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Sunday, June 24, 2007

Gay Pride 2007: The Love That Dare Not Shows Its Face (In Newark, Anyway)

So it's 2007 and people in blue states like New Jersey and New York say it's fine to be gay. Well, don't tell that to Andre Jackson.

Apparently, Andre Jackson is a pretty typical, normal high school kid. A senior at Newark's East High, he forked over $150 for a special tribute page in his yearbook, one of about 20 where students pay for pages they design filled with pictures depicting them with their families, girlfriends and boyfriends, and friends found at the back of his school's 100-page publication. Andre obeyed the school's regulations (which prohibit shots of gang signs, rude gestures and graphic photos) and filled his with pictures of people important to him, including one of him kissing the person he's dating. He showed up, excited, at the school's senior banquet on Thursday night, ready to collect his copy of the yearbook and to see his special page.

Andre never got to see his special page as he designed it. Neither did any of his classmates. While the seniors waited at the banquet for the yearbooks to be distributed, Newark school staff were in an adjoining room, busily blacking out a photo on Andre's page in each of the 230 yearbooks about to be distributed to the East High class of 2007. What was the problematic photo of? Andre kissing his boyfriend, David Escobales.

Let's be clear here. The kissing part wasn't the problem, as the yearbook had many photos of boys and girls kissing in it. It was the boy kissing a boy they had a problem with. In fact, Newark Superintendent of Schools Marion Bolden called the photograph "illicit," making her personal double standard official school policy as she did not direct school staff to black out any heterosexual kisses in the yearbook which Superintendent Bolden, I guess, deems "licit" (is that a word? What the hell is the opposite of illicit, anyway?). In a magnanimous gesture, Superintendent Bolden offered to refund the $150 fee Andre paid for the page. Andre turned Ms. Bolden and her 30 pieces of silver down, figuring that was just too low a price for his human dignity. Andre's principled stand makes me proud to be gay on this Gay Pride Sunday, 2007.

posted by iamgay @ 3:32 PM

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