Why Gay Students Should Strive for Straight A's
By Andy Heath
I have said in other blog posts that I do not believe that gays are inherently superior to straight people (and of course I do not believe we are inferior either). I believe when anyone, regardless of his or her sexual orientation, strives to be the best, that person will in fact be the best possible. That said, there are a number of reasons that gays must strive to perform at a superior level to straight people even though we are not inherently superior.
I remember one time I was in school, and my classmates picked on me a lot. There was one particular time I was in PE as a freshman in high school, and I saw several of the students off to the side whispering to each other, and I had a feeling they were talking about me. The next thing I knew, they were executing a relatively elaborate plan involving one student turning off the lights and another student grabbing me from behind in order to scare me and make me scream just to amuse the students in that class. If only those same students had put so much effort into their studies!
Even as a child, people knew I was gay, and I tell you the story above because it is an example of how children treated gay students even in the early 1990's when I was in high school Things have gotten even worse now. Since the time that happened, some homophobic lunatics murdered Matthew Shepherd in cold blood. Even outside the realm of hatred of gay people, we have seen horrible incidents such as Columbine and Virginia Tech where raving lunatics killed their fellow students and teachers.
Even now at the end of the first decade of the new millennium when things seem to be getting better for us and people seem to be more accepting of us, I observe that we still have a long way to go. I have found that in order for any minority to be respected, its people must excel at those things that the majority values. For example, whites in the South before the Civil Rights Movement believed they were peace loving, gentile people. When blacks demanded their rights and did so in a peace loving, gentile manner, it forced whites to come face to face with their own brutality and barbarism.
One way to make straight students gain the respect of gay people is simply for gay students to do better in school than straight people do. Many people that know me will accuse me of being a hypocrite for saying that (among other things) because I was only a mediocre student in college. Regardless, gay students have every bit the intellectual capacity of straight students and can therefore utilize their own self discipline to do better in school. As straight people find they cannot compete (because of their lack of motivation for having less to lose) we will find that their appreciation for gay students improves.
I hope that gay students will be motivated to perform at high levels in their studies. This is one of many ways to improve all gays' treatment in the world.
