Posted on 10/28/2005 7:51:24 AM PDT by scripter
CHICAGO -- High school is a time when everyone wants to fit in.
On Tuesday, NBC5's Anna Davlantes introduced viewers to two suburban teenagers who say that fitting in didn't matter when it came time to choosing the school's homecoming king and queen.
The choice that students made, however, is attracting attention and causing controversy.
Davlantes said it may not shock people that a jock and a cheerleader were chosen as homecoming king and queen at Buffalo Grove High School, but what surprises some and concerns others is what's different about the two students and what it might say about their generation.
Jen Wohlner and Ryan Cooperman are popular leaders at the school. They're also openly gay, Davlantes said.
So, some people were surprised by what happened in their high school gym a little over a week ago, when the two were chosen as homecoming king and queen.
"The entire gym was completely packed. No one knew who was going to be king or queen," Cooperman said.
Then came the announcement: "I am proud to present to you the homecoming king and queen."
"And they were, like, Ryan Cooperman ... Jen Walner. Everyone exploded. It was just amazing," said a Buffalo Grove student and friend of the royal couple.
So, how is it that a gay student and a lesbian win the biggest high school popularity contest?
"I think it shows that is our school, and maybe the generation as a whole, is just a little more progressive," Wohlner said.
Their election shatters stereotypes, Davlantes said. They are not at all the typical homecoming king and queen.
Wohlner plays sports and went to prom with another girl last year. Ryan is a cheerleader.
"I guess you could say this year it was kind of a jock and a cheerleader, but flip-flopped positions," she said.
Other students said that the anomaly doesn't bother them.
Perhaps, Davlantes said, being openly gay in Chicago's suburban high schools no longer carries the stigma it once did.
Time magazine made the subject its cover story last week, saying that students are coming out earlier and earlier.
"I came out in eighth grade," one girl told NBC5.
"I never dated a boy before," another girl said.
"I knew, personally, around sixth grade," Cooperman said.
And the number of gay clubs in high schools has exploded from 100 a few years ago to more than 3000 nationwide today.
"It's really kind of uncool to be anti-gay," said school psychologist Jennifer Zacharski.
Attitudes have shifted dramatically in one generation, Zacharski, who sponsors Buffalo Grove's Gay-Straight Alliance.
"When they saw me in the crowd (at the homecoming) they were, like, 'Ms. Zacharski, we got it,'" she recalled.
But not everyone is cheering about the school's groundbreaking choice.
"For us, it's a sad thing," said Illinois Family Institute's spokesman Pete LaBarbera said. He claims that schools are too politically correct nowadays.
"Something that was once sort of universally regarded as a sin, is now becoming sort of cool in high school," he said. "It's easy for an adult to say, 'Oh wow, I'm doing the compassionate thing by telling this teenaged boy that he's gay,' but they won't be there when the boy becomes a man and comes down with HIV or hepititis B and C."
"Like, you know what? I'm gay and if you have a problem with that, I really could care less," Cooperman said.
"I'm proud of who I am," Wohlner said. "Not just that I'm proud of being gay, but I'm proud of all that I am."
They say their popularity has sent a message -- not about being gay, but being themselves.
"What's so appealling about them is that they are themselves. They are themselves despite whatever people might think," Zacharski said.
Davlantes said that this is the first time anyone can remember two openly gay students being named homecoming king and queen, but that could soon change.
According to a Harvard University study, the average gay person comes out of the closet just before high school graduation.
Davlantes said that conservatives are lobbying to get more groups on campus that represent an alternative viewpoint.
Yeah, kids have cut smoking and moved on tho methamphetamine. A real boon for dentists, as all of their teeth will fall out.
A homo who lived in Khartoum
Took a lesbian up to his room
They argued all night
About who had the right
To do what, and with which, and to whom
Homosexual Agenda Ping.
This is a very sad (and likely very biased) article. Important points to consider: The huge number of "Gay Straight Alliance" type clubs - the article uses the word "explosive" in this connection. And how successful the indoctrination has been! It is now "cool" to be gay. Is the truth being told to these young high school students - that the gay life isn't so gay? That homosexuals suffer from early death and myriad diseases, loneliness, despair, drug and alcohol abuse and more at a much higher rate than their peers?
Or the ultimate truth - that no one has to be "gay"? It's elementary - we are not our desires. How many of us have all kinds of conflicting and contradictory desires flitting through our minds? (Hint - 100% of us.) Being human means being able to pick and choose which desires to follow, and which to reject.
And the more we focus on a desire and try to satisfy it, the larger and more demanding it becomes. If we ignore or reject a desire as morally wrong or bad for us, it gradually withers on the vine, so to speak. Our minds and its desires should be servant, not master. Animals don't have the faculty of introspection, but humans do.
One of the lies of the "gay" agenda promoters is that if someone has had one "gay" thought, desire, or experience, their identity is now "gay" forever and ever. This is nothing but a Big Lie. In that case, many of us are murderers, adulterers, child beaters, and more - just because such thoughts appeared in our minds.
Freepmail me and DirtyHarryY2K if you want on/off this pinglist.
(And it is not accidental that if someone absorbs his/her mind in sexually suggestive or explicit entertainment similar desires are much more likely to appear in the mind, which is recording everything put into it. Garbage in, garbage out.)
Final Note: No doubt the high school kids who don't think "gay is good" are silenced and afraid to speak out. Who wants to face a tribunal?
I'm confused--were they actually Ryan Cooperman and Jen Walner, or were they merely like them? Richard Simmons and Ellen Degeneres are like Ryan Cooperman and Jen Walner. I mean, I was like, Duh!
Ah, the propaganda has reached the kids. The filth is turned normal and the normal turned to filth.
This is a very sad (and likely very biased) article.One need look no further than the headline to determine the bias of this article:
Gay Royalty Shares Proud Moment
Got all those links bookmarked for further reference, thanks for posting them.
If anyone has any doubts about whether homosexuals can change, please read the links Scripter posted!
gay
adj.
Showing or characterized by cheerfulness and lighthearted excitement; merry.
A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.
Proverbs 15:13 (KJV)
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
John 16:33 (KJV)
Woe to them who call Evil, "Good"; and Good, "Evil"
No, what everyone really needs to do is to leave kids alone. Stop corrupting them, and stop dragging through the ins and outs of all forms of therapy. Keep the therapy a private matter just like the sin. LEAVE THE KIDS ALONE!
My first HS boyfriend turned gay after dating me. But he didn't come out of the closet until after HS.
Now he's a drag queen in Vegas. At least he's amusing!
I guess my theory is, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. By just being one opinion in the world of amorality, you make the whole thing harder. We should be fighting to keep this nonsense out of schools altogether. No gay anything. For that matter, no sex anything if they can't be moral about it. Leave it to families. If the schools were not such corrupting influences in the first place then you wouldn't be seeing homosexual kings and queens and everyone bragging about it. Your therapy push is way late. Keep them from falling prey to this evil in the first place. That's what you should focus on. Therapies need to be there, but not the way you suggest, imo. Pushing this in the schools just validates the premise that the subject belongs in schools. It causes more harm than good.
"It's interesting that the Homecoming royalty was elected by the student body. Apparently this all doesn't matter to those kids. They voted."
We are seeing the result of forty years of behaviour modification (brainwashing) by the media and the educational establishment. The Marxists have won.
"We are seeing the result of forty years of behaviour modification (brainwashing) by the media and the educational establishment. The Marxists have won."
Oh, OK. I thought this was about homosexuals. Never mind.
LOL!
In days of old, when Knights were bold
and ladies weren't particular,
they'd line them all, against a wall
and scr . . .
and share their feelings on their repressed, patriarchal society.
Exactly. The kids only think they made this choice. It was planned out for them to make this choice. They are pawns -- victims of the idiot adults in charge of shaping them.
You taking credit?
I guess today is gay bashing day. As if there aren't more important happenings around the world.
I'll bet a lot of teachers are more careful of manipulating votes after seeing "Election."
Um, excuse me but I guess you didn't read the story. It is immoral and proud of it day. It is femi-king and drag queen day. Which reduces me to ask, which one is king and which one is queeen?
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