When I came out to a handful of my closest friends...

When I came out to a handful of my closest friends in high school, it was during a time in 1980s Alabama when you would never do such a thing if you wanted to see your graduation day. You also didn't know any other gay people around you. At all. You were in a world by yourself, and you only had those handful of friends to turn to, even though they had no idea what to do with you.

There were no support groups. There were no community resources. There were no teachers or administrators with any inkling of what to do, how to think, what to say or what to make of you. Not only did these things not exist, but you also had every institution around you -- school, church, state, businesses and the general small-town adult population -- preaching something quite the opposite. Therefore you kept your mouth shut and kept your head down until you got far, far away into the safety net of life beyond the classroom and the hometown.

Life for a lot of our secondary school students has changed a lot since then, and it's not just a mere by-product of our changing times. It's due to educated, experienced and empathetic parents, teachers and administrators doing the right thing. For our larger metro city school systems, like Atlanta, it's come a long way. But... we have a long way to go in helping our LGBTQ youth find more and more acceptance -- among their peers, their influencers, their teachers, their advocates and their mentors -- for who they are, for what they believe and for who they love. And we have even further to go in our smaller cities and towns across the nation, especially here in the South.

That's why I was so proud to sponsor -- for the second year in a row -- the Atlanta Public Schools' and the APS Board of Education's participation in the Atlanta Pride Parade. Nearly the entire Board, lots of principals and teachers -- and more than that, STUDENTS -- marched up Peachtree Street in front of tens of thousands of well-wishers as these folks showed their pride for what they've accomplished, what they stand for and for WHO THEY ARE.

To all of you who are still fighting the fight and doing what's right for our kids' futures, thank you, thank you, thank you for what you've done and for what you continue to do.