Virginia General Assembly to Target Gay-Straight Alliances Once Again

Posted on January 8, 2007
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Reports are that this will likely be passed by the House of Delegates and fail in the Senate once again.

The basic idea is that since you have to treat all student extracurricular groups equally, you make students have to get signed permission slips from their parents to participate in any group. (Washington Blade.) Now a chess club member is not going to have to “come out” as a chess player to her parents, but what about a gay or lesbian youth? If they’re open or straight and cool, or if they have a great grounding at home it might not be a problem. But what about the kid who is struggling, and what percent of families, especially in rural Virginia, are going to be initially supportive? For that matter, how many kids who are straight (and sure) are going to feel comfortable bringing the subject up with a parent?

Matthew Lohr, the state delegate who is introducing the measure once again, denies that it targets gay-straight alliances. God knows why he denies it, once a guy attacks gays as a group publicly, you expect him to go all ape-shit Fred Phelps on you. The pretense is almost as ugly. Who is more dangerous — the total freak who claims he is your enemy, or the reasonable-seeming guy who claims to be a friend, but is your enemy? OK both are dangerous, but I can’t say who is more so.

According to a GLSEN survey in 2005:

75. 4% of students heard derogatory remarks such as “faggot” or “dyke” frequently or often at school, and nearly nine out of ten (89.2%) reported hearing “that’s so gay” or “you’re so gay” - meaning stupid or worthless- frequently or often.

Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) have been the best antidote to the bullying and worse that goes on in high schools everwhere. Further, GLBT students who attend schools with GSAs, according to GLSEN do better academically, drop out less, and attend College in greater numbers.

If not those students who need it most, who is Matthew Lohr protecting?