Roosevelt Island Child School/Legacy HIgh School Graduation Ceremony & Controversial School Play Of La Cage aux Folles

2010 Legacy High School Commencement Image From Huffington Post

Roosevelt Island resident Jim Luce, Founder and CEO of the Jim Luce Stewardship Report and Orphans International Worldwide, gave the commencement speech for the graduating High School class at Roosevelt Island's Child School/Legacy High School. He wrote about the experience for the Huffington Post. An excerpt:

...I know your school quite well. The Legacy High School on Roosevelt Island. Your principals. Your teachers. It is excellent. Here you have learned the skills to succeed.

Life is about relationships. Look around you now! You have made so many here. Now you will go out and begin to make new relationships.

It doesn't matter where you go or what you do as long as you follow your own heart and be the best person you can be. My mom used to tell me that: Be the best person you can be! One thing that I didn't really get in high school is that your parents won't be with you forever. True, parents can sometime annoy you. But they are really, really important. Cherish them. The reason I know about this is because my mom and dad have passed on - and today I am a parent myself.

Some of you might know my kid. He is the friendly Chinese-Indonesian-American boy at the Child School. He begins here at the high school this summer. My son's name is Mathew Luce. I believe in him just like I believe in you. Just like my mom and dad - and teachers - believed in me...

What is the Roosevelt Island Child School/Legacy High School? According to their web site:

The Child School/Legacy High School is an academically rigorous, yet supportive community addressing the needs of a diverse population of special children, many of whom have failed in other schools. Our children have learning disabilities that manifest themselves as disorders in thinking, listening, speaking, reading, spelling, perceptual handicaps, dyslexia, developmental aphasia, etc. They are not learning disabled because of impaired vision or hearing, nor do they have gross motor handicaps.

The Child School’s goal is for each child to perform to his/her maximum potential. To realize this goal, we embrace the total child, in the belief that their self-image, motivation and ability to interact are critical to their ultimate success...

The Child School was also in the news today for other reasons. New York Post Columnist Andrea Peyser wrote about some Child School parents who were not happy with the school's June Play, a kiddie version of La Cage aux Folles which Ms. Peyser describes as:

a cross-dressing, limp-wristed, gay comic romp whose main characters are a pair of "married" men.

and writes:

... Some 50 children as young as 10 were cast to play screaming queens, a school assistant told me.

The father, whose boy is autistic, was horrified that his vulnerable child might be made into a spectacle.

"I'm outraged!" said the dad, who did not want to be identified for fear his kid would be hurt. "They're advocating for the gay lifestyle, giving them ideas. Saying, 'It's OK. If you're having these feelings, experiment with it.' "

Then came the defense, necessary in this climate.

"Look, I'm not a homophobe," the father said. But as a Catholic, "I'm teaching him that straight couples screwing around is a sin. If they want to teach tolerance, do 'West Side Story.' "

Better yet, "teach them reading and writing."...

... Previously, kids put on "The Rocky Horror Show," whose star sings that he's a "sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania."

Gothamist adds:

La Cage aux Folles is a comedy written for an adult audience, but it's not sexually graphic. The 1996 movie adaptation was rated R, but GLAAD praised the film for "going beyond the stereotypes to see the character's depth and humanity. The film celebrates differences and points out the outrageousness of hiding those differences." That's why Maari de Souza, founder of the private Child School, wanted students to do it. "Children tease each other about being gay," she tells the Post. "It's a common problem with our youngsters." To which Peyser replies, "Kids of 10?" Obviously, things were a little different when Peyser was ten, because kids definitely use words like "gay" pejoratively, starting basically the first day of kindergarten.

The June Play is a very important part of the Child School curriculum:

The June Play is one of the most special aspects of life at The Child School. Students in Middle School and Elementary are given a character role that is created and sculpted to meet the psycho-social, academic, neurological and performance needs of that student. Much more than a play -- it is the synthesis of each child’s needs into creative form, a concrete approach to dealing with problems, academic needs, and neurological deficits -- and offers to the child, and his parents, an alternative perspective on their day-to-day challenges.

Image of Rocky Horror Performers from Child School/Legacy High School

What do you think? Is La Cage aux Folles an inappropriate play to be put on under these circumstances or are the parents who object to this blowing it out of proportion?