LA Times Explores Being Gay at Morehouse

It was also difficult to ignore the fact that he had stepped into a place that had not come to terms with the presence of gay men on campus. There were the casually cruel statements from some of the straight guys and the tortuous code of silence from the guys on the down low. There were ministers-in-training who tried to convert Brewer’s gay friends with prayer. There were gay seniors who advised him to tone it down.

Brewer soon realized that the campus was in a profound state of soul-searching and flux on the issue of homosexuality. For decades, he learned, Morehouse had lived with a schizophrenic reputation. The school, unfairly or not, was known for harboring a large number of gay men. “Morehouse takes your money and makes you funny,” an old saying went.

Yet throughout the 1990s the Princeton Review regularly listed Morehouse among its top 20 homophobic campuses, based on student surveys. Aaron Parker, a veteran Morehouse religion professor, thinks some of that had to do with straight students being sensitive to the slights about Morehouse being a “gay” school.

Many of these views are still pervasive both in the black community and in mainstream society. And so, the article then explores the darker side of homophobic sentiment. Jafari Sinclaire Allen was a Morehouse student over a decade ago who found himself forced to leave campus after coming out. And in 2002, a Morehouse sophomore resorted to violence, beating another student with a baseball bat because he thought the other student was making a sexual advance.

The College grappled with what to do, with some alumni asking them to “screen out gay applicants.”

Instead, the school held diversity seminars — an odd concept, perhaps, at a school that has only a few students who aren’t black. But some faculty and staff members said the efforts encouraged students to take a more civil tone when discussing gay rights.

Meanwhile, another dynamic was also altering the climate: Students of Brewer’s generation were showing up at Morehouse more comfortable with being openly gay. Parker, the religion professor, has been discussing gay rights issues in his classes for years, but it was only four years ago, he said, that a student spoke up and identified himself as gay. Now, he said, it is a regular occurrence.

The result has been a small groundswell of activity. After the beating, gay students formed a support group, Safe Space, which Brewer joined. The president of Brewer’s freshman class, Jameel Smith, caused a stir when he came out soon after his election. Last year, students at Spelman produced a documentary that took a frank look at the gay and lesbian experiences on the two campuses. And a Morehouse political science major recently chose to do his senior thesis on “queer studies” — hardly a radical move at most campuses but a bit of a shock at Morehouse.

Morehouse is still grappling with how to reconcile black masculinity and homosexuality, much like many other segments of society. However, it is refreshing to note that the conversation has at least started and is becoming more open.

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