ANDERSON — Nathan Smith looks back at his high school days and is glad that 13 years later gay students don’t have it as hard as he did.

“I was treated like a second-class citizen a lot of the time,” says Smith, a 1995 graduate of Pendleton Heights High School.

Bullying and name-calling were part of his daily school routine, even though Smith says he wasn’t very open about his sexuality.

“I let people say what they wanted to, and I really didn’t start confirming things until my senior year,” he says.

School officials were unresponsive, according to Smith, leading him to believe that the harassment, which sometimes escalated to death threats, was his own fault.

But as national attitudes toward sexual minorities become more accepting, Smith says he’s glad to see the same changes taking place in Indiana.

Glen Nelson, principal of Pendleton Heights High School for the past six years, says the school’s student body generally accepts its small gay subset.

“I can’t really say that we’ve had issues of any major type,” he said. “I’m sure individual students have had things said to them, but if they don’t bring things to us, we can’t do anything about it.”

Individual cases are handled through the school's guidance office. Mike Taylor, one of three counselors, says the number of students coming to him to discuss sexuality issues has tapered down in recent years, maybe because the school is generally more accepting.

“We have some very open gay and lesbian kids here at the high school,” he says. “Now, they have not come to me as far as issues going on.”

Possible disciplinary action for anti-gay harassment can range from a three-day suspension for an isolated fight to criminal charges if ongoing harassment were to fall under federal anti-bullying or hate crimes laws, Taylor says.

‘More active than 20-30 years ago’

Smith, now 31, has lived in Muncie for the past two years and will graduate in May with a psychology degree from Ball State University.

He often visits his family in Anderson, but said he’s doing the same thing that other gay men from the area have done: leave.