Currently I am a student enrolled at Iowa State University in Ames, IA. A few months ago there was a battle being raged, very quietly, amongst the LGBTSS and the christian groups on campus.
The christian groups were trying to make an ammendment to the schools documents saying that it is okay to discriminate against gays and other minorities and get money for it. These groups were trying to get funding from the school itself by becoming a part of the Student Government Board, however, if they did this they would have to allow anyone to join their group. Christians on campus here at ISU are not very gay friendly, nor are they too friendly towards females in positions of power or minorities. I was told that this has happened at other universities across the states and when it has been taken to court it has been ruled half and half; in some states the judges ruled in favor and in others the judge said no, they could not get funding from the school and be able to discriminate-most colleges are equal opportunity.
Myself, I am not a part of the LGBTSS, but I am in a fraternity, Delta Lambda Phi, the only fraternity that is geared towards men, irrespective of their sexual orientation, but mainly gay men. When this was brought to the fraternity it was a topic of heated discussion. Our faculty advisor, a very smart man with many different degrees and a strong advocate of gay rights, was very fired up, as was one of my pledge brother, who is a Matthew Shepard scholar. We were all told that this ammendment was lying on the desk of the ISU President. After hearing about this there were many options about what to do, but only one was the obvious choice: we would join the fight.
For a while we were silent; we still are. The fraternity is not about fighting wars, but we, like many other gays, wanted to be treated with equal rights. This means that we will not allow a bunch of narrow minded christians try to keep us down. A few weeks after initially hearing about the ammendment there was a protest right on the lawn of central campus. Our faculty advisor and LGBTSS liason were both there and both spoke. From what I was told there were quite a few protesters, all peaceful and wanting the same thing. They wanted this bill dismissed. It was not right.
As of today I do not know how things are going or went. I have not heard any recent comments about the bill, so I don’t know if it was given the shove and not voted on or if it is just being kept silent. If this is the case, then what will happen when it is talked about again? Will it get passed or is our President stronger than these biggot christians. I truly hope the outcome will be a good one for the gay community at ISU.

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