A South Carolina school district has delayed until later in the month a vote on whether to ban all student clubs that don't relate to academics or sports as a way to close a gay student organization.
Vice chairman Robert Gantt said Monday the Lexington-Richland School District 5 board was delaying its vote on whether to ban the clubs to get more public input.
Irmo High School principal Eddie Walker said last month he would step down at the end of the next school year because the Gay-Straight Alliance conflicts with his beliefs and religious convictions.
Recently, I had the honor of speaking to the GSA (gay-straight alliance) at a Chicago-area high school. Since I was speaking as a writer who writes about gay life and culture in this fair city, I spoke about opportunities for social networking for GLBT youth.
"I suppose many of you are looking forward to the day you are 21 and can go to bars," I stated, to many nods and smiles. "Well," I added, "Gay bars are outdated relics of a culture of shame. Don't glorify them. You have everything that you need right here, around you." I then went on to encourage them to get involved in GLBT political causes, sports, arts and culture groups, and so on. Many of the kids were more than surprised -- no one had ever framed it that way. I went on to say that gay bars (usually with dark-tinted windows) used to be the only place that GLBTs could (furtively) go to meet each other and network, the result of which was skyrocketing instances of alcoholism in GLBT communities.
"The people who want to oppress us do not want us to be healthy and well. They want us to be sick, as alcoholism is a sickness, so they can perpetuate the myth that GLBT identity is synonymous with sickness." (I'll admit I was getting rather soap-boxy about it).
The reason I bring this all up is that when I was in high school, (I was not out yet) there was not yet any such thing as GSAs. The two easy-to-identify gay kids in my redneck high school were harassed relentlessly. Looking back, I realize that their daily lives must have been a kind of hell, and I feel shame that I didn't do more to defend them.
As I was speaking, and looking around this overflow room of thirty or so students who were members of the schools GSA, I was filled with such pride of the bravery and foresightedness of the students and teachers who made such a thing as GSAs possible, so that GLBT students could grow up with a sense of community, and strength. It is this lack of a sense of community, of abject aloneness, that often leads to the suicides of our GLBT teens. Not only that -- when it comes to facing off against bigots, there is safety in numbers.
BEGINNING OF SIDE TANGENT:
Irmo High School principal Eddie Walker said last month he would step down at the end of the next school year because the Gay-Straight Alliance conflicts with his beliefs and religious convictions.
Eddie Walker, you have every right to step down from your post if you feel that it conflicts with your beliefs. But, as for whether the existence of GSAa violates your right to believe what ever you want to believe, I say too bad for you, Mister. Suck it up. We live in a pluralistic society that seperates church form state. You don't like it? Go start a compound somewhere.
END OF SIDE TANGENT
Now where was I?
Oh yeah: Anyone familiar with the recent tragedy of 14-year old Lawrence King?
NEW YORK, Feb. 14, 2008 – Ten years after Wyoming college student Matthew Shepard was brutally murdered because of his sexual orientation, a 15-year-old gay California student is brain dead after a student allegedly shot him because of his sexual orientation and gender expression.
Lawrence King, an eighth-grader at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, was being kept alive today for organ donation after being shot Tuesday morning in class. The 14-year-old attacker, among a group of students known to bully and harass King because he sometimes wore makeup and jewelry and told classmates he was gay, will be charged with murder and a hate crime.
This happened in February of this year. It was shamefully underreported.
This story is evidence for me of the very strong need for GSAs in our schools. GSAs are a nearly miraculous and essential step forward for the lives of LGBT youth, moving us towards a culture where GLBT people can be who they are without shame, where a community outside of the shadows exists for us, where we can be who we are and also be healthy, happy, and well-adjusted people.
Please, take a moment if you can, to write to any South Carolina newspaper to express your support for the existence of GSAs. Either that you make a donation here.
Let's all make a decision to not live in a world where the senselss murders of Lawrence King, Matthew Shepard, and so many more beautful young people is possible.