Frustrated with the University’s refusal to fund a resource center for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered students, the supporters of the center protested at a Mass Sunday presided over by the D.C. archbishop, Theodore Cardinal McCarrick. The supporters’ decision to stand throughout the hour-long Mass in Copley Hall marks the beginning of a new phase in their campaign?a phase that, supporters said, will more visibly draw attention to their cause.
“The Catholic Church’s oppression of many groups from GLBT people to women depends on those groups willingly remaining silent,” the center’s supporters said in a statement released Tuesday. “Our action is an indication that we feel [discussions about the center were] moving too slowly and too quietly,” the statement said.
Vice President for Student Affairs Juan Gonzalez said in December that it was unlikely the University could support the center. He cited potential conflict between the center and the University’s Catholic identity.
On Sunday, Gonzalez said that the University is not denying GLBT students important resources by not funding a center. The Voice could not reach Gonzalez by press time for further comment.
The resource center would, among other things, offer mental health referrals to GLBT students, provide counseling about coming out and roommate conflict, and gather statistics relating to GLBT issues, including complaints of harassment.
McCarrick said at the end of Mass that the protesters, who continued to stand as everyone else sat down, had been respectful. He said he welcomed their presence at the Mass and that the Church encourages their participation.
Others at the Mass felt the protesters interfered with the service.
“Truth be told, I would prefer a chapel full of people who respectfully disagree with … the Catholic Church,” but the protesters disrupted the Mass, Steve Feiler (CAS ‘02), an organizer of the Mass, said. “[They] prevented the clear view of the faithful, who came to worship on Sunday morning, not to become unwilling spectators of a protest,” he said. The students who stood also made it difficult to for the pianist to communicate with the cantor, who leads the singing throughout Mass, Feiler said.
“[The protest] interfered unnecessarily with the people’s ability to worship,” GU Right to Life President Elizabeth Brown (CAS ‘02) said. Brown said the protesters were more respectful and less disruptive than some had expected.
“Blocking the view of a person and disrupting a service are two different things,” the center’s supporters said in their statement. The supporters said they tried to minimize disruption, but that the Mass was an important event to attend.
“The administration has acknowledged that pressure from the Church hierarchy is a major reason for their apprehension at approving a GLBT resource center,” the statement said. Supporters said it was important for the Cardinal to see the protest.
“We don’t apologize for the manner in which [the protest] was done,” the statement said.
Prior to the Mass, there was confusion as to whether the protesters would be permitted entry. Protesters said that Department of Public Safety officers who were assigned to the event told them that only people with tickets, distributed by the organizers of the Mass, could attend.
Feiler said that people without tickets could enter the chapel after 10:15 a.m. Before then, participants in the American Collegians for Life conference, who received tickets, were the only ones allowed in the chapel, he said. “But no one was to be excluded from the Mass itself,” he said. Feiler said he communicated that policy to the DPS officers and posted a flier on the chapel’s door that included these guidelines.
DPS Associate Director Darryl Harrison said his officers were told to permit entry only to people with tickets regardless of the time.
Protesters said that the entrance policy was never made clear to them. “At no point did any organizer handing out tickets inform us that we could go in after 10:15. At no point did the DPS officers inform us that we could go inside,” GU Pride Co-President and Voice staff member Joe McFadden (CAS ‘02) said.
Protesters entered the chapel after one of them, Ginny Hotchkiss Leavell (CAS ‘05), asked the cardinal on his way to the chapel if they could attend Mass. He said he welcomed them in.
The University has long grappled with how to treat gay student organizations. A 1987 court decision said that D.C.’s nondiscrimination statute required the University not to refuse University funds because of an organization’s members’ sexual orientation.
The gay students organization, GU Pride, is still funded with University money. In 1998, the University began the Safe Zones program which trains “allies” among students, faculty and staff who can provide support and referrals for individuals struggling with issues of sexual orientation.
Gonzalez said in an earlier statement that students should harness these resources “to attend the needs of GLBT students.”
The center’s supporters argued that a center would bring the difficulties of gay students into the public eye and combat what they see as quietness on campus that causes GLBT students to isolate themselves, which in turn, can contribute to the unusually high rates of depression and suicide among GLBT students.
