Today, Emerson freshman Adriana Guida serves as GLBT Commissioner in student government. The openly gay Writing, Literature, and Publishing major is proud to be going to what the Princeton Review calls the most gay-friendly school in the United States. She also enjoys the contrast between Emerson and her more conservative hometown of Tewksbury, MA.
“When I was growing up and when I was in high school,” said the member of EAGLE - Emerson's Alliance for Gays, Lesbians, and Everyone, “there wasn’t any sort of support for gay rights. Not that anyone was actively homophobic, but nobody was really part of the movement.”
That's can't be said of the active movement for gay rights on this campus.
Fellow freshman Maura Lyons has also been an outspoken gay rights advocate for the last few years, joining her school’s Gay Straight Alliance and taking part in the National Day of Silence for her last few years at Wakefield High School. When assigned a rhetorical analysis in a speech class last semester, she gave a speech praising the rhetoric of gay rights activist Urvashi Vaid. A native of Wakefield, MA, she also finds more tolerance for alternative lifestyles here at Emerson.
“There’s definitely more intolerance there than around here and that’s partly due to intolerance and stereotypes,” she said when contrasting Wakefield and Emerson.
The many gay rights supporters at this school have recently scored a few victories, one being the Student Government Association’s approval of a gender-neutral housing resolution.
“It’s not a matter of whether we want it or if we should have it,” Guida said.
“It’s really more a matter of how to organize it now, the logistics,” Guida said, “and hopefully we’ll see it by 2010, 2011.”
Guida also praised Sean Penn’s victory for his performance as California’s first openly gay elected official, Harvey Milk, at the Oscars on Sunday. Many observers and gay advocates interpreted the win as the Academy’s declaration of support for gay rights.
“It’s a validation,” Guida remarked.
Guida felt the Academy was saying, “Like, ‘okay, yes, this is a valid movie, you guys have a valid point, and this is a thing you can get recognized for just by its subject matter.’”
The victory of “Milk” is also a win for the opponents of Prop 8, which was passed 51-49 in November. The controversial law changed California's state constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman.
Prop 8’s opposition hopes to get the new law reversed, but as Guida said, “Now we have to work backwards because now it’s passed. We have to either get it un-passed or we have to prove that it’s an unconstitutional proposition, and that’s going to be a long court battle in itself.”
Local gay rights supporters are also speaking out off campus. They will be protesting an upcoming display of intolerance in the suburb of Reading. On March 13 Reading will stage “The Laramie Project”, a play based on Matthew Shepard, a gay man killed in a hate crime, and as they have with previous productions, the Westboro Baptist Church plans to travel to Reading and protest the production. Local students are planning a counter-protest against the church.
“You have the right to voice your opinion,” Lyons said of the controversial church. “We’re not telling you ‘you can’t’, but I feel like what they do is just stomping on people, and basically…it’s a group of people who just hate. Religion should be about loving your God, God loving you, and that’s how the relationship should go, at least that’s how I feel anyway, and if your God is telling you to hate people, why would you follow that?”
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