Image Of Boys Kissing Disappears From High School Yearbook, Reappears Here

A senior graduating from a Newark, NJ high school tomorrow is outraged that a photo of him and his boyfriend kissing was blacked out entirely in the class of 2007’s yearbook. The 18 year-old Andre Jackson (left) took the picture seen at left while planting a tender, if sultry, kiss on his 19 year-old boyfriend David Escobales. The moment was to be immortalized on a special page that Jackson (like other students) had paid an extra fee for, but school officials got to it first and put their Sharpies to work on all 250 yearbooks. (And we thought the cheerleaders and theater kids were vindictive bitches.) The woman who decided to censor the image, Newark Public Schools Superintendent Marion Bolden, offered the following excuse:

“It looked like two men kissing,” she said. “To me, it looked fairly illicit. It was pointed out as problematic, so maybe I read more into it.”

Pointing out that a racier photo of a girl kissing her boyfriend went untouched on the page facing Jackson’s, gay rights activists might call this a clear instance of discrimination. We, on the other hand, like to play the race card and consider it a flagrant example of the Man hating on Blatino love.

School Officials Black Out Photo Of a Gay Student’s Kiss [NYTimes]
Image [NYTimes]