Hurricane GLSEN by Marc Fey, TownHall.com, September 28, 2003
On Friday night founder and co-director Kevin Jennings defiantly declared, “Neither rain, nor wind, not even a hurricane will stop us from bringing justice to our schools!”
A clinic earlier that day was entitled “Strategies for Responding to Homophobic Bigotry: Everybody’s Business!” The title accurately set forth this point in their agenda-- to make the GLBT agenda everyone’s agenda, yours and mine included. And the strategy is to get to our kids.
It’s not just that they are generously funded, though they certainly are. Revenues for 2001 were $3.35 million, and this year’s conference was liberally supported by Kodak, Levi Strauss, Microsoft, and IBM whose logos were emblazoned on banners, brochures, and conference freebies. For the close to 500 people in attendance, including about 100 junior high and senior high students, the companies hoped to capture this powerful purchasing sector—gays and youth—arguably two of the most powerful buying sectors in America today.
No, GLSEN’s success comes from a carefully planned message that homosexuality, bisexuality, and transgender identity issues represent the next human rights and civil rights battle, on par with Martin Luther King, Jr and other reformers great work of the last 200 years. Again, this message is targeted at our kids. Today, GLSEN sponsors about 1700 campus student clubs, called GSA’s (Gay Straight Alliances) promoting LGBT issues...
Documentation for the last paragraph:
Young Gay Activists Making a Difference
"It's probably no coincidence that the past decade, during which Hyde has observed a growth in youth activism, coincides with the proliferation of Gay Straight Alliances (GSAs) in public high schools in Massachusetts and around the country. Back in 1992, just a handful of GSAs existed in the Bay State; now, more than half of its 300 hundred public high schools have active GSAs. While the primary focus of the groups is promoting tolerance and safety for all students, they allow students to branch out in other ways as well. ``I think it's just hard to overstate how important these bodies have been," says Kevin Jennings, executive director of the National Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). ``Because what they've done is they are kind of the place where these young people learn about leadership skills, how to be activists, and [students] are coming into college with already several years of effective organizing experience behind them. For a lot of us in the LGBT movement who are my age, it was on-the-job training if you would," laughs the 39 year-old Jennings. ``I'm looking at students who apply for internships here now who are 18 and already have 12 leadership positions with LGBT-related activities. ...It's amazing." ...
Needless to say, Jennings is enthusiastic about the influx of young people into the gay rights movement. ``I think we're at a watershed moment in the history of this movement where young people are moving to the front and center of it," he observes. ``And when that has happened in the past with other movements like the African-American civil rights movement or the Vietnam War movement, it was the factor that propelled those movements to victory. So I'm very hopeful for the future."