Prayers for Bobby - Leroy Aarons [102]
The clear message is that those groups are recognizing that the safety and well-being of gay youngsters is not a parochial issue but one that transcends sexual-identity barriers. It also means that gay groups understand their need for the heft that coalition brings.
Frances Kunreuther, Hetrick-Martin’s executive director, acknowledges that “we cannot have an insular movement anymore. We realize that we will never have national clout merely as a gay youth agency going it alone.”
The Advocacy Coalition brings to bear the cumulative weight of its 110 member organizations, which include national gay rights groups and regional and local youth service organizations. In November 1993, the coalition began a dialogue with people working in various agencies of HHS.
Perhaps for the first time, a national administration is at least opening its doors to discussion on the subject. “Representatives of HHS have been very receptive,” said Rea Carey, the executive director of the Advocacy Coalition. “I’m encouraged by the individuals who seem to be truly committed. We’re talking to them about their funding streams, how to make them more accepting to servicing gay youth agencies. We’ve asked specific agencies to establish goals.”
The response has been encouraging yet cautious, perhaps out of political necessity. “In terms of national leadership, I would agree,” said Carey, “that we need more visibility from the president, from governors, from mayors, all the way down the line.”
What is really needed is acknowledgment at the highest level that suicide, drug abuse, harassment, and violence involving gay youth constitute a national health and public-safety problem. It requires an initiative by HHS and the Centers for Disease Control for a national policy to protect gay youth from discrimination and violence, to establish a range of services that reach out to this neglected sector.
This is unlikely to happen in the climate that exists at this writing. The political takeover of the Congress by conservative Republicans in 1994 emboldened the religious right to launch a major assault against services for gay and lesbian youngsters. Communities across America—from Merrimack, New Hampshire, to Des Moines, Iowa, to Palmdale, California—witnessed brutal battles aimed at taking control of school boards and blocking the very mention of homosexuality in the school context. Rev. Lou Sheldon helped engineer a two-day Congressional hearing in late 1995 that provided a national platform deploring the so-called gay agenda to make homosexuality an “acceptable lifestyle.” (Mary Griffith was on hand to testify for the other side at that hearing.)
In another manifestation, conservatives in Congress with the backing of the Christian right managed in 1996 to push through legislation to control “indecent” matter on the InterNet. One consequence of this development is the possible squelching of many gay youth chat lines that have become virtual lifelines for thousands of gay and lesbian youngsters. Under the legislation, which was certain to be challenged in the courts, discussion of homosexuality on-line could be discouraged or banned.
Despite these developments, or because of them, the debate over gay issues in general and gay youth in particular has heated up, commanding public attention and resulting in some victories for youth advocates. For example, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Teachers Network, organizing traditionally closeted and career-threatened teachers, has watched its membership explode from a few