1. Dr. Bert Chapman writes nothing worth a darn; however, he doesn’t need to lose his gig at Purdue University.

2. I’ve taken the Human Rights Campaign to task many a time, but this morning a lift of the coffee cup for this website focusing on students at predominately black colleges and universities.

3. Need a good laugh? Or cry? Watch Donnie McClurkin expound on what it means to be gay.

4. Will marriage equality get a vote this week in New York? Wish I knew.

5.  Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong is starting to appear in bookstores.

6. Anyone reading Sarah Palin’s new book? And yes that is a serious question.

7. Anyone watch the Colts/Patriots game last night? Not a fan of the pig skin but that match had me shouting.

8. There is nothing better than someone going on an extended homophobic rant and then coming up with a lame apology.

9. Who doesn’t need Cassandra Wilson on a Monday morning?

10. Why am I always late for work?

“We want to do what’s right for faculty and staff here, but we want to do it in a manner that won’t be disruptive down the road,” University of Alabama President Robert Witt said, according to Tuscaloosa news.

Domestic partner benefits are already in place at sister schools University of Alabama at Birmingham and University of Alabama in Huntsville, where they are called “sponsored adult dependent benefits.” Administrators should know by the end of the year whether these benefits will be able to survive potential legal challenges.

Alabama started considering the benefits when the school realized that they were losing employees to other big research medical schools, such as Duke and Johns Hopkins.

Gay marriage is not legal in Alabama.

Vice president of student affairs Mark Hine said in an e-mail to club President Brian Diaz that the national Democratic party violates the school’s principles by supporting LGBT rights and abortion and is pro socialist.

Chancellor Jerry Falwell Jr. told the Associated Press that the club’s recognition by the school was “an oversight by an administrator” who didn’t thoroughly consult school policy.

Liberty University has a longstanding anti-gay policy. Openly gay students are denied admission, and students who are found to be gay are expelled.

In 2006, 20 members of the Soulforce Equality Ride were arrested when they entered the campus to discuss LGBT civil rights with students.

Following the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington in 2001, Falwell declared that gays and pro-choice advocates were to blame.

Speaking on the 700 Club religious program, Falwell said, “The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’”

He later apologized.

In 2003, Falwell announced that he was putting aside everything to devote his time to passage of a federal constitutional ban on gay marriage.

“I am dedicating my talents, time and energies over the next few years to the passage of an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which will protect the traditional family from its enemies who wish to legalize same-sex marriage and other diverse “family” forms,” Falwell said.

In the 2004 election campaign, he worked with Republicans to use same-sex marriage as a wedge issue.  A week after the election he announced he was organizing battle plans for what he called an “evangelical revolution.” Falwell said that the election showed that Americans want to return to “traditional values.”

He promised to roll back gay rights laws in communities across the country.

The university is associated with the conservative Liberty Counsel founded by Mathew D. Staver, Dean of Liberty University School of Law.

Liberty Counsel fights LGBT initiates in courts across the country.

I was a sophomore at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. The first fraternity, Phi Beta Kappa, was founded at the College in 1776, making William and Mary the birthplace of the Greek system in America. But I wasn’t thinking about that as I slunk in late to formal meeting. I was just trying not to get caught.

Jenny Hagel

I rushed in dressed up, wearing my Kappa Delta pin. I took a seat in the back row and crossed my legs at the ankles, per formal meeting rules. As I did, I looked to my right and noticed two fellow sophomores, Mary and April, giggling to each other.

“What are you two laughing about?” I whispered, eager to be in on the joke. They looked at each other, turned to me and smiled that smile of people about to let you in on something really good.

“You know how they say that ten percent of people are gay?” Mary asked.  “Sure,” I shrugged. I thought I’d heard that vaguely somewhere.

“There are a hundred people in this room,” April pointed out. “So. Who do you think it is?” The three of us craned our necks and looked around the room at our sisters. At the rows of girls, dressed up, wearing sorority pins, legs crossed at the ankles.

“No way,” I thought. “There is no way anyone in this room is gay.” Twelve years later, it turns out that four of the women in that room were gay.

Turns out one of them was me.

If you had asked me in 1996 if there was anything wrong with being gay, I would have emphatically replied “no.” I knew, intellectually, that there was nothing wrong with being gay. Still, it was something that people didn’t really talk about.

The late ‘90s were a unique moment in time, just after it was no longer considered okay in most circles to be openly homophobic but just before being gay started to be met with acceptance. In 1987, Eddie Murphy’s box office smash Raw opened with Murphy declaring proudly, “I hate faggots.” In 1998, Will & Grace premiered as the first network television show to include gay characters in its premise. But in that space in between there was a certain silence around gayness.

I wasn’t self aware enough as a college sophomore to understand that I might be gay. And so I felt then about gay people the way I sometimes feel now about victims of a natural disaster in a far away country. I understood in an intellectual way that they were in a difficult, complex situation, but I didn’t understand how that connected to my life.

And because gay people seemed so distant and far away, it never occurred to me that one might be in my sorority.

Twelve years later, a lot has changed for gay people in America. While, clearly, there is a long way to go toward achieving full social acceptance and civil rights, huge advancements have been made towards equality in the last decade. At a time when Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the right to marry, and protection from workplace discrimination still hang in the balance for so many gay Americans, though, why should anyone care about gays and lesbians in fraternities and sororities? Why does it matter if a gay undergraduate man is allowed to attend a toga party? Or if a young lesbian has access to all-night puffy-painting sessions?

According to the North-American Interfraternity Council, 9 million people in the U.S. and Canada are current or alumni/ae members of the Greek system. Over the course of American history, 48 percent of U.S. presidents, 42 percent of U.S. senators, 30 percent of congressional representatives and 40 percent of U.S. Supreme Court justices have been Greek. Thirty percent of Fortune 500 executives are Greek. So, even if the worst stereotypes of Greek life are to be believed, it seems that the beer bong enthusiasts of today are the decision-makers of tomorrow.

Several greek organizations created specifically for LGBT (and LGBT-friendly) members exist throughout the U.S. The largest LGBT greek organizations include Delta Lambda Phi National Fraternity, founded in 1986, and Gamma Rho Lambda National Sorority, founded in 2003.

The exact number of such organizations is difficult to determine, however, because many gay fraternities and sororities consist of only one local chapter.

In any case, whether or not gay and lesbian students feel welcomed into mainstream fraternities and sororities by today’s young people can tell us a lot about how gays and lesbians will be treated by tomorrow’s adults. And, more importantly, how they  – and their rights – will be treated by our nation’s future leaders.

NEXT PAGE: “You didn’t want anyone in your sorority to be gay.”

The Fort Worth school is the largest of 17 colleges and universities associated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). More than 59 religious groups are represented in the student body and has 20 recognized student religious organizations, according to the university Web site. The denominations with the largest representation are Roman Catholic, United Methodist and Baptist.

This spring, TCU announced it would create new themed housing programs, including for LGBT students, beginning in fall 2009.

In a statement only a week ago, the university said that LGBT housing “was recommended by students because many of our current students see sexual orientation and gender identity as part of the natural conversation on the campus.”

But this week, TCU Chancellor Victor J. Boschini, Jr. issued a terse statement putting the housing on hold.

“TCU will not launch any new living learning communities at this time. Instead we will assess whether the concept of housing residential students based on themes supports the academic mission of the institution, as well as our objective to provide a total university experience,” the statement said.

In addition to canceling the fall launch of LGBT housing, the decision also cancels special housing for students based on patriotism, Christianity and marine life.

Boschini said in his statement that a committee of faculty, staff and students will review the concept of specialized housing and make recommendations for living learning program guidelines.

Once the committee has made its report, the recommendations will be forwarded to the executive committee of the Board of Trustees, who will forward them to the full Board.

Boschini’s statement gave no reason for the decision, but a number of students familiar with the situation said that after TCU announced the LGBT housing, a large number of evangelical Christian financial contributors threatened to pull their funding from the school if the gay housing program went forward.

Her book, published the year I entered college, transformed my idea of gay identity – and taught me that homosexuality and its social construction were a serious intellectual subject.

We here at 365gay mourn her passing.