Gay-Straight Alliance continues to promote awareness despite initial objections

By Jennifer H. Svan, Stars and Stripes

MISAWA AIR BASE, Japan — In four short months, the Gay-Straight Alliance at Robert D. Edgren High School has made a name for itself — despite its name.

After riding out controversy that swirled around the club’s formation, GSA members have devoted the second half of the school year to raising money and awareness for various causes.

“I don’t think another school club has done so much in such a short time,” said English teacher Laurie Kuntz, the club’s faculty sponsor.

Most recently, GSA spearheaded Edgren’s participation in Friday’s “National Day of Silence,” a movement started at the University of Virginia in 1996 to prevent bullying in schools. This year the event was dedicated to Lawrence King, a California middle school student who was shot and killed in February, allegedly because he was gay.

At Edgren the event drew participation beyond the GSA circle, with about 30 students wearing T-shirts and toting white boards or pen and pad to communicate in classrooms and hallways.

“Ethnic, religious, sexual differences is no reason to single someone out and treat them differently,” Heather Steele, a senior and National Honors Society member, jotted in a notebook.

Another time, Kuntz received an anonymous complaint about her e-mailing a V-Day announcement to all three Department of Defense Dependents Schools on Misawa. The individual took umbrage with Kuntz and her writing in the announcement that DODDS teachers, among other groups, had collaborated on the event.

Despite the club’s success, a stigma still persists because of GSA’s name, say Kuntz and students, one that’s especially hard to shake in a conservative military community.

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US Military DADT hypocrisy

A gay soldier says he disclosed his sexuality to his superiors, even offering graphic proof, and was neither discharged nor reprimanded, despite the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on homosexuality.

He turned over pictures of him and his boyfriend, including video of a passionate kiss, to aid the investigation. But to his surprise, "I was told to go back to work. There was no evidence of homosexuality," says Manzella. "'You're not gay,'" he says his superiors told him. This response confused him and, he says, the closest a superior officer came to addressing his sexuality was to say "I don't care if you're gay or not."

Manzella's commanders may not be the only ones who are indifferent to gays serving openly under them. Discharges of gay soldiers have dropped dramatically since the Afghan and Iraq wars began, from 1,200 a year in 2001 to barely 600 now. With the military struggling to recruit and retain soldiers, gay soldiers claim that commanders are reluctant to discharge critical personnel in the middle of a war.

Gays serve openly in the British military and in those of the other 14 NATO countries.

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'Gay bomb' scoops Ig Nobel award

Pioneering research into a "gay bomb" that makes enemy troops "sexually irresistible" to each other has scooped one of this year's Ig Nobel Prizes.

The awards, founded in 1991, mark achievements that "first make people laugh, and then make them think".

The prize ceremony took place at Harvard University, US.

Genuine Nobel Laureates handed out the much-coveted awards to the winners, who took away no cash, but instead received a hand-made prize, a certificate, and, of course, the glory of such an illustrious win.

Unfortunately, said the organisers, nobody from the US military who carried out the research on chemicals that could prompt homosexual dalliances amongst rival troops (a research project called Harassing, Annoying and "Bad Guy" Identifying Chemicals) attended the ceremony because the study's authors could not be tracked down.

In memory of Gay Hero Leonard Matlovich

Leonard Matlovich

A decorated Vietnam veteran who received a Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and an Air Force Commendation Medal for attending to wounded comrades during a mortar attack.

After publicly coming out he was discharged from the military.

Sgt. Matlovich assisted the ACLU with the ban on gays in the military.

His battle for reinstatement drew nationwide attention. Due to this attention he was on the cover of Time magazine in 1975.

He did win a honorable discharge in 1980.

In 1988 Matlovich die of AIDS complications.

On his tombstone it states:

When I was in the military they gave me a medal for killing two men and a discharge for loving one.

Associated Press "unfair and biased" reporting

“The trend toward secrecy is the greatest threat to democracy.”

- Associated Press CEO, in a speech about the importance of openness


“The official response is we decline to respond.”

- Associated Press Director of Media Relations, replying to questions about AP


In the midst of journalism’s “Sunshine Week” – during which the Associated Press and other news organizations are valiantly proclaiming the public’s “right to know” – AP insists on conducting its own activities in the dark, and refuses to answer even the simplest questions about its system of international news reporting.

Most of all, it refuses to explain why it erased footage of an Israeli soldier intentionally shooting a Palestinian boy.

The witnesses state that there was no Palestinian resistance – no “clash,” no “crossfire.” At one point, after most of the vehicles had finally driven away, an Israeli soldier stuck his gun out of his armored vehicle, aimed at a pre-pubescent boy nearby, and pulled the trigger.

We went to the hospital and interviewed the boy, Ahmad, his doctors, family, and others. Ahmad had bandages around his lower abdomen, where surgeons had operated on his bladder. He said he was afraid of Israeli soldiers, and pulled up his pants leg to show where he had been shot previously.

We discovered that an AP cameraman had filmed the entire incident. This cameraman had then followed what apparently is the usual routine. He sent his video – an extremely valuable commodity, since it contained documentary evidence of a war crime – to the AP control bureau for the region. This bureau is in Israel.

What happened next is unfathomable. Did AP broadcast it? No. Did AP place the video in safe-keeping, available for an investigation of this crime? No.

According to its cameraman, AP erased it.

We were astounded. We traveled to AP’s control bureau in Israel. With our own video camera out and running, we asked bureau chief Steve Gutkin about this incident. Was the information we had been told correct, or did he have a different version? Did the bureau have the video, or had they indeed erased it. If so, why?

Gutkin, repeatedly looking at the camera and visibly flustered, told us that AP did not allow its journalists to give interviews. He told us that all questions must go to Corporate Communications, located in New York. He explained that they were on deadline and couldn’t talk. I said I understood deadline pressure, and sat down to wait until they were done. When he called Israeli police to arrest us, we left.

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