Both the editorial board and columnist Steve Dunleavy at the New York Post call the New York City public schools’ announcement of a predominantly gay high school “un-American,” “insane,” “idiotic, socially wrong, morally wrong and politically suicidal.”
Dunleavy says several times that he has “no problem … with a person being gay.” But in the next breath, he says, “But you in that crippled Department of Education – together with Mayor Mike – are institutionalizing a way of life which has been roundly condemned by the Bible, the Koran and the Buddhist scriptures.” So it appears that Dunleavy does have a problem with anyone being gay, and that he harbors prejudgmental notions about an imaginary “way of life.”
Without asking how the kids or their parents feel about being harassed with impunity in the city’s mainline public schools, Dunleavy concludes: “If, as the mayor says, this saves the kids from harassment at school, he has virtually erected a target for misinformed nutcase hoodlums who want to exercise their beer muscles.” Dunleavy seems to assume that the school won’t — or shouldn’t — offer outdoor security.
A Post “news” article again overlooks the violence that spurred the school’s formation. The item favorably quotes the head of the city’s principals union asserting, despite district policies to the contrary, that the school might somehow discriminate against heterosexual students.
New York’s Newsday ran a widely circulated Associated Press story that offered just a three-sentence quotation by Mayor Michael Bloomberg referring vaguely to antigay harassment. AP declines to research the harassment or provide any detail from readily available sources.
Another New York Post story follows the same outline as the AP story.
Ditto at the New York Daily News.