Gay-Straight Alliance
continues to promote
awareness despite
initial objections
By Jennifer H. Svan,
Pacific Edition, Tuesday, April 29, 2008
MISAWA AIR BASE, Japan — In
four short months, the Gay-Straight Alliance at Robert D. Edgren High School has
made a name for itself — despite its name.
After riding out controversy that swirled around the club’s formation, GSA
members have devoted the second half of the school year to raising money and
awareness for various causes.
“I don’t think another school club has done so much in such a short time,” said
English teacher Laurie Kuntz, the club’s faculty sponsor.
A spring bake sale next to the commissary raised $700 in three hours for
educational programs that promote tolerance in middle schools.
In March the club helped sponsor “V-Day,” a theatrical performance to raise
community awareness of violence against women and children. That event raised
$160 for the national V-Day organization.
Most recently, GSA spearheaded Edgren’s participation in Friday’s “National Day
of Silence,” a movement started at the University of Virginia in 1996 to prevent
bullying in schools. This year the event was dedicated to Lawrence King, a
California middle school student who was shot and killed in February, allegedly
because he was gay.
At Edgren the event drew participation beyond the GSA circle, with about 30
students wearing T-shirts and toting white boards or pen and pad to communicate
in classrooms and hallways.
“Ethnic, religious, sexual differences is no reason to single someone out and
treat them differently,” Heather Steele, a senior and National Honors Society
member, jotted in a notebook.
GSA members Samantha Cannon and Stephanie Wehrung, both seniors, say the second
half of the school year has gone smoother than anticipated. After wrangling for
their club’s survival until December, they didn’t expect the hullabaloo to go
away.
“I was surprised it died down,” Wehrung said. “I was expecting people to come
and protest at our events. It really hasn’t happened.”
No one has openly protested against the group, but some have cast their
disapproval other ways.
While GSA students sold brownies and cake, an adult approached the bake sale
table and asked “is this legal?” Wehrung said.
On the flip side, she added, “People were just giving us $40 and not even
getting anything.”
Another time, Kuntz received an anonymous complaint about her e-mailing a V-Day
announcement to all three Department of Defense Dependents Schools on Misawa. The individual took umbrage with Kuntz and her writing in the announcement that DODDS teachers, among other groups, had collaborated on the event.
“We had representatives from every single school (participate in V-Day), but
somebody felt offended to be affiliated with GSA,” she said.
But many teachers, according to Kuntz, have rallied behind GSA. “We have had an
incredible amount of support,” she said.
Teresa Giustino, the school psychologist at Edgren and Cummings Elementary
School, is a backer.
The club “has allowed students to take on leadership roles in their advocating
for social awareness since this forum is essentially student led,” she wrote in
an e-mail to Stars and Stripes. “The GSA is not about sexual orientation, it’s
about showing compassion and having the courage to do so. It’s about promoting
human dignity.”
Despite the club’s success, a stigma still persists because of GSA’s name, say
Kuntz and students, one that’s especially hard to shake in a conservative
military community.
The club has 12 members, a good number for a small school, Kuntz said. But one
student dropped out, fearing club affiliation might hurt a parent’s career.
Steele asked that if her name was used in this story that it be made clear she
wasn’t a GSA member. She said she was worried about losing babysitting jobs.
Senior Norah Sweeney, a GSA member, said the idea was floated to change the name
to “tolerance club,” but then “we’d kind of be hiding behind the name.”
“The name will never change,” says Kuntz. “There’s no reason to change this
name. We’re very proud of who we are.”
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