Friday, October 16, 1998

Provo Teen's `Wish:' Crucify Gay Men And Burn Lesbians

BY HILARY GROUTAGE

THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

Students gathered around a tree outside Provo's Centennial Middle School on Wednesday for an annual tradition where they voice their wishes for the world.

Most were idyllic: Stop world hunger. Save the rain forest.

Then a 13-year-old boy stepped to the microphone and suggested that "gay men be crucified on Main Street and lesbians be burned at the stake.''

Some of the students cheered. But at least one went home and told her mother. "I was livid. My gosh, this happened in a public school where we are supposed to be teaching children to carry on their civic duties,'' said Linda Dennis, whose 13-year-old daughter attends Centennial.

"There was a teacher standing right there and no one did a thing,'' said Dennis' daughter. The incident carries particular weight in light of last week's brutal beating death of Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard, a gay man whose murder has forced a nation to ponder its collective feelings toward homosexuality and intolerance. Police say robbery was the motive for the crime, but that Shepard's attackers chose him because he was gay.

Centennial Principal George Bayles was not on campus Wednesday, but said he felt like he had taken a swift kick to the stomach when he heard of the incident.

His school has an extensive character-education program, which includes the wish ceremony. Centennial Timberwolves are divided up into "packs'' of 20 students who are mentored for their three-year stay by the same teacher or administrator. On Wednesday, the packs picked a representative to read a wish they all agreed on.

A substitute teacher in charge of the offender's pack asked him not to read his "wish,'' but he did it anyway.

For his action he has been suspended for three days. And today, students will see a school-produced video on tolerance that shows a pair of Centennial students discussing the incident and how inappropriate it was.

"These are good kids,'' Bayles said. "We work very hard at it, but sometimes kids say things and they don't even know what they are saying. I guess you could err on the side of caution and muzzle them, but you'd miss a lot of great learning opportunities.''

Bayles said the boy's parents were shocked and support the suspension.

The insensitivity is not confined to Utah. A national survey cited by the Gay Lesbian Straight Educators Network (GLSEN), shows 65 percent of gay and lesbian students report slurs and/or physical violence directed at them because of their sexual orientation.

When told of the event, Gayle Ruzicka, a vocal opponent of gay rights and head of the ultra-conservative Utah Eagle Forum, was troubled.

"Our children need to know that we don't hate homosexuals, we grieve for their lifestyle choices,'' she said.

Slurs about sexuality fall into a sort of forbidden zone for teachers, said Robert Austin, co-chair of Utah's GLSEN chapter. Educators who wouldn't hesitate to stop students from shouting racial slurs or ridiculing disabled or overweight people might not know how to handle comments about sexual orientation, especially if they are gay themselves, he said.

"There are moments in classrooms when teachers just have to step up and say `Hold on. That's not appropriate.' ''