P.S. Gay

June 25, 2007

Huffington Post has a story that comes as a somewhat sobering reminder as to why we celebrate pride this month. Newark high school student Andre Jackson had his personalized yearbook censored because of a photo of him kissing his boyfriend.

Newark’s East High offered its students a chance to create a special tribute page in the school yearbook for $150 (talk about better spent on an iPod). The rules attached to creating such a page were to be expected: no gang signs, foul language, graphic photos, etc… Even though young Andre adhered to these guidelines it wasn’t enough to prevent his page from being censored.

Andre’s page featured a picture of him kissing his boyfriend David Escobales. The yearbook featured several other photos of hetero students kissing or showing affection to their boyfriend or girlfriend but Andre’s was the only photograph that was blacked out by the high school’s administrative staff. When it came time to pass out the yearbooks all 230 that were distributed had the photo of Andre kissing David blacked out.

Of course, we wish someone had blacked out one of our yearbook photos -- the one with us wearing an 8-ball jacket. But that’s off topic -- it’s a shame the uptight parental units felt the need to censor the gay kiss. There is, however, always a silver lining. In this case -- it’s how refreshingly unmoved the East High students appear to be about homosexuality. One particular student comments to the local newspaper that same-sex kissing happens all the time at East High and that it’s no big deal.

Ah, the youth ... let them lead the way.