Straight Talk

Recognizing gay students remains an emotional, politically charged issue. But Kevin Jennings isn't out to provoke shouting matches. Instead, he's quietly turning students into activists capable of changing schools on their own.

By Samantha Stainburn

When you RSVP to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raising dinner at the opulent Mandarin Oriental hotel a few blocks from Central Park in New York City, you don’t expect the featured speaker to quote Bible verses, especially if the organization you’re supporting is trying to make U.S. public schools safer for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students. It’s even more unexpected if the speaker is a gay man with degrees from Harvard and Columbia universities who used to teach history at a private school in Massachusetts.

But Kevin Jennings, the 42-year-old executive director of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, the Manhattan-based organization being feted this May evening, hasn’t forgotten his rural and religious North Carolina roots. In fact, his vivid memories of growing up there, including being called “faggot” throughout high school, drove the longtime gay-rights activist to start GLSEN. So it’s not much of a stretch for Jennings, who is still religious, to offer the crowd some Biblical wisdom to digest along with their filet mignon and passion fruit crème brûlées.

But first, to business. “Everybody in this room has opened their wallets and their hearts to this cause,” he says as he steps up to the microphone ceded to him by actress Delta Burke. “As we celebrate our 10th anniversary tonight, I want you to know how incredibly grateful I am.” Scanning the sea of faces—many belonging to impeccably dressed bankers and sharp media types sitting at tables sponsored by corporate supporters including Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and MTV Networks—he’s looking at more than $700,000...