Gay Straight Alliance Hosts Dance; ONN Misses the Point
March 5, 2009
The dance was held at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Illinois two weeks ago. But this wasn’t like all the other dances since the beginning of the school year. This one was hosted by Stevenson’s Gay Straight Alliance.
The boy had clearly come for the dance, but Stevenson High School teacher Bill Fritz could tell that he was nervous about going in. There were a lot of girls on the dance floor, including girls from other schools.
He stammered some line to the effect of “Wow, here I am, still in the school building on Friday night, and lookie here, there’s a dance … what a coincidence!” He tried to look like he was weighing his options, then gave Fritz the $5 admission fee and walked in. And started looking for other boys to dance with, and maybe to flirt with.
He and about 100 other gay and lesbian high-schoolers gathered Feb. 20 at an SHS commons for the Gay Straight Alliance’s Valentine’s Day dance, the area’s first-ever social for homosexual students.
“Stevenson has really showed itself to want these kids to be safe and be supported,” he said. “This is not only lip service to social and emotional learning. This is a sea change from two years ago. Two years ago, it would have been a don’t-ask, don’t-tell policy.”
But the school gave its kids and their counterparts at other schools a forum to ask and tell each other, and Fritz said it gave them a sense of community. He said most of them looked like the feeling of fellowship was new to them.
“Something that their straight counterparts take for granted, and these kids can’t.”
A commenter on the article pointed out that all students were invited and there was an emphasis on the Alliance part of Gay Straight Alliance, but still. This is the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.
Of course, it should go without saying that ONN, James Dobson’s Donald Wildmon’s propaganda site, and a spokesperson from the Illinois Family Institute are all in a tizzy about it, saying that the school is politicizing children and should focus more on education. It should also go without saying that they are 100% wrong.
Giving students a safe place to learn the fundamentals of romantic interaction isn’t political. It’s what every other school has done for the last hundred years. The only difference is that this time the gay kids don’t have to choose between staying home with a careful veneer of false apathy or going to the dance and risking injury from people that groups like ONN teaches to hate anyone who’s different.
Thank you, Stevenson High GSA. You’ve given these students a tremendous gift.
Update 3/27/2009: The article link is now dead, but I found a copy of the article at an apparent sister site. Here’s a screencap of the article.
(Please read the comment tips before joining the conversation.)
Hey Matt!
Excellent piece and did you check out the comments on the One News Now page? Earlier they weren’t exactly in the corner of those against the dance.
One correction though – One News Now is a propaganda piece for the American Famly Association and Donald Wildmon, not James Dobson.
Well heck. Why have I always thought it was Dobson’s? They’re peas in a pod, but still.
I almost mentioned the comments in the post. They’ve been allowing more negative comments for the last couple months. Can’t figure out why. (They haven’t posted mine, though!)
Not mine yet either. Sometimes it takes them a while.
A wonderfully touching story. Kudos to you for presenting it. More bloggers should venture to post items like these. I only wish I had the oppurtunity to go to a dance like that when I was in high school.
So much of our time is spent reacting to the bad stuff (which is why I started writing this post, BTW), and necessarily so. It’s nice to get a break from it and see people doing good.
That’s a great story. Here’s hoping things like this start happening more often.
Glad you picked up on this and put it in the possitive light that it really is. As an alum of SHS and a member of the GSA there from Freshman year, I can tell you that we never thought such a thing would happen. Knowing all the people who put on that dance, I was so proud of them to finally have done it and I only wish I could have been there.
IFI has been making a bunch of noise lately about SHS. I'm hoping it's not enough to possibly curtail the inclusive and progressive place SHS has always been to me.
-SHS alum of '08
Glad you picked up on this and put it in the possitive light that it really is. As an alum of SHS and a member of the GSA there from Freshman year, I can tell you that we never thought such a thing would happen. Knowing all the people who put on that dance, I was so proud of them to finally have done it and I only wish I could have been there.
IFI has been making a bunch of noise lately about SHS. I'm hoping it's not enough to possibly curtail the inclusive and progressive place SHS has always been to me.
-SHS alum of '08