Higher Education Homophobia

I've often thought it would be the younger generation who would step up in the fight for LGBT rights, but then you hear disturbing news like this story from Southern Methodist University [SMU] in Texas.

Apparently, for the second time in less than a month, university students have turned down a pro-LGBT proposition. On December 1st, the SMU Student Senate voted against an amendment to add a sexual orientation and gender identity seat to the student government body. The final vote was actually a 19-to-19 tie, but a three-fourths majority was needed to pass the resolution and send it on to the entire student body for a vote.

So, at SMU if you're gay or transgendered, or even questioning, you have no representation on the student council. You do not exist.

This idiotic ruling follows on two weeks prior, from up at the University of North Texas, where they voted against allowing same-sex couples to run for homecoming king and queen. Once again....gay.....transgendered....questioning....invisible at Texas universities.

Political science professor Joseph Kobylka called the struggle for LGBT rights “a battle for all of us to share," adding, “One way that ensures inclusion is to create seats for special interest senators.”

SMU staff member Susan Harper told of walking one student across campus who was afraid of being attacked after “faggot” was keyed across his car. She said students regularly walk into her office and say, “Susan, I have something to tell you.”

Harper then told the SMU about anti-gay activist Fred Phelps' visit to the campus 10 years ago after partnership benefits were enacted for employees. She called the demonstration against Phelps, SMU at its best, and called upon the senate to rise to that occasion.

Richard Bozorth, an associate professor who teaches an LGBT literature course, says "SMU is not as welcoming as it should be.” He said students have told him that they didn’t take his class because of the climate on campus.

SMU has a ranking as the 14th most homophobic school by the Princeton Review.

Invisibility has never worked. Treating people as if they don't exist, serves no other purpose than to promote a continuance of hatred and bigotry and misunderstanding. I would have thought the next generation was better than that.

But they aren't, at least not at those two schools in Texas.