We don’t set out to cover the salacious but we’re on the education beat so what they do governs what we get to write about. Moreover, the prurient trend spills out into the popular culture.
Hoyas Gone Wild
Apparently, Georgetown University finds its Catholic in Name Only designation
too restrictive. Even before the Jesuits that run it accommodated a visiting head of state
by covering up a picture of Christ, the university observed Lent in a manner scarcely reminiscent of the original observance.
Perhaps the denizens of Georgetown need to spend 40 days and nights in an actual desert. “Actually, it is regrettable the IHS in Gaston Hall was not covered up in shame
the first week of Lent,” syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan observed. “For that week Georgetown’s feminist and homosexual clubs, such as GU Pride, put on a Gomorrah festival about alternative lifestyles called ‘Sex Positive Week.’”
“Monday, according to The Newman Club, featured a speaker for Black Rose, which ‘provides a forum for many different expressions of power in love and play. This can include dominance & submission, bondage and discipline, fetishism, cross-dressing, to name a few.’”
“Ash Wednesday’s talk was ‘Torn About Porn,’ advertised as a ‘discussion about
arguably alternative forms of pornography that are not supposed to be exploitative, but
rather radical and empowering.’”
“Saturday’s talk was by a pornographic film director and was titled ‘Relationship
Beyond Monogamy.’” Similar celebrations/observances occurred that week at other Catholic colleges and universities, Buchanan reports.
For example, Loyola of Chicago kicked off its Color of Queer Film Series. Similarly, Seattle University kick-started Transgender Awareness Week.
Heather Has Two Ratings
School boards, and even presidential candidates, can’t bring themselves to call the lesbian primer, Heather Has Two Mommies, pornographic but amazon.com effectively did by giving it the code word “adult.”
Diversifying Easter
Not to be outdone, the Obama Administration has “diversified” the traditional White House Easter egg roll to a degree even the freewheeling Clintons could not have envisioned. “In 2006 over 100 families with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) parents attended the White House Easter Egg Roll, organized by Family Equality Council (formerly Family Pride),” Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of the FEC stated. “At the time, it was unclear whether LGBT families were truly welcome at the White House, but our families enthusiastically participated and the country had an opportunity to see and hear from LGBT families in an unprecedented way.”
“This year, another 100 LGBT families or more will attend the Egg Roll, but this time the White House has specifically encouraged them to participate in this time-honored event.” Note that this trend started under President Bush: We are only learning, piece by piece, after the fact, just what he meant by that amorphous term, “compassionate conservatism.”
Gay Old Prom
By the way, Washington, D. C. has had a Capital Queer Prom for two years running. The “prom for all age groups” is the brainchild of a 2003 graduate of the University of Maryland named Eboné Bell. “Her first role was as E-Cleff, part of the celebrated DC Kings drag-king ensemble,” according to the Metro Weekly. “Although she’s no longer part of the group, E-Cleff has been known to resurface for special occasions.”
Google the phrase “gay proms in colleges and universities in the United States” and you get 3,820 entries. There are about 4,150 institutions of higher learning in the U. S.
Do a google search for “gay proms at U. S. high schools” and you get 114,000 results. There are 26,407 public high schools.
Democratic Party Farm Club
Another Clintonista travels the revolving door to academia, this time to George Washington University, which invariably slams shut on conservative Republicans. “New Vice President for External Relations Lorraine Voles has tapped a former colleague from Capitol Hill to oversee the University’s communications operations,” Emily Cahn reported in the GW Hatchet on April 20, 2009. “Sarah Baldassaro, former director of communications for then-Sen. Hillary Clinton, will join Voles, a former co-worker in Clinton’s office, as assistant vice president for communications.”
“She will oversee the communications end of the external relations office, which includes media relations and University publications.”
Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.
