Last Wednesday, students at conservative Christian Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas published a ‘zine about the experiences of LGBT students on campus, past and present. The State of the Gay at Harding University, published by the HU Queer Press, was released in online and hardcopy forms on Wednesday evening. Access to the website was immediately blocked on campus and administrators censured the publishers of the ‘zine in the media and in chapel. The story went viral on queer and feminist blogs almost immediately, and support for the students responsible for the ‘zine began pouring in from all over the country.
There are several reasons this ‘zine and the surrounding hullabaloo is noteworthy. There’s the obvious relevancy of the context—for one, puritanical sexual morality is a touchstone of conservative Christianity and 2011 continues to be one of the main roots of heterosexism, as attested to by both activists and academics. Another reason this story is important is that it is an example of how the online response to a community-centered issue can have broad-reaching implications on future organizing efforts. Finally, this story displays the distinctive bravery and public grace of the publishers of the ‘zine, both in its content and in their efforts surrounding its release and suppression.
The Gay and The Church
The great boogey-man (gendered language intentional) of many LGBT activists is “The Church.” Despite the evident diversity of Christianity, most of the major anti-LGBT efforts around the world, from the fight to block same-sex marriage to “reparative therapy” and the events in Uganda, are sourced in Christian traditions and thought. It’s hard to get around this sort of ubiquity, and many LGBT activists have an understandable suspicion of and bias against Christianity. Many of us implicitly believe Christianity is incompatible with LGBT justice (despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, from the MCC to Gene Robinson, to UUA’s Standing on the Side of Love and the Presbyterian More Light efforts, and on and on).
Two parts of this implicit belief are that LGBT folks born into Christian communities must leave the church to find their humanity and that Christian communities are not and never will be accepting of LGBT people. HU Queer Press is a powerful challenge to an oppressive strand of Christianity and to the implicit beliefs about Christianity discussed above. These are young people whose faith is powerful, whose spiritual well-being is rooted in Christian tradition, and who have risen above dogma to affirm both their sexual being and their spiritual selves. This is no mean feat and deserves to be applauded far and wide. It is part of a struggle to change both LGBT justice work and conservative Christianity for the better; to do both, rather than be forced to choose one over the other.
The Gay and The ‘Net
The reactions the students responsible for the ‘zine received has been overwhelmingly positive. According to one of the editors, they’ve gotten hundreds and hundreds of responses from Harding students, alumni, faculty and staff, students and staff of sister schools like Pepperdine in California, and people of all ages, sexualities and religions from all over the country. Out of the hundreds of emails, only 3 have been negative. Beyond email responses, the ‘zine has received several dozen write-ups on blogs and news sites and a petition on change.org with over 650 signatures telling Harding Administrators not to silence the students.
One significant aspect of the broader response to HU Queer Press is that it’s representative of a broader shift in online activism over the past year or so. Online activism is new—though the Zapatista’s use of the web starting on January 1st, 1994 signaled its birth, and the WTO protests in Seattle marked its proliferation, it didn’t become a mainstream phenomenon in the U.S. until moveon.org and the Howard Dean Campaign in the early 2000s. Most online activism to this point has been ineffectual and largely symbolic, and most organizers—this one included—have spent most of the past few years scoffing at it with no shortage of examples to buttress our skepticism.
But recently, online activism has shifted in several significant ways which are reflected by the uproar around HU Queer Press. They’ve become more community centered, tackling specific problems in particular locations with discrete solutions. In this instance, a local organization is the focus of broader support and is able to work in a way that is rooted in the community, rather than online or with a national organization in that they can respond to things immediately on the ground. This shift towards specificity of location and solution has been the hallmark of organizations like Color of Change and the new revamp of change.org and has begun to yield real results quickly. It’s too early to predict the outcome of events at Harding, but recent trends hint at a positive outcome.
The Gay and Grace
But being at the heart of a broader cultural struggle or the beneficiaries of recent strategic developments in online organizing aren’t the only things that make HU Queer Press story noteworthy. The thing that makes it truly remarkable is the grace of the students responsible. Grace is kind of a sticky word, laden with religious baggage and amorphous definition, but I’ll do my best to support my claim here.
The content of the ‘zine is extremely personal, self-aware, and poignant. The internal struggles of these students are laid bare in the starkest terms, leaving little doubt as to whether or not their queerness is “real” and showing their strong commitment to their faith. The students are steadfast, yet also kind and imploring—they don’t demonize their persecutors, but they also don’t let them off the hook. They present in the clearest terms possible the predicament of their persecution and ask with urgency that the reader work to change the situation at hand. The ‘zine is personal in content, but targets the causes of personal plight precisely, whether they are individual, cultural or institutional. In a situation where queer students have every right to be outraged, they channel their anger and pain into personal resolve. Even in their responses to being censored, they’ve been level-headed and fair. They leave no doubt in one’s mind that change is possible and that being Christian and being LGBT do not have to be contradictory. If there has been a stronger example of “turning the other cheek” in recent political struggle, I can’t think of one. So, when I say the students of HU Queer Press possess grace, I mean that they are empathetic of their oppressors without yielding to their oppression. What a powerful thing.
Here at Campus Progress, we’ll be following the events at Harding as they unfold, providing support where we can and shining light on the whole process for the world to see. We’re helping the students to demand that the administration:
- Unblock the site on campus;
- publicly guarantee they won’t take disciplinary action against those involved in producing and distributing the ‘zine; and
- publicly guarantee they will allow open and unencumbered discussion of sexuality and gender identity on campus.
Congratulations to the students on successful first steps. I look forward to the next ones.
Sam Menefee-Libey is the LGBTQ Advocate with Campus Progress.
