Information

FOUNDING OF THE GSU

In 1983, the Gay Student Union (GSU) was founded on the University of Alabama campus. Students responded in ways that revealed different strains of a popular discourse on homophobia. This discourse clearly displays varying levels of homophobia at the University of Alabama.

YAF BACKLASH 

One of the main groups that criticized the Gay Student Union (GSU) was Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), a conservative political group. The group threatened lawsuits against the university, the GSU as an organization, and individual members of the GSU. They wrote in the student newspaper, The Crimson White, that GSU members were “sick pervs” who should not receive recognition, but rather, mental help or a visit from the authorities. English professor David Miller, the GSU faculty advisor, wrote that YAF used “the rhetoric of the Klan” in a letter to UA President Joab Thomas.

BACKLASH TO YAF

The majority of students did not support the Gay Student Union (GSU), but also did not support Young Americans for Freedom (YAF). Students wrote into The Crimson White saying that “they [YAF] are all extremists. I do not agree with them or their tactics … but I also do not support the Gay Student Union.” While these students were not calling for such extreme measures as the YAF, they were still calling for the disbanding of the GSU. Upwards of 90% of the letters The Crimson White published during the 1983-1984 school year that mentioned both the GSU and YAF criticized both organizations.

SIGNIFICANCE

That there were different levels of homophobia at play interested me, as it’s easy to point to extremism and fight against, but harder to do with moderatism, although no less important. I believe that looking to the past to examine how modernism was fought against can help us in our fight in the present.