My opinions on this aside, I can at least speak for the climate and culture that exists within Christian Brothers. I graduated from CBHS in 2003, and I couldn't imagine anyone being openly gay like that during that time. My experience with CBHS was not at all positive. Although I learned respect, discipline, and received a decent education, there were some severe flaws with the culture of the students at that school.

Racism was rampant. I don't think I ever set in a single class without hearing some kind of racist slur or remark. "Nigger" was a constant, and often used by some of the teachers that were also coaches. Homophobia was just as bad.

CBHS always struck me as a Frat House Prep School. The things that got most kids excited were sports, boobs, beer, and picking on someone smarter than them.

Every once in a while, I get asked by friends with young kids about my opinion of the school. I tell the truth. I tell them that they will get a decent education, but beyond that, they need to consider if the culture of that school is what they want their children being exposed to during a very impressionable age.

I didn't want to go there, and thought about all sorts of things to tell my parents so they would pull me out and place me somewhere else. I never thought to bring up the culture though, and over a decade later, they say that if they had known then how bad the culture was, they would have pulled me out in a heart beat. It took time after I graduated for them to read stories, hear things from other parents, and my eventual telling of what really goes on before they realized the mistake.

I won't ever deny the education I got there, but holy shit, that school was filled with some of the most hate filled uppity kids you could imagine. They took "we hate you if you don't fit in" to a whole different extreme.