2008 Woodie Awards
Speaker 'comes out' to SRU students
By Jaime Wright
Rocket Staff Writer
Issue date: 2/3/06 Section: Life
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Baird shared his experience Monday night in the Multi-Purpose Room at the University Union.
As a northern Michigan native, Baird told his audience about how he was overweight in college and decided to organize a gay/lesbian alliance club at his university, Southern Michigan University. After attending a meeting of the Gay Lesbian Alliance Student Support (GLASS) club and meeting with its social director, he became inspired to talk and share his sexuality with others. His first college lecture took place 15 years ago.
Over the years, Baird has expressed himself towards a senior citizen audience in Pitaski, Mi., as well as with Jeanie White, whose son, Ryan White, contracted the HIV virus from a bad product several years ago. He also has been with Phil Donahue and James Earl Jones, the familiar Darth Vader voice from the earlier Star Wars trilogy series.
Judy Shepard, the mother of Matthew Shepard (who made national headlines with his death in the gay community), had also mentioned a concern to Baird before, which was about encouraging awareness to a person outside of the community. National Coming Out Day is Oct. 11, and Baird advised his audience that in order to announce the discovery of being homosexual, you "need to do it on your terms."
He gave the example of Jamie NaBoise, a student who was harassed through middle school until his sophomore year in high school. Both the principal and vice-principal did not express any concerns about his situation. He later decided to try home-schooling.
A Supreme Court ruling in 1996 ordered public schools to provide a safe environment for both homosexual and non-homosexual students.
Baird told the story of Matthew Shepard. Shepard was a student at the University of Wyoming. One day, he was taken to an isolated area outside of town and brutally murdered by two men.
Baird went on to discuss his personal upbringing. He was adopted at age three by a conservative Republican family. He and his older brother, Doug, who was adopted too, came out of the closet to their adopted parents during their lifetimes.
