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See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Been following our 'Gay: let's get over it' campaign? Want to do more?

79 replies

RowanMumsnet · 20/11/2013 09:19

Hello,

Hopefully lots of you will be aware of our joint campaign with Stonewall: Gay - let's get over it. The idea is to challenge the casual use of homophobic language among children and young people, particularly in the context of its use at schools. We're here to ask you to take action.

Lots of you have said you're in agreement with the aims (see this thread and our webchat with the ever-marvellous Will Young.)

So - we'd like you to take some action please!

In order for real change to happen, schools need to know about the campaign, and they need to know that parents support it. We're asking MNers to contact their schools asking them to sign up to the campaign.

You can Tweet at your school on Twitter (if both you and the school have accounts Wink); if you're Twitter-phobic, you could contact your school in other ways - on Facebook, by email, a good old-fashioned letter, or by marching up and down with a placard at pick-up time.* Nobble your headteacher, bend a governor's ear, recruit a mouthy pupil: the choice is yours. We've got sample tweets and shareable links on this page, downloadable guides for schools and parents here and posters for printing our and distributing here.

So do please ask your kids' school to get involved - and let us know how you get on.

Thanks
MNHQ

PS There's a list of UK schools on Twitter here.

*For the heavily committed and/or unembarrassable

OP posts:
jellybeans · 22/11/2013 14:02

I'm very glad they are taking action personally. The name is used in a derogatory way (by older kids) towards gay people or suggesting people are gay because it is 'bad'. Disgusting in this day and age. My kids don't bat an eyelid if someone is straight, gay or lesbian because they have been brought up to be respectful of different types of people and relationships. Kids need to realize the damage they do by using language of people in groups, especially minority groups, negatively.

SeaDevilscanPlay · 22/11/2013 15:03

This reply has been deleted

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exaltedwombat · 22/11/2013 15:41

OK. Non-PC opinions are counted as trolling and censored. I'll leave it there.

lougle · 22/11/2013 15:50

'PC' is just a deflection used by people who have no logical and moral argument for their views but still want to feel more important than the people they are insulting, IMO.

SeaDevilscanPlay · 22/11/2013 16:02

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hareinthemoon · 22/11/2013 16:12

lougle I'm going to write that on a post-it and stick it on my computer.

Or make a t-shirt with it on.

KaseyM · 22/11/2013 20:23

Definitely behind this campaign - "gay" is a common insult at DS's school and it drives me nuts...

taffleee · 22/11/2013 20:43

Oh, young kids are always going to use 'gay' as a worded insult, they don't necessarily even know what it means at the time - it's just up for parents to educate -

Luckily, one of my best mates is gay (his godfather, who he loves!!!), so when my eldest started to use it as an insult on his x-box (and didn't know what it meant, just heard the word), he was here, and said 'Oi, you, I'm a gay!, chill it!' - he's now starting to tell people to shut up, cos his godfather is gay, and he's wicked!!

Just kids using words about people they don't know, at the end of the day, his godfather will teach him to be better dressed, cos he's brilliant and I love him xxxx

taffleee · 22/11/2013 20:48

(He's here and told me to say the 'I'm going to teach him to be better dressed' stuff, please don't think I'm just saying that lol!!) x'

jellybeans · 22/11/2013 20:57

taffleee, maybe younger kids but not high school age. One of my DC was called gay by someone who sang songs with graphic sex acts about him so some people clearly know what it means and what they are saying. Luckily the kid got punished.

taffleee · 22/11/2013 21:08

Jelly its just whether you educate whether being gay is a good or bad thing, or just teach your kids to be accepting??

Luckily, my children have a good role model in their life who's their godfather, who just happens to be a gay man - so I would hope if they meet any bulling by people mocking 'gay acts', hopefully they'll brush off with a 'really?' comment and laugh....

I can think of worse things than to be called 'gay' - and hopefully your DC didn't take too much offence, just tell them its not a bad thing!!

ironman · 23/11/2013 11:59

Oh for Gods sake, why don't you all leave children alone! This page is quite Orwellian! Stonewall and others seem hell bent on criminalising everything. If someone is being bullied if another perceives them to be homosexual, than that's different, but a flippant word…give me a break!
There are more important issues than if a kid says gay, bender… whatever get over it.
Lots of gay people call themselves poofs, queens etc; but that's ok is it?

Quite a few liberal fascists here I would say, any of you standing up for Premier Christian Radio Campaign for free speech? No….thought not!

If it's PC it's on MN! As Orwell himself says "in an age of deceit, telling the truth will become a crime!"

All I can say is sod off to this campaign!
Or as Larry Grayson would "shuuut that door!" or even better Dick Emery,
"you are all awful but I like you"! (not)
Grin

Guineapig99 · 23/11/2013 16:30

Looking at some of the comments on here I can see why Stonewall needed a campaign. It's really quite disheartening. I'm gay and I don't like to hear children using the word "gay" to mean somethings rubbish, and yes it does matter.

jellybeans · 23/11/2013 22:51

'I can think of worse things than to be called 'gay' - and hopefully your DC didn't take too much offence, just tell them its not a bad thing!!'

My son wasn't just called 'gay' (that has happened many a time and he wasn't bothered), a group of boys were singing songs about him doing graphic sexual acts (i can't repeat it here but very vulgar) with men and humiliating him in front of other kids who were then joining in. How is that not bullying? The school took it very seriously luckily...Would you really be happy with your son experiencing that and just expect him to laugh it off? Very weird..

What has it got to do with whether he accepts gay as not being bad? It's words of hatred/mocking towards a group in society, very wrong. What if they were using racial terms? the same thing has already happened with words to describe people with learning difficulties. Thank goodness there are several gay teachers who are very proactive in the school.

MissMarplesBloomers · 24/11/2013 10:59

wow ironman you clearly are lucky enough to have never been bullied, or made to feel inferior for who you are.

It is not "just a word" it is said in many context with a derogatory sneer & repeatedly negative conotations.

I will defend& respect your right to your opinion but
do not belittle this brilliant campaign that helps is show that gay or straight homophobic language& behaviour is unacceptable.

DziezkoDisco · 24/11/2013 20:23

Ironman, such ignorance about the power of language to make young peoples lives a misery.

peggyundercrackers · 25/11/2013 10:07

why have my comments been removed? i wasnt trolling - i was expressing my opinion. I thought this site was about free opinion and discussion? obviously not though... especially when the campaign is being driven by a left wing political group...

miss marples is just a word

blessedhope · 26/11/2013 01:59

"The school has recently tried to tackle homophobia and played the Macklemore song in assembly,"...

and that's exactly the sort of thing that explains why my three dc's are and will continue to be in independent Christian school.

I can sleep tonight knowing MY children just WILL NOT be exposed in a school (thus giving an authority figure's implicit imprimatur) to a sick song: which blasphemously co-opts Bible verses containing the word "love" divorced [pun intended] from their Scriptural contexts to promote the approval of sex between two men, by an overt and unrepentant practicing lesbian;
which contains the line " whatever God you believe in, we come from the same one thus promoting the Karen Armstrong, John Shore, New Age any-way-is-okay claptrap which pervades much state school "neutral RE" rather than acknowledging the differences between God as He revealed Himself in His Word and man-made idols;
which peddles the Far Left, Humanistic, rotten little lies that those Christians who hold to orthodox sexual morality have "somehow forgotten" (I can feel the liberal condescension in those words) that "God loves all His children", that they do not understand the Bible accurately so only "paraphrase" and that they resort to only Old Testament ["3500 years ago"] texts in reaching their positions; actually, we know He loves all but Jesus warned that while all men are our neighbours, not all men are "God's children." Rejecting this biased and one-sided view of the Creator, we pro-family born-again Christians understand His love to not be of the same kind as Macklemore's modernistic and man-centric concept of a sickly-sweet, feminized, non-judgey approval; this inferior supposed "love" is in reality mere indulgence;
which is politically biased as one would expect from ultra liberal Macklemore, vainly accusing "right-wing conservatives" of "playing God" while misrepresenting both those who believe in ex-gay/reparative therapy and the much wider pool of conservatives who believe homosexual lusts should be suppressed, not acted out;
which compares the affirmers of sexual immorality to anti-racists and those who hold firm in the man/woman view of marriage to White Supremacists, an evil comparison debasing human nature and mocking God even as the artist claims to believe in Him (like the revolting "Jason Collins=Jackie Robinson" false analogy used when he announced his homosexuality this April but one level worse), bearing false witness about us by taunting us as "hate" and "fear" based rather than morality- and Scripture-based;
and which advocates for the godless nostrum of cosmopolitan postmoderns of "Be Yourself", even referring to the choice to kill oneself in terms of "being who-you-are"... when I believe "DENY SELF and Follow Christ".

This is yet the sort of spiritually toxic garbage the pro-Stonewall crowd want young impressionable kids to hear in the captive-audience environment of a school assembly! What is it with this campaign of brazen shamelessness uniting professing people of faith who seem shaky at best with secular humanists?

No wonder so many of the 18-34 "millennial generation" are for redefining marriage away from sexual complementary definitions and believe in anything-goes "consensualist" sexual pseudomorality rather than the restraints that characterize the virtuous! The majority of people that age have been through a state education system run entirely by the children of the sixties revolution, now middle-aged and affluent "respected professionals" who brought bags of their youthful far-leftist tricks with them into schools, medicine, law, politics, the media and even some churches giving them different names to bewilder those not in their "enlightened" (as if!) complex of corruption.

noblegiraffe · 26/11/2013 08:01

Remember what Jesus said about homosexuality........absolutely nothing.

blessedhope · 26/11/2013 15:37

noblegiraffe I agree. He did say a man shall leave his father and mother and unite with his wife and that sexual immorality (Greek porneia, including same-sex erotic acts of any sort) is a no-no. He also said that while His followers are not to "cast stones" by hating on people we are to exhort people to repentance and those living in rebellion to His standard can and will be forgiven but they should "sin NO MORE".

Jesus said nothing about many sins. The pastoral epistles from Paul and Peter flesh out some of the specifics of his general teaching-which was certainly based on love and compassion, yes, but also holiness, obedience and self-denial/self-control, definitely not unrestrained lustful eros or humanistic sentimentality (which too many unbelievers or spiritually immature Christians confuse with real agape love.)

DziezkoDisco · 26/11/2013 18:04

Blessedhope - and that is why my children will never ever go to a religious school. But rather one that teaches love and tolerance for all.

SolemnHour · 26/11/2013 20:27

That is exactly why religion has no place in my or my childrens life, pity help if you if your children are gay or bisexual.

MissMarplesBloomers · 26/11/2013 23:16

Peggy

Nigger,Paki & Spaz were "just words" once.

Doesn't mean we can 't change & stop using them!!

blessedhope · 30/11/2013 07:29

dziezko and solemn the school DOES teach love for all, and tolerance- what you are looking for is approval and celebration.

missmarples- they are slurs with no meaning other than to attack a minority group. The equivalent to those words would be 'faggot' or 'dyke' (and possibly 'tranny', though it is not usually said with such hate.)

'Gay' meaning bad is closer to saying that sensitive men act 'like a girl' or politicians referring to 'ghetto hoodlums' which conjures up images of black men as the only criminals. It can perpetuate bigotry and stereotyping but is not necessarily said with the intention of hating a group of people.

Still, I completely agree schools should teach children not to use slurs or misuse 'gay' along with other stereotypes and prejudice-based language. My objection was to a song which goes far beyond that into religious-political 'culture war' territory.

DziezkoDisco · 01/12/2013 08:33

Blessedhope. Rubbish, the school teaches tolerance, if what you wrote is anything to go by. just really really hope none of your children are gay. for their sakes.

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