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The great French writer and poet Victor Hugo once wrote "on résiste à l'invasion des armées; on ne résiste pas à l'invasion des idées" which literally translates to "one withstands the invasion of armies; one does not withstand the invasion of ideas," or loosely translated to "nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come"

Today's common usage of this now famous phrase is often found used by those who are seeking to promote a particular brand or message. Even I have often used this phrase in presentations but now I use it for something more important--the education of queer kids and the preparation of future queer leaders.

The Barbara Gittings School for Equality is definitely an idea whose time has come--a regional charter high school for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning and allies.

In 1985, the Hetrick-Martin Institute in New York City established the Harvey Milk High School to serve "at-risk youth, particularly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning."  In 2002, the school became the first fully accredited queer public high school in the nation.  Harvey Milk High School is now administered by the New York City Department of Education.

Proponents for queer-centric high schools will point to the shocking statistics on anti-queer bulling that clearly reflects that the environment queer students are forced to learn in are unjust; and that queer students, many who are forced to drop out due to fear, are denied their right for a safe and welcoming learning environment.

Opponents for such high schools include the usual suspects, as well as, queer advocacy groups. These queer opponents believe that queer-centric schools are a form of segregation and be could be harmful and will hinder the progress of understanding of queers. But at what cost?

Over the years, I have listened to personal stories from queer students who had been mercilessly bullied.  All were subjected to endless verbal attacks, some where physically or sexually abused, and others dropped out because the burden, the pain, the intolerance, the cruelty, became much too great.

How many of us have the same memories; faggot, dyke, homo, sissy, lesbo, or the new favorite, that's so gay.

What potential has been lost by such anti-queer bulling? What achievements missed?

The reality of the situation is that we have a very long way to go before our public schools become a welcoming, safe education environment for queer youth and their allies.

In knowing this, what should we do?

If we sit back and wait for our schools to become safer for queer youth, what happens to those who suffer from anti-queer bullying between now and then?

Too many have suffered; too much has been lost already!

The Harvey Milk School in New York City showed us it is possible. They have taken action. So must others.

Queer youth deserve our talent, our knowledge and our resources.  How can we not stand up and make a difference?

Philadelphia, the cradle of liberty, freedom and justice, for all, needs to join New York City in this progressive movement in public school education with the founding of The Barbara Gittings School for Equality.

Recently, the good gay poet of American literature, Walt Whitman, has been the subject of a controversial book, "On Whitman," by C. K. Williams, the second in Princeton's "Writers on Writers" series. Williams' premise is that Whitman is "the ancestor to the hedonistic sexuality of the '60s, noting how he broke through 'violent repressions.' "Williams asks: "Who else, even from the perspective of the sexually 'liberated' culture of America in the '60s and '70s, did it better? . . . Who else were the revolution's real ancestors than Whitman and his heirs, the Beats, the hippies, the commune-dwellers, and the organizers of festivals, which tried to enact at least a semblance of a Whitmanian ecstatic community, acceptance, communion, merge."  Prominent Harvard scholar Helen Vendler (The New York Times, July 4, 2010) questions Williams' perspective on Whitman: "This is a strangely scrubbed view of an era that also saw many good minds lost to drugs, red-eyed students stoned in classrooms and careless one-night stands. Whitman-an abstemious man and for all his geniality, a loner-would not, I think, have recognized himself as a patron of the '60s." No doubt, this debate will continue onwards among the literati for some time.

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Tongues are definitely wagging in many circles, from the warriors of Old Hollywood who actually knew the infamous but legendary iconic "movie stars" in the real sense of the phrase to the members of the New Hollywood who can only hope to aspire to such heights of excess and, ultimately, somehow, get away with it all. Not bloody likely! What a perfect title then, "Furious Love:  Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and the Marriage of the Century," written by insiders Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger, about the tumultuous love affair, marriage, divorce, and marriage a second time, before Burton's untimely death at the age of 58. Taylor, considered one of the most beautiful women in the world, and even, somehow, even more beautiful on the screen, was, according to the authors, wildly in love with Burton. Their chemistry was intoxicating.  Said Taylor: "When you get aroused playing Scrabble, that's love, baby."  Spoken by a true Cleopatra!

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Despite Hollywood's ongoing war on homophobia (perhaps even its own internalized version of it), it seems to be fashionable these days for straight actors with big box office names to be play gay. "The Kids Are All Right" is now in theaters.  "I Love You Phillip Morris" is another recent case in point, starring Jim Carey and Ewan McGregor as real-life gay lovers. The almost too bizarre to-be-believed love story of Steven Russell (Carey),  a formerly heterosexual, married, fundamentalist-Christian policeman who became an openly gay, reformation-proof con man in the wake of a near-death experience falls in love while in prison with a fellow inmate, Phillip Morris (McGregor). "I like it because it's a gay film, which is to say it's a film about two men in love, and I think that's an important element of it. I also got to French kiss Jim Carrey a lot, and I quite like that, too," McGregor told Chris Carpenter (Blade, May 2010). Despite the fact that McGregor is certainly no stranger to sexually ambivalent characters, we'll all have to wait for the "extras" on the DVD release as the final cut for theatrical release deleted all the film's graphic sexual content hoping for a more mainstream audience. But there's still the French kissing!