LGBT Rights in Music Education

Professor Louis Bergonzi of the University of Illinois has written an article in Music Educators Journal arguing for increased emphasis on the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) students and teachers in high school music classes. Bergonzi has set up a Google discussion group to this end. Bergonzi notes that 90% of LGBT students have been harassed and that 60 percent feel unsafe.  He complains that love songs are heterosexually oriented and that males have been excluded from all-female choruses.  He notes that LGBT teachers are forced to "edit" stories of personal experiences and cannot discuss Tchaikovsky's homosexuality. In college such discussions abound.  For example, one cannot read Plato's Protagoras without noticing the opening discussion of Socrates's admiration of Alcibiades.  However, I would hope that at the high school level teachers keep discussion of their sexual tastes away from the lectern. And while it has previously disturbed me that my college business students have failed to learn basic grammar in high school,  I feel better now that I know that their music teachers have vetted their sexual orientations. Pete Chagnon of One News Now, a Christian-oriented site, has blogged his criticisms of Bergonzi's article (h/t Jim Crum). Chagnon notes that Bergonzi's bio on the University of Illinois Website ends with a remark to the effect that he sees schools as agencies of "social progress".  Chagnon quotes Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute to the effect that this is but one more example of social justice teaching.