Oliver Baez spent two months rehearsing a scene for a school play in which his character confronts another student about bullying a gay student who takes his own life.

After much preparation, the 12-year-old’s small scene turned into a big problem among school officials in Wheatland, Wyoming. At the last minute they canceled the anti-bullying play, saying it did not conform to school values and leaving the young cast without a stage.

“It was awful,” Baez said. “For the school to cancel it, it’s like saying that ‘LGBTQ should not be included in a society.’ Which is really awful and cruel.”

Twenty-five years after a watershed moment for the gay rights movement — the murder of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old student in a university town not far from Wheatland — the canceled performances of “The Bullying Collection” show how far the LGBTQ+ community still has to go to gain acceptance in Wyoming and elsewhere.

A local theater group, the Platte County Players, has permission to perform there and salvaged the rights to the play and sponsored the performance a month later at the high school, as originally planned.

  • @gaifux@lemmy.world
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    08 months ago

    Exactly. I for one encourage fathers to leave their wives the second they are challenged or bored of it. For the good of society. Kids gotta grow up some day and learn they don’t necessarily need a father or discipline and financial stability. I mean, if they aren’t always happy how can society ever get there? Proud of young minds like yours that see through the BS and understand that indeed, it’s all about your happiness.

    • @force@lemmy.world
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      08 months ago

      If you take boredom or challenge as making your relationship miserable I guess. I don’t think your wife would want to be chained to someone that’s so irresponsible or delusional as to play strawman like this, so you’d probably be doing her a favor… assuming you have a wife (I doubt you do nor ever will but I have to suspend my disbelief sometimes).