Erasmus

The Dutch humanist Erasmus (1466-1536) fell madly in love with a tall young monk named Servatius Roger. Erasmus wrote him scores of passionate, love-sick letters, to which Roger reacted by asking him to tone it down – way down, lest there be a scandal. Roger never gave in to the constant, overwrought advances. Here is a typical exchange:

Erasmus: Don’t be so reserved. I have become yours so completely that nothing of myself is left...I have wooed you both unhappily and relentlessly.

Roger: What is wrong with you?

This portrait of Erasmus by Hans Holbein the Younger (1523) hangs in London's National Gallery.

While later teaching in Paris, Erasmus instructed a 21-year-old English-born student, Thomas Grey, who later became Marquis of Dorset. Erasmus was abruptly dismissed as Grey’s teacher, for making unwanted advances towards him. It seems Erasmus had a thing for straight men.

Erasmus was born Gerrit Gerritszoon (Dutch for Gerard Gerardson) in Rotterdam as the illegitimate son of a physician's daughter and a man who later became a monk. On his parents' death his guardians insisted he enter a monastery, where he adopted the name Desiderius Erasmus. After taking priest's orders, Erasmus went to Paris, where he earned a living as a teacher. His life-long clashes with theologians and clergy took root while in France. Among his pupils was English Lord Mountjoy, who invited Erasmus to visit England in 1498. He lived chiefly at Oxford, and through the influence of John Colet, his contempt for theologians was heightened. He returned to Paris and later made a much longed for trip to Italy, but returned to England from time to time.

While residing at Cambridge Erasmus served as professor of Divinity and Greek. In 1519 the first edition of Colloquia appeared. Usually regarded as his masterpiece, Colloquia critiqued the abuses of the Church with audacity and incisiveness, preparing men's minds for the subsequent work of Martin Luther. In future works Erasmus promoted a more rational conception of Christian doctrine, emancipating men's minds from the frivolous and pedantic methods of contemporary theologians. Members of the clerical establishment became his sworn enemies, driving him to live out the rest of his days in Basel, Switzerland. Fortunately, during his last years Erasmus enjoyed great fame, fortune  and high regard.

Erasmus stands as the supreme example of cultivated common sense being applied to human affairs. He rescued theology from the pedantries of theologians, exposed the abuses of the Church, and did more than any other single person to advance the Revival of Learning.

A popular European student exchange program, established in 1987, is named after him. The Erasmus Programme is a major European Union higher education initiative; there are currently more than 4,000 higher education institutions participating in 33 countries, and more than 2.2 million students have already taken part.

Micah Porter

First reported by Cyd Zeigler (co-founder of OutSports.com) on September 19, championship track and field/cross-country coach Micah Porter (at right in black shirt) bravely came out to his team of high school athletes. Photo from OutSports.

From Zeigler’s post on OutSports.com:

Porter called his team together before practice a week ago and told them he had some news. He let them know that an article about him would be coming out that week, and that the article discussed his being gay and would talk about his partner, Brandan. The news was met with the same silence that stared back at him when he came out to his wife four years earlier. After a few seconds, one of the team leaders – who Porter says could end the season as a conference champion – stood up, shook his hand, told him it didn't matter to him, and asked what that day's practice had in store for them. The rest of the team laced up their shoes and followed suit. "It was a positive moment for me and for them as young men and for us as a young team," Porter said. "After all that worry, it was a non-issue for them."

Full story at:
http://www.outsports.com/2013/9/19/4747454/state-champion-colorado-high-school-coach-micah-porter-comes-out

Photo by Andy Cross for the Denver Post

To say that Coach Porter, who is in his early 40s, is in a complicated situation is understatement. He came out to his team against the advice of the school’s administrators, to whom Porter had revealed his sexual orientation in 2010. At that time Porter had been instructed to steer clear of the locker room and to change into his coaching gear in a private bathroom (Porter also teaches history at the school), a situation that elicited this response from Porter:

"Every day I have to go into a bathroom to change...It's a reminder that I'm a second-class citizen in a school I've given so much to."

From your blogger: Well, OK. This is where I exit my role as reporter and switch to having to make some personal observations. Does Porter even consider that he just might have earned his “second-class” citizen status? When he took this coaching job seventeen years ago, he deceived the school by not telling his employer that he knew he was sexually attracted to men. The school was acting defensively, fully aware of its liability in keeping Porter on its staff. Less liberal students and parents might sue, so keeping Porter out of the locker room was their way of protecting themselves. IMHO Porter should be down on his knees thanking his lucky stars that he is still afforded the opportunity to teach and coach at his West Denver high school. But that’s just me.

Back to the facts.

Porter’s coaching ability and record make him a valuable asset to his school. He is a four-time state champion head coach, was once named state coach of the year, has won twelve county coach-of-the-year honors for his sport and was the county's coach of the year for all sports once. As if that weren’t enough, he has coached 33 athletes to individual state titles. Academically, the cherry on top was that he was named the high school’s Teacher of the Year in 2004. For thirteen years he had been married to another teacher at the same school; together they were the head coaches of the school's cross-country teams.

Naturally, Porter had been tormented by the fact that over the years his sexual feelings for men would not go away. Depressed, he sought help from medications prescribed by his therapists. During the months following his coming out to his wife, the couple told their son and daughter the truth, then separated and divorced. A year later, Porter came out to his school administrators, who supported his continued teaching and coaching duties at their school. The high school’s athletic director, Jerry McWhorter, says, "I've never heard a negative thing about him from anybody...He's well-respected throughout the state as a coach. He gets a lot out of his athletes...I support Micah 150%. I always have and I always will. I don't have a bad word to say about the guy. He's a great coach, he's a great teacher."

More from Zeigler’s OutSports.com post:

...shortly after the divorce, Porter began dating Brandan Rader, a psychology student at the University of Colorado at Denver. The two met when Porter came across a talk by Rader at a nearby school encouraging youth to accept their sexual orientation. Porter asked Rader to lunch, they hit it off, and they have been together since.

That was over two years ago. In that time, they've been seen together around town. A lot. Porter has introduced Rader to parents and friends. Various students live in their neighborhood; some have asked "who was that man" they saw with Porter. Between that and a high-profile divorce in the high school, there are likely few adults in the area who don't know Porter's poorly kept "secret."

The buzz has trickled down to the student body. Porter said his daughter, now a freshman at the University of Denver, was asked by a runner she was dating if her dad was gay. The school's head basketball coach told Porter he was asked by his team about Porter's sexual orientation.

"When people ask, I tell them," Porter said. "My closest friends at school know, and I tell them they can tell whomever they want. It's a major part of who I am as a person, but it's not the defining part. I'm a coach, I'm a teacher, I'm a dad, I'm Brandan's partner.”

Despite his concerns, McWhorter said he hasn't heard a word from Porter's athletes about their coach being gay. In fact, he hasn't fielded a single complaint from any staff member or parent in the couple of years Porter has been drifting out of the closet. Not a word.

As time has gone by, and more people know the worst-kept secret in Denver, Porter has loosened up. Lately he has even asked Brandan to attend track meets.

"I wake up every day excited about life and my job and my relationship with Brandan," Porter said. "We bought a house together. We're building a life together. There are parts of my life I hope to repair, but I take better care of myself, I have so much more confidence than I ever have in my life.

"For the first time in a long time, I've had people tell me I look happy. For the first time in a long time, I am."...

From your blogger Terry:
Perhaps the best lesson we can learn from coach Porter’s story is that living a lie will eventually catch up with us. Be the best you can be, face up to the truth and deal with the consequences. It’s our only chance at happiness and a worthwhile life. Let’s wish Porter and his partner the best of success.

Kevin Jennings

Activist, teacher and author Kevin Jennings (b. 1963) responded to his anger over being taunted as a young student by founding the first organization to address gay bullying in the U.S. As leader of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), Jennings campaigned tirelessly to educate teachers, parents, students, and community members about ending bias in K-12 schools. Although Jennings left his post as executive director of GLSEN in 2008, his legacy lives on in the GLSEN chapters that proliferate throughout the country.

Constantly bullied by his brothers, teachers and fellow students, at the start of the tenth grade Jennings, with the assistance of his mother, transferred to a high school for gifted and talented students. There he joined the debate team and had his first sexual experience with another male. Jennings’ father, a Baptist preacher, had died of a heart attack when Kevin was nine years old, and his mother struggled to support her children as a single, uneducated parent working at a fast food restaurant. Just before his high school junior year, Kevin and his mother moved to Hawaii to live with his sister, because his mother was exhausted from trying to scrape by on a minimum wage. When it came time to consider college, Jennings applied to Harvard and was accepted. Kevin thrived in that collegiate atmosphere and did well academically. He somehow gained the confidence to come out of the closet and subsequently told his mother that he was gay. She did not take the news well, and for years afterward they had a strained relationship.

After graduating from Harvard in 1985, Jennings accepted a teaching job in Rhode Island. Two years later he took a position on the faculty of Concord Academy in Massachusetts, where he came out to the entire campus in a Chapel Talk in the fall of 1988. His students embraced his bravery and convictions. One of his students, a girl whose mother was lesbian, asked Jennings to help her start a "Gay-Straight Alliance" at the academy. Jennings took up the cause and thus began his two-decade effort to support, protect and encourage glbtq students, and today there are more than 4,200 Gay-Straight Alliances. As he accepted speaking engagements at other schools, he was convinced that a national organization was needed to address the concerns of glbtq students, and in 1990 Jennings was one of four founders of GLISTeN, the Gay and Lesbian Independent School Teacher Network. The next year the organization changed its name to GLSTN, Gay and Lesbian School Teachers Network.

Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld asked Jennings to serve on the Governor's 1992 Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. The following year the state board of education voted to make the Commission's recommendations the official policy of the state. This program, called Safe Schools for Gay and Lesbian Students, was the first of its kind.

Jennings was awarded a Klingenstein Fellowship at Columbia University's Teachers College. After receiving his M.A., he began work to make GLSTN a national organization. Jennings met financial consultant Jeff Davis, his life partner, at GLSTN's first event in NYC in 1994. Kevin also published two books that chronicled the stories of gay students and teachers. Four other books on related issues followed later in his career.

Shortly thereafter Jennings conceived, helped write and produce a documentary called Out of the Past, a film based on the story of Kelli Peterson, a lesbian student who tried to start a Gay-Straight Alliance at a Utah high school in 1996. The incident, in which the school system banned all school clubs to prevent Kelli’s success, grabbed national headlines. The film went on to win the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival.

Jennings was invited to the White House in 1997, at the request of  President Clinton’s liaison to the glbtq community. Clinton wanted to repair his relationship with that constituency after he was unable to keep his promise to end the ban on gays in the military.

Jennings went on to be named to Newsweek Magazine's "Century Club" a compendium of 100 people to watch in the new century. He was also the recipient of the Human and Civil Rights Award of the National Education Association.

In 2005, Jennings suffered a heart attack after coming off the ice in a game with the New York Gay Hockey Association. Although Kevin and his partner Jeff Davis reside in NYC, Jennings joined the Obama administration as Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education and director of the Office of Safe & Drug-Free Schools in 2009. That appointment sparked a series of hysterical and libelous attacks by conservative activists (example at right), abetted by irresponsible reporting from the Washington Times newspaper and Fox News Network. Fortunately Jennings received strong support from President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan. The challenges from right wing activists spurred him on to ever more ambitious plans to prevent bullying in schools.

When a spate of suicides by bullied gay youths occurred in 2009, Jennings helped convene the first White House Conference on Bullying Prevention, headlined by the President and Mrs. Obama. In 2011, Kevin resigned his position at the Department of Education in order to head a new non-profit organization, "Be the Change," dedicated to addressing the growing problem of economic inequality in the country (Jennings had grown up dirt poor). A deciding factor was his ability to return to NYC to spend more time with his partner. Jennings has said that the anti-bullying movement he started has enough momentum and resources to go on without his active participation.

Note: This post is a condensation of an article by Victoria Shannon on the www.glbtq.com web site.

Ralph M. Perry

Perry (b. 1952) was an elementary school teacher whose skill in teaching first and second graders  to read earned him the Rhode Island Teacher of the Year Award in 1995. The next year he received the Milken Educator Award, while he was a reading teacher at the JFK Elementary School in Middletown, RI. These national education awards are considered the “Oscars” of teaching and come with an unrestricted $25,000 cash award.

But the reason I’m featuring Ralph Perry on this blog is because he revealed his homosexuality in 1995, when the Rhode Island legislature was about to vote on a bill to ban job discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Newspapers picked up the story and quoted Perry:

“My success and reputation in my field are not enough. Despite my recognition as a good teacher, I can legally be fired tomorrow for testifying here tonight. This is not right. We in the gay and lesbian community of Rhode Island hear many, many stories of discrimination, especially in employment and housing, but most people won't come forward for fear of receiving publicity and being identified.”

His courage and stature as an educator helped assure passage of the legislation in April, 1995. The House of Representatives vote was 57-41, and the billed breezed through the Senate; ultimately Republican Governor Lincoln C. Almond signed it, making Rhode Island the ninth state to extend civil rights to citizens on the basis of sexual orientation.

"Teaching a child how to read opens the door for all future possibilities and is indeed my proudest accomplishment," said Ralph Perry, who was responsible for spearheading the implementation of a system-wide First Grade Reading Assessment program designed to provide necessary information for future instructional reform. A frequent leader of professional development workshops, Perry helped other teachers improve their understanding of multi-cultural education, technology implementation and Internet use. In an effort to involve working parents in their children's reading progress, he developed a highly successful take-home reading program.

Perry retired five years ago after a distinguished 28-year teaching career.