Jim Andris, Facebook

Opinion Pages

"Holy Moses, let us live in peace!
Let us strive to find a way to make all hatred cease.
There's a man ever there.
What's his color? Idon't care.
He's my brother; let us live in peace."
Elton John and Bernie Taupin

This is a series about homosexuality. I would like to say something about why I am writing the fifteen-odd articles which compose it and will be appearing in the Alestle in the next two weeks. In my past five years at SIU-E, I have again and again confronted discrimination against homosexuals.

It comes out in the fact that people don't discuss homosexuality typically. When homosexuality does become a topic for conversation, often as not, a stereotyped homosexual is the butt of some joke. Once the conversation turns seriously to homosexuality, often a stunning ignorance of it is revealed. Stereotypes abound. The "queer" is promiscuous, effeminate or "dyky," solicitous, damned, and child-molesting, to mention a few. People object to the word "gay" just like they used to and still do object to the word "black." They say they are for human liberation, not gay liberation, not recognizing the contradiction.

Perhaps the most painful form of discrimination is the non-verbal kind. Once one is suspected of geeing gay, some individuals avoid that person, refuse to give eye contact to him or her, and are very uncomfortable in that person's presence.

As one first step in correcting this situation, myself and others have worked toward getting a university policy banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or affectual preference. I had hoped to see this policy written into the developing affirmative action plan. In spite of recommendations by the Welfare Council, the Student Senate, and the Equal Employment Opportunities Subcommittee, however, the administration has refused to include such a policy into the affirmative action plan. New in just two or three weeks, the University community will be called into a general meeting to approve the plan and make suggestions for inclusion into it. I fear that if the issue of gay rights in affirmative action is brought up at that time, there will be little accomplished, and much heated discussion generated.

So I have chosen to write a series of informative articles about homosexuality. I hope that this series is objective and succeeds in informing at least some members of the community about the problems, the newer alternatives, and the advances within the homophile community. In all fairness, must warn the reader that I have deliberately sought out sources not antagonistic to homosexuality as a way of life. Within that limitation, however, I have chosen authoritative sources—sociologists such as Laud Humphreys, national organizations dedicated to gay rights such as the American Psychiatric Association and the National Organization of Women, and commentaries by gay people involved in the liberation movement such as Sidney Abbott and Barbara Love. If this treatment leads to controversy and discussion, I believe nothing but good can come from it. That is what the university is all about.

This series will address a number of topics and how they relate to homosexuality! the replacement of the sickness theory homosexuality by the alternative lifestyle theory, homosexuality as a possible moral and religious way of life, the changing law surrounding homosexuality, the discovery of the mental illness, homophobia, or fear of homosexuality homosexual oppression and discrimination, homosexual history, stereotyping, prevalence, the gay subculture, gay activism, and homosexuality and the media.

If you know less about the gay problem than you think you should, won't you please educate yourself by attending to the series. It's the least you could do.
Jim Andris, Assistant Professor, Foundations of Education