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Marcus, your family is a "dirty word."
Boy says mom is gay; school rebukes him
Ann Rostow, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
Monday, December 1, 2003 / 05:33 PM
In an extraordinary case of discrimination by public school officials, a 7-year-old Louisiana boy was scolded by his teacher, sent to the principal's office and required to attend a discipline session after he told a classmate his mother was gay.
According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Marcus McLaurin was in line for recess on Nov. 11, when a classmate asked about his parents. Marcus explained that he had two mothers, because his mother was gay. When asked what that meant, the boy replied "gay is when a girl likes another girl."
Later that day, Marcus' mother, Sharon Huff, was concerned after receiving a call from the assistant principal, who informed her that Marcus was in trouble for using a word so bad that it couldn't be repeated over the phone. But her concern, Huff said, "was nothing compared to the shock I felt when my little boy came home and told me that his teacher had told him his family is a dirty word."
Marcus came home with a "Student Behavior Contract" for his mother's signature, where he had been obliged to detail his transgression. "I sed bad wurds," wrote the second-grader under the heading, "What I did." Under "What I should have done," Marcus wrote: "Cep my mouf shut."
At the top, teacher Terry L. Bethea wrote: "He explained to another child that you are gay (underlined twice), and what gay means."
On a separate form for the Louisiana Department of Education, Bethea said Marcus "told the other child that gay is when a girl likes a girl. This kind of discussion is not acceptable in my room," she continued. "I feel that parents should explain things of this nature to their own children in their own way."
Marcus's final humiliation came during a one-hour "behavior clinic," where he was obliged to write repeatedly: "I will never use the word 'gay' in school again," the ACLU reports.
"At the ACLU, we often deal with schools that mistreat gay children and children who have gay parents," said the ACLU's Ken Choe in a press release. "But this is beyond the pale."
On Monday, the ACLU sent a letter to Virginia Bonvillain, principal of Ernest Gallet Elementary School in Youngsville, demanding that Marcus's disciplinary record be expunged, and that officials apologize to the boy and his mother. Further, the ACLU asked for "assurances that (school officials) will neither engage in such censorship and discrimination in the future, nor retaliate against either Marcus or Ms. Huff."
"To tell a 7-year-old boy that he can't talk about his family not only makes that child feel confused and hurt," said Choe, "it violates his constitutional right to free speech and equal treatment."
Although the ACLU told Principal Bonvillain that it seeks "to work with you to resolve this matter without resort to litigation," the cases cited in the ACLU's letter suggest that the law is on Marcus' side.
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It's one thing to attack an adult for their lifestyle, but to approach a child in this manner, no matter how lightly, without conferring with the parent(s) first? Wow.
"Cep my mouf shut."
A lesson in social discourse that will stay with him, for better or for worse, for a long time...
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