On June 26, the day the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in all 50 states, Principal Dan Frank sent out a congratulatory email to the faculty and staff.

In the email, Frank highlighted a phrase in Parker’s Mission Statement: “We are deliberately composed of a diverse group of people so that we can learn how to honor the dignity and experience of every human being.”
Frank said in an interview that the phrase “shows how the Supreme Court decision is consistent with Parker’s core values and approach to educational and community life.”

One of the core values is how students must educate themselves to think freely and do what they truly want to do. “I believe that education is a political act,” Frank said, “that should allow each person to be free enough to learn how to think and act for themselves without being dominated by the power of others.”

With the legalization of gay marriage, millions of Americans can now express themselves for who they truly are without being struck down by the laws of others. Frank thought it was necessary to connect Parker’s style of education to the real world.

“The outcome is consistent with the education we provide at Parker and the work we do to support the core values articulated in our mission,” Frank said, “to educate for dignity, respect, freedom, equality, diversity, inclusion, civil liberties.”

Reactions in the community to Frank’s email varied.

“From my position, I hope that students look at the issue through the lens of science,” Upper School science teacher Elizabeth Druger said. “What does the research say? Recent studies suggest that sexual orientation is based on genetics, and is not a choice.  If this is so, then many politicians and religious groups have lost their main point of argument.”

Language and Cultural Studies Department Chair Lorin Pritikin was likewise positive in her reaction to Frank’s email. “I believe that the letter was carefully and respectfully worded to not offend those within our community who did not support the decision –and although they were certainly a minority, I know for a fact that they exist,” Pritikin said, “because they felt that it ought to be a state-controlled, not federally mandated law, or because they did not support gay marriage.”

Although anti gay marriage voices are hard to find, some are willing to take a stand at the other end of the spectrum.

“On what basis are we invoking our moral pronouncements?” Former Parker parent Paul Kepes said. “The sad truth is that we have come to a point where we have replaced thinking with feeling, and the result is that we have never been as lost.”

Susan Weingartner, Parker’s Director of College Counselling, disagreed. “I felt proud to be at an institution that lives by the principles of celebrating the individual,” Weingartner said, “and not discriminating against people for any reason.”

Music Department Chair Sunnie Hikawa was also proud of Frank for his remarks. “As Dr. Frank represents the school,” Hikawa said, “it was only fitting that he should remind the community of Parker’s philosophy and openness.”

With the amount of attention this issue has garnered at Parker, Hikawa believes that “Parker is certainly unique in its attention to these kinds of issues and events,” Hikawa said, “and in its willingness to discuss and take a stand.”

But is Parker really that unique in celebrating political decisions? Upper School history teacher Dan Greenstone, former history teacher at Oak Park River-Forest, thinks not.

“I’m not sure how different we are,” Greenstone said. “At my old school, OPRF, there was a big Black Lives Matter assembly just last spring, and faculty and admin wore shirts. So maybe it’s not that unusual.”

The Black Lives Matter movement, started during the summer of 2014 after Michael Brown’s fatal shooting by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, is a political issue that some faculty members wish were more recognized at Parker.

“Given the continued police brutality against people of color and the growing number of Black lives lost at the hands of police,” Dina Levi, Parker’s Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, said, the gay marriage decision “marked a short reprieve in what was otherwise a very disheartening summer with regard to civil rights.”

Levi and her wife married after the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 were both overturned by the Supreme Court in 2013. She recalls feeling “like I had the right to publicly hold my wife’s hand in a way I hadn’t before because, as a state, California now recognized our right to that relationship.”

Levi is ready to live life with her spouse the way she always wanted to–publicly.

With the “Obergefell” decision, she now has the basic rights that all same-sex couples were denied before.

“Now that I have a daughter, it is hugely comforting to know that if we are traveling and for some reason she needs hospitalization,” Levi said, “my wife and I shouldn’t have to face any of the barriers that might have previously kept one of us out of the hospital room.”