When Doug Bauder walked along the creaky wooden floor and into his office for the first time, only a touch-tone telephone and bare wooden desk awaited him. \nIt was around 8 a.m. Nov. 24, 1994.\nHe expected protesters with scowling expressions, carrying bullhorns and signs. To his surprise, none showed up.\nWhile the Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Student Support Services office hadn't even been open for 24 hours, it symbolized a victory after months of disillusionment for its advocates. For its opponents, it was open 24 hours too long. For Bauder, it was the beginning of an era and the start of something he knew would make a difference.\nBauder, 55, has coordinated IU's now-called GLBT Student Support Services (the T, which stands for transgender, was added in 1998) for a decade. Since its inception, more than 10,000 people -- gay, straight, bisexual and unsure -- have passed through the office's cramped yet cozy headquarters. The two-room office, housed in the back of an old brown-brick home at 705 E. Seventh St., was once a kitchen and dining room.\n"It's quite symbolic because it means 'welcome home' -- it always has," Bauder said. "Kitchens and dining rooms are places people hang out and chat, and that's what we want here."\nHours after the office opened, Bauder received flowers and numerous cards welcoming him as the coordinator.\n"When I thought I'd be a lightning rod for controversy when I got here, I had a sense of great support," he said. "There were people here ready to help me."
The Backlash\nSeveral large, colorful scrapbooks chronicle the office's first decade, but one is almost twice the size of the others. A sticker on the cover of this maroon album reads: "An army of lovers cannot fail." Inside the book, the controversy begins. \nDozens of newspaper clippings and letters capture what IU-Bloomington Interim Chancellor Ken Gros Louis called a controversy almost unparalleled to any event in IU's history. \nGros Louis, who was IU-Bloomington chancellor in 1994, compares the GLBTSSS uproar to Alfred Kinsey's work at IU in the 1940s and '50s. Much like legislators threatened to pull University funding for Kinsey's sex research, the GLBTSSS faced similar opposition.\n"I think the cause (for the outrage) was a misconception that the office would promote homosexuality rather than help students come to terms with their sexuality and not feel embarrassed or haunted," Gros Louis said in a recent interview. "The opposition was based on ignorance and fear."\nIn the spring of 1994, IU trustees proposed the idea for the office in response to several sexual orientation-related discrimination incidents on campus. \nCampus groups, such as the IU Republicans and Young Americans For Freedom, argued against IU creating such an office. Indiana State Rep. Woody Burton, R-Greenwood, was one of the most vocal opponents who spoke out against the office. Burton threatened to cut $500,000 from the University's budget if the office was funded publicly. \n"My views on that issue haven't changed," Burton said in a recent phone interview. "Funding still shouldn't come from public money because it's a lifestyle, just like other special interest groups."\nSoon after the proposal, the letters started piling on Gros Louis' desk. One in particular sticks with him as a sign of the back-and-forth backlash.\nSitting with arms folded on a spacious couch in his office, Gros Louis recites part of the letter from memory: "We can't avoid being Hispanic-American, African American or Jewish, but we can avoid being homosexuals," the letter read.\nGros Louis said the outcry from faculty, legislators, community members and students indicated the office was not only needed, but should have already existed.\n"My regret is that we aren't celebrating the office's 20th or 40th anniversary," Gros Louis said. "I think about students who were here before the office opened and the awful experiences they could have had here."\nAfter the possible budget cut, then-IU President Myles Brand announced the $50,000 needed to open the office would come from private donors only. No tax money or student fees would fund it.\nAn Indiana Daily Student staff editorial from October 1994 called the resolution a 'bittersweet compromise,' where the office would open its doors but only with private funding. \n"I knew people would be opposed to the idea of the office, but I hadn't anticipated someone like Burton would threaten to cut the University's appropriations," Gros Louis said. "Even legislators who thought it was a good idea and voted yes in a closed-door caucus were afraid Burton would tell everyone that they support gays, so it put them in an awkward position. They thought it would be political suicide."
Silver Linings\nOn Saturday afternoon, junior Owen Sutkowski sipped from an iced tea at the Starbucks on Indiana Avenue -- within feet from where protesters assembled last month. The protesters, from the Old Paths Baptist Church of Indiana, carried "AIDS cures fags" and anti-abortion signs in front of the IU School of Law. \nWhile the protest reminded the 21-year-old of the work still needed, he also felt a sense of victory.\n"If you think about why these protests happen, it's like the last-ditch effort of views that are failing," said Sutkowski, who is also chairman of the GLBT advisory board. "If all they can do is stand there and complain, then these protests are minute to all of the other strides we've taken."\nAfter the protest, Bauder sent an e-mail to the GLBTSSS list server and provided suggestions for those upset with the messages. At the end of his message, Bauder wrote, "Stay strong and resist the temptation to return hate for hate."\nThe protesters came a week after the election, where all 11 states that had it on the ballot approved a ban against same-sex marriage, most by a landslide. While Bauder said he is discouraged by the outcome, he focused on a ray of hope: Most who voted against the ban were under the age of 30.\n"Being a 'silver lining' kinda guy, I just believe that greater equality for GLBT individuals will, eventually, come," Bauder said. "It may not be in the form of same-sex marriage, but I'm certain we'll be moving toward recognized civil unions with benefits similar to married heterosexual couples." \nWhen Carol Fischer, the GLBT office's assistant, searched for fulfillment in the late 1960s and '70s, silver linings were out of sight.\nWhen the U.S. Marines discharged Fischer because of her sexuality, the rejections were far from finished. Bosses fired her from jobs, and she was kicked out of a Catholic nursing school. \n"The idea of someone straight accepting me as a person was completely foreign back then," she said.\nWhile she's been refused opportunities in the past, Fischer has gained it all back in her work at GLBTSSS.\n"I don't want these young people to have to live with the kind of fear I had to," she said. "I'm passionate about them."\nNow she can see her silver lining, visible through her partner of 12 years and the local GLBT community.\n"To see the (students and community members) live proudly with who they really are is amazing," Fischer said. "It's like watching a flower blossom."
Differing Views\nWhile Indiana State Rep. Burton said he doesn't object to the office helping those who need it, he said it has overstepped boundaries in some areas. At an IU women's basketball game last year, someone gave a testimony in front of the crowd that supported the definition of marriage between a man and a woman.\n"The GLBT office got really upset and demanded that it wouldn't happen again," Burton said. "No one stops them from saying what they want to say, and no one should, so they don't have the right to say what other people should do at a game like that." \nBurton, recently re-elected to the Indiana House of Representatives, is currently lobbying to amend the Indiana state constitution to define marriage as only between a man and woman.\n"The vote in all 11 states to ban (same-sex) marriage makes a strong statement about what most people think in the U.S.," Burton said. "I'm not on a witch hunt for people because of their sexual preference; I'm just not in favor of homosexuality."\nWhile Burton disagrees with homosexuality, he accepts the office as a place to provide counseling.\n"If people that have real needs or are confused about the way they feel get comfort from visiting the facility, all the power to them," Burton said. "I've got friends that are gay, and that's their business, but what if another special interest group wanted a sponsored facility, like overweight people? It's the same kind of thing."\nEric Rasmusen, an IU professor in the Kelley School of Business, also skipped the 10th anniversary celebration.\nIn September 2003, Rasmusen posted anti-gay comments on a Web log accessible to his students. On the site, he wrote: "A second reason not to hire homosexuals as teachers is that it puts the fox into the chicken coop. Male homosexuals, at least, like boys and are generally promiscuous. They should not be given the opportunity to satisfy their desires."\nRasmusen, a public policy and economics professor, doesn't see a need for supporting the office.\n"I would rather IU use its resources to support sexual abstinence, or at least to support teaching and scholarship, rather than to support the activities of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered," he said.
Small Successes\nAt a recent 10th anniversary reception, former students who were here for the office's first open house returned to reminisce with old friends. They flipped through the office's scrapbooks and chatted about life. They exchanged hugs, handshakes and happy expressions -- much like the beginnings of a large family reunion.\nIn his speech to a standing-room only audience, IU Dean of Students Richard McKaig said living in a college environment can cause people to think "real-world" problems can't encroach on campus. But the 1994 controversy proved otherwise. \n"There's all of the drama, politics and controversy, but when I think about the GLBT office, I think of the vignettes -- the individual people who have been helped," McKaig said. "It's always great to see glowing phrases about a place where people accept each other, but in reality that only occurs in day-to-day interactions."\nOne recent experience helped Sutkowski realize these vignettes can create defining moments.\nLast week he went on a date to a movie at the Indiana Memorial Union and when the two arrived at the auditorium, Sutkowski's date grasped his hand. The two held hands during the entire film.\n"It was then I realized I'm at a place where I feel safe, where we can walk out holding hands and no one singles us out," he said. "For once, I was just an average guy, and it felt amazing."\nFor Sutkowski, feeling average felt exceptional.\n"More and more, we're just living our lives as average folks, and that's what bothers the protesters most," he said. "They have to keep (the GLBT community) on the surface. They have to keep calling us out, and that's where we've really won."\nAs the office's coordinator, Bauder said he tries to focus on these small successes and defining moments.\n"I see positive change in the one-on-one conversations between people -- it's like the 'pebble in the pond' ripple effect," he said. "So many students have left IU and are making their mark in the world as proud, out people and that's what's important."\nAs Bauder thinks about the office's next decade, he thinks about its role in 2014.\n"Could I imagine gays and lesbians being such a part of the fabric of society that there wouldn't be a need for this office?" Bauder asked. "Maybe. If this office closed its doors, I'd be OK with that."\nFor right now, the 10th anniversary celebration is enough for him to smile about.\n"The work we do here is never-ending, but we plant seeds all the time," Bauder said. "I have to believe that good wins out eventually." \n-- Contact features editor Maura Halpern at mhalpern@indiana.edu.
