If you heard that a high school cheerleader was kicked off the squad for kissing a guy and thought, "What cheerleader hasn't done that," you can understand why the parents of the student kicked off his team in Alice, Texas are concerned. Yes, I said "his" team. But if you weren't surprised that a teenager was caught kissing, should his sexual orientation matter? Apparently it does to the folks down in Texas.
The public school administrators in Alice have been accused of using footage captured on a school surveillance camera of a boy-on-boy kiss on school grounds as grounds for dismissal from the squad. The teen's family says he was then suspended from school for something straight teens are allowed to do every day: pucker up and peck.
Come on. It's high school. Kids kiss. If you don't think it's happening, it's time to take the blinders off.
When we were in school, kids pecked each other on the lips by their lockers between classes. It happened. Usually the teachers turned a blind eye. If it went too far, they were quick to tell us to knock it off, and the natural order was maintained.
Do we, as parents, like the thought of our kids locking lips? Not really, but I'd rather my kid was a make-out queen than the next star of 16 & Pregnant. Kissing is a nice, safe way to get some of that pent-up sexual energy out without ending up in the delivery room.
I suppose some parents would say that makes me overly permissive. But I remember the teen years, when you felt too cool to get hugs and kisses from your parents, and yet you ached for someone to touch you. I was a hugger as a teenager. I threw my arms around everyone because I craved affection. I get it.
And I can't help noticing the double standard down in Alice. So a guy kissed a guy. Big whoopedy doo.
All it takes is a quick look through the Alice High cheerleading constitution for the whole thing to turn from reasonable rules to blatant attack on the gay kid. Public displays of affection have to be witnessed by the coach in order to get a cheerleader in trouble -- at least according to the school's official rules -- and even then, they're worth just a "strike." Just like in baseball, it's supposed to take three strikes before you're out. But the school skirted that rule when they suspended him: a suspension results in automatic dismissal from the squad. Way to show your hand there, administrators!
Suspension for a kiss? A kiss that was spotted not by teachers in the middle of the hallway, but on a surveillance camera? That's ludicrous. To make a kiss a crime worthy of suspending kid just to get a gay kid off a team that represents the school is the lowest of the low. Unless every kid caught kissing in high school should be suspended ...
What do you think? Is it fair to oust a boy for kissing a boy if girls can kiss them?
Image via taylorpad212/Flickr