High school teens face a gay T-shirt showdown
By Jennifer Skalka, chicagotribune.com from the Web, April 19, 2005
UPDATE: Students on two opposing sides of the gay-rights awareness issue wore their T-shirts to Homewood-Flossmoor High School this morning.
No incidents were reported.
Chicago -- Jamison Liang came out to his family members one at a time.
A Homewood-Flossmoor High School senior, varsity tennis player and the youngest of four children, he told them each he has known he was gay "forever."
On Tuesday Liang comes out to a much wider audience: the Homewood-Flossmoor community.
As part of a daylong awareness campaign, he and as many as 225 other students could wear T-shirts to school that say:
"gay? fine by me."
"I feel like I'm ready for it," said Liang, who will enter Washington University in St. Louis this fall.
"I mean, I'm confident in who I am. There's no sense in hiding it."
But the T-shirt campaign, which made a quiet debut last year, is meeting opposition from some of the school's Christian students.
In what will amount to a schoolyard battle of messages, a couple hundred other students are expected to wear shirts citing "crimes against God," namely "discrimination against ... my 10 Commandments, my prayers, my values, my faith, my God."
Those shirts, printed by the Family Harvest Church in Tinley Park, also include the 1st Amendment, which begins:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech ..."
Jacques Jacobs, a youth minister at Family Harvest Church, said his church is "not fighting anybody, we are only standing up for the rights of the Christian student."
He said the T-shirts have been circulated among students at dozens of other high schools in the Chicago area.
"I do know that Christian students, their right to pray has been taken from them," Jacobs said.
"Their right to believe in their values has become an offense to many people.
The Bible has become an offense."
Students and school officials said they had heard rumors that local churchgoers opposed to the "gay? fine by me" message will protest outside the school.
Jacobs said his church was not involved.
David Thieman, a Homewood-Flossmoor school spokesman, said both contingents could wear the shirts as long as they comply with the student code of conduct, which forbids the promotion of violence or drugs.
Liang, 17, and classmates Alissa Norby and Myka Held, both 18, said they organized the T-shirt rally to draw attention to a lack of gay and lesbian support services at Homewood-Flossmoor.
They also said the school environment is not friendly to young gays and that they wanted to promote tolerance on campus.
Norby, who will start at Mt. Holyoke College in South Hadley, Mass., in the fall, said she's tired of people using pejorative language to describe her.
"It's Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve," she said people chant at her as she walks to classes.
Held, who is not gay and will attend Brandeis University outside Boston, said she wanted to help her friends feel more comfortable at school and "to let people know that HF was a safe place to go."
The "gay? fine by me" slogan is being promoted at schools, mostly colleges, around the country.
The campaign began at Duke University in 2003, according to the project's Web site.
With almost 2,950 students, Homewood-Flossmoor has a diverse population. Thieman said 52 percent of the school is white, 42 percent black, 3 percent Hispanic and 2 percent Asian.
The school does not have a club promoting a gay and straight alliance. But Thieman said if students feel bullied, they should let an adult know.
"That kind of behavior is not tolerated at HF," he said.
According to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network in New York, 4 out of every 5 lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender students have reported being verbally, sexually or physically assaulted at school because of sexual orientation.
Riley Snorton, the group's spokesman, said a recent survey showed 1 in 3 gay students has skipped a class in the last month because of fear.
Peter LaBarbera, executive director of the Illinois Family Institute, said he thinks the gay advocacy T-shirts miss the point.
"I don't like the message because to me it trivializes the whole issue," he said.
"For gay guys, you have serious health issues."
LaBarbera said he's glad the 10 Commandments T-shirt will be worn Tuesday too.
"I think it's good there's another viewpoint coming in," he said.
Sherry Liang, Jamison's mother, said she was concerned about how her son will be received.
"I said, 'Are you really ready for this?' If Jamison's going to come out to the newspapers and TV, there are going to be repercussions," she said.
"He feels very strongly that this is something that needs to be out there."
Liang said he has always been known as a quiet guy. Today, he'll walk proud, hoping that others will follow his lead and come out.
"I know there are more, but they're just too scared," he said.
|
