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We’ve heard of the “down-low” gay person who keeps his or her sexual identity secret for fear of public scorn. But Sprigg and other evangelicals say changing attitudes toward homosexuality have created a new victim: closeted Christians who believe the Bible condemns homosexuality but will not say so publicly for fear of being labeled a hateful bigot.

—excerpt from “When Christians Become a ‘Hated Minority’” by John Blake in CNN.com (May 5, 2013)

good: Starting a New Tradition: Georgia Students Hold School’s First-Ever Integrated Prom- Liz Dwyer wrote in Education, Race and Georgia A group of high school seniors at Wilcox County High School in rural south Georgia made history this past weekend by bucking their community’s longstanding tradition of racially segregated proms—yes, one prom for white teens and one for black teens. Indeed, thanks to the inspiring students behind the Integrated Prom movement, for the first time ever, black and white students in the community dressed up and danced the night away together. How does a community get around having a prom that’s open to everyone without violating any civil rights laws? Easy. You just don’t let the school sponsor it. After the courts integrated the schools in the area, proms became private, invite-only events. White parents began raising funds for an all-white senior prom, leaving black families with no choice but to follow suit and host proms for their children. Yes, this still goes on on 2013, and not just in this town, either. And yes, some white Wilcox students still attended the all-white only prom. But as you can see from the video above, what happens when students say they’ve had enough and take action is truly inspiring.
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Starting a New Tradition: Georgia Students Hold School’s First-Ever Integrated Prom
- Liz Dwyer wrote in Education, Race and Georgia

A group of high school seniors at Wilcox County High School in rural south Georgia made history this past weekend by bucking their community’s longstanding tradition of racially segregated proms—yes, one prom for white teens and one for black teens. Indeed, thanks to the inspiring students behind the Integrated Prom movement, for the first time ever, black and white students in the community dressed up and danced the night away together.

How does a community get around having a prom that’s open to everyone without violating any civil rights laws? Easy. You just don’t let the school sponsor it. After the courts integrated the schools in the area, proms became private, invite-only events. White parents began raising funds for an all-white senior prom, leaving black families with no choice but to follow suit and host proms for their children.

Yes, this still goes on on 2013, and not just in this town, either. And yes, some white Wilcox students still attended the all-white only prom. But as you can see from the video above, what happens when students say they’ve had enough and take action is truly inspiring.

Participants rated their sexual orientation on a 10-point scale, ranging from gay to straight. Then they took a computer-administered test designed to measure their implicit sexual orientation. In the test, the participants were shown images and words indicative of hetero- and homosexuality (pictures of same-sex and straight couples, words like “homosexual” and “gay”) and were asked to sort them into the appropriate category, gay or straight, as quickly as possible. The computer measured their reaction times.

The twist was that before each word and image appeared, the word “me” or “other” was flashed on the screen for 35 milliseconds — long enough for participants to subliminally process the word but short enough that they could not consciously see it. The theory here, known as semantic association, is that when “me” precedes words or images that reflect your sexual orientation (for example, heterosexual images for a straight person), you will sort these images into the correct category faster than when “me” precedes words or images that are incongruent with your sexual orientation (for example, homosexual images for a straight person). This technique, adapted from similar tests used to assess attitudes like subconscious racial bias, reliably distinguishes between self-identified straight individuals and those who self-identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual.

Using this methodology we identified a subgroup of participants who, despite self-identifying as highly straight, indicated some level of same-sex attraction (that is, they associated “me” with gay-related words and pictures faster than they associated “me” with straight-related words and pictures). Over 20 percent of self-described highly straight individuals showed this discrepancy.

Notably, these “discrepant” individuals were also significantly more likely than other participants to favor anti-gay policies; to be willing to assign significantly harsher punishments to perpetrators of petty crimes if they were presumed to be homosexual; and to express greater implicit hostility toward gay subjects (also measured with the help of subliminal priming). Thus our research suggests that some who oppose homosexuality do tacitly harbor same-sex attraction.

New study indicates homophobia is often a result of repressed homosexual feelings, validating what Freud posited in his concept of “reaction formation,” in which we lash out against others’ expressions of what we loathe in ourselves.

The above is via explore-blog, and it’s a long and fancy way of saying that (at least according to this study) homophobia is often associated with repressed homosexual feelings. This work will be appearing in the next issue of Journal of Stuff Everyone Knows But Couldn’t Quite Prove Until Now.

(via jtotheizzoe)

(Source: )

smoke-and-sketchpads: Guys, this is my little brother, Reese. He just turned eight last March, and he is in second grade. He had found that he prefers guys to girls. When he told his friends that at recess, they threw rocks at him. Rocks. He came home crying, saying that his friends had called him names like “faggot” and “homo”. Second graders called him these names. I explained to him that it is perfectly okay to be gay, and that I will still love him no matter what. Unfortunately, my parents don’t agree. He’s been set apart from the family and his friends for his sexuality, that he has no control over. I’m not doing this for notes or to gain followers. I’m doing this to show Reese he will be accepted by many people no matter what sexuality he is. Reblog if you support my eight year old brother, no matter his sexuality.
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smoke-and-sketchpads:

Guys, this is my little brother, Reese. He just turned eight last March, and he is in second grade. He had found that he prefers guys to girls. When he told his friends that at recess, they threw rocks at him. Rocks. He came home crying, saying that his friends had called him names like “faggot” and “homo”. Second graders called him these names. I explained to him that it is perfectly okay to be gay, and that I will still love him no matter what. Unfortunately, my parents don’t agree. He’s been set apart from the family and his friends for his sexuality, that he has no control over. I’m not doing this for notes or to gain followers. I’m doing this to show Reese he will be accepted by many people no matter what sexuality he is. Reblog if you support my eight year old brother, no matter his sexuality.

(Source: cigarettes-and-sketchpads)

Of course I support it and I’m going to the rally - since you came out you’ve been happier, more out-going, and more confident. I can’t help thinking that if something like this bill had existed when you were in school, you would have been this comfortable earlier…I want other parents to have happy kids.
my mother, on Manitoba’s Bill 18 (via maccaroni-and-porn)
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