Publication Date: Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Our Town: A small victory
Our Town: A small victory
(June 09, 2004) by Don Kazak
The kids will be all right, because of their parents.
That's the feeling I came away with last Wednesday, after an unprecedented meeting of the Palo Alto PTA Council that drew about 200 people in a standing-room-only crowd at the school district offices.
The issue was a resolution passed by the council in April to oppose any amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would ban the marriage of gays.
The resolution fired up opponents, though, forcing a reconsideration.
The action was symbolic. No one in Washington may care a whit what the Palo Alto PTA Council thinks about this issue, although they should.
The main argument against it was that the PTA should advocate for the kids as its one and only job, and not get involved in national politics.
But maybe getting involved in issues like this does advocate for the kids, as well as for tolerance.
There was no overt, fundamentalist, right-wing argument against gays, which wouldn't be expected anyway in a city such as Palo Alto. This also is far cry from being a hotbed of gay activism.
But the city has a long history of tolerance and stepping up in civil rights issues, going back to the effort of 40 years ago to end housing discrimination on the basis of race.
Gay rights is the civil-rights issue of our time, as Megan Fogarty of the El Carmelo Elementary School PTA put it.
I was told before the meeting that suicide is second leading cause of death among teens, and that confusion over their sexual identity is often part of that.
Supporting the rights of a minority among us deeply divided people. Some thought that the PTA had no business taking a stand on this.
Michelle Romero cautioned that the PTA "has put itself on a path to self-destruction by doing this." She said she would resign her PTA post at Terman Middle School.
Another speaker said the PTA should "stick to reading, writing and math, and stay out of political areas. It will divide our children."
But as teacher Dey Rose put it, like it or not, there are gay and lesbian students -- and parents -- in the district, and someone should speak out for them, too.
PTA member Grace Lui noted that she is Chinese and married to a white man, which once would not have been allowed. She also went to school with white children, which also formerly was forbidden.
"As a child who had been discriminated against, I swore I would never discriminate against anyone," she said.
But the most eloquent statement of all last Wednesday was by a woman who said very little. Sarah Hainstock pointed out her partner, a woman, and held up a photograph of her four children. "These are the reasons I am here," she said.
The Palo Alto PTA is the first in the nation to come out against a proposed Constitutional amendment banning gay marriages.
The resolution is purely symbolic and carries no force of law. It won't change how classes are taught, how children are cared for, or how parents -- all parents -- fulfill their family duties.
It's a mark across the sky, as distant and fleeting as a cloud, while we get back to business in Palo Alto.
But it carries a moral imperative to it, of the people we ought to be. In that way, it teaches our children acceptance and tolerance for everyone. Maybe that's why the vote was 50-10 to uphold the resolution.
I can remember as a kid watching the news on TV and seeing an Alabama sheriff named Bull Conner direct fire hoses and police dogs against civil rights demonstrators. I couldn't figure out what was going on.
I figured it out later, thanks to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and be granted equal rights. That's the least of our obligations toward each other.
It's just a measure of our humanity toward each other, no matter who we are.
That's the reason to be proud of the courage of the PTA in passing a resolution that has no force, other than a moral one.
Not a bad job by those busy, bothersome, meddling parents.
They rock.
Weekly Senior Staff Writer Don Kazak can be e-mailed at dkazak@paweekly.com.
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