What STRAIGHT really needs to get: a real agenda

I'm disappointed that STRAIGHT didn't get approved as an official Penn State organization.

I had it all pictured: I'd slide discreetly into the back of the room and listen.

Darin Loccarini, baseball cap firmly backwards on his head, would stand up and say, "OK, guys, we need to set an agenda for the semester. What issues do we want to deal with?"

Silence. Blank looks from the other people.

"Well," he would suggest, "how about fighting for acceptance of our lifestyle?"

Someone would hesitantly raise a hand. "Um, Darin, don't we already have that?"

He'd try again: "OK, then how about fighting for our legal right to marry?"

"Sorry, Darin, we have that, too."

"What about fighting to deny gay people that right?"

An uncomfortable pause, and then, "I hate to tell you this, but they don't have it."

This would go on for maybe 20 minutes until everyone realized that the group was pointless. (Assuming they were reasonably astute people; in reality, it could have taken up to an hour.) Downcast, they would all go home and STRAIGHT would never be heard from again.

Now, however, my imagined scenario will never be realized. The Undergraduate Student Government has fed these people's paranoia and convinced them that they're persecuted.

The case has attracted state and national media attention. The American Civil Liberties Union is even getting into the act.

Loccarini told the Collegian that by making its decision, USG "poured a million gallons of gasoline on a small campfire, and it's out of control." (Just like his metaphor.)

Unfortunately, he's right. Now all the poor straight people with persecution complexes will have a Cause to rally around.

It's sad that small advances in lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender rights can make people this paranoid; people are attributing more power to the LGBT community than even the most optimistic LGBT person would claim they have.

In the book Backlash, psychiatrist Jean Baker Miller is quoted as saying, "Backlashes occur when advances have been small, before changes are sufficient to help many people. . . . It is almost as if the leaders of backlashes use the fear of change as a threat before major change has occurred."

When I first read one of the fliers that STRAIGHT passed out last semester, I dismissed the group as a bunch of people with a warped sense of humor and too much time on their hands.

While nothing has yet convinced me that these people's schedules are especially busy, I gradually realized that they weren't joking.

However, I can't help but see their acronym as a joke. I can just picture a group of people sitting around late one night, possibly drunk: "OK, what words can we make out of the letters in STRAIGHT? How about Student Transvestites -- no! -- how about Student Turbulence -- oh, forget it. Forget the T!"

I mean, has anyone told them that their acronym has too many letters? Students Reinforcing Adherence In General Heterosexual Tradition would actually spell SRAIGHT.

I know that no one can ever remember what it stands for anyway, but I want to know -- where did the other T come from?

In the end, UTSG -- oh, sorry, I mean USG -- had the same problem that I did with SRAIGHT: they have no agenda. According to Jit Chatterjee in the USG Supreme Court disposition, "The long term goals of the group were not clearly defined."

The disposition also said that "the Court feels that the impact of this organization and their actions would not have fostered a positive image for, or have been a benefit to the University community in any substantial way."

I couldn't agree more.

Right now, SRAIGHT does have one long-term goal: becoming a student organization. Once they achieve that goal and make a point, what will they do?

I hope their fight to become a legitimate student organization keeps them busy enough that they don't feel the painful lack of either a decent acronym or an agenda.