ABCNEWS.com : Md. H.S. Kiss Prompts Talk on Tolerance: Inspired by a high school assignment, Stephanie Haaser leaped onto a cafeteria table, shouted "End homophobia now!" and kissed classmate Katherine Pecore. Haaser said she was making a statement on behalf of gay and lesbian students because she was bothered by the verbal and physical harassment they face. Their principal said he respected what the heterosexual students were trying to do, but they needed to learn more appropriate ways to make a point. Haaser and Pecore were suspended for two days. "It's highly inappropriate to stand on a table in the cafeteria and make out, whether the kiss was heterosexual or homosexual," said River Hill High School principal Scott Pfeifer. "I don't think there's a school in the country where parents would consider that appropriate behavior."
You know ... it may or may not be highly inappropriate behavior, but unless public high schools have changed drastically since my day, you see straight couples making out everywhere. The most any teacher will do is to wander past and say something like "Not now, people. Hold it until after school." Very seldom will you see people getting suspended for kissing.
To be sure, most people don't shout about it in the cafeteria, either.
Haaser, a junior, said she chose to make the statement as part of an English class assignment, which required that she engage in a nonconformist act in the tradition of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Mind, if she was really doing it in the tradition of Thoreau and Emerson, she'd be kissing lots of girls. Ideally, a few of them might even be married to someone else.
One does suspect that the teacher involved was asked to be perhaps a touch more specific about his assignments from here on in. And given this repressive day and age, I can't imagine, once the parents found out what the assignment was, that they were well pleased with them in any event.
Posted by iain at November 20, 2003 01:53 PM
