A great deal of rhetoric on "hate crime" is being spun by gay activists regarding the appallingly coldblooded murder of Lawrence King, the "gay" 15-year-old shot in the head at school. Terms like "LGBT students" and "the need for tolerance" are being flung around, with the boy being labeled "homosexul" even though he may have still been a virgin or simply alienated and confused by his upbringing. He regularly journeyed from his place of care to school dressed in high-heeled boots and makeup, something that will inevitably draw hostility from teenage boys, regardless of attempts at "positive reeducation."
Am I the only one who feels that these sentimental effusions are presumptuous, even distasteful? Clearly there were issues here beyond simple lack of understanding from a conservative society. There are many isolated and unhappy youngsters who make naive decisions in the way they present themselves and the company they keep.
But, of course, my distaste is an apparent symptom of my homophobia. People are "born gay," don't you know, and all attempts to object to the depthless flow of activist rhetoric or the silent collusion of those too scared to disagree are simply a method by which "homophobia" is perpetuated. If those of us who care to look beneath the surface of these issues could just shut our mouths, then these atrocious events would stop happening!
Exasperated in Liverpool, England
As a teacher, I was horrified by this case in Oxnard, Calif. On the basis of what has been reported, I feel that the school itself was clearly negligent in permitting a troubled young man to strike dangerously theatrical attitudes on school property and evidently even in the classroom. He was wearing pink lipstick and purple eye shadow and openly flirting with other boys. Were his teachers in a p.c. coma? Were they so drunk with utopian political rhetoric about "tolerance" that they were blind to a 15-year-old's psychological vertigo? Did they not pick up any hostile vibes among the students before they erupted into violence? And where were the boy's parents or guardians in all this? What role did home instabilities play in his dreamy gender yearnings? He needed protection against his own fantasies -- or rather his own creative imagination, which should have been channeled into art rather than into acting out in real life.
Like you, I think that the "born gay" thesis is a crock. P.c. ideology is usually simplistically social constructionist, but when it comes to gayness, biology currently rules the roost. Of course it makes no sense. As I have written in the past, homosexuality is an adaptation, the product of a multitude of social and psychological factors. I believe we are all born with a capacity for bisexual expression, which may or may not evince itself, depending on circumstance. Neither government nor religion has the right to intrude into private behavior, including sex. But it is perfectly reasonable to require orderly norms of dress and behavior in a public space like junior high school.
Finally, I continue to maintain, as I have done before, that the young should be granted greater civil liberties: Physically restless or nonconforming young people should not be imprisoned in school but should have the right to leave at age 14, with the door always open for return. Age segregation in crowded modern schools produces these combustible brews of provocation and shaming. Mix classes and grades, and organize education around specific courses, to which everyone has access according to aptitude or progress. Let there be a free flow of adults into high-school classes, thus forever altering the pressure-cooker power dynamics of adolescent angst.
I was reading an old newspaper and noticed that you did in-depth research on the life of Amelia Earhart. I know this may be a long shot, but do you remember in your studies anything to do with her automobile? The reason I ask is that my father owns a 1931 Franklin she purchased. I am always trying to locate more photos or information about her and this car. He has had the car for over 40 years. There is never any mention of her with the car by anyone of today's time. Again, I know it may be a long shot but I thought I would give it a try.
Matt Fink
My obsessive Earhart project went on for three years in the early 1960s, when I was a teenager. I wrote nearly 300 letters of inquiry and spent Saturdays in the bowels of the Syracuse public library ransacking volumes of sooty old newspapers and magazines. I visited sites like Earhart's birthplace in Atchison, Kan., and the abandoned Opa-locka airfield in Florida where she took off on her last flight.
At a time when feminism was still dormant, Amelia Earhart and Katharine Hepburn were my vision of bold, enterprising individualists who had been directly inspired by the women's suffrage spirit. Newsweek even published a letter from me in 1963 where I hailed Earhart for her achievements and protested the lack of equal opportunity for American women. Earhart's precedent was one reason I had so little patience with the maudlin victim feminism of the 1980s and early '90s.
I'm afraid I don't know more than you do about Earhart's car. But let me throw the question open to Salon readers. I will forward you whatever I learn!
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