At the beginning of the meeting, it is easy to see that vice-president Sara Brown is flustered, and for good reason. ALSO (Alternative Lifestyle Support Organization), the Gay/Straight Alliance of PSC, is planning a convention and a lecture with Judy Shepard, the mother of slain gay student Matthew Shepard. Registration needs to be done, food needs to be served, and the members need to perform several tasks. While the work and the arrangements may be taxing at times, all of it is done for a good cause: to raise awareness of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered issues around campus and in the community. At the end of the meeting, Brown and all the other officers, secretary Valerie Lamarre, treasurer Clifton French, public relations officer Renee Gammon, Member at Large Alayna Bell, Women’s Services and Gender Resources liaison Kami McClure, and President Fran Page gave a few minutes from their busy schedules to speak to The Clock.
“We inform and educate the community about homophobia and gay and lesbian issues,” Brown says. “Ultimately we hope to create acceptance and understanding of homosexuality and bisexuality on campus and in the surrounding community.”
“We’ve come a very, very long way I think of helping this campus build tolerance and I don’t think that even just a few years ago this would have flown,” says Page. “There was a vicious hate happening on this campus even just a few years ago and it’s good to see that now we can do this and build the community, because I think our whole goal is to make our community expand into the straight community even more to make everybody just live together and be able to coexist and have a fabulous time doing it.” This is ALSO’s twenty-fifth anniversary, but the club went for a period where it was inactive. “There’s always been an organization on campus,” Page says, “but as Roger Tinnell, the founder and originator of the group along with Mike Fischler, have told me that it had its ups and downs. There would be a few years stint of very active and doing a lot of things on campus, and then there would be a few years where the organization just fell apart because people just weren’t motivated. So when Sara and I came in, we just said ‘Alright, time to bring out the gay community and make it network for everybody.”
Brown agrees. “Fran and I undertook this back in our freshman year when things were not going well and we’ve turned it into 35 members and we’re having a conference and Judy Shepard this year. Our name over the past three years has really gotten around and we’re starting to become like a PACE kind of. I hear people talking about ALSO, and they’ll see our table in the HUB and they’re like, ‘Oh, I heard of them and they did this and they do that.’ Our name went from nobody having any clue to being like a lot of people know what’s going on.”
ALSO raises public attention about GLBT issues through their many events, including an annual spaghetti supper fundraiser, monthly tables in the HUB, a festival of gay and lesbian oriented films, a daylong conference in the HUB on Saturday, April 19 called “The Big Gay Event,” and a lecture by Judy Shepard in the Heritage Commons of Hall Hall on April 23. In 1998, University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard was beaten to death by two men because he was gay. Since then, his mother Judy Shepard has been giving lectures to educate people about homophobia. “She is coming out here to talk about his story and how it affected the United States and the aftermath of it all, and the explosion on the news and everything that happened,” Brown says. “It’s a huge thing. It’s the first time she’s ever been in New Hampshire and it’s really a huge, eye-opening experience for this campus.”
“What’s really amazing about Judy Shepard is that she gave up her life as a professional after Matt died and she decided to tour around the country telling his story to help shed a little light into people’s world,” Page says. “She’s been quoted as saying that if she does nothing more than open the door for somebody else or help change somebody else’s opinions or views of the gay community, then she’s done her job. She’s become a true humanitarian and has been pushing hate crime prevention laws all over the country. That’s where all of her lecture fees go to, towards the Matthew Shepard Foundation that she and her husband Dennis created. I’ve heard people say that she’s an amazing person to watch speak and we’re very excited.” Judy Shepard’s visit will be preceded by a production of The Laramie Project, a play based on interviews with Laramie residents after Matthew Shepard’s death, in the Heritage Commons performed by the PSC Players and members of the community.
The ultimate goal of ALSO is to spread tolerance and awareness around campus. While some of the officers have expressed feelings of that purpose being fulfilled, McClure says that PSC still has a long way to go. “For being such a progressive campus, it seems like they just forgot how progressive they are and just revert. Lots of faculty, lots of staff, lots of students, whether they’re gay, bi, transgendered, whatever, they’re supportive, but sometimes it’s an apathetic support. It’s just ‘Do whatever you want, we don’t care.'” Most of the officers agree there is one thing they would like to see happen. “One of my goals is to see the rainbow flag flown from the flag pole,” Gammon says, “and that would be great, but it’s going to take a while.”
ALSO meets on Tuesday nights at 8:00 PM in HUB 123. For more information, call 535-2796. The lecture with Judy Shepard will take place on April 23 in the Heritage Commons from 7:00-8:30 PM. The tickets must be reserved by calling the Silver Cultural Arts Center at 535-ARTS. The Laramie Project will also feature April 15th-17th, 8 PM in the Hertiage Room.