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Guest
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On fire! |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 2344
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That link is for members only, but I know that here we have what are called "gay friendly" clubs... Basically they are places that have a "gay reputation" but aren't strictly speaking only for gays, in fact usually 70% or more of the population is still heterosexual. I haven't been to one of them before, but I've heard about them a little... Anyway, that's all I know, hopefully someone else can say more..
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13785
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The problem with links to newspapers is that they can be "members only". This one is free to join, though
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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marc
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Needs to get a life! |
Registered: March 2003
Messages: 4729
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The clientele however, that is another matter......
People go to a place because it offers an atmosphere conduscive to a good time.
I rarely go to gay bars because they don't show me, personally, a good time. When I do go it is for a special entertainment or event. I prefer to go to coffee shops and the like, more sedentary entertainments so to speak.
Do gay/str8 bars offer tollerance..... I don't think they help or hinder. The people going to the bars are much too full of themselves to wonder or worry about the social implications of who is drinking at the next table.
Good, bad, neutral... That is totally subjective. A matter of what you experience in each place.
Just my opinion.......
Marc
Life is great for me... Most of the time... But then I meet people online... Very few are real friends... Many say they are but know nothing of what it means... Some say they are, but are so shallow...
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Guest
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On fire! |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 2344
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These are non-profit, student run clubs in high schools and colleges to provide a safe place for GLBT and gay friendly students to discuss concerns and promote understanding and tolerance within the student body. The word "club" refers to a student group not a bar/club)
I'm president of one at my university. Helping kids form a GSA (gay straight alliance) is one of the main purposes of my board.
(P.S. I finally read and responded to my post about the Salvation Army but it didn't relocate to the main board. I've not had much computer access because of moving. Sorry it took me so long.)
Here is the article.
Texas School District Is Sued Over a Gay-Straight Club
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
LEIN, Tex., Jan. 29 — Last October, Marla Dukler, a 17-year-old honor student, and 16 other students at Klein High School asked the principal for permission to form a Gay-Straight Alliance, saying it would promote tolerance.
In the months since then, neither the principal nor the school district in this affluent suburb north of Houston has given the students permission to form the club.
Convinced that the school district is deliberately delaying a decision to prevent the club from being formed, Ms. Dukler and the American Civil Liberties Union have sued the Klein Independent School District in Federal District Court in Houston, asking the court to order school officials to approve the club.
The lawsuit accuses the district of violating Ms. Dukler's First Amendment rights and the Equal Access Act, a federal law that bars schools from discriminating against clubs based on the content of their speech.
The suit was filed soon after the A.C.L.U. sued Boyd County High School in Kentucky, asking it to reinstate the Gay-Straight Alliance after the superintendent closed all clubs in the school. His decision to allow the club had set off large protests.
More than 1,200 Gay-Straight Alliances operate in high schools across the nation, but here in conservative Harris County, some parents say they fear that a club in Klein High would promote homosexual sex.
Ms. Dukler, who is on the varsity tennis team and on Klein High's state championship math team, denied that the club would promote sex.
"The club will be to talk about tolerance, to teach tolerance," she said. "It will try to make our school a little bit safer, try to make it bearable to walk down the hallway."
One day in December, she said, three boys sneaked up on her. "One shoved me into a wall of lockers, and the other two called me a dyke and a faggot. My leg was really bruised. There's verbal abuse everywhere."
Her father, Malcolm Dukler, strongly supports her effort to start the club, saying, "The issue is the safety of our child."
David Feldman, the school district's lawyer, criticized the A.C.L.U. for filing the lawsuit, saying, "Klein hasn't violated anything yet because no decision has been made on the club's application."
Mr. Feldman said the district would announce a decision soon. He does not know, he said, whether the club will be approved. He said the public's feelings would not control the decision.
Lizbeth Johnson, the district's assistant superintendent for community relations, said many clubs, not just the Gay-Straight Alliance, were waiting for approval. "We've heard from more parents on this issue than on some other clubs," Ms. Johnson said. "We're getting responses both positive and negative."
District officials said the high school's principal, Pat Huff, would not comment, but Mr. Huff told The Houston Chronicle earlier in January that he gave the Gay-Straight Alliance application to the superintendent "because of the controversial nature of the club" and because of the district's conservative population.
Mr. Huff said: "We're a little different than some of the other high schools maybe in the inner city that have allowed the club to go forward. It would be a different issue out here. I have to always be thinking about the people, our constituency."
David George, who is Ms. Dukler's lawyer and the president of the A.C.L.U.'s Houston chapter, said the school district appeared to be trying to suppress an unpopular club.
"The law doesn't say just because the average citizen of the school district is uncomfortable you get to ban it," Mr. George said. "The Equal Access Act is clear that students are allowed to have clubs, regardless of the viewpoint of the speech used. Klein High School is simply violating federal law."
While waiting for the court's decision, Ms. Dukler goes on with her life as a high school junior, studying for exams, playing in tennis matches and looking at colleges.
She said she was heartened that 200 students had signed a petition supporting the club. Roughly 3,700 students attend Klein High.
"I've spoken to people at other schools, and they told me there was harassment before the G.S.A. started," she said. "But when it got going and working, when these people spread the message about tolerance, a lot of the harassment stopped."
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Guest
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On fire! |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 2344
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even life saving for gay kids. And in most schools, more straight students will support them much more that some adults.
In the United States, all student including gay students have the constitutionally protected right to form a club in any school that allows any other type of student club. It's gay kids coming out and standing up for themselves, being vocal and visable and educating their peers and teachers that gay kids exist and they're not going to hide anymore.
Gay Straight Clubs are a VERY GOOD thing.
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Guest
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On fire! |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 2344
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Interesting how the school folks seem to be saying they have to consider the public viewpoint yet their lawyer says that isn't a factor. Did he really say "yet"? I've seen too many mangled quotes to trust them, but that was an interesting choice of words if true.
I didn't know about that federal law. My 2 local HS's don't have GSA's, at least according to their websites, but I'm keeping an eye on it and am frankly a bit surprised - Seattle is fairly progressive (more in another thread for timmy) but we are also in a semi-conservative suburb.
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trevor
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Really getting into it |
Registered: November 2002
Messages: 732
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To be perfectly honest, I've got to belive that ultimately, more sex will occur at an earlier age because of GSA's. (I just know Lance will spank me for saying this - or maybe that's just wishful thinking . . .)
Quite simply, people being able to find like-minded peers, to make friends with "the appropriate gender", and feel more free to be themselves probably increases their chance of finding a lover. Now, I don't believe for a second that GSA's intend to promote sex or matchmaking per se in any way, and if you think about it, they are just leveling the playing field in this regard of finding a lover.
Even as a fairly conservative person (considering) I've got to believe that it's definitely in the best interest of both individuals and society for everyone to find a place to feel safe, to know they are not alone, to better be able to exercise all of their God-given rights and I think THAT is what the GSA's do.
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Guest
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On fire! |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 2344
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from my board who have started or participate in a GSA none of them know any gay couples (male)in their schools and only a few lesbian couples, mostly because lesbians are more socially acceptable in our culture.
I hope that GSAs help provide GLBT kids the same dating opportunites enjoyed by straight kids of the same age.
I think lots of times adults tend to assume that teens are very active sexually based in part I think, on the fictional stories they read. It's the same way straight people assume all gay men have non-stop sex. For some gay men this is true...a few of the hotties on my board are real players but for a lot of them this couldn't be further from the truth. And I think that is true for a LOT of gay men.
From talking to all the kids on my board, I know that they get crushes (mostly on people on line instead of people in their school) and are all more interested in romance and falling in love and being held than they are in just having sex.
Maybe they are way different from the gay teens that you guys know. But the kids on my board are mostly honor roll students, most of them are idealistic and concerned and informed about their civil rights, many of them are religious, most all of them like to joke around (in vague terms) about sex, but for the most part, they're innocent and inexperienced, and shy about dating, much less having sex. Many of them haven't even kissed a guy, much less had sex.
For the most part, from what I have seen, I think most gay high school students are not nearly as sexually active as most straight high school students. I hope as more and more kids come out, that soon more gay students will get the opportunity to experience all the normal high school romantic rites of passage and be able to openly date, flirt, fall in love, get their hearts broken, break a few hearts, and have sex just like straight students do.
Most high school GSA's network with other high school GSA's in their area at least once a month so larger numbers of gay kids get to meet each other in a social situation. Kids from different schools date each other much more often than they date someone in their own school.
It's much different in college. First of all, our GSA is much much larger than a typical high school GSA. We have a few established couples, but mostly its just people experimenting, hooking up, casual sex, having fun, lots of partying, lots of clubbing, lots of drama, etc. Typical college behavior for gays or straights alike.
I'm no expert - all this is just based on my own experience and people that I know.
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I have to say I wish Marla and her friends luck! It's going to be an up hill battle, I mean your talking about the heart of the bible belt and Shrub country to boot. It's hard to find very young kids thru late teens that are not wearing their WWJD bracelets and parents with bumper stickers saying "Homosexuales Will Burn in Hell".
I guess all one can do is hope that one of these organizations can gain a foot hold and that it would help in some way.
How do we change the hearts and minds of people so deeply rooted in dogma of these ultra conservative religious sects.
People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm
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No Message Body
People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm
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trevor
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Really getting into it |
Registered: November 2002
Messages: 732
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I think most are starting to think for themselves and many realize that Jesus would NOT own such a bumper sticker, he befriended "society's outcasts" rather then condemning them, and he was the only human who ISN'T a sinner.
(My last point being that while I don't believe homosexuality is inherently sinful, I do think it's a minor point and totally irrelevant considering all the other sins - if we are being literal in our interpretation of sins - we all indulge in and society encourages.)
Hypocrisy beware!
Uh - sorry about the sermon.
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I agree with you Trevor, and at least I try never to lose hope in and for people. Though I think as I look around me I see a battle going on and all to often I fear people would rather let someone else do the thinking for them. Quite frankly I find at times it scarry whom they choose to do that thinking.
Now I am going to say something that may draw fire but hey, what's life without a little excitement.
As we go through life we live mostly in a world of subjective truths, Though there are immutable truths and as we go through life, all we can hope for is that we will recognize those truth and hold to them and those truths are ours to discover and test.
Here I am going to be selfish and say my #1 immutable truth. and to do so I will borrow a phrase from a Cat Stevens song " And Love Was all He Said". I just wish I could apply it more completely to my life.
I try!
People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself you never really know
Where some have found their paradise
Other's just come to harm
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Thanks, Lance 
