I really have a hard time to understand why nudity and sex are such a big deal (as long as there's no violence involved in the sex scenes, that is). I wouldn't have a problem to let my 11 year old see BBM if she wanted, including the sex scenes.
Well, whatever causes those cultural differences, they go back a long way. Everyone here involved in the situation -- the students, their parents, the teacher -- is a product of a cultural in which pre-adolescent kids are not supposed to be shown explicit sex or nudity. The idea, as I understand it, is not so much that sex is bad or wrong, but to preserve childlike innocence (to the extent that it exists) for as long as possible. Children, even if they are knowledgable about sex, are aware of the taboos. So for a teacher to suddenly expose them to it is jarring above and beyond the specifics of sexual orientation.
Personally, I'm uncomfortable with some of the sexuality that my kids see on ordinary TV. Not so much because I don't want them to know there is such a thing (too late for that!
), but because I don't like the attitude that often accompanies sexual references: often sexist, or coarse, or exploitative, or cheap and casual. Parents are held accountable (unfairly, IMO) for censoring the cultural products their kids consume. Eventually, you realize that's nearly impossible -- or at least causes more intrafamilial stress than it's worth. You can't shelter kids forever from the culture they live in. But until then, there's tremendous pressure to engage in the struggle.
In the case of BBM, there are other things that would also upset some parents: swearing, smoking, violence, drug use. Personally, I don't have a problem with those -- at least not in the context of BBM -- but I know some parents would.
So while there would probably be parents who would object to any positive depiction of homosexuality in a movie shown to their children, all this other stuff clouds the issue and causes open-minded parents who might otherwise be on the teacher's side to question the sanity of the decision, too.
On the issue of Bush and Kerry, I partly agree with Barb. In past decades, people have been more open-minded (I'd probably go all the way back to the Carter years as a counter-example, though). However, I don't think it's Bush's influence that made Americans narrow-minded. I think it's narrow-minded Americans who elected Bush. In other words, I'd put the chicken and egg in a different order.
