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Cut off after coming out?
10/09/2001 09:09 - (SA)
Boston - The decision to tell his family he was gay didn't go well for
one Bridgewater State student.
His father threatened to cut him off
financially and left the junior feeling "like a piece of trash."
"There's no way I could support myself," said the 22-year-old,
who asked that his name not be used. "I was very, very scared."
A new scholarship offered by the school could make it easier for
gay and lesbian students to break the news by helping gay students
whose families refuse to support them financially.
The school says it's the only programme of its kind.
The 22-year-old student's parents kept paying for school after
his mother insisted, but not everyone gets that break, said
communications professor Susan Holton, co-chair of the school's
Safe Colleges Task Force, an advocacy group for gays.
Bob Haynor, Bridgewater's outreach education co-ordinator,
started raising funds for the scholarship in April 2000 after
meeting students who were cut off after they came out.
About $8 200 has been donated so far.
Haynor hopes the first awards will
be given next year.
The college's Frank-Tremblay Safe Colleges Scholarship is named
for lesbian folk singer Lucie Blue Tremblay, who's raised money for
the scholarship, and US Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts
Democrat, who is gay and represents the Bridgewater area.
Other schools have boosted financial aid for gay students cut
off by parents, said Robert Schoenberg, president of the National
Consortium of Directors of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender
Resources in Higher Education.
But he was uncertain how many, if
any, aim funds specifically at students who are financially
estranged from parents.
Brian Camenker, president of the Parents' Rights Coalition, a
Newton-based group that opposes government interference in parental
duties, said the scholarship is a "complete outrage" that
undermines parental authority.
"You have a state institution affirming a self-destructive and
medically dangerous behaviour and essentially spitting in the face
of parents who know it's a horrible thing for their children to be
doing," he said.
In addition to private donations, school officials also expect
to receive some money when the state matches private funds raised
for the Bridgewater State College Foundation, of which the
scholarship is part. - Sapa/AP
- SAPA
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