News, Uncategorized

Gay Straight Alliance now in …ST George, Utah

I can think if very few places less likely than heavily Mormon Utah where there would be a gay-straight alliance. Yet there in the New York Times today is the news story of just that. Given the garbage I see here in New York, I can only imagine the oasis that the Utah pride Center must be for the LGBT population in St George. From the article:

The new alliances in St. George were part of a drastic rise this fall in the number of clubs statewide, reflecting new activism by gay and lesbian students, an organizing drive by a gay rights group and the intervention of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has threatened to sue districts that put up arbitrary hurdles. Last January, only 9 high schools in Utah had active Gay-Straight Alliances; by last month, the number had reached 32.

The length to which some groups have gone to suppress this activity is incredible. However, in my view it is a war of attrition. The old farts that frown on GSA (gay-straight alliances) will eventually get old and become fertilizer, while the younger generation that wasn’t raised on fear, hate and ignorance will raise the tide.

I’m 43. There were no GSA clubs in schools in the 1980s when I was in high school and college. Gay people were in the closet. That’s no way to live. Decent honorable straight people shouldn’t just offer gay folks benign neglect. Decent honorable people should break a sweat to right the wrongs and do away with the stigmas and stereotypes that we have bullied on the LGBT community as a society.

Good news to start 2011.