| Boston’s fourth annual Gay
& Straight Youth Pride Day, whose organizers expected no more than
2,000 to take part in last Saturday’s event, has broken all previous records
of attendance. Boston police estimated that participants numbered 7,500,
an unprecedented and historic outpouring of youthful energies and fresh
concerns.
The march was sponsored by
the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. The huge parade stretched
from the State House to the Hatch Shell on Boston’s Esplanade.
Massachusetts politicians,
who’d previously given full funding for 140 high school Gay/Straight alliances,
have now been made witnesses, in the wake of their recent alliance fund-cancellations,
to the extraordinary importance of such alliances among the young.
Paul Cellucci, the state’s
Acting Governor, called upon his fellow politicians in February to provide
funds totaling $1.25 million, a 25% increase over 1997’s state government
outlays for the alliances. But in April, the Massachusetts House reduced
funding to $750,500, a reduction that would disallow $2,000 grants for
gay/straight alliances and parent education groups.
The Gay/Straight Pride celebration
called upon state authorities to restore full funding to meet the standards
proposed by the Acting Governor.
The Boston Globe quoted 14-year-old
Daniel Penland’s response to the turnout: “This shows me we are not alone,”
said the teenager, “We can reach out and connect here. It is a neat feeling.”
A 16-year-old lesbian, Emily
Delisle, told newspaper reporters how she’d contemplated suicide because
she felt forced to hide her sexual orientation from classmates. “I felt
isolated,” she said, “I was afraid to come out. What if my friends didn’t
like me? What if they didn’t talk to me anymore?”
When former Governor William
F. Weld created a commission for gay youth and a Gay and Lesbian Student
Rights law in 1993, there had previously been only 2 gay/straight high
school alliances in the state.
Massachusetts remains the
only U.S. state which shows official concern for gay and lesbian youth
issues, aware, as its politicians now realize, that gay and lesbian teens
must deal regularly with threats, that their safety is in jeopardy, and
that many attempt or contemplate suicide.
Reports indicate that the
student marchers were “ebullient” as they gathered together on the steps
of the State House. Surprised police were forced to close off a section
of Beacon Street near Park as the youths pushed forward through Boston’s
downtown areas.
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