Kerry's courage

The small Southern town of Cleveland, Ga., used to be the kind of place where homosexuality was hardly ever talked about. When it was, it was denounced from the pulpits of the many fundamentalist Christian churches that share space with poultry farms around this rural municipality of two stoplights and about 2,300 residents.

Now the locals, many of whom have lived in Cleveland their whole lives, are talking about homosexuality at work and at the local diner. They’re reading about it in the local newspaper and hearing about it at school board meetings. And some are talking about love and acceptance instead of sin.

That’s because one courageous and feisty young girl refused to allow herself to be kept silent. Kerry Pacer, a 17-year-old White County High School senior with soft brown eyes and a charismatic smile, came out to the town earlier this year by demanding that she and her gay classmates be protected from harassment. “It’s my chance right now to step in and say we’re going to get treated fairly,” she says. “If I give up that chance, I might never have it again.”

Pacer came out to her parents and a few friends at age 12 but stayed quiet about it around town and at school. After a couple of years in high school, however, she could no longer stand to listen to her fellow classmates call each other “fag” and “dyke.” So last January she asked for permission to put up an antibullying poster. When she was turned down she demanded that she and her friends be allowed to start a gay-straight alliance.

“That little girl just took things into her own hands,” says Lib Rumfelt, copresident of the Atlanta chapter of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays and a close friend of Kerry’s mother, Savannah Pacer, who is herself a dedicated PFLAG member. Rumfelt and Pacer’s parents tried to convince Kerry to take it slow, but she wasn’t having it. With her idea rejected by the school’s new principal, Pacer made an appointment with the superintendent and asked Rumfelt and others to go along. “She even told us to let her do the talking,” Rumfelt recalls.

What followed was a high-profile roller-coaster ride of acceptance and rejection. The matter went before the school board, and word spread about the proposed club. Pacer was picked on and called names at school, while members of the Cleveland Church of God, where she once worshipped, condemned her actions. At the school’s Southern-style Sweetheart Assembly last Valentine’s Day, Pacer was booed by her classmates as she accepted a rose from another girl. Then notoriously antigay Kansas preacher Fred Phelps showed up with his clan to protest the club. “I was petrified,” says Kerry’s father, Bill Pacer, of the potential for physical violence. “All you need is one nut [to hurt her].”

But Bill and Savannah, who divorced in 1997, never wavered in their support of their daughter. After the American Civil Liberties Union intervened, the school board in late March allowed Pacer and five other students to form the club PRIDE, Peers Rising in Diverse Education. “I would caution her about being so out,” says Savannah Pacer, who works as a local real estate agent. “But she said, ‘I am who I am, and I’m not going to be quiet just because this is a small town.’ ”

That tenacity gained Pacer some widespread notoriety. In April the Georgia house of representatives passed a resolution commending her actions. She has received awards from five different gay and civil rights organizations, including the ACLU of Georgia and the Human Rights Campaign, and she has been the subject of numerous magazine, newspaper, radio, and television reports.

But what Pacer initially fought for and won—the gay-straight alliance—would be short-lived. The White County school board voted in July to end all noncurricular clubs. “It’s our contention that they changed the rules this year in order to silence the gay group,” says Beth Littrell, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Georgia. “This fight is not over. We will be exercising our options both legally and otherwise in order to champion these young people.”

Meanwhile, Cleveland’s gay youths are winning a more important battle, adds Littrell. “The dialogue around equality issues for gay and lesbian folks has reached a positive level,” she says. “And what we see in White County is reflective of a larger trend among young people. They aren’t coming to us to rescue them. They’re not waiting for the older generation to come and tell them they are OK.”

Especially not Pacer, Littrell says. “She is a dynamic young woman who knows who she is and absolutely does not waiver in the face of adversity. And she doesn’t just stand up for herself. She stands up for the rights of others.”

Indeed, Pacer was always attuned to people who didn’t fit in, says Richard Krise, principal of White County High during Pacer’s freshman and sophomore years. “She would go out of her way to say hi to people who were not part of a ruling group,” he says. “She was always trying to push the envelope. She would ask, ‘Why do we do this? Why is this a rule?’ It’s a rare ninth grader who could do that.”

Pacer, who lives with her mother and younger sister, Lindsay, and works at a local sandwich shop, is far from the only outgoing teenager to stand up and fight for a gay school club in a conservative rural town. In fact, several of her classmates were instrumental in starting the gay-straight alliance at White County. But much of the positive change that has taken place in the town can be tied to her fearless resolve. Now schoolkids who once beat up their gay classmates are apologizing for their behavior, and adults who once condemned gay kids are now close friends with their parents.

“No one can deny her bravery,” says Bill Pacer, an elementary school teacher in Atlanta. “She has opened up eyes and hearts, and her strength has inspired a lot of people. Other gays kids are saying, ‘If she can do it, so can I.’ ”

Wow, what a year! Did you expect to get so much attention?
I had no idea any of this would happen. I never expected it to turn out the way it did. Fred Phelps coming from Kansas—that was so outrageous. I knew some people wouldn’t be happy. But I never expected it to pick up like this. It’s crazy.

How has your personal life changed?
Before, when I would go outside, not everyone knew I was gay, and now everyone knows. I’m a lot stronger and more educated. It’s made me want to learn more about civil rights. I want to be an attorney now. I’m trying to go to Georgia State.

Take us back to the Sweetheart Assembly.
You choose two sweethearts from each club, and I was getting walked by another girl. The whole school just started booing instead of cheering. I never had anyone hating me before. I had gotten along with everyone. When people started booing, not knowing who I was, it really hurt my feelings. I just figured, Oh, well. I know who my friends are now.

What gave you the courage to do that?
It’s crazy—the way people in my school get treated because they are gay. I was just like, Something’s got to be done. I thought I could take a beating with words because I have a family to go home to that loves me. But what if someone can’t? I need to make a difference for them. What if they don’t know what to say back?