College to Aid Gays Cut Off After Coming Out

The decision to tell his family he was gay didn’t go well for one Bridgewater State College student. His father threatened to cut him off financially and left the junior feeling “like a piece of trash.”

“There’s no way I could support myself,” said the 22-year-old, who asked that his name not be used. “I was very, very scared.”

A new scholarship offered by the school could make it easier for gay students whose families refuse to support them financially.

The school says it’s the only program of its kind.

The 22-year-old student’s parents kept paying for school after his mother insisted, but not everyone gets that break, said communications professor Susan Holton, co-chairwoman of the school’s Safe Colleges Task Force, an advocacy group for gays.

Bob Haynor, Bridgewater’s outreach education coordinator, started raising funds for the scholarship in April 2000 after meeting students who were cut off after they came out. About $8,200 has been donated so far. Haynor hopes the first awards will be given next year.

The college’s Frank-Tremblay Safe Colleges Scholarship is named for lesbian folk singer Lucie Blue Tremblay, who’s raised money for the scholarship, and U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) who is gay and represents the Bridgewater area.

Frank has not raised money for the scholarship but said he was flattered to be associated with it.

“The potential for rejection or the fact of rejection is a crushing blow,” he said. “Add to that an inability to continue your education . . . [and] it’s important to have this resource available.”

Other schools have boosted financial aid for gay students cut off by parents, said Robert Schoenberg, president of the National Consortium of Directors of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Resources in Higher Education.

Brian Camenker, president of the Parents’ Rights Coalition, a Newton-based group that opposes government interference in parental duties, said the scholarship undermines parental authority.

“You have a state institution affirming a self-destructive and medically dangerous behavior and essentially spitting in the face of parents who know it’s a horrible thing for their children to be doing,” Camenker said.

College officials expect to receive some money when the state matches private funds raised for the Bridgewater State College Foundation, of which the scholarship is part.

“It’s more than just money,” Haynor said. “I think it’s somebody saying, ‘We want you to be here.’ ”