Gay-straight club at Kubasaki calls for tolerance

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Gay-straight club at Kubasaki calls for tolerance
By Cindy Fisher, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Thursday, February 26, 2009

CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — High school can be a lonely, confusing and sometimes brutal experience for anyone, and perhaps especially for gay teens.

That’s something Kubasaki High School senior Michael Santivasci, 17, hopes the Gay Straight Alliance club he helped establish in December will prevent at his school.

"I had witnessed people being harassed for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender), and I had experienced it" at stateside schools, Santivasci said.

What he hadn’t seen, he said, was people stand up against the harassment.

When California passed Proposition 8 in November, banning same-sex marriage, Santivasci decided he wanted to take a stand. With the help of school counselor David Young, he spearheaded Kubasaki’s GSA club.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60965