1) WRAL; Gay UNC student assaulted; officials call it a hate crime
2) CBS; Hate crime claimed by gay college student was false,says UNC officials
3) Huffington Post; Columbia College Gives ‘Homecoming Queen’ Crown to Gay Freshman
4) Advocate; Gay Athlete Austin Hendrix Finds Accpetance
5) WDAM; Thief Steals gay pride flag
6) NY Times; Even on Religious Campuses, Students Fight for Gay identity
7) Inside Highered; Students Protest Regection of Gay straight Alliance at St. John’s
1) Gay UNC student assaulted; officials call it a hate crime
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CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — University of North Carolina student Quinn Matney is gay. For that, he says, someone scarred him for life.
Matney said a man walked up to him last week near a foot bridge on the Chapel Hill campus, called him a derogatory name, told him, "here is a taste of hell," and held a heated object to his skin for several seconds, leaving third and fourth-degree burns.
He described the assault, which university officials are calling a hate crime, as "relentless burning, searing pain."
"It has burned all the way through the flesh and is burning through muscle and tendon," Matney said. He said he has an infection and limited movement in some fingers, and the nerve damage may require surgery.
UNC Chancellor Holden Thorp released a statement Monday, pledging that the university's public safety department "will bring the strongest possible charges against the attacker."
But Jeff Deluca, co-president of UNC's Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender and Straight Alliance, raised concerns that the university waited two days before alerting the students and the community.
"It is shock and sadness that something like this could happen on campus and go pretty much unnoticed," Deluca said.
Thorp said the assault has prompted university officials to review the way they notify the campus community about crimes. He added that he plans to call in federal authorities to assist in the hate crime investigation.
Matney is left questioning why someone would hurt him for simply being who he is.
"It just doesn't make sense to me," he said.
Deluca said he hopes the assault will bring the UNC community together, "making this campus a better, safer community."
Police are still investigating. No charges have been filed.
2) Hate crime claimed by gay college student was false,says UNC officials
Barry Leibowitz April 13th
(CBS/WRAL) CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - A gay student who claimed he was attacked and branded in a hate crime wasn't telling the truth, officials with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said Tuesday.
Chancellor Holden Thorp said freshman Quinn Matney, who told authorities he was branded with a searing hot object because of his sexual orientation, filed a false police report, according to CBS affiliate WRAL.
"The alleged aggravated assault reported to campus last night (Monday) did not occur," Thorp wrote in a statement, WRAL reported.
Matney, who is gay, told authorities that on April 5, a man walked up to him near a foot bridge on campus, called him a derogatory name, told him "here is a taste of hell," and held a heated object to his skin for several seconds, leaving third- and fourth-degree burns.
Randy Young, a spokesman for UNC's public safety department, said charges of filing a false police report are likely against Matney.
University officials initially called the assault a hate crime and pledged to "bring the strongest possible charges against the attacker."
3) Columbia College Gives ‘Homecoming Queen’ Crown to Gay Freshman
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/11/columbia-college-gives-ho_n_847394.html
"Homecoming queen" is a title often bestowed on young ladies who are beautiful, popular and charming. Columbia College just crowned its homecoming queen this year at the fourth annual Mary Blood Ball. The newly minted homecoming queen is everything and more one would expect out of a homecoming queen: confident, smart and socially aware. However, this one is also an openly gay man.
"Homecoming queen" is a title often bestowed on young ladies who are beautiful, popular and charming. Columbia College just crowned its homecoming queen this year at the fourth annual Mary Blood Ball. The newly minted homecoming queen is everything and more one would expect out of a homecoming queen: confident, smart and socially aware. However, this one is also an openly gay man.
Francis Shervinski, a Columbia College freshman, won the widely prized title of Columbia College's first homecoming queen. However, Shervinski isn't your everyday prissy homecoming queen whose primping includes Vaseline-covered teeth. Shervinski sees his new title as an opportunity to promote positivity, acceptance, and being yourself.
Read the whole story here.
4) Gay Athlete Austin Hendrix Finds Acceptance
By Advocate.com Editors, April 11
For gay Eastern Michigan runner Austin Hendrix, finding acceptance among his teammates wasn’t hurdle-free, but in the end he realized he had nothing to fear.
Joining a top-notch running program that has produced two Olympic gold medalists can be daunting for any college freshmen. But for Hendrix, who had been out of the closet since high school, it involved the added pressure of whether or not to be honest in this new environment about who he really was.
"I was new here. I didn't know anyone on the team, I didn't know anyone on the campus at all. So nobody knew that I was gay," Hendrix, now 21 and a fourth-year junior, tells the Associated Press. "I had to make the decision on whether or not to confide in my teammates, coach, classmates, whatever, that I was gay and tell them my sexuality, or just keep it a secret.”
He chose the latter and would remain quiet about his sexuality for two years, during which he says the subject consumed his thoughts. Eventually he became "fed up with lying and hiding,” and came out to a friend on the team. The reaction he got was not what he expected.
The friend was surprised, but said that Hendrix’s sexuality didn’t change a thing. Before long, his entire squad knew. His straight roommate, James Hughes, says the news was such a nonevent that he can’t even remember where he was when he learned it.
“I didn't see it coming,” Hughes says. “And then, instantly, all I could think about was, 'I hope I never said anything to offend him.'"
After two years of stressing, Hendrix realized that none of his friends or teammates cared if he was gay or straight. And being able to finally ditch the weight of that secret, he found his life improved in every way.
"If you go to practice and can feel comfortable, you start feeling better mentally and emotionally. Everything just starts getting better," Hendrix said. "You can just concentrate on being the best athlete you can be instead of worrying about every other little thing."
Read the full article here.
5) Thief Steals gay pride flag
April 16th
ORONO, ME (WVII/CNN) - A thief has put a damper on Pride Week at the University of Maine, by stealing the flags from campus in honor of the school's lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community.
"Gay, Lesbian, bisexual, transgender lifestyles are unknown to lots of people," said Vice President of Student Affairs Robert Dana. "I think it creates questions and a certain amount of anxiety for some people and instead of talking about it, I think some people haven't found their voice so perhaps to show their unhappiness, their confusion, to make a statement they say well this is the only way to do it."
A third flag has been put up, and police are taking notice to make sure it does not disappear.
School officials are not sure exactly why someone would remove the flags.
"It would be really nice to see that sort of thing, I consider myself a very forgiving person and I believe if they did that it would be a really nice way to give back to our community and recognize that this is wrong but if they're sorry then yeah, I could forgive them," said student, Adam Flanders.
The school is offering a 500-hundred-dollar reward for information leading to those responsible.
6) Even on Religious Campuses, Students Fight for Gay identity
Erik Eckholm, April 19th
WACO, Tex. — Battles for acceptance by gay and lesbian students have erupted in the places that expect it the least: the scores of Bible colleges and evangelical Christian universities that, in their founding beliefs, see homosexuality as a sin.
Decades after the gay rights movement swept the country’s secular schools, more gays and lesbians at Christian colleges are starting to come out of the closet, demanding a right to proclaim their identities and form campus clubs, and rejecting suggestions to seek help in suppressing homosexual desires.
Many of the newly assertive students grew up as Christians and developed a sense of their sexual identities only after starting college, and after years of inner torment. They spring from a new generation of evangelical youths that, over all, holds far less harsh views of homosexuality than its elders.
But in their efforts to assert themselves, whether in campus clubs or more publicly on Facebook, gay students are running up against administrators who defend what they describe as God’s law on sexual morality, and who must also answer to conservative trustees and alumni.
Facing vague prohibitions against “homosexual behavior,” many students worry about what steps — holding hands with a partner, say, or posting a photograph on a gay Web site — could jeopardize scholarships or risk expulsion.
“It’s like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object,” said Adam R. Short, a freshman engineering student at Baylor University who is openly gay and has fought, without success, for campus recognition of a club to discuss sexuality and fight homophobia.
A few more liberal religious colleges, like Belmont University in Nashville, which has Baptist origins, have reluctantly allowed the formation of gay student groups, in Belmont’s case after years of heated debate, and soon after the university had forced a lesbian soccer coach to resign.
But the more typical response has come from Baylor, which with 15,000 students is the country’s largest Baptist university, and which has refused to approve the sexuality forum.
“Baylor expects students not to participate in advocacy groups promoting an understanding of sexuality that is contrary to biblical teaching,” said Lori Fogleman, a university spokeswoman.
Despite the rebuff, more than 50 students continue to hold weekly gatherings of their Sexual Identity Forum, and will keep seeking the moral validation that would come with formal status, said Samantha A. Jones, a senior and president of the group.
“The student body at large is ready for this,” said Saralyn Salisbury, Ms. Jones’s girlfriend and also a senior at Baylor. “But not the administration and the Regents.”
At Abilene Christian University in Texas, several students are openly gay, and many more are pushing for change behind the scenes. Last spring, the university refused to allow formation of a Gay-Straight Alliance.
“We want to engage these complex issues, and to give help and guidance to students who are struggling with same-sex attraction,” said Jean-Noel Thompson, the university’s vice president for student life. “But we are not going to embrace any advocacy for gay identity.”
At Harding University in Arkansas, which like Abilene Christian is affiliated with theChurches of Christ, half a dozen current and former students posted an online magazinein early March featuring personal accounts of the travails of gay students. The university blocked access to the site on the university’s Internet server, which helped cause the site to go viral in the world of religious universities.
At chapel, Harding’s president, David B. Burks, told students that “we are not trying to control your thinking,” but that “it was important for us to block the Web site because of what it says about Harding, who we are, and what we believe.” Mr. Burks called the site’s very name, huqueerpress.com, offensive.
Most evangelical colleges say they do not discipline students who admit to same-sex attractions — only those who engage in homosexual “behavior” or “activity.” (On evangelical campuses, sexual intercourse outside marriage is forbidden for everyone.)
Abilene Christian sees a big difference, Mr. Thompson said, between a student who is struggling privately with same-sex feelings, and “a student who in e-mails, on Facebook and elsewhere says ‘I am publicly gay, this is a lifestyle that I advocate regardless of where the university stands.’ ”
Amanda Lee Genaro said she was ejected in 2009 from North Central University, a Pentecostal Bible college in Minneapolis as she became more assertive about her gay identity. She had struggled with her feelings for years, Ms. Genaro said, when she was inspired by a 2006 visit to the campus of SoulForce, a national group of gay religious-college alumni that tries to spark campus discussion.
“I thought, wow, maybe God loves me even if I like women,” Ms. Genaro recalled. In 2009, after she quit “reparative therapy,” came out on MySpace and admitted to having a romantic, if unconsummated, relationship with a woman, the university suspended her, saying she could reapply in a year if she had rejected homosexuality. She transferred to a non-Christian school.
Gay students say they are often asked why they are attending Christian colleges at all. But the question, students say, is unfair. Many were raised in intensely Christian homes with an expectation of attending a religious college and long fought their homosexuality. They arrive at school, as one of the Harding Web authors put it, “hoping that college would turn us straight, and then once we realized that this wasn’t happening, there was nothing you could do about it.”
The students who do come out on campus say that it is a relief, but that life remains hard.
“I’m lonely,” said Taylor Schmitt, in his second year at Abilene Christian after arriving with a full scholarship and a hope that his inner self might somehow change. By the end of his first year, Mr. Schmitt said, he accepted his homosexuality. He switched to English from the Bible studies department, which, he said, “reeked of the past deceptions and falsehoods I’d created around myself.”
Rather than transferring and giving up his scholarship, he is taking extra classes to graduate a year early.
Some of the gay students end up disillusioned with Christianity, even becoming atheists, while others have searched for more liberal churches.
David Coleman was suspended by North Central University in his senior year in 2005, after he distributed fliers advertising a gay-support site and admitted to intimate relations (but not sexual intercourse) with other men. He calls the university’s environment “spiritually violent.”
Mr. Coleman, 28, is now enrolled at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities in New Brighton, Minn., which is run by the more accepting United Church of Christ. He still dreams of becoming a pastor.
“I have a calling,” he said.
7) Student Protest Rejection of Gay Straigh Alliance at St John’s
April 19th
Students Protest Rejection of Gay-Straight Alliance at St. John's
Students at St. John's University in New York are protesting its refusal to recognize a gay-straight alliance, The New York Daily News reported. University officials said that they cannot recognize any group inconsistent with the Roman Catholic teachings of the institution. But students note that the university enrolls gay students, professes a strong commitment to diversity and recognizes Jewish and Muslim student groups, among many others.
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