Administrators of a prominent high school are undecided about whether to allow a homosexual association on campus.
Chien Kuo Senior High School (建中) is one of Taiwan's top boys schools and recruits the best performers in the national joint entrance exam for high school admission. It was to become the first high school in the country with a student association focusing on gay and lesbian issues, after Wu Wu-shiung (吳武雄), the principal, gave his approval to the founding of the association last semester.
The students who had proposed the association, however, failed to get it established for various reasons. Local media reported their failure yesterday and focused their coverage on the issue of whether such an association should have been allowed in the first place.
Some teachers at the high school had suggested that the students involved apply to form an association called "Research Group for the Culture of the Underprivileged." They thought this would prevent discrimination against the students. But the students insisted on clearly identifying the association with homosexuality by incorporating the words "homosexual" in the title, because they considered avoiding doing so to be disrespectful to gays.
Some of thoe students who had called for the association are gay. According to some teachers on campus, however, some of the students are "purely interested in studying about related issues."
The attempt to form the association came to an end as some of these students, who said they were not gay but simply interested in discussion of related issues, were concerned about discrimination by their peers, while others did not wish to openly admit their homosexuality. The frequent absence of a key member due to illness also contributed to the abandonment of the plan.
Wen Kuei-lin (
Wen said given the school's priority to carry out education, the school would not oppress gays, but it would not encourage homosexuality either. He said that two years ago he had already prevented the forming of a homosexual group on campus proposed by students. He would continue to disapprove of any such applications in the future.
"I won't be able to accept responsibility if the forming of such an association results in other problems."
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