Read One Voice 02 - Here Without You for Free Online Page A

Nate, who winked. I felt empowered by their responses. “Now, we’ve all known the bullies who make people feel unwelcome and somehow ‘less,’ based on their perceived sexual orientations. And we’ve all seen or been their victims too. In order to shut down these bullies, who thrive on disenfranchising others to feel empowered, we need the bulk of the community, LGBTQ and straight, to participate in our club—to buy into our objectives and to support us when it counts.”
    When had I started sounding like a politician?
    An athletically built girl with buzzed platinum hair raised her hand and then spoke before I could even acknowledge her. “So, I’m Britta, in case you all forgot my name, and I’m a junior. I’m more than glad that you’re starting this alliance up here at school. God knows, it’s necessary. I tried to start one of these groups in high school, and I got no response from the straight kids. As in, none. They weren’t for us, and the distance they kept made me feel like they were against us. Eventually, the club—that was tiny to begin with—fizzled out completely.”
    All of the other kids, the female couple from ethics, Anna and Claire, and Jeremy, a junior who looked like he might play football, as well as Casey and Nate nodded.
    “I’m down with that, Britta, which is why we need to focus on recruitment. First from the outwardly LGBTQ crowd, but we also need to strike a chord in the hearts and minds of the rest of the student population and with the staff too.” I passed out a schedule that I had printed at the library. “This is what I want our first activity as a group to be. To set up a club table in the quad on Saturday, October 1, which is Student Involvement Day, to try to enroll members.”
    “So we’ll be basically ‘coming out’ to the whole school just by sitting at that table?” Jeremy had a point.
    Claire stepped up to respond. “No, Jeremy. It means only that we support a safe school environment for all people. And if none of us is willing to do that, then there will be no change.”
    The room was stone silent for a moment, and then everybody lifted the papers and studied them.
    “All of us are going to have to be at that table pretty much all day. We’ll just give each other turns with breaks.” I then spelled out the materials we needed to set up the table, designated who would bring snacks and drinks and how we would attend the table all day so it was never empty. Next we looked at the mini-calendar of events I listed at the bottom of the page, outlining days we would hold rallies.
    “Our first rally will be on October 11, as it’s National Coming Out Day. It’s the Saturday before the Columbus Day holiday.”
    Again Jeremy provided the voice of reason. “So kids are supposed to be lining up at our table in the quad that day to sign up to come out?” I couldn’t miss the sarcasm in his voice. “Like, right.”
    “That won’t be our goal. Instead, our goal will still be recruitment. I want to have at least fifteen members by that date and to double our club’s enrollment on that very day alone, due to whatever activity we organize to do in the quad.”
    Claire stood up and looked around at the very small crowd. “We have to be the positive ones, right? If we, the leaders in this movement, can’t be positive, then who will be?”
    Again the nods, even Jeremy. I went on to point out The National Day of Silence on April 17 and Harvey Milk Day, which would be May 22, one of the last days we would be on campus for finals. “We’ve gotta fill in the rest of the calendar with our own campaigns to make this thing happen.”
    Casey and Nate, as predicted, sat quietly beside me as I laid out my plan. I knew Casey believed in the cause. The existence of One Voice was the main reason he came back to school after he was assaulted during junior year. He knew he had support in large numbers from straight and LGBTQ students alike. But Casey’s voice was very quiet in