AOL - A Michigan music teacher's decision to censor the word "gay" from a traditional Christmas carol is being met with a frosty response. The teacher, who has not yet been named in any of the published reports, allegedly removed "gay" from "Deck The Halls" after 1st and 2nd grade students kept giggling during preparations for a Christmas concert at Cherry Knoll Elementary School in Traverse City. Instead of the traditional lyric, the students were taught to sing "don we now our bright apparel," according to UpNorthLive.com. The story caught the eye of famed sex columnist Dan Savage, who noted, "Someone had to straighten out that carol--can't have children donning gay apparel."
And cue a whole class of 1st and 2nd graders now associating "Gay" with something to be censored and looked down upon. Fantastic job teachers. You guys keep doing the good work. Wouldn't want our students to A) Grow up in a tolerant and fostering environment, and B) Understand the actual definition of an English language word.
Sad thing is, you know exactly what happened here. Some music teacher was having their students sing this song, some immature 2nd grader (I know, right? Grow up kid), probably giggled because he has an older sibling who he'd heard the word from before, and instead of explaining the actual meaning of the word in the context of the song, like your job as an educator requires, the teacher chose to just remove it all together.
Well newsflash, that doesn't work. This is the real world. They're going to figure out that you changed the lyrics, they're going to know that it's because its a word they shouldn't be saying, and they're going to go right out to the playground and say "gay" at a record pace because its the cool thing to do because adults don't want them to.
