexual orientation. The article is completely heartbreaking and it’s crazy that so many suicides took place before the local legislation decided to do anything about it. It amazes me to think that anyone, especially people who call themselves “Christians,” are the comfortable labeling many kids as “inferior.” The fact that so many suicides had to occur before a light was shone on this issue is even more mind-boggling.