Yesterday's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service evoked visions of multicultural tolerance and understanding in regard to sexual orientation as well as race.

Two of the day's programs focused on fostering awareness and understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered individuals within the Penn State community and beyond.

At 11 a.m., a Straight Talks session took place in HUB Alumni Hall. Four panelists shared stories and a question-and-answer session with an audience of more than 40 people.

Following the moderated discussion, many individuals approached the front of the room to have one-on-one conversations with the presenters, all of whom had previously participated in Straight Talks panels.

"Straight Talks is peer education on sexual orientation," said Tony Kariotis (senior-media studies), who was a panelist. "(It works) to put a face to the name LGBT."

Straight Talks panelists enroll in a class for one semester and participate in at least four discussions. Students usually give these presentations, which are scheduled through a request process, to audiences in residence halls or classrooms.

Straight Talks usually begin with a word association exercise where audience members say words that come to mind when they think of gays, said Kariotis. He said the words given are almost invariably sexual in nature. "It's like every part of our being is stripped away," said Kariotis about the tendency to identify LGBT individuals by only sex-related terms and not as complex, real people.

Heather Solimini, an alumna now employed by the university, also participated in the panel. She said there was a difference between the discussion in Alumni Hall and the ones in which she had previously participated.

"Today we were trying to integrate a lot more stuff," she said, specifically citing leadership and toleration.

In the afternoon, Allies, a group of supporters and members of the LGBT community, held an educational program entitled "Straight But Not Narrow" in the Pollock Commons Cultural Lounge. ALLIES held a similar activity during the fall semester.

The students giving the program used role-playing and interacted with the audience to show ways to be an ally to LGBT individuals.

They also read a letter from a lesbian whose lover was murdered in a hate crime. "(The murder) happened really close to here in Pennsylvania, in a community like this one," said Nick Marsilio (junior-crime law and justice), one of the presenters.

Marsilio explained that a main goal of the presentation was to instill the idea of tolerance. "A big point of the program is (that) you don't have to be accepting, just be honest," he said.