Homophobia scores first in Williams Lake

Students at a Williams Lake high school had prepared a number of events for Anti-Homophobia Week, but, under pressure from some parents, and the invertebrate of school principals and school district leaders, the students have been made to reschedule or cancel some of these events.

This has caused some surprise among those of us who have visited Williams Lake, particularly at Stampede time, and have found it to be a model of sophistication and civil discourse.  Few things can seize your attention like a beer bottle thrown at the head.

Two of the planned events cancelled, or moved to other times, are the screening of a video by the Gay/Straight Alliance and Gender Bender day, at which students might have turned up in whatever garb, male or female, they prefer.  Teachers might have liked this, too.

But the anti-anti-homophobia people have moved in, and won the first round; they perhaps do not realize that this is a seven-game series.

Nor do they understand that homophobia (morbid fear of homosexuality) may be inner directed.  Sexuality is complex, and many people do not want to recognize this in themselves. So in their case, homophobia becomes hate.  Which is--do we need to say this?--unhealthy.