Asterisk

This morning New York Governor Paterson gave a phenomenal speech announcing his introduction of a marriage equality bill to the state legislature. Here’s the speech, which to me will stand as one of the most honest, right-minded, straight-forward defenses of marriage equality.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqJv0UdGdEs[/youtube]

We need to do it not because the timing is right, not because public opinion goes this way or that, not because we know it’s going to pass. We need to do it because it’s the right thing to do; because leaders are elected to lead even when the right thing to do is unpopular.

And regardless of the outcome, and indications are that the bill will fail in the NY Senate, it seems to me that it’s a good idea to get elected officials to state their position so the voters can make better informed decisions come next election.

Good on you, Governor Paterson.

(This is only six minutes or so of a slightly longer speech. I’m still looking for a video source and transcript of the full speech. Good As You has the whole thing until I find it.)

Another LGBT person has stepped up to be a role model for today’s youth and it just has to be recognized. I’m talking about Chance Nalley, a math teacher at Harlem’s Columbia Secondary School, has invited the 7th grade students and their parents to his commitment ceremony next month. (Thank goodness it’s a small school!)

In Harlem a week ago, a 32-year-old math teacher handed out slips of paper inviting the entire seventh grade of Columbia Secondary School to his upcoming ceremony, where, the names on the invitation made clear, he’d be celebrating his commitment to another man. The teacher, Chance Nalley, rarely wastes an instructional opportunity but said that, in this particular instance, he wasn’t trying to make an educational statement.

“They kept asking if they were invited,” he said of his students at Columbia, a selective public school that specializes in math, science and engineering. “Originally, I said no. But when I found a venue that turned out to be big enough I said, ‘O.K., you can come.’ I invited their parents, too.”

[...] With his principal’s support, Mr. Nalley, who started at the school when it opened in 2007, felt comfortable coming out to students during a diversity workshop that fall.

“A lot of the students were shocked at the time,” said the principal, Jose Maldonado-Rivera, “shocked that he said it, and shocked that it was true. For many students, it was a huge eye-opener — it was the last thing they would have thought about Chance.”

I don’t want to post the entire article by Susan Dominus, so go over to the New York Times to read the whole thing.

Chance Nalley pauses for a picture.

Already the effect of having an out non-heterosexual teacher in school can be seen. According to Mr. Nalley, six students have come out to him this year, and the article quotes some remarkably mature opinions from 7th graders, including understanding the difference between homosexual (which Mr. Nalley isn’t) and bisexual (which he is).

Kudos all around, to the principal for not squashing this, to the parents for being (mostly) on board, and of course, to Mr. Nalley and his partner/husband.