HARVARD'S REPUBLICAN PIT BULL

On a predominantly liberal campus like Harvard, an unabashed conservative like Sumner E. Anderson '92 can create a sensation.

And after a few months heading the Harvard Republican Club (HRC) two years ago, Anderson did just that. Setting an extreme right-wing agenda for the club, Anderson made moves that alienated many moderate campus Republicans and angered many gays and lesbians.

Despite the HRC's more moderate position these days, Anderson is still an active ideologue, concerned with the same controversial issues that made headlines less than two years ago.

THEN Anderson won the presidency of the Republican Club in an election that was nothing if not controversial.

Of the 20 to 25 voters present, Anderson had personally invited 15 of them.

Anderson denied wrongdoing, saying "If I hadn't brought those people in, there would not have been anyone there.

"I'm under the impression that in any election you should know even before you enter the room that you're going to win," he said at the time.

Raised in a devoutly religious family, he frames his beliefs in terms of absolute Christian morality.

One well-known example is Anderson's disgust for homosexuality, which he has called "deviant behavior" in several letters to The Crimson.

"It's repulsive," Anderson wrote once. "It's a disease...it's totally abnormal. It's not a natural activity."

Republicans who left the club soon after Anderson took office described his right-wing ideological stance as exclusionary and, in one case, "fascist."

"The [executive] board's tactics are reminiscent of the Stalinist purges of the 1930's," Jeremy Sevareid '92, then program director of the club, wrote to The Crimson in May, 1991. "Their actions have...splintered Republicans on campus."

But Anderson asserts that his conservatism reflected the National GOP platform and the American mainstream.

"During my time as head of HRC, conservatism on campus had a resurgence," he says, citing the publication of Peninsula and the formation of AALARM (the Association Against Learning in the Absence of Religion and Morality).

Campus Democrats, meanwhile said that a turn to the right for the HRC could only boost support for their party.

Anderson, meanwhile, responded with a devil-may-care attitude: "If the administration doesn't like us, if gay groups don't like us, tough luck."

NOW While Anderson's immediate plans these days are to finish his thesis on wealth and to equality in Jamaica and work towards a post-graduation career in the Navy, he has not abandoned his politics.

His position on homosexuality was clearer than ever after The Rev. Peter J. Gomes, who is minister of Memorial Church, identified himself as gay at a public event in November.

"I was utterly shocked," Anderson says. "He's a brilliant speaker and a personable man, but when it comes to central issues of faith, you can't ignore his blatant disregard for Christian teaching."

Anderson strongly condemns Gomes and has repeatedly urged that he resign as minister "unless he professes homosexuality to be a sin within the Christian religion."

"It's not the fact that he's a homosexual...it's that he won't admit that homosexuality is sinful," Anderson says.

Anderson says he attended Memorial Church for three years before discovering that Gomes was gay.

Anderson has not toned down his views in the last several years, although his current presidency of the campus Conservative Club places him in a lower profile position than he had two years ago.

"The Conservative Club is a much more intellectually-based group," Anderson says, adding that members spend a great deal of time discussing political doctrines.

If you don't understand the underpinnings of your arguments," he says, "you won't be able to espouse them as effectively."

This semester, the Conservative Club will send members to New Hampshire campaigning for Republican Presidential Candidate Pat Buchanan and President Bush.

In addition, Anderson says that a coalition of campus conservatives will launch full-scale campaign against Gomes.

Like the writers of Peninsula, Anderson continues to emphasize Harvard's origins as a Christian university.

"Harvard is a landmark for Christians in this country. When they hear the minister is gay, they're disillusioned."

And though he is criticized for his views, he maintains--as he always has--that he is in line with the bulk of American conservatives.

"All I've ever tried to do," he says, "is espouse mainstream, conservative values that I feel are essential for America's growth and prosperity."