LA Unified School District Considers Gay Heroes as Inappropriate as OJ Simpson for Black History Month
Are LA schools wrong to link LGBT heroes like RuPaul with OJ Simpson?
Published on March 4, 2010
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/transposition/201003/la-unified-school-district-considers-gay-heroes-inappropriate-oj-simpson-bAs you may have read, a hullaballoo is brewing in the LA Unified School District offices because three teachers reportedly encouraged their elementary school students to carry posters of OJ Simpson, Dennis Rodman and RuPaul alongside Dr. Martin Luther King and President Obama in the school's Black History Month parade. Everyone, including the Mayor, is in a tizzy. For the most part, it makes sense: OJ Simpson was an awful choice, in my opinion, and Rodman was questionable, if fairly harmless.
But why on Earth is drag superstar RuPaul held up alongside a convicted murderer and a "hard partying" eccentric sports star as an example of why parents and officials should be horrified? LA's own Mayor Villaraigosa used words like "cynical" and "a terrible disservice to the students, their families and all of the teachers" to describe the choice of the three public figures, including RuPaul.
