Earlier in the year, hundreds of gay couples traveled to California to be recognized by the state in marriage. Election Day, California’s Proposition 8 overrode the state’s Supreme Court decision to recognize same-sex marriages. In the wake of President-elect Obama’s nomination, and the significance this election has had for racial diversity, tolerance and acceptance, some students feel the outcome of Proposition 8 is a step backward.
Proposition 8’s impact has been felt around the country, regardless of sexual orientation.
Kim Bell, a senior in anthropology, said she was really disappointed by Proposition 8’s passing, at first. But now, she said she feels “like it’s sort of a good thing in a way because more people have had to think about it. It’s a national issue now, when before it was just in California.”
Bell said the institution of marriage is important to her.
“To say that you’re married, I think, has a higher status in people’s minds right now, so I want that,” she said. “Also I am religious, and I would love for my religion to be incorporated through something like a marriage.”
Bell, who came out in the second semester of her freshman year, said she feels generally accepted by the overall campus community.
”Over the years, everything’s gotten better,” she said. “When I was a sophomore, people laughed at me a little bit, but none of that anymore. I also think I ignore that better than I used to.”
Bell mentioned the help and support of groups like AEGIS when she was coming out. The president of AEGIS, Matt Evans, describes the group as “a welcoming and affirming group for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and straight allies here on campus. We provide networking events as well as fun and informational programs for students.”
Evans said AEGIS allows a smaller setting for students within the LGBT community to come together.
AEGIS often collaborates with the LGBT Center, and the two groups have sponsored speaker panels, entertainment like Kinsey Sicks, Coming Out Week and free movies like Brokeback Mountain, Evans said. Bell has been a part of some of these speaker panels, which contain members of the student body and staff who have been asked to give a panel discussion on major issues like campus experiences, or tolerating and accepting the LGBT community, Bell said.
“We would love to have more panels,” she said. “I don’t think a lot of people know that they’re available.”
Evans said he is against Proposition 8, although he said he doesn’t think the LGBT community on campus is directly affected by it.
“I am personally opposed to it being passed. North Carolina is presently the only state in the Southeast part of the nation that does not have an anti-marriage law banning male-male and female-female marriages,” he said. “Prop 8 might galvanize some law makers that had put such issues on the back burner to bring them to the forefront of debate in the N.C. House and Senate.”
Both Bell and Evans said they think the LGBT community’s acceptance at N.C. State has come a long way in the past few years.
“At first, my first semester when I came out, I really wanted to transfer. Just because at that time the climate I felt was not friendly,” she said. “But as I stayed here, I’ve been able to enlighten people and be on these speaker panels, and so I think that was a really good chance to open peoples’ minds. I’m glad I stayed to do that.”
Evans echoed those sentiments.
“From talking with upper class students I find that in just the last few years N.C. State has improved drastically,” he said. “One student recounted her experience a few years ago when meetings were announced via phone chain to preserve the secrecy of the location because of the very negative atmosphere toward the LGBT community. Now, we can have meetings and LGBT focused events publicly advertised with very little fear of repercussion.”
Bell also mentioned her frustrations with the incident in the Free Expression Tunnel on Nov. 5.
Bell said she would paint the tunnel occasionally, and although some students would write offensive remarks, nothing could be done about it because the remarks were not threatening, Bell said.
“If it was Coming Out Week or Coming Out Day, we would paint the tunnel usually. And nothing really bad would be written… negative remarks like “all gays are in hell” or something like that, and none of that’s threatening,” she said. “So, it’s very particular about what can be done.”
Bell said thinks this has been an issue for a long time.
“When you start to have restrictions, its just going to get worse in some ways, because where do you draw the line?” she asked. “It’s such a gray area.”
Bell, who said she would like to do humanitarian aid work with her girlfriend after graduation, is glad that the LGBT community here is supportive.
“We’re just students like anyone else,” Bell, who doesn’t want to be defined by her orientation, said. “In class, I don’t bring attention to myself in that way. I don’t want people to judge me right away because of my orientation.”
