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| Carla Hale |
Carla Hale, 57, had worked at Bishop Watterson High School in Columbus, Ohio, for 18 years. She kept her personal life private from the people at school. However, when her mother died, Hale didn't think twice about putting her partner, Julie's, name on the obituary. As the article explains, a parent of one of the High School students saw the obituary and wrote to the school saying that she would not allow "women like Carla to educate catholic children." Just like that, all because of her sexual orientation, Hale was fired from her job. The article states that no one who had a part in firing Hale "claimed that she was anything less than a terrific physical education teacher and coach, devoted to the kids and adored by many of them." If Hale had been such an excellent teacher for 18 years, it is ridiculous to me that she was instantly fired just because someone found out about her personal life.
Some might look at the progress of gay marriage and think that America is really getting to a place where people will not care about sexual orientation. Unfortunately, at this point, to me that mindset seems unrealistic. In fact, recently "in Greenwich Village, a young gay man was fatally shot in what’s been deemed a hate crime." Clearly, our society has a ways to go before it truly does not matter what sexual orientation someone is. Even if gay rights are becoming more prevalent in society, will America ever be able to reach a place that is, at least for the most part, accepting? In these regards, has our society progressed? Why or why not?
Great post Lily. Very relevant to our class discussions.
ReplyDeleteFrom the facts you have presented it appears that we have not progressed as much as most people would think. Although there are some slight differences in gay rights, such as the right to marry the same sex in a few states. But the way gay people are treated in society has remained very similar for a while. The fact that a professional athlete came out was major news for about an entire month. If society is shocked at news as simple as one man announcing he is gay, then our society has not truly come to a point where we accept everyone's sexual orientation. In many ways, we are displaying a cycle of discrimination against different minority groups. This is just another example.
This is a very interesting post that is quite relevant to our final this semester. This reminds me of how, although many Americans believe we have made huge strides to becoming a more color-blind society because of recent events, like electing Barack Obama President, we are still stuck in a racially discriminative society. This connects to this blog post because after several states now allow same-sex marriages, many people now probably believe that we are becoming a more accepting of same-sex marriage. However, similar to racial discrimination, we are still struggling to move forward and progress in terms of same-sex marriages.
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