Club Refuses to Apologize For April Fools Day Poster

The president of the Harvard-Radcliffe Conservative Club (HRCC) in two separate letters issued to Archie C. Epps III, dean of students, and the Harvard Radcliffe Gay Students Association (GSA), refused to apologize for an April Fools Day poster distributed by the HRCC and called for a "reprimand or formal censure" of GSA members.

The GSA and other groups reacted angrily to the poster, which listed as its sponsors "U.G.L.Y. (United Gays and Lesbians for Yuks), the Harvard Football Team Lesbians, and the Society for the Riddance of Fat. Hideous, and Shrill-Voiced Feminists."

In the letter addressed to the GSA. Hilary A. Kinal, president of the HROC, called the GSA's reaction to the poster "over-sensitive, anti-social, and paranoid" and suggested that members "move to Communist Cuba, where homosexuals are put in jail, so that you could have a real enemy to fight.

"If you do not make amends for this gross insult I shall indeed participate in Gay and Lesbian Awareness Day (GLAD). --with a barrage of satire that will make your movement an even greater laughingstock than it is already," the letter continued.

But GSA members said yesterday that they "welcomed" Kinal's attendance at GLAD.

"I look forward to speaking to Kinal." Sarah E. Yedinski '83, president of GSA, said yesterday adding that Kinal "can only hurt his cuase if he acts inappropriately."

Michael G. Colantuono '83, secretary of GSA, called Kinal's letters "ridiculously absurd," adding that Kinal's remarks "are an example of those very acts of discrimination and hurled insults that gays at Harvard endure all the time."

"Harvard may not be Auschwitz but that does not mean that we have to be content with what we have." Colantuono said.

Commenting on letters sent to him by both Colantuono and Kinal. Epps said yesterday. "It is important that members of the College show respect for each other in what they say and what they do."