Oliver Baez spent two months rehearsing a scene for a school play in which his character confronts another student about bullying a gay student who takes his own life.

After much preparation, the 12-year-old’s small scene turned into a big problem among school officials in Wheatland, Wyoming. At the last minute they canceled the anti-bullying play, saying it did not conform to school values and leaving the young cast without a stage.

“It was awful,” Baez said. “For the school to cancel it, it’s like saying that ‘LGBTQ should not be included in a society.’ Which is really awful and cruel.”

Twenty-five years after a watershed moment for the gay rights movement — the murder of Matthew Shepard, a 21-year-old student in a university town not far from Wheatland — the canceled performances of “The Bullying Collection” show how far the LGBTQ+ community still has to go to gain acceptance in Wyoming and elsewhere.

A local theater group, the Platte County Players, has permission to perform there and salvaged the rights to the play and sponsored the performance a month later at the high school, as originally planned.

  • @gaifux@lemmy.world
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    -26 months ago

    You’re… right. Under the guise of trolling I am absolutely seething right now. Your logic is just too sound to be refuted. Once you pointed out my mental disease with such grace despite your obvious passion I know I had met my match. I attempted to dodge with the gay dad comment, but you’re right it wasn’t funny. Also untrue as in my earlier comment I didn’t mention it was a gay brothel. I am now naked and writhing in your arms, held together by the sheer force of your big-brained embrace