Local Officials Hold Q&A After The Laramie Project

After Collingswood Community Theatre's Friday evening performance of , borough and area officials weighed-in on issues raised by the play.

The focused on the murder of Matthew Shepard, a man from Laramie, Wyoming who was brutally murdered for being a homosexual.

And following Friday's production, held at the , a discussion panel comprised of Collingswood Mayor James Maley; Collingswood Public School District Superintendent Dr. Scott A. Oswald; Rev. Kate Killebrew of Collingswood Presbyterian Church; AnneLynne Benson, executive board member of Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG Collingswood); and Dean Walton, founder of The Rainbow Connection Network of Cherry Hill, answered questions posed by audience members and actor Scott Mandel's prompts. 

The following issues were raised:

How are issues raised in The Laramie Project still relevant today, 13 years after the murder of Matthew Shepard?

Benson: I believe it's still relevant today because, unless there's full equality and civil rights for all American citizens—until we all have the same rights—it's still relevant.

Killebrew: I think—just when you thought things were going so well—Tyler Clementi killed himself after being bullied by students at Rutgers University. Even at Rutgers, which is known for being very diverse, someone felt bullied enough to kill himself. So I feel like these issues are still very much at hand today. The young man portrayed in The Laramie Project, who changed his mind about the wrongness of homosexuality halfway through the performance, proves that people can change. It may take awhile, but we can change. But we're not all there yet.

Maley: I had a different view of the show tonight. I see a focus on small towns. Aome of the lines, like the one line about 'There's just a couple of bad eggs (who ruin it all.' One thing Collingswood needs to take from this is, no matter how good you think things are, there are still bad eggs.

Oswald: I read into this topic and see a reference to something that happened 13 years ago. And working in the school system, you see generations of kids—the younger ones in particular—on a daily basis, who are much more accepting of those who are different than they are. The older kids, it seems, still have a way to go. We need to tackle those problems as a community. But seeing how younger kids have grown more accepting—that's promising.

Walton: The death of Matt Shepard was, perhaps, the perfect media storm. It's easy to paint Wyoming as backwater and redneck, when it's really a university town. It's easy to paint (Shepard) as a blond, bubbly kid next door, but he was a normal kid with normal foibles. Until we recognize the victims—the gays and lesbians—don't always fit into neat little boxes; our victims are not always cute and bubbly, the kind of people we want to hug. Same with our perpetrators. Until we recognize that our victims and perpetrators are not always strictly stereotyped, we have made no progress.

Since Shepard's death, what changes have been made for people's rights?

Oswald: Last year, our legislators passed, and the governor signed, the Anti-Bullying Bill of Rights, one of the strongest anti-bullying laws in this country. I have not found anyone who disagrees with the intent of that legislation. No one should feel threatened enough to not want to come to school. Our legislators have taken a very complex problem, and their goal is, I think, to bury it in paperwork. We used to do an investigation and act on a bullying report in 30 seconds (in our district). These incidents don't always turn out perfectly, but we used to act on it and didn't ignore any of it. We used to take responsible action by the end of a school day and get to the bottom of any situation. Now, we have 18 pages of paperwork we have to complete at any time, whenever someone uses the 'B' word (bullying). The process we now have to deal with is insane. It's a shame, because I'm sure there are districts out there who've ignored this topic and swept it under the rug. Something that used to be solved in five minutes now may take six weeks. I'm sure our legislators had good intentions, but they’re not in our schools. They think they’re doing what’s right.

Maley: There've been changes. Not enough, but there've certainly been changes. At least the bullying legislation has made a lot more people aware. And I think that's a first step.

Killebrew: I want to talk a little bit about the churches, because there was a lot of talk about God in this play. It's a loaded topic with religion and homosexuality. Over the years, Presbyterians and other denominations have struggled. This past year, (our church) has voted to include in the Presbuyterian church: ordained ministers and elders and deacons who are gay and lesbian. We've chosen to include them in leadership and in the life of the church. But in Collingswood, there's a wide range of where people stand. And we say wherever you are, we are. We have found that in our church, people who started off by saying 'Everybody's a sinner, so who am I to say their sin is worse than my sin?' But gays and lesbians don't feel what they're doing is a sin. It's who they are.

Walton: Bring it back to the schools. I think what (Oswald) said is remarkable. The thing is: until we can guarantee that every front-line educator buys in to what you're saying, the protection is not there. Because that's where the protection needs to come from, the classroom. Until that teacher leaves their political and religious beliefs at the door, we don't stand a chance.

Benson: How about the incident where the Union High School teacher posted horrifically anti-gay comments on Facebook? So I agree that the teacher is the front line, and it's still more of a trickle-down theory. If we didn't have some of the ranting and railing in the churches that we've had, moms and dads wouldn't come home and rant again at dinner table, and pass those negative beliefs to their kids, who pick it up and bring that attitude to school.

What steps still lie ahead to bring about further equality?

Benson: The straight people have to come out of the closet, too. Way back in the 1800's, some prominent Methodist bishop, Gilbert Caldwell, was an abolitionist. A Philadelphia pastor was denied two times, because he wanted to have black people be treated the same as white people. So they said, 'We're not going to give you a license to minister at all.' There've always been people who are the abolitionists. And today, the straight people are the ones who have to be the abolitionists for our LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) brothers and sisters.

Killebrew: I want to reiterate that one of the things our church has discovered is, there are different stages (in the gay community). Some people who are gay want to be proactive and public, and march in parades for (their sexual preference), and then there are gay people who don't want to be public about their homosexuality at all. When we start saying 'You're here, and we want you to be there,' is when we really start getting into trouble.

Walton: I think we have to listen to our kids from the moment they begin to express themselves. People ask, 'When did you know you were gay?' (I say), 'Somewhere between womb and bassinet, I may have questioned it momentarily. No—really—there was never a moment of question. This is just who I am. If your child is expressing, then mind that, and dont squash it. Because you could save that child a decade of pain. A decade.

Oswald: It's a step, but what lies ahead is time. I find our younger kids—for the most part, and there are always exceptions, and mostly the exceptions learn their beliefs at home—are more accepting. I think over time, and over generations, we will slowly heal and become more accepting. One thing that probably works is the power of personal relationships. A gay person, a black person, a special needs person, they are simply just another person.

Audience Question: It sounds like the panel thinks some Utopian society is possible, where no prejudice exists.

Maley: Oh no. People will always hate mayors. But really, I think if the schools could just do a better job...

Killebrew: And people will always hate ministers.

Walton: The murderers (in Shepard's case) really believed that they'd get a lesser sentence for their crimes. And Wyoming proved them wrong.

Mandel (actor and panel moderator): And proved them wrong without any hate crimes in place at that time.

Maley: I had two lines in this play, where I portrayed the governor of Wyoming. The lines were just scary, like 'My sympathies go out to the family,' not 'Matthew's family.' And 'We'll have to wait and see if this heinous beating was motivated by hate.' Like, come on (of coures it was a hate crime). It just wasn't personal at all.