Summer meetings collide

The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender support services is planning a conference at IU, the Sexual Minority Youth in the Heartland Conference, for July 19-21. It will educate teachers, counselors and principals on ways to handle sexual minority youths in their communities and schools.\nSix days later, the Boy Scouts of America will kick off its Order of the Arrow conference, an elite jamboree of camping and recreation. Nearly 8,000 are expected to attend, making it the largest gathering here this summer.\nA clash of the conferences has created a clamor on campus because of the Boy Scout's policy against admitting homosexuals. \nAlready, the announcement of the presence of the Boy Scouts this summer has some feeling uncomfortable. The anti-harassment team of the GLBT has received a number of complaints, asking IU to bar the Boy Scouts from campus. \nTo some, permitting the Order of the Arrow conference to take place here is a contradiction of IU's diversity messages. \n"The GLBT team did receive some reports from students who were upset and angered that IU was using their facilities for an organization like the Boy Scouts, whose bigotry with regard to sexual orientation issues seemed to be clear," GLBT advisor Bill Shipton said.\nUnder law, IU has no choice but to allow the Scouts to come, University counsel, Kip Drew, said. The First Amendment provides all groups with equal access to IU's campus. The University, however, does not support every group that comes here.\n"As a state entity, once we make our facilities available for use by outside groups, we can't engage in viewpoint discrimination," Drew said. "With regard to the Boy Scouts, it's certainly not consistent with diversity policy."\nIn the case of Boy Scouts of America v. Dale two years ago, the Supreme Court affirmed the Scout's right to exclude gays from its organization. \n"The University respects the concept of having groups from diverse backgrounds here at the campus," IU spokesman Kirk White said. "And just as the University hosts this group, it hosts others that have the opposing view."\nThe large presence of Boy Scouts in part influenced the GLBT decision to proceed with its own Sexual Youth Minority in the Heartland conference, which has been in the works for five years, GLBT coordinator Doug Bauder said. \nThe idea for the GLBT conference initially emerged as a result of hearing concerns from gay youths who reported feeling isolated in small communities such as Spencer, Bedford and Martinsville. The GLBT discovered that rarely do these small towns have adults who make themselves accessible to those struggling with their sexual orientation. \n"Those who turn to guidance counselors in small towns often get quoted Bible passages or get made fun of," he said. "They aren't helped at all."\nThe GLBT Youth Conference is an invitation to teachers, counselors and principals in the Heartland who want to support and help gay youth in their communities. Topics of discussion will include safe schools, the prevention of sexually transmitted disease, how to support GLBT youth and strategies of inclusion.\n"We want to encourage folks who have an interest in this issue to be open about the support they are willing to provide," Bauder said. "The hope is that more schools or communities will have at least one individual who would come forward and say 'This is a need we have to address, and I'm willing to help.'"\nThe conference is the first of its kind in the Midwest. Former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders is the keynote speaker. \n"It's something IU is uniquely positioned to provide," said Bauder, referring to IU's location in the center of the traditionally conservative southern Indiana. "We relate to a lot of students who begin to address these issues after growing up in a small town."\nDespite the complaints about the Order of the Arrow conference, White said IU's commitments to diversity remain intact. \n"Many groups target (the Scouts) as an old standard that needs to be changed," White said. "The University respects the concept of having groups from diverse backgrounds here at the campus"