E-Mail This Article to a Friend OUT ON CAMPUS BC shuts down gay dance BY MIKE MILIARD

Boston College’s gay community thought things had changed. Last spring, the school’s GLBT Leadership Council (GLC) finally reached a compromise with the administration, getting the Jesuit institution’s nondiscrimination policy amended to include language pledging "a welcoming environment" for all students — but falling short of explicitly prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation (See "Out for Change," News and Features, April 22).

Now students have learned that a dance and AIDS fundraiser scheduled for this Friday, and planned for months by the GLC, will not be allowed on campus. Though officials made the decision in late November, the news hit the campus barely a week after Pope Benedict XVI issued a directive banning gays from the priesthood — another small reminder of the problems gay students face at one of the nation’s premier Catholic universities.

Christopher Young, ’07, the GLC’s chief of academic affairs, claims the dance had received initial approval in September, but that officials had qualms about its proposed name — "GLC Diversity Ball: A Night in Gay Paris (A Safe Zone Event)". So organizers changed the name to "AIDS Benefit Gala, A Celebration of Diversity". They were prepared to go further. "We were going to get co-sponsorship and separate our name from the dance, so it wasn’t really associated with us," Young says. "We had basically sponsored and put it on, but could only halfheartedly attribute it to ourselves."

That wasn’t good enough. Young says school administrators cited several reasons for disallowing the dance, proceeds of which would have benefited the Boston Living Center (a nonprofit community and resource center dedicated to serving all people infected with HIV/AIDS). Among them: a soon-to-be-launched capital campaign that will hit up older BC alumni, and the school’s forthcoming merger with the Weston School of Theology, which will require Vatican approval.

"They also brought up concerns of our safety at a ‘safe zone’ event, but they misinterpreted what we meant," Young says. "They took ‘safe zone’ to mean an exclusively gay dance, where anyone who’s in the closet could come and be able to be ‘out.’ That’s totally illogical. If someone’s in the closet, they’re not going to come to an event and dance with someone of the same sex."

So how should "safe zone" be defined?

"We define it as an area where people are respected, regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, etc.," says Young. "We wanted people to be respected. We didn’t want people to feel as if they were being judged if they were gay."

Ostensibly, of course, the entire campus is considered a safe zone. Boston College’s director of public affairs Jack Dunn says it is. "Gay students have always been welcomed and accepted at Boston College. And at our dances and other social events. Which is why we questioned the need for an exclusive, gay-themed dance."

Told that organizers planned the dance to be open to all students, Dunn demurs. "Honestly, I think that’s an eleventh-hour smoke screen. This was presented to the administration as a gay-themed dance by and for gay students. We said to have a dance for the entire university, gay and straight students. We would welcome it. They can give the money to an AIDS charity. But the dance would have to be open to all students. And it was not presented to the administration in that way."

It’s hard to imagine the GLC denying admission to straight people (and we’d be interested in seeing their gay-dar if that was their plan).

Dunn adds that the dance "was never canceled, because it was never approved. The students may have felt it was approved, but it wasn’t. There was no knee-jerk reaction to disapprove the event.

"We welcome these students; we are glad they’re here," he says. "But we have said to them that, as a Catholic university, we cannot sanction an event that is exclusive and that promotes a lifestyle that is in conflict with Church teaching."

In Young’s view, that’s the saddest part. Boston College officials have made it plain that the charitable aspect of the dance is less important to them than staying in lock step with Rome’s strictures on homosexuality. "I think it’s a sad day when a university founded on Jesuit ideals of social justice and equality would choose to side with bigoted viewpoints rather than helping people who are in need in this world."