Reps of 3 major parties give views on GLBT rights

Before the presidential debate began Thursday night, students piled into Woodburn Hall for a forum sponsored by OUT, a group supported by Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Support Services, to hear representatives of the College Republicans, College Democrats and College Libertarians present their presidential candidate's perspectives on GLBT issues.\n"Our main goal was to provide access to GLBT students," said OUT vice president Kim Ruggles, "I think a lot of students were confused where the candidates, especially John Kerry, stand on gay issues."\nCollege Democrats Vice President junior Matt Brunner spoke on behalf of Kerry.\n"John Kerry and John Edwards support gay rights," Brunner said, listing a variety of bills Kerry has supported on behalf of the gay community. "However, they don't support the language 'gay marriage.'"\nSenior Angel Rivera, chairman of the College Republicans, told the assembled group he would tell them nothing they hadn't heard before.\n"The Republican Party supports a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage," he said. "They support the idea of the traditional family."\nSenior Nicholas Blesch, president of the College Libertarians, said his candidate, Michael Badnarik, presented a hands-off approach to many of the topics discussed at the forum, including gay marriage and hate crime legislation. He said if the government had to create laws to govern marriage and hate crimes, then they should be as inclusive as possible.\n"Otherwise you get into arbitrary line-drawing," he said. \nGay marriage was such a contentious issue for the crowd that OUT President and senior Michaela Martin-Almy had to cut off questions about it to provide time for other topics, including hate crime legislation.\nBoth Blesch and Rivera said their candidates weren't in favor of hate crime legislation because there are already laws in place that punish the actions of those who commit the crimes, and that their candidates were opposed to telling people what they can and can't think.\n"You are free to think what you want," Blesch said. "Matthew Shepard was murdered. It doesn't matter why. To make it a crime to hate someone is a step in the wrong direction."\nShepard was a Wyoming college student who was beaten to death in October 1998 because he was gay.\nBrunner presented a different view on hate legislation. He said hate crimes aren't always violent deaths and sometimes a gay person may be punched because he is gay but some state and county laws don't persecute the attacker.\n"The laws are not preventing hate, they are preventing acts of hate," he said.\nTension hung in the air throughout the hour-long forum, but all representatives and audience members remained calm, even though they were discussing very personal and sensitive subjects.\nJunior Chase Downham, political director of the College Republicans, said he has participated in similar forums and was impressed with Rivera's composure.\n"I think he did very well," Downham said. "These are touchy issues that people take personally. He was courteous to everyone, and they were to him."\nFreshman Jen Foster said Ruggles' goal of using the forum as a medium of education for students was achieved.\n"I knew this forum would be more open about the issues than anywhere else might be," Foster said. "Yes, I learned a lot."\n-- Contact senior writer Kathleen Quilligan at kquillig@indiana.edu.