Prayers for Bobby - Leroy Aarons [93]
Mary passed out copies of her statement and retreated from the podium. Hers was just one of fifty testimonies. Too little time. She wasn’t pleased with her delivery. Would any of this make a dent in that bank of impassive figures ranged before them?
It would take five months for the board to decide. In the interim both sides furiously lobbied board members. P-FLAG, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and other organizations held a candlelight vigil in August to dramatize the issue of silence about gays in the schools. Lou Sheldon teamed with other national groups such as Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum in a national effort to influence the board to vote against the change.
But in December 1992 the board approved the inclusion of lesbian, gay, and bisexual references in health textbooks. It meant that future textbooks would for the first time carry references to lesbian and gay teen suicide, family structures, and puberty. More important, it formally recognized the existence of gay and lesbian young people in the schools and acknowledged their right to affirmative information about themselves.
It was a victory, if a cautious one. The guidelines called for a “factual, substantiated” discussion of homosexuality and decried name-calling, saying that “instruction in this content area should affirm the dignity of all individuals.” Conversely, pressure from the right had succeeded in reducing a passage on suicide rates for lesbian and gay students to little more than a phrase, and a reference to “children of gay and lesbian parents” was changed to “alternative families.”
Mary got the news from Joe and Con. The silence in the schools had been broken. But, she would think sardonically, why are they just whispering? Still, there was meaning to it. Mary thought of the kids in Indiana and Austin and elsewhere living in total isolation. If even one of them sees herself mirrored in a text somewhere, then this is good.
Her thoughts turned to Bobby, and she recalled the wonderful days before he had labeled himself, when his spirit ran free. He would bring drawings home from school and proudly display them. He wrote poems and compositions. Then, when he knew he was gay, school became a prison. His dream of flying ended abruptly. Her heart ached for Bobby and all the children whose soaring spirits had been thwarted.
That evening she rummaged through her files for Bobby’s essay about his flying dream and reread it.
Peaceful darkness surrounds me like a comforting friend as I quietly lie in bed. Then, slowly, without even noticing, I drift off to adventure.
Standing outside my bedroom window in the night air, a tingly feeling of intense excitement rushes through my body. I see the stars up in the sky, like glittery sequins against a background of black satin. All is quiet and still. But my heart is pounding like a thousand drums. Then, with a sudden swoosh of exhilaration, I’m off flying through the air. I see the wind blowing through the giant eucalyptus trees, making the branches sway. I feel totally free and alive as I never have before. A smile dominates my face, and laughter bubbles inside…. Soon the trees, my house, then the whole world becomes minute, as I reach for the stars.
THIRTEEN
Born Again
I exit Interstate 680 South in the heart of Walnut Creek and head down South Main Street, then left on Rudgear, as I have done dozens of times in the last three years. The air is full of limestone dust and clashing steel from the endless highway project that seeks to untangle the ganglia of concrete ramps so they can accommodate even more commuter traffic.
Once on Rudgear the racket recedes and I am driving past a row of ranch-style homes with flowered hedges and attached garages. I turn into the driveway at the Griffiths