Good Riddance, Asshole!

A South Carolinian high school principal is resigning from his position because a gay-straight alliance (GSA) has formed in his school and he can’t do anything about it.

He wrote an open letter to the school parents, students and faculty stating that the club went against his religious beliefs and he must step down.  Unfortunately, he won’t be able to step down until 2009.

“I feel the formation of a Gay/Straight Alliance Club at Irmo High school implies that students joining the club will have chosen to or will choose to engage in sexual activity with members of the same sex, opposite sex, or members of both sexes.”

Umm… no.  Not at all.  I started a GSA at my high school and I never got any sex from any of the members.  Also, no one came to the club to meet other gay students.  They came for the free doughnuts.  It was fairly un-steamy.  In fact, more people snuck out of meetings with the school’s Christian clubs, Fellowship of Christian Athletes and YoungLife, for the purpose of having sex than there were members of the GSA.  Believe me… you wouldn’t believe the stuff you hear from the Christian clubbers in high school.

Anyone who tries to start a GSA in an American public school will undoubtedly come across a lot of flack.  My principal, Dr. Martha Cobble, went out of her way to avoid talking to me and my other organiser when we were planning to start the GSA.  She tried her best to stall the club and would have succeeded in killing it before it started if I hadn’t been the only person in the world more stubborn than she.  But every GSA organiser runs across the same accusation, as Dr. Cobble accused me of doing:  the organiser, of course, is attempting to set up a school club about sex.  That’s all gay people think about, right?  Sex!  Lots of sex!  Sex with multiple partners, not necessarily all human, at the same time!  Wrong.  GSAs are not about sex.  They are about creating a safe atmosphere for homosexual students, combating harassment and discussing gay rights.

Not once did our GSA talk about sex, and since our school had an abstinence-based curriculum, we didn’t even talk about condom usage and sexual safety… something I deeply regret.

GSAs are tarred with the stigma of “sex club.”  For this reason, I think, most GSAs go far out of their way to avoid the subject altogether.