11-Year-Old Hero Will Lead Gay Pride Parade

Seriously need to buy this kid a bike.

Christians are complaining about children taking part in political events, are you f@?king kidding me?
You go Will.

Yes, we all know how opposed Christian fundamentalists are to manipulating kids. I mean, they would never psychologically abuse children.

Poor Will, thinking that everyone is deserving of dignity and equality. Pity he doesn’t have a righteous Christian treatment.

To be honest, this kind of reminds me of those little child preachers, like Marjoe Gortner who started preaching at four years old. I’m completely skeptical that a four year old can understand Christianity enough to preach it, and can only assume that he is simply repeating what he’s been taught to say. It would be a little hypocritical of me to just accept the story of a child “preaching” social justice without considering the possibility that he’s merely obeying his parents by repeating what he’s been taught. Not that teaching children to value social justice is bad, but exploiting them for publicity isn’t the most ethical of practices…just my opinion based on my first impressions and limited knowledge of the situation.

…angering Christian conservative groups like the American Family Association, who called his participation in the parade tantamount to child abuse.

Jeez, these people don’t really care how much money I spend on irony meters, do they?

So, we’ve established that the atheist’s opposition to indoctrinating children is situational. If it’s an issue with which the atheist agrees, then indoctrinate those little children all day long.

So much for rational consistency on the part of the enlightened crowd.

He’s obviously just parroting the nonsense he’s been told by manipulative adults.

…And *sproing* goes the irony meter! Honestly, for the American Patriarchy Foundation to say something like that without a hint of satire just blows my mind.

There’s right, there’s wrong and then there’s this.
I applaud the boy for his sense of justice and having the guts to do something about inequality. His parents must be very proud of him.
Still, there’s the inevitable fallout from his participation in such events. The negative PR resulting from such behavior may do more harm to the cause than good.
I’m in favor of slowly wearing an opponent down over time and I’m not sure if this fits in with that approach. Just because WE may be ready for this type of thing does not mean the rest of this idiotic, backwards country is.
In the end, no single approach is going to win a war, but the wrong one can certainly lose it. Sometimes the moral thing to do isn’t always the correct thing to do.
That being said, if he was my boy and asked for permission to march, I’d be hard-pressed to tell him “no”. I’d ask him to consider all of the possible ramifications of his actions, but in the end, I’d have to support him in what he felt was the right thing to do, even if I disagreed. The only way I’d interfere is if the child’s safety was in question.
There are no easy answers.

‘American Family Association … said, “He’s obviously just parroting the nonsense he’s been told by manipulative adults. For gay activists to trot out this child and make him the poster child for promoting unnatural sexual expression is a form of child abuse.’

This from a cult that brainwashes their kids from birth..

Sauce for the goose..

It’s fine and respectable to dress a kid up like an angel or a devil for halloween but the second you dress them up as one of The Village People, the shit’s gonna hit the fan.

I’m also afraid I don’t agree with this. It just puts the kid in too much danger. I support this with the same enthusiasm that I support “Right to Lifers” taking their kids to harass Planned Parenthood offices.

while it is great that we have people like this on our side, one of the criticisms we have of the religious is that they indoctrinate kids and have 4 year olds holding up anti gay banners and the such, now it is clear to us that this kid is doing this of his own accord it probably won’t appear that way to the religious and it will appear we are just as bad as them. So if he wants to do it then let him but i wouldn’t be surprised at a media/church backlash.

I think she was 7 or 8, Kid Unit 2.0 came home from school in tears. Someone called her best friend gay – which made that little girl cry. She said, “We hugged & hugged til the school bus came”. My daughter didn’t know what to think but she knew being called gay was an insult, even though neither of them truly knew what the term meant. So we sat down & I asked her if she knew and she sad she didn’t. I said “Well, it’s when a boy loves a boy or a girl loves a girl” (just to keep it simple). Do you think that’s a bad thing? “No” “Miss Deb & Miss Jackie are gay. Do you think they’re bad people?” “Oh NO! Years later, she helped form her school’s GBLT/PFLAG group – even though she’s straight. She takes her relationships VERY seriously, no matter what flavor you are.

While I am dead set against indoctrination of any kind, I get the feeling from the articles about this boy and from statements from his parents that he has come to these conclusions on his own. I also have a gifted son this same age who is incredibly insightful (when he chooses to be) so it is possible that the foundation they have given him has enabled him to build this opinion on his own. He is definitely one of a kind in this respect and he has inspired me tremendously. When volunteering in my son’s school, I stood and said the pledge with the kids, I would just not say the “under God” part (I’m quite the out atheist so no one thought much of it) but I will definitely give the entire pledge another think. It is a tiny bit reassuring to know that there ARE kids like Will out there, few and far between though they may be, and while I still have no hope for the future of this country, at least I know there will be someone fighting until the bitter end.

It annoys me when people assume a child like this is just being fed lines by their parents. When I was a child I had very strong opinions as well. I became a vegetarian at 8, because I believed animals didn’t deserve to die just so we could eat. At 10, when I learned that Catholics ‘hated gay people’, I asked my mom about it and I found her excuse ‘being gay isn’t a sin, acting on it is’ to be stupid. At ten years old, I told my mom Catholicism was not for me. I do give my mom props for not telling me I was wrong, even though she still made me go to church in hopes that I would change my mind. Young and educated children are quite capable of forming an opinion. I even think that some ‘Christian children’ actually have reasons to believe what they say. On the other hand, you have Fred Phelps young grand-kids who are shouting “fag soldiers” and can’t even tell you why they’re saying it.

This is brilliant.

And, even though I can see WHY there are concerns being raised, and I understand them …

This is BRILLIANT!

Here’s the future, and it’s not ALL f*cked up!

A comment on child indoctrination. My daughter has always claimed that I was a strong influence on her, but happily it wasn’t in all areas. She’s 22 now and an atheist since the age of 8. She didn’t get that from me, because I was a theist until 2005.
Luckily, I encouraged my kids to think for themselves, even though I was rather poor at following my own advice. My daughter decided religion was bunk all on her own. She figured it out without my help or the help of anyone else. She had no internet, no library books, no atheist peers exerting influence on her young mind…just common sense. She’s just smarter than I am, that’s all.
I think Will is intelligent and he is doing what he wants, not what he’s being told to do.
Right or wrong, the kid’s got guts and I, for one respect that. He’s going to make a fantastic adult.

@Concerned Supporter,
You’re confusing supporting gay rights with being gay.
To my knowledge the kid has not come out as gay.
Also, do I need to be a woman to be a feminist or to be a supporter of women’s rights?
I had a feminazi on another post on this blog try to tell me (in so many words) that I couldn’t adequately understand or even discuss sexism because I wasn’t a woman. Absurd.
Nope, not buying your argument.

He has not come out as gay. He has a girlfriend, actually. I live in the same town as them and walked in the parade with them last weekend in Fayetteville, AR. If you listen to his interviews you can see that he is incredibly well-spoken for a 11-year-old and intelligent. He doesn’t seem like the type of person that does something he doesn’t want to. This is something he truly believes in. Who cares what age he is, if he made the decision to become an activist himself.

@Jay Phillips:

My parents still tell me to just “go with the flow”, in defiance of everything else they taught me to be, and while I always felt as your son does, that “then nothing ever changes” I only wish I’d had the guts to stand on it at his age–I was much more of a coward when I was younger. He’s right–if no one ever takes that stand, the status quo remains solid. I hope he stays irrepressible like that–and we’ll all stand together with him! 🙂 A kid with that much courage and conviction at that age has got to do some great things someday!

I’m not sure how I’d define indoctrination. I know Will’s outrage is his own, but perhaps if he grew up in a different family, his outrage would be targeted at abortion.

Speaking from my own experience, I was taught to hate abortion when I was a kid in Catholic school, and it was entirely based on mangled half-truths when it wasn’t based on outright lies. I was so horrified at those horrible women who would have their poor helpless babies mangled just so they wouldn’t be bothered! When I grew up and found out the truth I changed my mind because my hatred of abortion had been carefully nurtured by carefully-laid lies about a procedure I only half-understood as a child–and I don’t doubt those kids fighting abortion are in the same boat. I had to be indoctrinated to hold such opinions in general. On the other hand, as someone above said, most children don’t usually need much prodding to understand basic fairness.

From the article: “He’s obviously just parroting the nonsense he’s been told by manipulative adults. For gay activists to trot out this child and make him the poster child for promoting unnatural sexual expression is a form of child abuse.”

Seriously, WHAT? Do you have any idea how many times *I* was trotted out to anti-abortion parades and events, to pro-gun events, to anti-same-sex marriage rallies, as a child? My parents pushed me forward to talk to reporters, to be in pictures, etc, talking about what a wonderful testimony I had as a child speaking these truths. How the hell is that okay and this isn’t? Conservatives speak out of both sides of their mouths.

I’m a Christian (and LGBT), but I still think this kid is awesome for standing up for others :,D Now just imagine what he could accomplish when he’s older, too… Go Will!