Think Pink!

One of the first things you learn when growing up is that you don't have to be gay to be fag-bashed. Convincing everyone that you're hetero, whether you are or not, isn't just a matter of getting to hang with the cool kids or becoming class president; it's the difference between eating your lunch in peace or getting your teeth kicked in on a daily basis.

That's a grim, but universal truth, and the number of us that can testify to it makes the following story from Nova Scotia that much more cheering. When a new student dared to wear a pink shirt to Central Kings Rural High School, he was harassed by a group of about ten students who threatened to beat him up. Two of his classmates, however, decided to take action:

The next day, Grade 12 students David Shepherd and Travis Price decided something had to be done about bullying.

"It’s my last year. I’ve stood around too long and I wanted to do something," said David.

They used the Internet to encourage people to wear pink and bought 75 pink tank tops for male students to wear. They handed out the shirts in the lobby before class last Friday — even the bullied student had one.

"I made sure there was a shirt for him," David said.

They also brought a pink basketball to school as well as pink material for headbands and arm bands. David and Travis figure about half the school’s 830 students wore pink.

It was hard to miss the mass of students in pink milling about in the lobby, especially for the group that had harassed the new Grade 9 student.

The one dismaying thing about this story is that in this country, it's controversial enough getting school administrators to say that you shouldn't beat up the gay kids. Calls for tolerance violate the free practice of religion as guaranteed by the First Amendment, at least according to the Religious Right.

(Story found at Towelroad.com)

Technorati Tags: adolescents, teens, homophobia, gay, David Shepherd, Travis Price