Questionable Tactics

BOTH the majority position and Defeat Homophobia's responses to the Mather dance incident of February 19 unwittingly damage the cause of greater understanding on campus.

Regrettably, both Defeat Homophobia and the majority opinion downplay the fact that the gay student may have indeed been "pushing too hard" in asking the other man to dance--by allegedly stroking his lower back and feeling his buttocks. The reaction to the gay student's advances, the claim is, was fueled primarily by the widespread homophobia that exists on campus.

This is not at all clear. Such a position irresponsibly overlooks the distinct possibility that the gay student may indeed be guilty of provoking the incident by sexually harassing the other man. To be sure, had the incident involved a man stroking a woman's behind after she had repeatedly told him to go away, there would have been few "progressively-minded" supporters for the man--even had the woman's friends pushed the man around, as happened at Mather.

True, we do not know for a fact whether the gay student did physically harass the other individual, but this is the point. How can one at this point attribute the reaction wholly or at least primarily to homophobia when it is distinctly possible that it was not?

SIMILARLY, the majority laments the reaction to the Mather kiss-in, noting that had heterosexuals staged a kiss-in the reaction would have been "different" A heterosexual kiss-in in the dining hall during meal hours surely would have offended many students as well. Simply put, this form of protest--whether used by gays or hetersexuals--stretches the limits of good taste and consequently suffers as an effective means of protest.

There were many other, more constructive means that Defeat Homophobia could have used in order to further the commendable cause of greater toleration on campus. As it turned out, it unfortunately and unwisely settled on a questionable one, the kiss-in, and then falsely attributed its non-success to "homophobia."

Homophobia exists on campus to be sure--as the scribbled message "Harvard faggots die" indicates. However, to use this to brand the Harvard/Radcliffe heterosexual community as overwhelmingly intolerant is making the tempting mistake of calling the whole bushel rotten because of a few rotten apples. The fact is that Harvard is overwhelmingly tolerant.

As for the Mather dance and kiss-in, to blame homophobia for the reaction to the questionable judgement of a gay student in making his sexual advances and to the questionable selection of a means of protest seems--if anything--to exacerbate tensions and paranoias on campus by trying to point to a monster when, at worst, only a shadow is visible here.