pax
ONE love, blood, life
What follows is some excerpts from an e-mail I received today. I am a member of a mailing list that periodically sends out news alerts related to civil rights issues, mostly ones that involve gay and bisexual persons. The guy who runs it, John Aravosis, is one of the people who helped launch StopDrLaura.com--the website that helped get Dr. Laura kicked off television. If you'd like to help keep a gay-straight alliance in the Boston area going, please contact some of the people Aravosis mentions. Thanks!
This is a rather disturbing story from Boston. At the end of this
story, I'm going to ask you to please take action to help these kids.
The chancellor of Boston University (BU) has ordered a local school (grades 8-12) run under the university's auspices, the prestigious BU Academy, to disband its two-year-old gay-straight alliance. BU Chancellor John Silber's apparently thinks gay-straight alliances "get involved in the sexuality" of young students, when in fact, gay-straight alliances are about promoting tolerance in high schools so that gays
kids don't face violence, either at their own hands or at the hands of their fellow students. According to one press report, Silber is so upset at the alliance's existence that he allegedly threatened to cut funding to the academy if it did not drop the gay tolerance group.
40% OF MASS GAY AND BI YOUTH ATTEMPTED SUICIDE
According to the Boston Globe, "gay-straight alliances started in
Massachusetts nine years ago as an antidote to the exceptionally high suicide rate among gay and bisexual high school students. According to a Massachusetts Department of Public Health report released in May 2001, about 40 percent of that student population have attempted suicide. Since the 1993-94 school year, Massachusetts has helped pay for gay-straight alliances at schools that want them. It is the only state that does so..."
MILITANT FUNDAMENTALISTS LAUD BU'S ANTI-GAY MOVE
...One Massachusetts anti-gay activist responded to Silber's decision: "This is a behavior that is medically and psychologically extremely self-destructive, and they are telling kids that they should feel good about doing it."
...What's extremely self-destructive is telling kids who have a
40% record of attempting suicide that in fact they are sick and not deserving of acceptance or tolerance.
PLEASE CONTACT BU ON BEHALF OF GAY KIDS
So, please contact BU Chancellor John Silber and the other contacts I provide you below, including the BU alumni association, and the various trustees. Also, among the university's trustees is Jeffrey Katzenberg, who launched Dreamworks SKG along with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. If anyone out there has contacts with Katzenberg, Spielberg or Geffen - or any of the other BU trustees - can you please let them know about this issue.
PEOPLE TO CONTACT (please contact everyone below):
BU Chancellor John Silber - phone: 617-353-4300
BU Alumni & Development Office - email: mailto:alumweb@bu.edu - phone:
617-353-9500 - Fax: 617-353-5838
BU Board of Trustees:
- Elaine Kirshenbaum, director of health policy for the Massachusetts
Medical Society - mailto:ekirshenbaum@mms.org - call toll-free, 1-800-
322-2303, and ask for extension 7223 or dial direct: (781) 434 7223
- Richard DeWolfe, chairman of the board of trustees, and chairman and
CEO of DeWolfe Companies, Inc - phone: 781-863-5858 - email:
mailto:info@dewolfe.com
- Frederick Bertino, president and creative director of McCarthy Mambro
Bertino LLC - phone: 617-670-9700 - fax: 617-670-9711
- Dexter Dodge, president and chief executive officer of Freedom Capital
Management - phone 617-725-2300
- Jeffrey Katzenberg, Dreamworks (again, if anyone has a contact to
Katzenberg or Dreamworks, please pass the word to them).
For more background on this issue:
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/249/metro/BU_tells_Academy_to_drop_gay_group+.shtml
Boston Globe editorial on this issue:
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/250/editorials/Sex_miseducation_at_BU+.shtml
This is a rather disturbing story from Boston. At the end of this
story, I'm going to ask you to please take action to help these kids.
The chancellor of Boston University (BU) has ordered a local school (grades 8-12) run under the university's auspices, the prestigious BU Academy, to disband its two-year-old gay-straight alliance. BU Chancellor John Silber's apparently thinks gay-straight alliances "get involved in the sexuality" of young students, when in fact, gay-straight alliances are about promoting tolerance in high schools so that gays
kids don't face violence, either at their own hands or at the hands of their fellow students. According to one press report, Silber is so upset at the alliance's existence that he allegedly threatened to cut funding to the academy if it did not drop the gay tolerance group.
40% OF MASS GAY AND BI YOUTH ATTEMPTED SUICIDE
According to the Boston Globe, "gay-straight alliances started in
Massachusetts nine years ago as an antidote to the exceptionally high suicide rate among gay and bisexual high school students. According to a Massachusetts Department of Public Health report released in May 2001, about 40 percent of that student population have attempted suicide. Since the 1993-94 school year, Massachusetts has helped pay for gay-straight alliances at schools that want them. It is the only state that does so..."
MILITANT FUNDAMENTALISTS LAUD BU'S ANTI-GAY MOVE
...One Massachusetts anti-gay activist responded to Silber's decision: "This is a behavior that is medically and psychologically extremely self-destructive, and they are telling kids that they should feel good about doing it."
...What's extremely self-destructive is telling kids who have a
40% record of attempting suicide that in fact they are sick and not deserving of acceptance or tolerance.
PLEASE CONTACT BU ON BEHALF OF GAY KIDS
So, please contact BU Chancellor John Silber and the other contacts I provide you below, including the BU alumni association, and the various trustees. Also, among the university's trustees is Jeffrey Katzenberg, who launched Dreamworks SKG along with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen. If anyone out there has contacts with Katzenberg, Spielberg or Geffen - or any of the other BU trustees - can you please let them know about this issue.
PEOPLE TO CONTACT (please contact everyone below):
BU Chancellor John Silber - phone: 617-353-4300
BU Alumni & Development Office - email: mailto:alumweb@bu.edu - phone:
617-353-9500 - Fax: 617-353-5838
BU Board of Trustees:
- Elaine Kirshenbaum, director of health policy for the Massachusetts
Medical Society - mailto:ekirshenbaum@mms.org - call toll-free, 1-800-
322-2303, and ask for extension 7223 or dial direct: (781) 434 7223
- Richard DeWolfe, chairman of the board of trustees, and chairman and
CEO of DeWolfe Companies, Inc - phone: 781-863-5858 - email:
mailto:info@dewolfe.com
- Frederick Bertino, president and creative director of McCarthy Mambro
Bertino LLC - phone: 617-670-9700 - fax: 617-670-9711
- Dexter Dodge, president and chief executive officer of Freedom Capital
Management - phone 617-725-2300
- Jeffrey Katzenberg, Dreamworks (again, if anyone has a contact to
Katzenberg or Dreamworks, please pass the word to them).
For more background on this issue:
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/249/metro/BU_tells_Academy_to_drop_gay_group+.shtml
Boston Globe editorial on this issue:
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/250/editorials/Sex_miseducation_at_BU+.shtml