Heated controversy surrounds the decision of Voces Clamantium to invite guest speaker Yvette Schneider, an activist identifying herself as a former lesbian who turned away from her homosexual lifestyle after becoming Christian.
Schneider, an activist campaigning "against the homosexual agenda," will deliver a speech next Tuesday entitled "The Power to Change."
However, much of Dartmouth's gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual community and their heterosexual allies are outraged at the decision of Voces Clamantium -- a campus group representing what their advisor referred to as a Judeo-Christian viewpoint.
Co-Chair of the Gay Straight Alliance Amanda Gilliam '02 said Schneider's visit is an "embarrassment to the College."
"The fact that students would consider bringing someone like her here is very upsetting and disappointing," she said.
Schneider, a political analyst and writer for the Family Research Council, will be sharing views concerning her personal experience "as a practicing lesbian and homosexual rights advocate for six years before becoming Christian and exiting the homosexual lifestyle," according to the FRC homepage.
The self-identified "former homosexual" currently "speaks out against the homosexual activist agenda and reaches out to those still trapped in that lifestyle" via speeches and discussions in a variety of venues.
"It's a complicated issue," Tara Wharton '02, treasurer of Voces Clamantium said. "Since Christ affirmed the validity of the Law of God, which includes the practice of homosexuality as sin, I would assert that any homosexual who asks Christ for the forgiveness of this sin would fit within the parameters of being Christian."
In a widely circulated BlitzMail message, the Dartmouth Rainbow Alliance, the Gay-Straight Alliance and the Coordinator for Lesbian, Gay, Transgender and Bisexual Advocacy and Programming called Schneider's organization "blatantly anti-gay and homophobic," and implored the entire campus to "join [them] in a protest against [this] anti-intellectual, anti-interrogative, antihomosexual, anti-Dartmouth discussion."
Yet current Voces member and former president Matt Megill '00 said that Schneider's speech will be "healthy for the campus" because it represents a minority viewpoint.
"We don't feel that Yvette's visit is hateful or homophobic or akin to the ideology of the Holocaust," he said, responding to the statement in the BlitzMail message that inviting Schneider was offensive in a way similar to inviting a speaker supporting the motivations of the Holocaust.
Voces' faculty advisor, professor of linguistics Lindsay Whaley, gave Schneider's appearance at the College a qualified endorsement, saying that he supported her coming "as long as it's not intended to be inflammatory."
One of the GSA's main problems with Schneider's ideology, according to Gilliam, is that it puts the issues of homosexuality and Christianity into two mutually exclusive categories, thereby denying the identity of certain members of the Dartmouth community.
"We have queer Christians in these organizations and we feel that this visit is preventing them from affirming those identities," Gilliam said.
"I think that this message is going to drive people into the closet and undermine a lot of the good work we've done," intern to the Office of LGBT Advocacy and Programming Peter Jacobsen '00 said. "And I think that even for people who have come out it's just scary to see hate here on campus."
GSA member Jonathan Hollander '03 had a more fundamental disagreement with Voces' decision.
"Really what it comes down to is we are bringing a speaker on campus whose entire message is that members of our community who share a certain identity are inferior, are morally corrupt ... I think it's hate, I think it's hate speech and defamation."
In formal response to the adverse campus reaction, Voces sent its own BlitzMail message.
"We realize that there are many different perspectives on these issues," it read. "But we believe that Mrs. Schneider represents one perspective that is held by many people at Dartmouth but almost never voiced in a public forum. Thus, we believe her story is worth hearing and will promote diversity of opinion on the Dartmouth campus." The debate is far from over, however.
DRA, which originally planned to hold a candlelight vigil in support of queer, questioning and closeted members of the Dartmouth community next Tuesday evening as a part of the Gay May festivities, has decided to extend the purpose of the event to a protest against Schneider's presence on campus. "I think it's only fitting that we redirect the vigil ... We will use Yvette's visit as an example of why people are closeted," Gilliam said. "I think something big is going to happen here on Tuesday."
