This is an extremely important issue to me, and I trust it will be to you too, whether you are gay or not. The issue is a group of teenagers who need support -- from ALL of us. Please bear with me for some backstory on this from my P.O.V., and then please join me in helping to right a wrong:
As I've mentioned before, I live in a small town which over the years has devolved from a friendly, generally easygoing little farming community into a stronghold of hard-right-wing conservatism, driven solely by big money. Los Altos is one of the most "affluent" cities in America; it always makes the Top 20 list of housing prices, and is home to numerous industry giants, mostly of the high-tech variety. Many of the decision-makers for companies like Sun, Yahoo, Netscape, Hewlett-Packard, and just about every other high-tech company you've ever heard of, live here.
It's rich, it's white, it's right-wing, and it's no longer the town I grew up in. Think Carly Fiorina, and you'll have a good grasp on the sort of people who live here -- people who believe they're entitled to run the whole damned place, and everybody in it, as they see fit.
It's also in the midst of the most liberal region in the U.S. (the San Francisco Bay Area) -- which has provoked me to start calling my town "Freeper Island."
The local paper is your typically RW-slanted rag, which falls all over itself to "support the troops" and laud inordinate praise on the annual downtown "pro-life" parade... yet, not surprisingly, ignores letters to the editor that dare question the increasingly narrow-minded stupidity of its own editors or of the rich, big-wig locals who run things. (Naturally, they've never once printed any of my own carefully-crafted, letters of "respectful disagreement.")
Of course, not everybody who lives here is a thickheaded, right-wing idiot. After all, I'm still here.
Why do I stay? Because I have to -- I have an aged parent in shaky health to watch out for, and there's no moving her. So I stay, and every week, I force myself to read through the little right-wing rag that passes for "journalism" in this backwater of bigotry, just to keep on top of what the local freeps are whining about
this week, and to see if any of my old schoolmates got married, had babies, or died.
Yesterday, I found this item tucked away in the local news section:
Council rejects Gay Pride Day
The Los Altos City Council last week opted to recognize June 7 as Tolerance Day rather than Gay Pride Day, which the Gay-Straight Alliance at Los Altos High School requested in honor of National Gay Pride Month.
Ruth Gibbs, adviser for the approximately 20-member student group, called the decision unacceptable.
"Gay Pride Day is something that we wanted, for students to go forth and know that they are accepted. A piece of paper, that's all we're asking for," Gibbs said. The idea of creating a day of tolerance arose after Councilmen David Casas and Ron Packard said they would not support a proclamation for gay pride because the issue was too divisive for such a conservative community. The council agreed the decision should garner more support.
"I think (Tolerance Day) is fair," Councilman King Lear said. "These days, there are a lot of problems with tolerance ... Perhaps this will teach (the students) a lesson about tolerance of conservatives."
Councilman Curtis Cole voted against the motion in favor of Gay Pride Day.
Link:
http://latc.com/news/news07.htmlI expect you, as I, zeroed in on the nearly-unbelievable statement: "These days, there are a lot of problems with tolerance ... Perhaps this will teach (the students) a lesson about tolerance of conservatives."
"Problems with tolerance"?! A lesson about "tolerance of conservatives"?!
There's that typical martyr complex again. Poor little shat-upon conservatives!
As you might guess, I was outraged. I literally felt my body go hot with anger; I thought the blood was going to shoot right out of my ears.
I knew writing to the paper would do no good (again), and so I called my old high school and left a message for the advisor of the Gay-Straight Alliance, expressing my outrage, and asking her what I could do, personally, to lend my support.
She called me back today, and we had a long, very interesting talk. There are many things I can't discuss here; suffice to say, a simple proclamation that wouldn't hurt a soul (and would have been a proud statement of acceptance for this town's gay and lesbian youth) was rejected due to some dirty, behind-the-scenes politicking.
But you could have guessed that much.
I told the advisor that I'd already begun to post the story to the Web, which she thought was just wonderful -- she said it would help immeasurably to disseminate the story as far and wide as possible. (It's scheduled to be written up in a couple of others newspapers here, including the San Jose Mercury News, which is fantastic -- the Merc is huge, and gets a lot of online attention as well.)
In addition, we could REALLY support these kids by writing to the Los Altos City Council (and the Town Crier, although the T.C. has already ignored many letters it's already received on the subject).
I'm in the midst of writing mine now, and I implore YOU -- no matter where you live in the U.S. or anywhere else in the world -- to do the same.
I won't tell you what to write -- that's up to you. I'm telling them what I think of their refusal to recognize Pride Day... and of the insult of a "Tolerance Day" ("tolerance"? Who wants to be "tolerated"?)... and I am affirming my support of a group of young, gay, and
brave students who want nothing more than to be recognized as full-fledged citizens of their community... and who have in essence been told they do not count.
I'll post my letter once I'm finished with it (it will take me a while, as I'll no doubt need to tone down my anger).
Oh, and finally... The GSA advisor told me that a few other people like me have called or e-mailed to voice their outrage too, and offered to do what they can to help -- and that the kids are genuinely blown away by even a small outpouring of support.
Toward the end of our call, I asked her to pass a long a message to the kids from me: That when I was a teen, and first getting active in the gay community, we thought, nearly 30 years ago, that we would set the world right before they were ever born, so they wouldn't have to go through what we did as kids. Tell them, I said (half-joking but not really joking at all), that I
apologize on behalf of my generation... and that while we didn't fix everything before they got here, we're still here, and most of us are more than willing to help in whatever way we can.*
Well, this is one way in which you too can help. It's just one group of about 20 kids, and it's a lousy little city council issue, in a town of 26,000 people -- a place you've probably never heard of, will probably never visit, and probably wouldn't like one bit if you did.
But if you think "little" issues in little towns like this don't have a butterfly effect, you're dead wrong. It's exactly "little" issues like this that set the tone for regional, state, national, and ultimately global issues. (How many times have we been told that the RW was able to take over the U.S. because they were smart enough to start turning the tide at the local level? It's the truth; there's a lot to be said for the adage, "Think globally, act locally.")
Remember, these are
kids we're talking about -- kids who by now
should have been born into a world that accepts them for exactly who they are, and encourages them to be the very best citizens they can be.
They could be
your kids.
I don't expect to be able to help them
avoid any of the pain they will experience for the rest of their lives -- no matter how "progressive" the world becomes, bigotry will always be a given.
But if there is anything I can do to help these kids, or any others, find the courage and the strength they will need to bear up under the cross of undeserved hatred without giving up and blowing their brains out --
like 30% of all gay teens who consider suicide -- then I will do it.
Supporting these kids after this slap in the face -- the kind of shock one experiences when one first realizes there are people who will always hate you simply because you are gay, or black, or liberal, or poor -- is one small thing I have to offer.
YOU also have the opportunity to do effect change in a very positive way.
Please do this with me. Please stop what you're doing and write your letter now -- it will only take a few minutes.
You can send e-mail to all Los Altos City Council members at one address:
council@ci.los-altos.ca.us
If you would like to see who you're writing to, please see this page:
http://www.ci.los-altos.ca.us/citycouncil/index.html(Yes, Ron Packard is a member of
the Packard family -- as in Hewlett-Packard. I
told you this was a rich town.)
If you would rather send snail mail, the address is:
City of Los Altos
One North San Antonio Road
Los Altos, CA 94022
Here is the feedback page for the Los Altos Town Crier:
http://www.latc.com/company/feedback.htmlIt would, however, actually be better to write directly to the publisher, who apparently has the final word about what gets into the paper, and what doesn't:
Paul Nyberg
paulnyberg@aol.com
Snail mail:
Los Altos Town Crier
138 Main Street
Los Altos, CA 94022
One more thing: I've been invited to speak at the students' meeting tomorrow morning. I don't yet know exactly what I'll say to them -- but I do hope I can tell them that a good number of you here at DU support them, and are writing letters to the city council on their behalf. Please help me be able to tell them that. Let me know what
you want me to tell them.
Thank you, everyone. I know I can count on DUers. More importantly, though, I know these kids can count on you.
S.
* My other half tells me I shouldn't feel guilty about the world not yet being ready for equal rights -- that it's not my fault. No, it's not all my fault. But, just as I feel a certain culpability for * in the White House, I feel the same way about this: I --
we -- weren't paying attention while the right-wing fanatics took over the country. We took everything for granted, and grew lazy and complacent. In that way, I feel as guilty for
allowing * to steal the presidency as if I had actually voted for him. And in that way, I feel as guilty for failing to do as much as I could for today's gay youth as I should have been doing in all the years since I was a gay teen. The world
should be better for them -- and in reality it isn't much better than it was for me at their age.
I'm not going to let my guard down again.
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