Student Gets to Deliver Pro-Marriage Equality Speech

New York City student Kameron Slade will speak on marriage equality to a special assembly of fifth-graders Monday.

Trudy Ring

Trudy Ring is The Advocate’s senior politics editor and copy chief. She has been a reporter and editor for daily newspapers and LGBTQ+ weeklies/monthlies, trade magazines, and reference books. She is a political junkie who thinks even the wonkiest details are fascinating, and she always loves to see political candidates who are groundbreaking in some way. She enjoys writing about other topics as well, including religion (she’s interested in what people believe and why), literature, theater, and film. Trudy is a proud “old movie weirdo” and loves the Hollywood films of the 1930s and ’40s above all others. Other interests include classic rock music (Bruce Springsteen rules!) and history. Oh, and she was a Jeopardy! contestant back in 1998 and won two games. Not up there with Amy Schneider, but Trudy still takes pride in this achievement.

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Trudy Ring

June 17 2012 3:47 PM EST

November 17 2015 5:28 AM EST

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New York City fifth-grader Kameron Slade will be allowed to deliver his speech about marriage equality to a special assembly of students in his grade Monday, school officials say.

He was prohibited from giving the speech, which was deemed the best in his class, in a school-wide competition at P.S. 195 in Queens last Friday and instead did one about preventing animal cruelty. The school's principal had called same-sex marriage an inappropriate topic for the school contest. The city's Department of Education had promised he could make the original speech, encouraging acceptance of gay couples, in a different venue, which New York's CBS affiliate now reports will be a special assembly of fifth-graders.

"This extra day will give [principal Beryl Bailey] the ability to reach out to those parents to make them aware of the content of the speech because we're talking about an elementary school," schools chancellor Derek Walcott told the TV station. "She wants to be responsible in making sure that people have a clear understanding of what the speech is about."

New York City Council member Daniel Dromm called the separate venue discriminatory, but Slade's mother told the station, "I'm really pleased with that compromise. I'm really glad that the DOE has taken time to pay attention."