Higher Education LGBT Articles Digest #151

Brought to you by the Education, Outreach, & Advocacy Working Group of the National Consortium of Directors of LGBT Resources in Higher Education. http://www.lgbtcampus.org/

1. CHRONICLE (Washington, DC). Baylor University's President Condemns Student Newspaper's Editorial Supporting Gay Marriage
2. WICHITA EAGLE (Wichita, KS). WSU debate on marriage ends in draw
3. DALLAS MORNING NEWS (Dallas, TX). At Baylor, a clash on gay rights
4. THE DIAMONDBACK (University of Maryland). Students, officials planning response to attorney general's ruling on gender code
5. THE NEW YORK TIMES. On Campus, Rethinking Biology 101
6. DAILY BRUIN(UCLA). San Francisco weddings another path to equality

#1
The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 3, 2004
1255 23rd St. N.W., Suite 700, Washington, D.C. 20037 http://chronicle.com/prm/daily/2004/03/2004030307n.htm

Baylor University’s President Condemns Student Newspaper's Editorial Supporting Gay Marriage By KATHERINE S. MANGAN

Reflecting the divisive national debate on the issue, Baylor University's president has publicly condemned an editorial in the student newspaper that supported the right of gay couples to marry. President Robert B. Sloan Jr. said the editorial, which was published in the February 27 edition of The Baylor Lariat, flies in the face of Baptist beliefs.

"We have already heard from a number of students, alumni, and parents who are, as am I, justifiably outraged over this editorial," Mr. Sloan said in a written statement published on Baylor's Web site and in the Lariat.

"Espousing in a Baylor publication a view that is so out of touch with traditional Christian teachings is not only unwelcome," Mr. Sloan said, "it comes dangerously close to violating university policy, as published in the Student Handbook, prohibiting the advocacy of any understandings of sexuality that are contrary to biblical teaching."

The university's Student Publications Board determined that the editorial did, in fact, violate university policy, but no one was suspended or fired.

The student editorial supported the City of San Francisco's efforts to legalize gay marriages by challenging a California law that defines marriage as the union of a man and woman.

The editorial, which was approved by a 5-to-2 vote of the newspaper's editorial board, stated, in part: "Like many heterosexual couples, many gay couples share deep bonds of love, some so strong they've persevered years of discrimination for their choice to co-habitate with and date one another. Just as it isn't fair to discriminate against someone for their skin color, heritage, or religious beliefs, it isn't fair to discriminate against someone for their sexual orientation. Shouldn't gay couples be allowed to enjoy the benefits and happiness of marriage, too?"

The president's tongue-lashing provoked varied reactions on Tuesday from the staff members who oversee the newspaper and the students who run it.

The Lariat's news director, Ricky George, released a statement saying that the editorial should not have been printed. "I made an error in judgment," said Mr. George, who is employed by Baylor. "It is my responsibility to ensure the students have a strong editorial voice within the parameters of Baylor's mission."

But Lacy A. Elwood, a Baylor senior who serves as the newspaper's editor-in-chief, released a statement defending the editorial. She said the editorial board stands by its decision "to address an issue at the forefront of national public debate," adding that the board's opinions reflect those of the majority of its members, and not necessarily those of the entire Baylor community.

Members of the editorial board declined to comment further.

#2
Wichita Eagle, March 5, 2004
South Kansas Avenue, Wichita, KS, 66603
(Fax: 316-268-6627 ) (E-Mail: wenews@wichitaeagle.com)
( http://web.wichitaeagle.com )

WSU debate on marriage ends in draw

A lively discussion by 175 students ranges across a wide variety of opinions. By Karen Shideler

With passion, jeers and cheers, about 175 students at Wichita State University wrestled Thursday with the idea of gay marriage, coming to no consensus but giving voice to numerous points of view.

The debate, sponsored by WSU's Political Science Club, came about the same time the Kansas

House gave tentative approval to a proposed amendment to the Kansas Constitution banning gay marriage. Final House action is expected today.

At WSU, the debate included references to gays and the military, political campaigns, the Boston Tea Party, domestic abuse, the ancient Greeks, interracial marriage, incest, adultery, the Bible and several other topics, all in an hour.

Four students had been chosen to start the debate: Hani Tobassi, representing the Campus Greens; Jamin Anderson of Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship; Melissa Holman of the College Democrats; and Jon Thyng of the College Republicans.

Anderson and Thyng opposed gay marriage, but for different reasons. Anderson objected on moral grounds; Thyng said allowing gay marriages would "undefine" marriage.

Tobassi and Holman favored allowing gays to marry, but for different reasons. Tobassi said civil unions would create a "separate and unequal" system; Holman said there was no legal basis for denying gay marriage. Jeffrey Jarman, director of debate at WSU, asked what harm would come from allowing the institution of marriage to adapt to changing times.

Thyng's answer drew jeers for his statement, "A gay guy has every right to marry a woman, just as I do." And it drew applause, for "We need strong families in our society."

The cheers and jeers continued as about 15 other students asked questions or made statements:

Laws are created to protect individuals and create order, not to protect society, one said. Neither the Boston Tea Party nor Rosa Parks' decision to not give up her bus seat was legal, said another, comparing those actions to the gay marriages performed in recent weeks. The U.S. military is just as capable now as it was before gays were allowed. Homosexuality isn't found in any species but the human species. Homosexuality is common in the animal world.

Though the debate emerged without a consensus on gay marriage, it proved Jarman's opening statement:

Our democracy allows everyone to have an opinion. And it requires them to be able to defend it.

* Reach Karen Shideler at 268-6674 or kshideler@wichitaeagle.com.

#3
Dallas Morning News, March 6, 2004
Box 655237, Dallas, TX, 75265
(Fax: 972-263-0456 ) (E-Mail: letterstoeditor@dallasnews.com)
( http://www.dallasnews.com ) http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/030604dntexbaylor.a308.html

At Baylor, a clash on gay rights

Debate engulfs campus after student editorial backs same-sex unions By Diane Jennings, The Dallas Morning News

WACO - After the student newspaper at Baylor University voted to support legal rights for gay marriages recently, the editor called it "no big deal."

But students involved in the editorial decision soon found out how contentious a subject same-sex marriage can be.

The president of the world's largest Baptist university expressed his "outrage." More than a hundred phone calls and letters, both in support and opposition, poured into the newsroom of The Baylor Lariat. The newspaper's faculty adviser said he'd made an "error in judgment" in approving the editorial.

Journalists around the country also weighed in, debating the importance of freedom at student newspapers. "Editors learned a little bit about what it means to work for a boss," said Baylor journalism department's chairman, Dr. Douglas Ferdon.

Though Baylor has not been a center for gay activists, the gay-rights issue has been bubbling beneath the surface for years. Two years ago The Lariat ran a three-part series about an unofficial organization of gay and lesbian students called Baylor Freedom; in February, the editorial board protested the school's decision to revoke a scholarship for a seminary student after he revealed he was gay.

Gay issues are "part of life that is out there, and our students are aware of what's going on in life," said Dr. Joe Cox, chairman of the faculty senate.

Baylor administrators did not object to the newspaper's series or earlier editorial. But the Feb. 27 editorial on same-sex marriage was too much, officials say, because it advocated behavior contrary to university policy.

The editorial, approved by a 5-2 vote on the student editorial board, did not take a religious or moral stance but opined that "gay couples should be granted the same equal rights to legal marriage as heterosexual couples."

President angered

Baylor President Robert Sloan issued a statement stressing that the editorial did not reflect the views of the administration, faculty, staff, Board of Regents or the Student Publications Board, which oversees The Lariat.

"Nor," he said, "do I believe this stance on gay marriage is shared by the vast majority of Baylor's 14,000 students and 100,000 alumni."

Dr. Sloan said he was "justifiably outraged" by the editorial and that "espousing in a Baylor publication a view that is so out of touch with traditional Christian teachings is not only unwelcome, it comes dangerously close to violating university policy."

Baylor's sexual conduct policy prohibits sex outside of marriage.

Dr. Sloan directed the Student Publications Board to discuss the editorial. The board, composed of faculty and staff members, then told students to dust off their student publications guidelines, which prohibits taking an editorial stance on an issue involving morals.

Those guidelines were issued in 1981 after an earlier generation of Lariat editors clashed

with the administration, said university spokesman Larry Brumley. Then, student editors questioned the administration's control over students wishing to pose for Playboy magazine. Those editors were fired and their scholarships revoked.

This time no jobs or scholarships were lost, Mr. Brumley said. Instead, news director Ricky George, The Lariat's professional adviser, issued a statement saying running the editorial was "an error in judgment" on his part.

Lacy Elwood, the editor, later issued a statement from the seven-student editorial board standing by its decision to "address an issue at the forefront of national public debate."

The board declined further comment.

In recent days the topic has been debated in mass media classes, political science and English lit. Student government officers at Baylor declined to take a position.

'A little bit proud'

Student congress president pro tem Brandon Anderson said that while he thought most students disagreed with the editorial, and particularly regretted its timing since Baylor is already in turmoil over a basketball scandal, a lot of students "appreciate the fact that it wasn't censored."

"I'm honestly a little bit proud of The Lariat for printing it," he said.

Casey Watts, a student government vice president, said reaction on campus was split.

"There are some students who feel it was freedom of speech, so there shouldn't have been such controversy over their vote," she said. "Then I've heard some who were offended by the vote because, in their opinion, it doesn't coincide with Baylor's principles.

"I do think students feel there's a need for more debate on homosexuality on campus," she said.

Though the administration's response has been relatively restrained and well within its scope as publisher of the paper, the episode elicited angst in journalism circles.

"It's clearly not a First Amendment issue," said Mike Hiestand, attorney and legal consultant to the Student Press Law Center outside Washington, D.C., noting the university's right to control the editorial content. But, he added, "It's rather an odd position for an institution of higher learning to take -that it's OK to think as long as you think like we do."

Similar issues

Dr. Roy Peter Clark, senior scholar at the Poynter Institute, a school for journalists in Florida, said other private universities have wrestled with similar issues.

But, "I have sort of strong feelings about how all this should work out," he said. "I think that to put, to exert, pressure on the editors in the name of institutional religion is profoundly unpatriotic. In a democracy, a religious perspective cannot dominate. In a democracy, freedom has to trump institutional religion.

"I believe also, as a matter of personal belief, as a Christian myself, that there's something sacred about democracy."

* Email djennings@dallasnews.com

#4
The Diamondback, March 5, 2004
3150 South Campus Dining Hall, University of Maryland, College Park MD 20742
(Fax: 301-314-8358) (E-Mail: diamondb@umail.umd.edu)
http://www.inform.umd.edu/News/Diamondback/archives/2004/03/05/news5.html

Students, officials planning response to attorney general's ruling on gender code By Kate Slusark, Staff Writer

Students and administrative officials are planning a counterattack to the state attorney general's office's decision to exclude clauses protecting transgendered individuals from discrimination in the university human relations code.

The University Senate unanimously voted to protect students, staff and faculty from discrimination due to "gender identity" and "gender expression." The clause was meant to protect transgendered individuals. The term refers to people who want to be considered as the opposite sex or have had a sex-change operation, according to The American Heritage College Dictionary.

The attorney general's office, however, did not approve the change. They cited a lack of a similar county ordinance, city ordinance or Board of Regents policy. However, University System of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan and other university officials have said they are in favor of the change.

Students have met twice since the decision to organize a reaction and are planning several

responses to the attorney general's decision. Last night they drafted a petition and are planning to solicit letters of support from organizations and departments on the campus. Students may also organize rallies in the future.

Administrative officials are also meeting Monday to determine how to organize a response, said Luke Jensen, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Equity program.

"It's an insult to this campus," Jensen said, noting the university was largely in favor of the change. "We aren't simply going to let it go. We're going to figure out how to challenge this decision."

The memo from the attorney general's office, written by Assistant Attorney General Elena Langrill, took issue with the terms "gender identity" and "gender expression." Langrill said the words were too unspecific, suggesting a student could attend class in a thong and claim it was protected under the clause.

Jensen said he was upset with Langrill's analogy and thought it showed biases on the part of the attorney general's office.

"I don't know what planet she's coming from with that one," Jensen said.

Pride Alliance President Eric Loewenthal said he too was upset with the comparison.

"She said something like this would open the doors for behavior like that, which is ridiculous because there's still basic health as a standard," Loewenthal said. "The memo she sent was clearly uneducated and clearly poorly researched."

Students added the memo, wrought with grammatical errors and typos, seemed carelessly written. Chief of Educational Affairs for the Attorney General John Anderson said the thong analogy was not meant maliciously.

"I don't think he should be insulted," Anderson said. "I think she was simply trying to make a point - she wasn't predicting that was what was going to happen - she was trying to make a point that the proposal that was drafted was open to wide interpretation and perhaps the definitions could be more clear."

Anderson said the university's next best step would be to approach the Board of Regents in an effort to change the policy. Jensen said that is an option, but students said they were wary of approaching the board for fear that they would not be receptive.

#5
The New York Times, March 7, 2004 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/fashion/07TRAN.html?
position=&ei=1&en=b077fea3cea672f6&ex=1079700365&pagewanted=all

On Campus, Rethinking Biology 101
By FRED A. BERNSTEIN

Arriving in Providence last fall to begin his senior year at Brown University, Luke Woodward didn't have to tell friends what he had done on his summer vacation.

They could tell with one glance. Before the summer Luke had had the body of a woman. Now Luke's breasts were gone, leaving a chest more compatible with Luke's close-cropped hair, baggy jeans and hooded sweatshirts. Some classmates had chipped in to pay for the surgery; to cover the rest, Luke took out loans.

Thanks to the "chest surgery," Luke said, "my quality of life is better." Before, if Luke entered a women's bathroom on campus, "someone might yell, `Oh my God, there's a man here' and call security," he said. "In men's bathrooms I'd have to fold my arms over my chest and hope that no one would notice." Now he and several other Brown students are pressing the university to create more single-stall bathrooms, so students who don't look clearly male or female can avoid harassment.

Luke, a 23-year-old international-relations major, is at the cutting edge of a new kind of campus activism: transgender students and their allies who are convincing colleges to meet needs that include private bathrooms and showers, specialized housing and sports teams on which students who don't identify themselves as either male or female can play. In the last year, transgender students have won accommodations from four East Coast colleges, including Wesleyan, Sarah Lawrence and Smith.

While it isn't clear if the number of students who consider themselves transgender is increasing, their openness — a generation after gay and lesbian students began identifying themselves on campuses — clearly is. Zachary Strassburger, a sophomore at Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Conn., said he "came out" to his parents as "trans" in the 10th grade. (Luke and Zachary, who were born female, asked to be referred to with male pronouns.)

Transgender is a term that describes, and unites, a broad category of people who are uncomfortable in the gender of their birth, said Dr. Ken Zucker, a psychologist who heads a child and adolescent gender-identity clinic in Toronto. Transgender students may also be transsexual — moving from male to female, or female to male with the help of surgery or hormones. (Luke considers himself a "female-to-male trans," no longer fully female but not yet fully male.)

Some transgender students aren't moving between sexes; they're parked somewhere in the middle and prefer to describe themselves as "gender queer" — signifying that they reject the either-or male-female system.

Dr. Zucker said young people claiming a transgender identity "vary in the degree to which they want physical intervention." He added: "Gender identity is distinct from sexual orientation. Gender identity pertains to how a person feels about being male or female; sexual orientation pertains to who are you attracted to sexually."

Zachary, 19, said, "Some people think it's important to be seen as a specific gender; that's not me." There are several dozen "gender queers" among Wesleyan's 2,700 students, said Zachary, who changed his name at 18 and asked that his original first name not be published.

Brown and Sarah Lawrence, in Yonkers, will offer housing for the first time this fall to accommodate transgender students. Wesleyan has assigned a hallway for students who choose to live without designating their gender. A Wesleyan student who was born female but now looks and acts more male than female can have a male roommate. The Wesleyan campus health services clinic no longer requires students to check off "M" or "F" when coming in for a "wellness and sexual health visit." Instead, they are asked on a form to "describe your gender identity history." And this year, the former women's rugby team eliminated "women's" from its name, so that Zachary and several other transgender students would feel comfortable playing. "We don't want people yelling, `Go, girls!' " from the sidelines, Zachary explained.

MARK NICKEL, a spokesman for Brown, said members of its incoming freshman class will "fill out a housing questionnaire that will allow them to elect a gender-neutral option." He said the policy "would give transgender students the option to live with other transgender students." And they will be in dorms where there are "lockable bathrooms for use by one person."

At Sarah Lawrence, the assistant dean for residential life, Sarah Cardwell, said the university planned to allow upper-class students to live with students regardless of their sex, and to designate certain bathrooms as "all gender."

"We have a small population of transgender students," Ms. Cardwell said, "and we decided to be proactive, rather than reactive." One of the residents of Wesleyan's transgender hallway, Paige Kruza, is biologically female but looks androgynous. Paige's roommate is male and is extremely respectful, Paige said. When referring to Paige, he uses pronouns that have evolved in the transgender community: "ze" instead of "he" or "she"; "hir" instead of "him" or "her."

Zachary began thinking about the housing issue when he was a senior at a high school in Pittsburgh, where he was harassed because of his masculine appearance. "I ended up threatening to sue the school for not protecting me," he said.

He wanted college to be better. During visits to colleges, he made a point of identifying himself as transgender and asking the schools where he would live as a freshman. "Harvard was the most confused," Zachary said. "They sent me from office to office, not knowing how to react. But I didn't get in anyway."

Wesleyan, by contrast, was the most responsive, Zachary said, adding, "I wanted to come to a college where I'd feel safe."

In his freshman year, he chose to live alone — many Wesleyan freshmen have singles, so not having a roommate didn't stigmatize him. And then he began lobbying for the special hallway. Under existing university policy, a student who was biologically female but dressed and looked male would have to live with another female student. But that could make the female roommate uncomfortable. A male roommate, or another transgender roommate, were better options, Zachary argued.

"Every college student, of any gender, should be able to have the experience of living with a roommate," Zachary said. Now in its first year, 12 students have chosen to live on the freshman hallway, though it's unclear how many identify themselves as transgender.

Zachary himself, now a sophomore, has chosen to room with mostly Jewish students, in one of a number of upper-class residences based around common interests. He also devotes much time to rugby — "my favorite part of college." He said the team had been completely supportive, even paying to replace sweatshirts that said "Women's Rugby" with ones that say "Rugby."

On a sunny afternoon at Wesleyan, Zachary sat on the library steps, chatting with friends who are male, female and transgender. Although transgender people around the country have been victims of hate crimes, students like Zachary say they do not feel discrimination or fear on campus; they know they are lucky to live in environments — small private colleges — with traditions of tolerance.

"It's a very small campus, and everyone knows everyone," Zachary said. "It helps to have a sense of humor if you're trans," he added.

Dr. Davis Smith, the medical director at Wesleyan's student health services, said about a dozen transgender students have identified themselves to him, and the administration, he added, "encouraged me to use a lot of my administrative time" to look at transgender health issues.

"For purposes of sexual health, it doesn't matter if you call yourself male or female," said Dr. Smith, an affable 35-year-old with photos of his wife and daughter in his office. He said that what matters is what a person is doing with his sexual partners.

Dr. Smith added that the transgender students have an influence larger than their numbers. "On this campus," he said, "transgender students are real opinion leaders." He said that as far as he could tell, "there hasn't been any backlash."

At Brown, Sarah Lawrence and Wesleyan, most of the transgender students appear to be women

who are fully or partially male-appearing. "I think it's a lot harder if you're male- assigned to come out as transgender," Zachary said. At Hunter College in Manhattan, Dr. Gerald Mallon, a professor in the school of social work and the author of a book on social services for transgender youths, said he knows a number of male-to-female transgender students.

"The transgender community is becoming more vocal and more visible," Dr. Mallon said. "Some are asking for accommodations; others don't need accommodations, but just want to be respected for the gender that they are. I think it may be where the gay movement was 10 or 15 years ago."

At Smith, the women's college in Northampton, Mass., students voted last year to eliminate female pronouns from the student constitution at the request of transgender students. "She" and "her" were replaced with the phrase "the student."

Laurie Fenlason, a college spokeswoman, said that "the vote was undertaken by the students as a gesture of good will toward a handful of fellow students."

But the change was not without controversy. "It contradicts the whole point of having a women's college," said Esi Cleland, a Smith sophomore. "I am opposed to it, because there's something to be said for a women's college, and a lot of us come here because we choose to be in an environment where women are the primary focus."

Students at Barnard have also been grappling with the implications of the fact that some students at a women's college don't identify themselves as women. A recent article in The Columbia Spectator about transgender activism was headlined "Can a Man Attend Barnard College?" "Trans issues," the article reported, "are gaining traction at Barnard."

"We are a women's college," said Suzanne Trimel, the director of public affairs at Barnard. "But if a student began here as a woman and then wanted to change her gender, does that mean we would kick her out of college? No, it doesn't. We are a sensitive and caring community."

"That said, the question has not arisen," Ms. Trimel added. "To the best of our knowledge, no Barnard student has changed gender."

To parents, the phenomenon may be unsettling. Luke says his father's reaction was, "I got married at 25, and that was too young." His point was that changing genders is a big decision for a young person to make, Luke explained. But Luke said he isn't worried that his chest surgery may be irreversible. "I don't know who I'm going to be," he said, "but I can integrate the decisions I make into the person I become."

Luke said that when he arrived at Brown, he was a masculine-appearing lesbian, but had no plans to change sex. "I had questioned my sexuality, but not my gender," Luke said. Then he spent a year studying in Cuba, where people "were genuinely shocked when I said I was a woman. It was disorienting and scary. And I had to really think about it: am I a woman?" After returning from Cuba, he said, "I took more and more pains to hide my breasts and to pass as male." After meeting several female-to-male transsexuals, he said, "I realized I had options."

Luke said the reaction of "my immediate family has been awesome," though "my extended family is having a harder time. My grandparents still refer to me as `she.' "

Some parents might think that gender experimentation in college is just a phase. "So what if it is a phase — why is that a value judgment?" asked Daniel Bassichis, a Brown sophomore who is a friend of Luke's. "And if something goes wrong for Luke," Daniel said, "his friends will be here to support him."

But there are still issues for transgender students. Luke's voice sounds female, which makes him reluctant to "assert myself vocally." He is considering taking testosterone, which would lower his voice (as well as create facial hair and redistribute muscle), but hasn't been able to afford the hormone treatment. (At Smith, a therapist the college hired to serve as a transgender specialist told The Daily Hampshire Gazette last year that a small number of students there were taking testosterone to acquire male characteristics.)

As to whether he will have further surgery, Luke said he hasn't decided. "This is often the first thing people ask me — about whether I'll get surgery `down there,' and I think it is really weird," Luke wrote in an e-mail message.

Most doctors require patients hoping for gender-reassignment surgery to live as a member of the opposite gender for a full year. Luke and others see that standard as unreasonable — "for a guy who's 6-foot-2 to use ladies' rooms for a year is a recipe for disaster," he said.

Besides, the protocol negates the experience of students who don't want to be one gender or another, but something in between, Luke said. "It erases the space between male and female," he said. In an ideal world, he wouldn't have to conceal his female past in order to achieve a more male persona, he said. "I wouldn't be seen as male or female," he said, "but a female- to -male trans."

Luke will graduate this spring, but his effects on Brown may only be beginning. Some students predict that when Brown's new policies become known, more transgender students will want to apply. And if they do, "they can't just be plopped down," Daniel Bassichis said. "We have to make sure they feel safe here and can live the way they want to live."

Dr. Smith of Wesleyan said: "It takes a lot of courage to be out as a transgender person. I hope they'll be able to do it in the outside world the way they can in college."

#6
Daily Bruin (UCLA), March 02, 2004
118 Kerckhoff Hall, 308 Westwood Plaza
Los Angeles, CA 90024
Phone: (310) 825-9898, Fax: (310) 206-0906
URL: http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu
Article: http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/articles.asp?id=27753

San Francisco weddings another path to equality

Same-sex marriages a step toward gaining gay rights, building loving families By Ronni Sanlo

I'm from the South; Florida, to be exact. I saw the signs that said "colored" and "white" above water fountains and bathroom doors.

I was there as a first-year Florida student in 1965, the year after the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee was disbanded, following eight years of terrorizing both National Association for the Advancement of Colored People members and homosexual professors in the state's universities.

I was there when "Se habla Espanola" appeared in Miami store windows, and later when the words changed to "We speak English here."

I was there in 1977 when Anita Bryant waged her "Save Our Children" campaign after Miami added sexual orientation in its non-discrimination law, only to have it rescinded soon after. And as a result of Bryant's hate-mongering, laws were created in Florida that allowed the state to take my young children away from me in 1979 when I came out as a lesbian.

I was there.

Same-sex marriage? In my life, this is a watershed moment; in many ways, it's the culmination of much of the work of people from my generation and the jump-start of the work of generations to come. As an educator, an activist and a lesbian, I am in awe of the courage, the commitment and the deep act of love my friends and colleagues displayed, as they stood in long, cold, rainy lines in San Francisco to tie many integrated, intertwined knots of love.

Civil marriage (distinct from religious marriage) ensures the recognition needed for the broad range of benefits that help people become family together. It strikes me as odd that some people, especially those who espouse love in the name of various religious ideologies, would care about who is engaged in the institution of marriage.

I'm often asked (by terribly rude people) if I'm religious – the question suggesting that if I'm a lesbian, I must not believe in God. Sorry to disappoint, but I deeply believe in God. In fact, I clearly understand that my sexual orientation is one of God's good and great gifts to me, for which I am very thankful.

Isn't the love between two consenting adults enough to create a family? Isn't the fact that two people want to grow in life together enough? The answer, of course, is no. The bottom line is that discrimination is an economic issue, as organizations fund raise by inspiring fear in their constituents, using homosexuality or abortion or whatever (can't use race anymore.)

Listen to the rhetoric. It's not new. We heard it not that long ago when this country was determining what depths of hell we'd go to if people of different races were allowed to marry. The arguments are identical. And they're nothing but old, tired, limp excuses for fund raising.

It's also strange to me that same-sex marriage would be so high on President Bush's radar screen – especially in an election year.

I learned long ago that when people protest too much, they generally have some interesting items in their own closets. Or perhaps it is there merely as a smoke screen to avoid serious issues, like the economy, the environment and the fact that we're at war all over the world.

I learned not so long ago that I can't change anyone's mind about anything, and as an academic I honor the fact that people have opinions that are different from my own.

My hope is that each of us, regardless of our opinions about same-sex marriage or homosexuality, will not impinge on the rights of any other person to live with liberty and justice, in love and for life, in this great country.

Until then, let the great acts of defiance – like the Boston Tea Party or the Great San Francisco Marriage – be understood as great acts of love, not only for self, but also, equally, for this country. One day there will be no more second-class citizens in the United States of America. I hope I will be there.

Sanlo is the director of the UCLA LGBT Campus Resource Center and a member of the students' association Communications Board.

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