Alabama teens, Sarah and Adam, are asking for help with an anti-gay law that directly effects how homosexual students are treated in school. The petition is currently seeking over 70,000 signatures to submit to Representative Mary Sue McClurkin asking Alabama State Legislators to repeal the law forcing schools to teach that being gay is criminal.
Birmingham, Alabama high school students, Sarah and Adam, are asking for help and did so eloquently via email (below), which has been circulating the Internet, requesting signatures to repeal the Alabama law forcing sex education teachers to emphasize that being gay is a criminal offense.
As a teenager, I expect my teachers to tell me the truth. So why does my state, Alabama, require by law that my teachers tell me that being gay is a criminal offense?
The Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that being gay is not a crime -- it's incredible that happened so recently. But it's even more incredible that in Alabama, the law requires sexual education teachers to emphasize that ‘homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense.’
I'm a queer teen in Alabama, and I don't think it's acceptable for the law to force my teachers to tell me I'm a criminal.
It's bad enough to be a gay kid and hear from your teachers that your identity is invalid. But what's even worse is the way this school forces teachers to sanction anti-gay bullying, even if they don't want to.
Queer kids are significantly more likely to attempt suicide than straight or cisgender kids, partly because society teaches us to think awful things about ourselves – ‘that we're weird and abnormal and not okay’. But we are okay, just the way we are. We need for our teachers and the people in our lives to be able to tell us that we are.
It's been ten years since the Supreme Court ruled that it's not a crime to be gay. It's time for Alabama to stop forcing teachers to lie to students -- and I know that if enough people sign my petition the state legislature will do the right thing and take this hateful law off the books.
Thank you,
Sarah Noone, age 16, Birmingham, Alabama
If you agree with the students from Alabama, and want this law that forces teachers to tell teenagers that being gay is a criminal offense reversed, then please sign this petition and forward it to your friends and family.
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