Jul 10, 2009  |  By: Dyana Bagby  | COMMENTS     

ATLANTA — In December 2005, Kerry Pacer, then 17, graced the cover of national LGBT magazine The Advocate as its “Person of the Year” — making her the youngest gay person to achieve that honor. The title put her alongside other past “Persons of the Year,” a list of gay luminaries that includes “Angels in America” playwright Tony Kushner, Bishop Gene Robinson and Rosie O’Donnell.

Pacer earned the national honor after she and the ACLU successfully sued White County High School in federal court to force the rural North Georgia school district to allow a gay-straight alliance to form. Administrators had tried numerous ways to keep a “gay” club out of the school, including an attempt to terminate all extra-curricular clubs.

Now 21, Pacer remains in Cleveland, Ga., a small town with a population of approximately 2,500 that is best known as the birthplace of the Cabbage Patch dolls. It’s the same city where she went to high school, the same city where she and her friends fought so hard to ensure a safe space for gay students and their allies to gather on campus. But today she lives with her boyfriend, a construction worker, and their baby daughter, Marley, who turns 1 year old on Saturday.

“Well, she’s the most beautiful blue-eyed girl in the world and everybody tells me that so I’m not just being biased, I swear,” Pacer said with a laugh.

“I love every minute of motherhood. It’s been a very big challenge, however I love it. I’ve just been trying to work and go to school and take care of my family,” she said.

Pacer, who first came out as gay at age 12, is studying nursing at Gainesville State College and hopes becoming a registered nurse will give her a career that will support her family.

“It’s me and the baby and Shannon [Phagan], who is my boyfriend. We’re still together right now,” she said. “And he’s doing really good; he’s helping out a lot and he’s really good with the baby.”

Pacer and Phagan were friends in high school and hung out with the same people.

“Yeah, well, we got together in high school. We started liking each other and started building a relationship. It was just fate we got together,” she said. “You can’t help who you fall in love with. No matter what, you have to be happy and follow your dreams and be who you are.”

A small town divided

Pacer stressed that while she is now in love with a man, she is the same person she was when she was battling school administrators to do something about incessant bullying taking place in the halls of White County High School. She and her friends were often called “dykes” and “faggots.”

The beginnings of the battle that eventually divided the small town of Cleveland occurred during a Valentine’s Day assembly in which a female student gave Pacer, then a junior in high school, a rose in front of the entire school. Students responded with jeers to the romantic exchange, but teachers did nothing to stop the taunting.

Pacer and her peers then began trying to form the gay-straight alliance in January 2005, sparking months of heated debate including a contentious school board meeting in February 2005 in which local preachers railed against homosexuality. Rev. Fred Phelps’ church in Topeka, Kan., known for protesting the funeral of slain gay college student Matthew Shepard, also picketed at the school.

Under pressure from the ACLU, school administrators agreed to allow the gay-straight alliance — named Peers Rising In Diverse Education, or PRIDE — to form on March 22, 2005. But two days later, White County High School Principal Brian Dorsey recommended to the school board that all non-academic clubs be banned from meeting on the campus. Dorsey’s initiative went into effect for the 2005-2006 school year.

Despite urging from the ACLU to allow the club to meet on campus, Dorsey and the school board continued to resist. In February 2007, the ACLU and Pacer and others sued the White County School District, claiming administrators were violating the federal Equal Access Act, which requires schools to provide equal treatment to all non-curricular clubs.

The lawsuit was tried in Gainesville and on July 14, 2006, U.S. District Judge William O’Kelley issued a permanent injunction against White County schools, requiring that the GSA and other school clubs be allowed to meet.

“Kerry and her peers were extremely courageous in challenging their school in rural North Georgia,” said Ken Choe, staff attorney for the ACLU’s GLBT Project, who helped argue the case ...