By JOHN CONNORS
Staff Writer
 

As any movement does, we have chosen certain avenues and arguments in order to reach our goals. I believe in the primary ethics behind the movement, that hate and oppression are berating, injuring, and silencing our friends and members of the community right now. Nevertheless, reservations exist in my mind about certain avenues and arguments we've used in this fight. First, was the way in which the coalition confronted the Dean of Students the right one? Were we justified in primarily confronting that office with our claims of hurt? Is it truly the representative of an unresponsive administration, campus, and faculty? My first reaction is yes, the Dean of Students had, in my mind, not satisfactorily answered the call for public address of homophobia at Bates. Whereas the office should have been defending the interests of students very publicly and long before this year, it had remained soft spoken and slow to act beyond the `rhetoric' of vague, promised change.

Yet how can we condemn an office headed by a woman (Celeste Branham) of irrefutable renown in the fight against homophobia in Maine? It seems unnecessary to preach to the converted if we believe the administration when they say they believe in the fundamental equality of our homosexual students. Are we aiming the cannons of change at the wrong targets? Or has this issue gone on unaddressed for too long already?

Another question I have is: Why is it that the committee chosen to amend and advise the contract signed by the Dean of Students office, and (hopefully) to be forwarded to other bodies such as the faculty, is composed entirely of students from within the coalition? The demands within the contract are intimate to the entire college. It is true that these students are competent, active, and knowledgeable about the issues. Nevertheless, is it unfair that they all come from within the same group? Can they accurately embody issues from outside the coalition?

The last question I have is perhaps the most important one. Can voices that want to criticize the coalition, its goals, and its methods speak out without unfair labelling of `homophobia?' It seems that recently people with criticisms of this movement have, often in a subtle fashion, been unfairly invalidated and shouted down as homophobic. It doesn't appear entirely safe to criticize this coalition, and as a result people are not challenging it. Already we are dealing with issues that require people to be very brave in order to be a part of the discussion. If the fear of being called a homophobe also stifles voices, who will be left who is brave enough to speak out?

The confusing part of all of this is the contradictions. First the Dean of Students, Celeste Branham, has unquestionably been an advocate for just treatment of homosexuals, yet nevertheless she shares a primary responsibility for the unfair removal of the Coming Out Day displays. Second, the ideal behind challenging oppression and heterosexist norms speaks of the inclusion of all voices and opinions, especially the `outsiders.' Yet dissenting or critical voices are often afraid to speak up against this coalition. Lastly, we are living in perhaps one of the most understanding and inclusive of all institutions- a liberal arts institution of higher education in the United States of America- and yet the issues of one of the most oppressed, misunderstood, and abused groups of our people are only now coming to a head.

Was the sit-in at Lane Hall, a public overkill of an action that could have been accomplished through other methods? Is it necessary to be this extreme when dealing with an issue like this? It may be. After all, there are members of our community that are being beaten up, verbally abused, and subjected to humiliation and silence right now. Bates, the same college that supposedly broke the barriers of race and gender so long ago, has had years to formulate support and curriculum that address queer studies. This is no new issue to academia, Bates, or the world. Yet it would seem that it is, in that many of us are ignorant of the issues and in how slow we are in coming to the discussion publicly.