April 23, 2008 06:36 am
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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.
“It seems like a lot of people who are younger said, ‘This isn’t for me’ and left,” Smith says.
Robert Hughes, a former Anderson resident who also attends Ball State, agrees that the university is a supportive environment for gay men and lesbians, and he says young people in Anderson and Muncie are slowly helping the cities become more accepting.
“A growing majority of older folks here in Muncie and there in Anderson are just now starting to become comfortable with the fact that my community is here, that we’ve always been here,” Hughes, 34, said. “ We are just more active in society than we were 20 or 30 years ago.”
For example, Hughes and Smith are both members of Spectrum, a Ball State student organization that advocates for tolerance of gays, lesbians and transgender people.
Being 6 feet 4 inches tall has helped Hughes avoid any personal attacks, but he says his sexuality has caused people to treat him differently, especially in the workplace.
He recalls working at a hotel in Muncie and coworkers telling him that they didn’t mind Hughes being gay as long as he didn’t hit on any of them.
“As if they were even my type,” Hughes now jokes.
For Andy Mathews, Anderson served as a temporary home during the years when he came out as a gay man.
Mathews, 23, returned to his hometown of Franklin, Ind., last year after graduating from Anderson University. While in college, he says he had a hard time coming out to his family, his school and his church.
“It was a long process,” Mathews said. “It was kind of a challenge for me growing up in a faith-based environment and with faith being something very important for myself. I was always taught that being gay was wrong.”
AU: Homosexuality is misconduct
Throughout college, Mathews told people he “struggled with homosexuality” out of fear that admitting he was gay would hurt his standing with friends and his church.
But toward the end of his junior year, he began telling friends and university officials that he was gay.
“I expected there to be a lot more rejection than I got,” he said.
Anderson University includes homosexual behavior, along with premarital sex and cohabitation, as a sexual misconduct violation.
Brent Baker, the college’s dean of students, said the school follows the standing of its affiliated Christian denomination, the Church of God, which does not consider homosexuality an acceptable part of a Christian lifestyle.
A student who breaks any of the sexual conduct guidelines could face probation or undergo counseling, Baker says.
In terms of what constitutes homosexual behavior, Baker says the school is not quick to jump to conclusions.
“It would be things that seem out of the norm,” he says. “So, if two guys were holding hands, would that warrant a conversation? Yeah, I guess we would check on that.”
Mathews says he found support from students and school officials, but other students also told him he would be going to hell for being gay, so there’s still visible resistance on campus.
Since graduating, Mathews says being gay has made it difficult for him to find work as a church music director. He believes he was turned down by two churches because he is gay.
And the church he grew up attending in Franklin stopped him from playing piano or singing during services after he came out, because the church does not accept homosexuals.
The church, however, has not revoked Mathews’ membership.
“I felt like they knew if they took that away from me, I wouldn’t want to go there,” he said. “Because I grew up in the church, I understand it. I know they think they’re doing the right thing. I know it’s not discrimination, but it kind of feels that way.”
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