<p><a href=“http://cbs5.com/education/local_story_053221758.html[/url]”>http://cbs5.com/education/local_story_053221758.html</a></p>
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<p>The language is inappropriate. I wonder how she was punished. Perhaps the school went too far with the punishment. I would think a detention would be appropriate. If it was more, then the parents have a point. If it was detention, punitive damages is ridiculous. They should have an awful lot of kids in detention, or punished, since I hear this phrase regularly.</p>
<p>The punishment (or lack thereof) should depend on how the phrase was used. If it was used as a putdown towards another student, then the girl should face some sort of mild punishment. If she merely said it as a reaction to something she wasn’t pleased with, then she shouldn’t face punishment.</p>
<p>Ready or not, America is bringing back an old playground insult – for the sheer fun of it.</p>
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<p>By Nancy Updike</p>
<p>Sept. 14, 2000 | If you live in a decent-sized city and you are gay (or straight with a lot of gay friends), you or someone you know has declared something gay in the last week. Not gay as in homosexual, but gay in that grade-school “That is so gay!” way, i.e. lame, wrongheaded, queer in the original sense.</p>
<p>This is happening all around you. That woman’s hairdo? Gay. That book jacket? Gay. The fact that Dick and Lynne Cheney won’t talk about their lesbian daughter? Gay gay gay.</p>
<p>“I use it so much I don’t even think about it. It’s like coughing,” says Jose Munoz, associate professor at New York University and author of “Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics.”</p>
<p>Silly. This word has no reference to sexual preference in this context…I agree with the above : lame, stupid, etc.
Everyday I ask my 17 year-old, “How was school? " and everyday she says " Gay…” . Now do I really think she means her school is homosexual? No, it just means she doesn’t really like school. Is she at all homophobic? No - she has several close friends who are openly “gay” ( in the other sense) and they use the term in the same way as illustrated above w/o offense.
I am offended by the way everybody is so offended : )
Aren’t there more important issues facing the schools? ( like how about those test scores that show a lack of basic proficiency)</p>
<p>I agree with PA Mom, everyone used the term “gay” in middle school, not so much now, but back then “that’s gay” or “that’s ■■■■■■■■” were common.</p>
<p>We used this term back in college (20+ years ago) and it meant the same thing, i.e. nothing at all to do with homosexuality. That one’s been around a long time.</p>
<p>I’m with you, PA Mom!</p>
<p>Remember when “gay” meant happy? So are “happy” people offended that now the word “gay” most commonly refers to homosexuality?</p>
<p>I happen to agree that the expression is used quite a lot. It still does not make it appropriate. In our hs, it is used so much. I do think that if it were brought to the attention of a teacher for some reason, it would result in a few minute (I believe 15 minutes) detention, and that would be the end of the matter. For parents to be asking for punitive damages makes me think that we don’t have the whole story. The article does not say what the punishment was, and I suspect that it was over the top (ie: suspension).</p>
<p>“Aren’t there more important issues facing the schools?”</p>
<p>PA Mom, please visit our “Steve Jobs” thread for “yes” answers to your rhetorical question.</p>
<p>But in this regard, it is the school adminstrators & State Dept. of Education & State Legislature (in my State) who believe a schoolyard phrase is way more important than test scores or (in my teacher judgment even more important) functional literacy.</p>
<p>True story worth repeating: My daughter once commented to me that “Homophobia is just so gay!” </p>
<p>Still, I’d be interested to hear what a gay (i.e. homosexual) student has to say about the common expression.</p>
<p>Actually, I’m offended by the phrase “■■■■■■■■” - meaning stupid. Since my sister was ■■■■■■■■ (before the phrase “mentally handicapped” came into being), it used to anger me to hear it flung as the ultimate insult.</p>
<p>I always thought the “so gay” phrase meant as others have defined it. I’m surprised to hear it causing offense.</p>
<p>The use of the word “thats so gay” is rarely, if ever, a compliment…it is always a putdown and because it started as a way of insulting gay people, you are insulting gays, no matter your intention or context</p>
<p>why not teach your kids that with the hundreds of thousands of words to use to disparage something, why not pick one that doesn’t disparage a whole group of people at the same time</p>
<p>My D heard some kids using that phrase and called them on it, they were insulting each other</p>
<p>And her gay friends don’t particulary like the phrase because they sense deep down it started as an insult to them</p>
<p>for instance- thats so gay- when used is often used to describe something that is weak, effeminate, lame, bad, shallow, boring…and to think there was never a connection to insulting homosexuals when the word first became slang, is being naive</p>
<p>Has anyone ever used the phrase in a positive way in reference to anything
I never have heard it and when asking my Ds, they only ever hear it as an insult</p>
<p>you would hope in this day and age, kids would be smart enough to see the damage that words can do, even if not obvious</p>
<p>It is a cultural thing, and none of my Ds friends use the phrase, </p>
<p>Just because people use the phrase doesn’t make it cute or clever or fun, if it is a way of sideways insulting a whole section of society</p>
<p>I would hope as parents we would see that and show our kids the dictionary</p>
<p>The word “■■■■■■■■” I too always found offensive…and it too was never used in any postive manner</p>
<p>Would we let our kids walk around and say, that so dwarf, or thats so polish, or thats so crippled? I don’t think so, but we think its okay to say thats so gay…interesting</p>
<p>Would you take someone to court because that person said you were a “moron?”
“an idiot?”
Is “it’s so gay” any worse? </p>
<p>If we’re going to use original usage as an argument, Gay used to mean joyful, as in Gay Paree. Queer used to mean strange.</p>
<p>My boys went to a single sex school. That phrase was very common between the ages of 12 and 16–when peers started announcing their orientation. It is absolutely intended as an insult–on par with the ‘n’ word. It is absolutely related to homophobia. The current overuse of ‘gay’ may lull adults into forgetting the roots of the word.</p>
<p>I agree with CGM on this one.</p>
<p>Growing up, we used the word “gyped” to mean cheated. I didn’t learn until much later that this was a derogatory reference to gypsies. When I went away to college, I heard people use the word “jewed” to mean the same thing. When I told them that this was offensive, they were genuinely surprised. To them, it was just an expression, divorced from any reference to Jews.</p>
<p>There are plenty of other words that convey “stupid” or “silly.” Why not use them?</p>
<p>I think it is an overreaction to punish a student for using the phrase, unless she had been spoken to about it before. However, it is still innapropriate and offensive. While people frequently apply the expression to actions not remotely connected to homosexuality, I have also heard it applied in ways that imply effeminacy, i.e. “He grew his hair out? That’s so gay!” Regardless of how it is being used, using someone’s sexual orientation as a synonym for stupid is derogatory. I’m not going to condemn everyone who uses it (I can’t swear that I never used it myself back in middle school), but kids should be made aware that it is offensive.</p>
<p>Would that make a difference to any of you? ‘Cause that’s what’s said in my kids’ school, right along with “That’s so gay.”</p>
<p>p.s. That said, I have never made a federal case over this. I tell my kids to IGNORE, IGNORE, IGNORE. What’s the point? There’s no enlightening some people.</p>
<p>I also agree that it’s disingenuous not to acknowledge the derivation, and that it is parallel to using “■■■■■■■■” as an insult. Both started as labeling someone or something as negative by using a word for a group of people who are viewed negatively.</p>
<p>Whether I’d sue over it or not is immaterial; no, I wouldn’t, but I’m not the one who’s being denigrated. </p>
<p>But not seeing it as a lawsuit- or reprimand-level of offensiveness is one thing; refusing to acknowledge its roots is another.</p>
<p>I have to admit I’m probably guilty of not thinking about the source at all. Gay is a family name in my family, so we don’t tend to use the word for anything else at all. We say happy, homosexual, or lame, or whatever the situation warrants.</p>
<p>I agree that derogatory labels in general need to be discouraged. I’m blond…</p>
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:D</p>