BY NATASHA BARSOTTI - For his democracy speech, New York fifth grader Kameron Slade chose to speak, in part, about his experience hanging out with his mom's friends, a same-sex couple and their daughter.
He said they seemed happy and, best of all in his book, they seemed to love each other. Like Obama, Kameron said, he supports gay marriage.
His democracy speech won his class competition, but his principal, Beryl Bailey, appears to have limits about who and what qualifies to be the subject of a speech on democracy. She at first nixed Kameron's opportunity to deliver his roughly two-minute message to his entire school because it wasn't appropriate.
But school chancellor Dennis Walcott intervened, and Kameron has been given the green light to speak at a school assembly on Monday (June 18).
As Kameron himself noted, "If children read or watch the news they can learn about things like same-gender marriage, so what's the point in trying to hide it?"
His conclusion: People should be respected for who they are. "I believe that same-gender marriage should be accepted worldwide and that parents and teachers should start to discuss these issues without shame to their children."
Kameron landed himself a bigger audience for his democratic message of acceptance. He read his speech in full on television via NY1.
Watch him here.
As one online reader commented, Public School 195 could use a new principal. And his name is Kameron Slade.
