“I’m all for straight pride. I think that straight folk are pretty amazing, over all, and that there’s an awful lot of good that can be celebrated in the history, culture and contributions of straight people.”

A lot of straight people are already too proud of their heterosexuality, and that has meant grief for the rest of us. Pride celebration is for people who have been kicked around, not for people in the group that the kicking comes from. I basically agree with Dan that privileged/advantaged/favored/uber group pride is ALWAYS a way of attacking marginalized groups. (The pushers of favored group pride say, “Look at all WE have accomplished. In fact, we’ve accomplished just about everything worth accomplishing in history. WE are the ones who have created our civilization. What have THEY ever done?” And then they attack the accomplishments (or the supposed lack of accomplishments) of the marginalized group(s). Except when they skip the celebration and go straight to the bigotry as in the article’s and Scooter J’s examples.)

I don’t agree, however, with Dan’s belief in the harmfulness of marginalized group pride celebration. Even when I was a (white) youngster it was obvious to me that black people were justified in celebrating and encouraging pride in themselves due to how they’ve been treated. So I question how readily anyone could push “straight pride” without looking like a bigot to other straight people.

True, it would be ironic. But chances are if you encountered someone wearing such a shirt you’d have to define the word “ironic” and then explain why this particular situation was ironic before they understood what was going on.

we were raised in an environment (even at home sometimes) that said that we were less, something to be ashamed of, feelings to be hidden. Something our parents had done wrong and were ashamed of.

The pride is that of the black person getting off their knees and saying “I am free”, it’s the pride of looking the world in the eye and saying “I’m here, get over it”.

It is not prideful, except in the pride everyone ought to feel about themselves as a unique individual with inaliable rights.

I hate the idea of “gay pride” for the exact reasons you mention – it means there must be “straight pride.” But standing up as a minority and saying “I am not ashamed to say I am gay despite your condemnation of it” is important and necessary and not something straight people need to do. The pride here isn’t the same as say, pride in an accomplishment, but rather a rejection of the shame that gays have been subjected to in the past. If it helps, don’t think of it as pride, think of it as not ashamed.

On the other hand, what happens when we advocate for LGBT equality? No one says, “Oh yeah? Two can play at that game. I support straight equality.” On closer observation, straight equality is the same as LGBT equality. It’s LGBT and straight people being treated equally. This is why groups like FOF pretend we’re looking for special rights. They can’t come up with a viable retort to equality, so they try to convince people we’re looking for something else.

In some ways, pride is helpful. Teaching LGBT people to be personally proud of themselves or their identity probably does benefit them. But as a political movement, I think equality is far more promising. That’s why pride has never really made it out of the party and parade circuit. The message of fairness and equality is a much more effective vehicle for social change.

When I considered their agressive look, their loud and cocky demeanor, and the language that was coming out of their mouths, I realized that their shirts would have been more accurate if they read “Hate Pride”.

These were just three grown up class bullies. . . each one dumber and more ignorant than the next, whose anti-social and hateful behavior was obvioulsy permitted or even encouraged when they were younger.

Letting these school kids go back to class with their shirts on is insane. The courts have ruled repeatedly that public schools can enforce dress and uniform codes.

This Dean seems like just another spineless, passive school administrator who, for the ease of keeping things status quo, gives the green light for bullying behaviour to continue.

Easier to make this quietly go away than to confront these three monsters and worse, the parents who created them.