Acceptance, not just tolerance

Chancellor Silber: I once heard the Dean of Marsh Chapel, Hope Luckie, speak about her dislike of the word “tolerance.” She said to tolerate someone or something meant to put up with something that was distasteful. In her speech, she said that religious groups should not be tolerated, but accepted as valid in their own right. As a bisexual woman, I do not want to be tolerated, I want to be accepted, but you have to take firm steps in the last weeks to help those who would do neither.

I have known that I am bisexual since I was in the second grade, and I have yet to be “seduced to sex” by any woman, OR man. I was certainly not conditioned to a homosexual lifestyle; both my parents are practicing heterosexuals. I was definitely born gay, thought my early “heterosexual conditioning” perhaps made it hard for me to be open about my sexuality as a young woman.

I went to a high school with no Gay-Straight Alliance, and certainly suffered prejudices in the form of homophobic slurs and other forms of discrimination. Had there been a Gay-Straight Alliance, I might not have suffered this abuse or would have at least had a place to turn to for support and comfort. We talk about safe heterosexual sex and healthy heterosexual relationships in high school health classes; why should these aspects of homosexuality be excluded? If anything, this is more needed, because the subject is taboo, and many gay teens don’t get the information they need to live safe, healthy and happy lives.

The discrimination you suffered as a youth should make you more compassionate to the hurt that you are now causing to others. I am angry and ashamed that the founder of the University Professors program could have such an unforgiving and uneducated view of all of the members of this University community, young and old, gay and straight.