Prayers for Bobby - Leroy Aarons [105]
One of those students, Mark De Lellis, a senior at Belmont High School, kept a record of his lobbying activities. He gave legislators a firsthand account of harassment, telling them of his middle school experience when fellow soccer-team members “threw things at me, including dog droppings, called me ‘faggot’ and ‘homo,’ and spit on me until my shirt was soaking wet.”
De Lellis was youth-outreach coordinator for the Coalition for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights. He described in a memoir his work in helping to organize a massive rally at the state capitol, team lobbying of individual state senators, candlelight vigils while the bill wallowed in committee, press conferences, and, finally, last-minute efforts to assure passage: “The rally date came closer and closer. I continued to call different groups, trying to get as many as possible to endorse the rally. I was able to reach several community groups, gay-straight alliances, and political groups.
“The week before the rally, I designed the rally program…and did another two-thousand-piece mailing. The Department of Education paid for the mailing. The day of the rally finally came. It was October 13, 1993, at 3:30 P.M. in Nurse’s Hall of the statehouse…. I was nervous. That day I stayed home from school so I could get ready and do some last-minute media outreach. I remember walking from the Park Street station to the statehouse along the Freedom Trail, thinking to myself how my pilgrimage was symbolic.
“I got up to the podium and looked around at the hundreds of students and student groups and their banners. I delivered my speech, observing all the dramatic pauses. ‘Everybody has something unique to contribute to a public school education. No one should be harassed, attacked, or discriminated against, just because of who they are!’ I was surprised by the amount of applause and energy.
“The week after, we held the lobby date. [The coalition had prepared for this by convening a training workshop for twenty-five student lobbyists.] We broke the [150] people down into ten lobby teams based on geographic location. We talked with aides to Senator Hicks, Senator Durand, Senator Mangani, and Senator O’Brien. At that point the bill was stuck with Senator O’Brien in second reading [and later, third reading]. I helped organize people to write letters. We organized candlelight vigils every Monday night in front of the statehouse.
“We decided to have a press conference and protest at the statehouse. About forty youth marched around the statehouse chanting about the bill. I found this particular experience very empowering—to hear the unified rage in our voices echo off the buildings.”
The bill finally passed in early December, and Governor. Weld signed it a few days later, making Massachusetts the only state to pass antidiscrimination legislation on behalf of gay young people. LaFontaine called it “the single greatest victory that gay youth in America have ever won. They now have a legal weapon to [combat] name-calling, hatred, and violence.” The Massachusetts law simply adds the term “sexual orientation” to existing statutes outlawing in-school discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, and national origin. But it represents a civil rights victory of enormous potential.
It establishes a base for legal action against school systems that fail to protect gay students. It legally acknowledges the existence of sexual minorities in the schools, putting pressure on providers and giving them grounds to resist right-wing onslaughts. It puts unprecedented muscle behind initiatives to create and enforce antiharassment policies, amend current regulations, require training for school staff, and, ultimately, effect modifications to curriculum.
Moreover, gay and lesbian students now can claim the legal right to attend proms and other social functions as couples. LaFontaine said that at least eight same-sex couples attended their senior proms in June 1994.
The success in Massachusetts is attributable to several factors: a courageous and receptive