Life's hard lessons

My daughter, Lauren, has been working along with one of her openly gay friends at school for some time now in getting a Gay-Straight Alliance club started in their high school. This has been a dream of Zack's for over a year, and last year, Lauren joined him in his efforts towards gaining faculty support and sponsorship. They were overwhelmed at the number of faculty who actually supported it, and when they went to their principal to speak to him, they were blown away at how easily he approved it.

At their first meeting they had 25 students show up and they were overwhelmed. Lauren was riding on a high and rightfully so. However, I warned her that when word got out to the parents and community of this, they would be flooded with opposition and that they would be in for a fight. Sure enough, it came. Not two days after their first meeting two local pastors called the school with their "concerns" and within 24 hours had an audience with the school principal. Today, Lauren and Zack have been called in to meet again with the principal concerning GSA, for what they have yet to learn. I suspect that he will be sharing some of the "concerns" that were voiced to him by the local pastors. I also suspect that our high school chapter of GSA is in for a real fight for survival. In fact, I won't be at all surprised if the ACLU has to get in on this one.

I'm not going to protect Lauren from this one. She is going to see some real opposition and she is probably going to witness some folks getting very ugly. It's character-building time and personally, I think Lauren is up for the challenge! Lauren, as well as my other two children, Heather and Nathan have learned a lot about love in the last several years. And one of the most important lessons that they have learned is that love is not exclusive to the heterosexual community. They have observed the love that Steph and I demonstrate towards one another as well as towards them and for over a year now, they have basked in that love and have been nurtured by it. It has been amazing to watch these three kids blossom. Now Lauren has the opportunity to share the strength and courage of that love with her peers and in the end, love will win out.