| How I Became A Supporter of Gay Rights
by Susan Allen
Posted May 18, 2004 - Green Bay Every
35 minutes one teenager in our nation attempts to take his or her life because of their sexual identity, 41 attempted suicides per day. Every 5 hours and 48 minutes one teenager in our nation succeeds in taking his or her life because of their sexual identity, 4 successful teenage suicides per day. In the nine to ten hours I spend in my school each day, 16 children try to kill themselves and 2 succeed, because of who they were born to be. After hearing this message two years ago at a staff development seminar offered by the Green Bay Public Schools, my life turned in a direction I could never have imagined. My name is Susan Allen, and I’m a faculty co-advisor for “Support the Rainbow,” the Gay-Straight Alliance at Southwest High School. I’m proud to
be an ally of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. I wasn’t always an ally however. I was born into a strict Catholic family in Milwaukee in 1961. I led a very typical white, upper-class, unquestioning, and incurious life. When I was seventeen I was born again, this time as an evangelical Christian. Shortly afterwards, as a college student, I was in the stacks of the UW library in
Milwaukee looking for a book I needed to do a paper. I stumbled upon a section of books about homosexuality and was totally shocked! I literally had no idea such books existed. I was mortified when I discovered that there were actually books that talked about, supported and even showed pictures of such a “sinful lifestyle.” I felt it my duty to do something about it, but what? I devised a plan in which I would occasionally walk down the aisle where the gay books were located, and
quickly but quietly slide one of the books toward the back until it fell off behind the shelf. It would then become permanently “lost,” wedged at the bottom between two huge, immovable stacks. I could feel good about having done my little part to rid the world of sin. I spent the next twenty years as a righteous, evangelical, right-wing Republican. I was very comfortable living INSIDE the
box. As I was raising my children I attended weekly bible studies, was very active in our non-demoninational, bible-based mega church in Waukesha, faithfully listened to James Dobson and Stuart Briscoe’s radio shows, and financially supported the Elmbrook Church and Focus on the Family ministries as well as the Family Research Council. I firmly believed, as I was taught, that homosexuality was a sin. So how in the world did I ever get from that point of being such a self-righteous, intolerant, born-again Christian living in Milwaukee, to being a single mother of three in Green Bay, who is an active ally and supporter of homosexual rights? Well, there’s no short, easy, tell-it-in-under-two-minutes answer to that question, but I’ve traveled a long road to enlightenment through divorce, therapy, and disassociation from a rigid fundamentalist mindset. I can say
from personal experience that a change of heart and change of mind doesn’t happen quickly and it doesn’t happen easily, but I’m living proof that change can happen. Now, about the kids! According to the recent census report, over one-third of our entire state population, 1.7 million children, are
being educated in Wisconsin every year (kindergarten through university age). Researchers believe that between five and six percent of our young people are LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender). Right here in Wisconsin, that would equal about 90,000 lesbian and gay kids. The census report also estimates that 55% of the registered same-sex households in Wisconsin are raising children. If you add it all up, we’ve got hundreds of thousands of kids in our Wisconsin schools everyday
that are either gay or lesbian themselves, are being raised by gay or lesbian parents, or have other gay family members (like siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents) or even gay friends or neighbors. Last year, GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network) did a climate survey of LGBT youth in Wisconsin. The survey showed that the majority of LGBT students reported frequently hearing
homophobic remarks in their schools, such as: queer, fag, homo, dyke, “that’s so gay.” Unfortunately, these incidents of homophobic remarks often go unchallenged by faculty or staff. Over a third of Wisconsin lesbian and gay youth reported some incident of physical harassment in school because of their sexual orientation, and over 30% reported missing classes or missing entire days of school because they felt unsafe. These are some of the reasons why many students have
started Gay-Straight Alliances at their schools. Kevin Jennings, founder of GLSEN, started the very first Gay-Straight Alliance in our nation in 1989. GSAs are formed and led by students to provide safe, welcoming and accepting school environments for all students, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. One year ago, GLSEN had 1,400 registered GSAs in the United States, and this year
the number has risen to over 2,200 GSAs. As you can see, especially in the increase over last year alone, we are making strides in our efforts to make schools a safer place for LGBT students. Wisconsin has a statewide total of around eighty Gay-Straight Alliances this year. Southwest, East, West, and Preble High Schools, Bay Port, Appleton West and North, Oshkosh North, Menasha, Fond Du Lac and Neenah are just a few of the local schools and districts that have active Gay-Straight Alliances.
Students in our state have found support for their GSAs in the Wisconsin State Statue #118.13. In 1986, the state of Wisconsin won the respect of the entire nation by being the first state in the country to pass safe-school legislation protecting students from discrimination based on their sexual orientation. Oddly enough, the reason we’re here tonight is that the state of Wisconsin is looking to
lead the nation once again. Inconceivably, politicians like Senator Dave Hansen, Senator Alan Lasee and Senator Rob Cowles, instead of following tradition and working to lead the state of Wisconsin forward in terms of civil rights, are working to write discrimination into the Constitution of the state of Wisconsin with a piece of hateful legislation entitled AJR66. The goal of AJR66 is to adopt a constitutional ban on civil unions and marriage. Apparently we need to remind our elected
officials that marriage is a basic human right and an individual choice. We’ve already gone the route of separate-but-equal in this country, but that was ultimately found to be in violation of the 14 th Amendment. Separate-but-equal was an insult fifty years ago to education, and separate-but-equal is an insult to civil marriage today! “From 7 th through 11 th grades, Wisconsin student Jamie
Nabozny was harassed, spit on, mock-raped while other students laughed, urinated on, called a ‘fag’ by a teacher, kicked repeatedly in the stomach by his fellow students,” and was beaten so severely he required hospitalization.1 Jamie tried to kill himself several times just so he wouldn’t have to go to school. Eventually, his parents acquiesced and let him drop out of high school to complete his GED elsewhere. How many more LGBT students just like Jamie are attending Wisconsin schools right now? When does the human cost become too much?
Everyone here this evening knows how difficult being a teenager can be. Many here tonight know how especially difficult being an LGBT teenager can be. Your primary focus during these years is either hiding or defending your sexuality to others, while struggling to accept a socially stigmatized identity yourself, something that no heterosexual teenager has to do. And this daily internal struggle occurs at
public high schools where the cultural norms of heterosexual behavior, feelings and language are reinforced oftentimes through the verbal and physical harassment of LGBT students. The cultural norms present in high schools are reflective of the larger societal norms. As the fight against this constitutional ban on civil unions and marriage heats up in our society at large, our school communities will most assuredly reflect the battle as well. LGBT students will once again be compelled to hide
their thoughts, feelings, beliefs and sense of self, or be forced to deal with possible or probable physical or verbal abuse if they don’t. With the shifting political climate that we are witnessing in our state and in our nation, I can’t help but think that if this discriminatory constitutional ban on civil unions and marriage is adopted, much of the work that has been done over the past
five to ten years to improve the educationally safe and inclusive climate of our schools will be compromised. Thousands of teachers, students, social workers and parents throughout the state have worked diligently to create an educational environment that recognizes, embraces and supports the diversity of our world as it is reflected among the students in our school communities. Adopting a constitutional ban on civil unions and marriage will affirm the homosexual prejudices and fears of the
conservative minority. We’ll be sending students the message that gays and lesbians are a sub-class of the human race that doesn’t deserve the same rights and freedoms as the rest of us do. Our state law explicitly states that schools may not discriminate against students on the basis of their sexual orientation. But as soon as they become adults and wish to get married, then discrimination AGAINST them, solely on the basis of their sexual orientation will be mandated by the
constitution? I can’t be the only one that finds such a legal double standard both appalling and revolting. As adults we need to stand up and fight against such an atrocity to ensure life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for ALL of our young adults. Passage of such a discriminatory amendment will in essence give students permission to act out their prejudices and fears against LGBT youth. It will again increase the underlying threat of anti-gay violence and harassment in our schools,
the EXACT OPPOSITE of what we’ve been working toward, and making strides in, educating against! Make no mistake that what we are talking about here tonight is a civil rights issue. As an American citizen, I have full confidence that, even if the citizenry are short-sighted enough to allow discrimination to be written into our constitution at this time, the hearts and minds of the American people
will ultimately be prevailed upon to repeal such an abomination, just as the ban on interracial marriages was overturned by the Supreme Court in 1968. But we don’t have to go down that road, if we only fight hard enough NOW for what we all know is right. It seems it’s always easier to hate something
that you cannot see or something that you’ve been taught to fear. This battle needs to be brought to a personal level. This amendment needs to have real faces and real families attached to it. I believe in order to stop this constitutional ban on civil unions and marriage, the LGBT community has to become visible. Get out and tell your senator, your congressperson, your representative and your neighbors – I’m the one you’re hurting. This is my partner, these are our
children. We are the families you are harming. I’m your bank teller, your elementary teacher, your librarian, your police officer, your child’s soccer coach, your minister, your postal carrier, your friend. LGBT youth in our schools need positive, adult role models of regular, everyday gay people leading normal, happy lives with good jobs and committed, loving relationships. Positive role
models have a huge impact on the self-esteem of young people. Seeing happily married gay people will give LGBT students hope and confidence that they won’t be an outsider or unhappy their entire lives. They’ll be able to look forward to a life after high school that includes all of the same rights and promises that every other young adult is entitled to: freedom from discrimination; the right to move about our nation safely without worry of physical threat or harm; freedom from
interference with privacy, family or home; and most importantly, the right to marriage and family. I’d like to close with a quote by Martin Luther King Jr. “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the
appalling silence of the good people.” Susan Allen,
presented at the Town Hall meeting on the Constitutional Ban on Civil Unions and Marriage, May 17, 2004 at the Historic West Theater, Green Bay, WI. 1 Walsh, Jeff. “Profiles in Courage: Jamie Nabozny.” Oasis. www.oasismag.com/Issues/9602/oasis-profiles.html |
