BGLTSA Did Not Quelch Views of Others

To the editors:

A recent op-ed by Crimson editor Luke Smith ’04 (Op-ed, “Hunting for Hate Speech”, Jan. 15) mischaracterizes the views and recent initiatives of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender, and Supporters’ Alliance (BGLTSA). Smith lambastes “opponents” of Gladden J. Pappin ’04 for trying to censor Pappin, but then plays fast and loose with the exact identity of these opponents, potentially leading the reader to believe that the BGLTSA may advocate such censorship. This implication is simply false. The BGLTSA has not gone on record to ask that Pappin retract his statements, nor have we criticized The Crimson for printing Pappin’s letter (Op-ed, “Secret Court Rightly Punished Immorality”, Dec. 9). It is irresponsible for Smith to make this position anything other than crystal-clear.

Smith explicitly criticizes the BGLTSA’s “refusal to engage the substance of Pappin’s argument” and implies that the BGLTSA is either insufficiently industrious or insufficiently clever to marshal a counterattack. While we are touched by Smith’s alacrity to debunk Pappin himself, our “refusal to engage the substance of Pappin’s argument” reflects the fact that Pappin’s homophobia is not an argument, it is an article of faith. For the BGLTSA to list our top ten reasons why queer students are neither “immoral” nor “perverted” nor “unnatural” would be unproductive and absurd. It would legitimize Pappin’s extremism by conceding that moral questions about homosexuality are in any way valid, or subject to rational debate. Frankly, we have better things to do.

Smith also misunderstands the purpose behind the BGLTSA’s distribution of “BGLTQ safe space” door signs. The signs were not a means of sidestepping Pappin’s argument, they were a means of turning extremist doctrine into a teachable moment. The signs did not silence Pappin or anyone else—rather, they gave students a way to publicly disagree with Pappin and to affirm their conviction that BGLTQ students are valuable members of the College community. The signs remind us that while Harvard is a fairly welcoming place for BGLTQ students, we still attend a university that excludes gender identity and expression from its nondiscrimination policy. We still live in a society that allows Donald Rumsfeld and friends to blackmail the Law School into allowing Judge Advocate General recruiters on campus. Perhaps the “safe space” signs are not quite as trivial as Smith would have us believe.

Refusing to engage Gladden Pappin’s so-called argument about our own immorality was a political, measured decision on the part of the BGLTSA. We neither wish to censor Pappin nor to indulge him with a rebuttal that would be both fruitless and demeaning. We’d much rather conserve our energy for an evolving agenda of visibility and advocacy in the new semester and beyond.

Marcel A.Q. LaFlamme ’04

Jan. 21, 2003

The writer is public relations chair for the BGLTSA.