The Gay-Straight Alliance is a student-run organization
at the high school. We are fighting for equal treatment of gay students and
for an end to the harassment they receive. We believe that everyone has the
right to go to school without fear, no matter their sexual preference. The
GSA is not advocating a gay lifestyle, only working to end the torture that
students who are gay, or percieved to be gay, suffer each day. It makes us
sick to think that a fellow classmate of ours is constantly being ridiculed
to the point where he cannot make himself come to school. In a North
Andover Citizen opinion article, Michael A. Jenike, M.D. wrote, "Why
shouldn't gay individuals have the smae rights as others? If we take as an
overriding principle that we should all strive to reduce suffering and disability
in our fellow man, how can we argue with a program that aims to help us do
just that."
The GSA has recieved some resistance since it has been approved and instituted
at the high school. Many arguements have arisen over whether this organization
should exist. A group of citizens of North Andover and memebers of a local
church wrote an angry letter to the local newspaper, giving their arguements
about why the Gay-Straight Alliance should be banned from the North Andover
High School.
The leader of the this group of citizens, Ms. X, said, "I think
homosexuality is an unhealthy lifestyle and shouldn't be taught. I don't
think it should be shown to be an equal lifestyle." In saying this, Ms. X
is saying that a homosexual lifestyle should not be allowed because she disagrees
with it. If we disagree with the idea of a religion, can we ban that from
the community? It is that same prejudice that led Hitler to killing so many
Jews. "Hitler had his own intolerances, and we know how much trouble he caused
when allowed to inflict his biases on others." (M. Jenike, M.D., North
Andover Citizen,12/4/96) This is exactly the kind of behavior the
Gay-Straight Alliance is working to end. We all agree that everyone is entitled
to their own opinion, but when voicing that opinion makes others agonize
over a simple issue like going to school, something has to be done.
Ms. X also claimed in a Citizen quotation that she did not think that
"this group is there to support each other, rather they are there to
indoctrinate other students." This cannot be farther from the truth. We are
not advocating a homosexual lifestyle, and even if that were our purpose,
one cannot go around recruiting people to be gay. Homosexuality is not like
drinking alcohol or smoking. It is not a choice one makes freely, or one
can be pressured into making. As a Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical
School, M. Jenike overs his medical opinion: "I have never seen any evidence
that gay people can choose whether or not to be gay any more than we can
choose our race."
Student Y and Student Z, two members of the student body of the high school
also wrote an article for the local paper, saying that the school was not
ready for a Gay-Straight Alliance. Acording to a Citizen quotation,
Y and Z stated that "We are sure that with time, the student body will be
able to freely accept this group, but at the present time, we are not
fully-developed with the capability to grasp such a mature subject."
(Citizen, 12/4/96)
By this quotation, one can see a certain apprehension toward the GSA. We
understand that many people fear the idea of homosexuality because they do
not understand it. But Y and Z are missing the point of the GSA's existence
in our school. I do not think teasing, prejudice, and harassment are ideas
that are too mature for the student body. We have all dealt with that since
our first exposure to new people back in preschool. If students realized
that it was not homosexuality, rather acceptance, that we are promoting,
they would have different feelings about the Gay-Straight Alliance.
The final argument in favor of the Gay-Straight Alliance is that participation
in, and anything associated with the organization, is completely voluntary.
In a large school of about 800 people, it is easy enough to go through the
year without ever having to deal with the GSA. We do not press our opinions
on anyone who is unwilling to hear them. As we wrote for an article in the
Dec. 4 edition of the Citizen: "All we ask is for the right to have
our group, and for every student at North Andover High School to make aware
decisions and be able to go to school every day without fear of being harassed
for their true or percieved sexual orientation."
