Posted on 04/05/2011 9:11:09 PM PDT by SmithL
Last week, second-graders from San Francisco's private all-boys Town School strolled through the Castro, the city's world-renowned gay district where a huge rainbow flag flies gloriously above Harvey Milk Plaza.
The group of about four dozen boys, ages 7 and 8, was led by a reputable local historian who regularly leads walking tours of the Castro (and who asked to remain anonymous in this story).
The guide walked the boys by Pink Triangle Memorial Park, where 15 granite pylons rise above the ground in remembrance of the estimated 15,000 gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders who were persecuted, imprisoned and killed during and after the Nazi regime. A few other stops on the tour included the wildly colored Hope for the World Cure Mural, a pictorial depiction of the AIDS epidemic; the Human Rights Campaign Action Center, local headquarters for a civil rights organization promoting fairness for LGBT Americans; and Harvey Milk's camera shop, which the former gay activist and pioneering politician once lived above.
While the majority of the second-grade parents were in support of the field trip, the school is under fire by a handful of parents* who questioned whether the Castro is an appropriate destination for 8-year-old boys.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The comments underneath are all pro the trip and how bigotted everyone must be.
What the libs try hard to ignore, is that for all these rabid progressives screaming at you how biased you must be, people with children simply are leaving SF.
They are doing everything to attract families and it’s not happening. SF is giving all kinds of money and insurance to children, but it’s not working. It’s causing all kinds of problems there, and they just can’t seem to convince folk they are kid friendly.
If you do take them there just remember to make sure that
they don’t look back when they leave. They may turn into a
pillar of salt.
when I was young and naive, I vacationed in SF & decided to walk into the Castro district to see how bad it was. A convertible full of homosexuals drove past me & they whistled at me and said a variety of things to me that I(thankfully) didn’t understand at that time. It was absolutely terrifying and I left immediately. This was decades ago and I haven’t been back, but if it’s anything at all like that these days then it’s definitely not a place for young boys in particular, or any children for that matter.
the gay community, as a whole, is an ageing community with far less converts today than 20 years ago. There was a story not long ago about West Hollywood gays lamenting the enroachment of hetero yummie couples on ‘their’ town. The drive to indoctrinate the young in an effort to preserve the gay culture beyond its natural lifespan pushes the age envelope ever lower.
Castro and the Tenderloin are no places for impressionable children, much less most normal adults.
The city was not as overwhelmed with homeless and gays as it is now, but Castro Street had an evil reputation. I steered clear of it.
San Francisco is NOT a child-friendly town and I am not surprised that people with kids are fleeing. Costs are beyond belief and the political atmosphere is toxic for families.
There was some discussion when the “Big One” earthquake would come to devastate San Francisco in 1969. It did not happen that year and the city has taken some jolts since then. One day in the near future, SF is going to get a quake and tsunami like devastated Japan. I cannot say I will be unhappy when Sodom-by-the-Bay goes under.
Never been there, never will in the future either. I imagine it would be like taking your family to the Southern Decadence festival in the New Orleans French Quarter.
I think the question should be “Is San Francisco appropriate for young kids?
“I’ll take ‘Rethorical Questions’ for 500, Alex.”
Not appropriate for kids? Parents need to determine when the right time to expose their children to reality. You can't always control when, but it needs to happen lest you send your child into the world unprepared for the more disappointing side of reality.
SF Castro District is unfit for people, period.
I’m not sure California as a whole is appropriate for young kids.
Well, yes, but, unfortunately, the SF Giant’s ball park is located there :(
You can steer clear of a lot of the bad elements of SF, except the homeless. Homeless people are pretty easy to explain to young kids. The ballpark is pretty easy to get to and avoids lots of the negative elements of the city.
Castro is pretty easy to avoid. I’ve only been there a few times, and that was on purpose just to see what it was like. It’s been decades since I’ve driven through that area.
I don’t know why a school would take a school group through the Castro district.
I guess there is something about that name CASTRO, that American liberals just love, period!
Seeing that the only reason I would have for being in SF at all would be to attend a SF Giant’s or SF 49er game, I have no problems avoiding the rest of that cesspool.
You might really enjoy Fort Point since your name is SoldierDad.
It’s an old Civil War fort right by the Golden Gate Bridge. Our family loves going there!
I would like to visit Ft. Point. I’ll have to look into that. Hopefully on a day that the park does not have too many derelicts.
We go up 280 to 19th avenue to get there, and it seems like you miss a lot of the sleazier parts of town.
I think that’s our favorite activity in SF. If it’s clear, you get great views of the Bay when you climb to the top of the fort. It’s not very crowded.
SF has so much natural beauty. It’s such a shame what the liberals have done to it.
We also like getting clam chowder on Fisherman’s Wharf, but you do have to deal with strange characters there. Our kids are older, and they just joke about the strangeness of SF in the Fisherman’s Wharf area.
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