2 Support Groups for Gays Drawing a Mixed Response : New Organizations Trying to Break Ground in Conservative Santa Clarita

Paul, a gay 19-year-old freshman at College of the Canyons in Valencia, sat down one morning in the school cafeteria with his customary doughnut and apple juice, unfolded the student newspaper and couldn’t believe what he read.

A group called the Gay and Lesbian Alliance, the paper said, had been approved by the Student Senate as an official campus organization. “I was almost in shock,” he said. Paul, who requested a pseudonym, was born and raised in Canyon Country and never thought he would see a gay organization form in conservative Santa Clarita.

Neither, apparently, had many students. “It was the talk of the cafeteria,” Paul said. But while the news thrilled Paul--he has since joined the group--it disturbed others.

“I can’t believe there are any of those here,” Paul heard someone say.

Such has been the mixed reaction to the recent launching of two gay organizations in the Santa Clarita Valley--the student group, known as GALA, and the Gay and Lesbian Assn. of Santa Clarita, or GLASC. Members of both groups said they want to provide a support network for homosexuals and their families in a valley that previously didn’t have any gay services.

‘Unsafe Place’

“There is no place to go. No social place,” said Ronnie Leigh, a family counselor from Saugus whose son is gay. “We certainly need something up here,” she said.

“Saugus was a very unsafe place to come out,” said Leigh’s son, Gary Groth, 24. “I wouldn’t have come out there.”

Groth, who in 1982 was student body president at Saugus High School, is now a fund-raising consultant in Los Angeles. He remembered searching the Yellow Pages as a teen-ager for a gay counseling service. He found nothing.

“It’s sort of long overdue,” said Tracie Warden, a 23-year-old Valencia resident who founded GLASC with Robin Gagos, 27, and Todd Craig, 24, in September. Gagos said they envision GLASC as a multifaceted group providing everything from emotional support for those unsure about their sexual orientation to AIDS awareness programs for valley organizations.

So far, the largest GLASC gathering has attracted about 35 people, about a third of them couples, said Craig, who also helped found GALA. The group has compiled a mailing list of 60 valley residents. The typical reaction from Santa Clarita gays to GLASC was embodied in a letter the group received from a lesbian who wrote about her hopes that she and her lover could meet other gay couples.

“After 4 years together, we own our own home, each drive a new car and my partner has started her own business,” she wrote. “I would say we’re a successful middle-class couple. But we have no gay friends.”

As Craig, Gagos and Warden expected, GLASC also received telephone calls and letters denouncing the group. “You people are so sick,” wrote one person. “Keep your filthy practices to yourselves.”

“I moved to the Santa Clarita Valley to get away from people like you. . . . Your group is not welcome here,” said another unsigned letter.

Protest at Speech

And by coincidence, a local newspaper ran a letter from Gagos and Warden announcing the two groups’ formation just two days before more than 150 demonstrators protested a speech in Newhall by Virginia Uribe, director of a gay teen-ager counseling program in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

A few days later, the paper ran almost two pages of letters praising and condemning GLASC, GALA and Uribe’s speech.

Paul remembered what happened to flyers he posted at College of the Canyons to announce GALA’s first meeting. “The next day, all but two were shredded and upon the ground,” he said.

Such reactions did not surprise Craig. In fact, he said, the reaction to the groups has not been as bad as organizers had feared. This acceptance, or lack of adamant opposition, from the public may help the groups grow and survive, he said.

Parents’ Group

Leigh said that GLASC, though still young, already has had an impact on some gay Santa Clarita residents and their parents. For the first time, she said, she has met other Santa Clarita parents with gay children.

In the 2 years since Groth told her that he is gay, Leigh has driven to Westwood once a month to attend meetings of a nationwide support group called the Federation of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

Now, she said she would love to start a chapter closer to home, adding that some parents drive from Lancaster and Bakersfield to attend the Westwood meetings. Adele Starr, federation president, said a Santa Clarita chapter would fill a void that stretches from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

“We tried so hard to get something going in Fresno and Bakersfield but people are terribly closeted there,” Starr said.

Weekly Meetings

It’s too soon to say whether GALA and GLASC will continue to grow, but Craig, Gagos and Warden are hopeful. So is Paul, who said he has met many young gays and lesbians from Santa Clarita at rap sessions sponsored by Temenos, a counseling program for young homosexuals that meets once a week near Cal State Northridge.

The young adults meet in Northridge or drive to a gathering of the Hollywood chapter of Temenos because there is nothing closer to home, he said. Temenos, which means “safe place” in Greek, is sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center in Hollywood.

Paul said he would like to see the organizations flourish in Santa Clarita. He appreciates the need. Two months ago he told his parents he is gay. Now he plans to leave home, he said, his voice tinged with sadness.

“I think they would probably be more accepting if I move away.”