EDITOR’S NOTE: Much of what follows is reprinted from a column I wrote more than two years ago.
While th
e nation buzzes today about the Supreme Court’s historic decision on gay marriage, I recall my own personal journey 20 years ago when I became a big supporter of gay rights.
I learned from a couple of gay reporters back in the day about how mainstream Americans have mistreated gays, lesbians, transgender people and bisexuals a lot like they have people of color.
But the watershed events for me involved Byron Center High School Principal William C. Skilling and his callous disregard for the rights of Gerry Crane, a vocal music teacher whose story had a tragic ending because he happened to be gay. Skilling, a right-wing religious zealot, indirectly played a major role in the death of a man just because of his sexual orientation.
Crane’s story is forgotten today, but at one time it was broadcast nationally on television and written about in national publications. So, just like when a war ends, people fondly remember fallen heroes, I want to remember an innocent victim of the religious right’s relentless bullying of homosexuals.
Crane graduated from Calv
in College and earned his master’s degree at Cornerstone University, both strongly Christian institutions. Crane taught vocal music at Bryon Center High School and had no trouble, earned tenure and was liked and respected by peers and students.
But then came word of his participation in a commitment ceremony with his partner, Randy Block. As soon as he was outed, he was hounded, bullied and made miserable by Skilling, the Byron Center Board of Education, Superintendent Phillip Swainston and the Bible Center Bible Church, of which Skilling was a member. They made his life a living hell in order to force him to resign.
Attorney Christine Yared, in her book “Music Lesson,” said some parents at the school began having their children removed from Crane’s classes after Skilling announced a new rule that any parent can have their child taken out of Mr. Crane’s class “at any time, for any reason.”
She said “Skilling even called a student to his office and told her that she was a sinner, just like Mr. Crane, because she was trying to organize support for him. The School Board held a meeting and made their position clear by issuing a written statement that ‘homosexuals do not constitute proper role models as teachers.’”
Crane finally resigned in the summer of 1996 after constant harassment and abuse. The Chicago Tribune said the reason he gave was because the hostile environment was like “ingesting poison.”
Crane died six months later, in January 1997, of a heart attack at age 32. His doctor said it was likely the stress contributed.
The Detroit News, in its Jan. 9, 1997, edition, reported that, “Crane’s friends asked high school Principal William Skilling to stay away from the funeral… In Skilling’s evaluations of Crane, before his homosexuality was learned, the teacher was praised as a ‘role model for our students.’ But by last June, a month before Crane resigned, Skilling warned he could face dismissal if he mentioned anything in class about homosexuality.”
Time Magazine reported, “One student told the teacher that her parents and church pressured her to quit and were concerned that her boyfriend would become gay if he remained in the school choir. Crane explained that her boyfriend would not become a homosexual, and asked if her church had applied pressure. As a result, Crane was reprimanded (by Skilling) for ignoring a school edict not to discuss homosexuality, and received a warning for violating school policy against religious harassment.”
West Michigan Politics in 2006 said, “Skilling was one of the architects in the scandalous inhumane treatment of gay music teacher Gerry Crane. Skilling, a right-wing Christian of the lowest order and principal at Byron Center at the time Crane was being hounded from his job, once threatened Crane with outright firing if he was caught promoting tolerance.”
I encountered Skilling in 2003, when he was one of six finalists for the Hastings superintendency. I “outed” him in a front page story in the Hastings Banner before the interviews took place.
When he was asked in his interview about his role in the tragic Gerry Crane story, he made the disturbing comment, “I have no regrets.”
Skilling went on to become superintendent at Webberville and at Oxford, and at last report was preparing for retirement in the fall of 2015.
So while Bill Skilling rides off into the sunset, supposedly after a distinguished career in education, I will neither forget nor forgive him for what he did to Gerry Crane, a martyr in the struggle for equal rights under the law.
PHOTOS: Randy Block (left) and Gerry Crane
William Skilling