Harvard and Gays

I was depressed to learn of the defeat of the gay job-rights bill in the Massachusetts Legislature last Tuesday. On Wednesday State Rep. Elaine Noble sponsored a watered-down version of the bill that excepted such groups as policemen and corrections officers as well as the public school teachers already excluded. While seemingly apologizing for her cause by her willingness to exclude the more controversial groups of gay workers, Ms. Noble was actually trying valiantly to get at least a foothold for job-rights legislation, and eventually gay rights. Thursday brought defeat again.

If any bill with pro-gay orientation could get through the House, it was this one. State Rep. Barney Frank minimized the moral issue of homosexuality by cautioning the House that the bill was not a statement of support for gay rights but rather, as he says, "a request from one group of citizens that they want to work on the same terms as everyone else." Work, mind you, not love. That will have to come even later. And the bill failed. Why? Will it pass in 1979? 1989? Why do they force us to wait?

Regarding this bill, the stupidity of the majority of the members of the Legislature is disturbing but not surprising. I have learned that decision makers, like our group of legislators, evade thinking for themselves by relying on precedents and old residual public feeling. I have learned not to expect well-considered, sensible and humanitarian reasoning from intelligent people. I have learned this lesson best at Harvard. From personal experience (and from the employment of those special "antennae" that Ann Landers insists all we homosexuals have) I make an honest estimate that the number of gay men undergraduates at Harvard is between 20 and 25 percent. I sense that the percentage of women is lower, but cannot vouch for this in any convincing way. A guess based on my experience here puts the number of gay people who are "out" at about one-third. I feel certain that the percentage of gay students still in the closet at Harvard is particularly high. I attended a public university in Ontario for one year and many more of the gay people were out there. This may not be evidence to permit to draw any conclusions about Harvard, but I don't pretend to be scientific; I am being subjective. In any case, the number of students here who will stifle expression of their emotions and sexuality for a few years, or even a lifetime, is a cause for sadness and questioning. We must question in the hope of eventually making this world more accomodating for the homosexual who wishes to be homosexual in it. I came to Harvard expecting such an accomodating environment; in fact, that was a criterion for coming here. I expected such an environment because I had assumed that intelligent people, which I have subsequently found Harvard students to be, would be liberal and enlightened in their moral and political attitudes. Not so. They are bound by precedent and existing sentiment; they do not necessarily make decisions that arise from thought and responsible evaluation.

I was distressed to find Harvard no more supportive for a homosexual than my home town in Ontario. I have encountered too much anti-gay feeling here, heard too many bad jokes, seen too much mimicry, both innocent and cruel. Perhaps I am not being fair, for I consider any prejudice to be too much in an environment boasting intelligence. The right for someone to love who they choose and to fuck who they are attracted to seems utterly obvious to me. My right to share same-sex love is as obvious as my parents' right to express their heterosexuality. Most of the homosexuals here sense the obviousness of that right. There are only a few fools. It is the heterosexuals, who have nothing at stake, that fail to give evaluation of the right much thought; they offer prejudice instead, or, nearly as unfortunate, indifference.

So the question is raised, if the homosexuals here respect themselves and recognize their fundamental right to be homosexual, then why are there so many in the closet? The answers to this would probably equal the number responding. One would fear the reaction from our conservative traditional colony here. Another is merely too shy. But I feel that a problem inherent to Harvard would frequently occur as a reason: students at this school seem to mark off success and worthiness by distinctiveness of professional degree, and, even more importantly, by size of annual income. In this environment of good business thinkers, where ideologies are modified by practical considerations, homosexuality is viewed by homosexuals as a financial liability. A student openly and actively gay is going to have a harder time getting into law school or Citicorp or city government. Or so they think. They must try first. Others, openly gay, have achieved their goals. If people make decisions based on precedent, then we homosexuals must produce precedents. Gay rights and the attitudes of the public toward homosexuality will not be improved by the homosexual who feigns heterosexuality for his job, or for that other great legitimizer, marriage. I do not say that homosexuals have a duty to be homosexual; they have a duty to make their choices responsibly, without fear.

I write this letter to beg students here to consider the rights of the homosexual and make personal decisions concerning those rights. I write in the hope that the future legislators in this school will vote for job rights-gay rights-human rights. I write to encourage those shy or fearful or intimidated gay students here to be homosexual. You can only gain respect. Bryan J. O'Rouke '78