Did you know that this is nonamecallingweek in many of the nation’s public schools?


Created by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educational Network (GLSEN) in sponsorship with the children’s division of Simon & Shuster, the giant publishing firm, nonamecallingweek is the latest goody-goody, annoying, politically-correct ‘holiday’ to intrude upon the Julian calendar.


A press release from the organizers states: ‘Though often dismissed as ‘harmless teasing,’ name-calling reinforces unhealthy peer hierarchies and a rigid social order, especially over time, as individual incidents accumulate to become a pattern.


‘Those who are targeted because they somehow don’t fit in -due to body size, appearance, social or academic standing, race, ethnicity, physical or mental ability, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or some other attribute-spend an inordinate amount of time trying to cope with the deleterious effects of name-calling when they should be devoting their energies to social and academic development instead.’


Now, I deplore the behavior of any child (or adult) who is rude to anybody else because of race, sexual-orientation, appearance or academic standing. Decent children do not behave this way, and decent parents work hard to turn their little heathens into nice people who don’t hurt the feelings of others, regardless of  how different they are.


But I also deplore the further politicization of the schools. When we do this, we seem to imply that American society is vile and homophobic. This simply isn’t the case (although I am stuffy enough to believe that very young children should probably not spend too much time thinking about ‘gender expressions’ of others, be they straight or gay).  


How about replacing the politically-fraught nonamecallingweek with simpledecencyweek?


P.S. I didn’t see anything about being nice to kids who come from Republican families?