-------------------

[this letter was written in response to a nasty letter written by one of the chief proponents of Colorado's anti-LGBT amendment. note the reference to problems youth have in CO schools, which i've asterisked.]

COLORADO SPRINGS GAZETTE TELEGRAPH September 25, 1996
P. O. Box 1779,Colorado Springs,CO,80901
(Fax 719-636-0202, print run 117,000)
(E-MAIL: gtop@usa.net)(http://usa.net/gazette)

LETTER
IN RESPONSE

Upon reading Will Perkins' letter criticizing the "Inside/Out" youth group, I could no long allow his assertions to go unrefuted ("County health program won't really help teens," Tell It to the Gazette, Sept. 13).

As a trained volunteer counselor for the youth group, I feel that I must answer Perkins' allegations. The "Inside/Out" youth group is a group of gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered teens funded by the El Paso County Health Department under the auspices of the drug and alcohol counseling program. The extent of its health department funding is in its employment of two therapists who are full-time employees but devote only part of their time to this program. The remainder of the counseling is provided by four volunteers.

I would now like to address how this youth group works. We meet with the teens once a week so that the kids have an opportunity to meet with each other and discuss their common problems, aspirations and experiences.

Our mission as counselors is to accomplish these goals:

*** We strive, with much effort, to keep them in school. We do this in spite of the fact that these kids experience physical and verbal abuse on a daily basis with little or no support from the administration.

We counsel them on drug and alcohol abuse.

We counsel them on sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS and HIV awareness,
and safer sex practices.

We counsel them, with great success, on suicide prevention.

We try to instill in them that they can have a completely happy and healthy life filled with the love and caring of families and friends.

As counselors, it is not our mission to recruit, seduce, encourage them sexually or brainwash them.

We are a group of people who perform a much-needed service in the El Paso County area, and we resent Perkins' suggestions to the contrary.

-- Edward Marks, "Inside/Out" Youth Group Counselor, Colorado Springs

-------------

-------------