By KELLI FONTENOT
Published Sept. 24, 2008 by The Current Sauce
Lambda, a Gay-Straight Alliance and recognized student organization at NSU, encourages students to seek comradeship and acceptance. Lambda welcomes people of all sexual orientations, and membership in the group is not reserved only for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students.
Lambda president Larrie King Jr., a graduate student working toward his master's in graphic design, said the group wants to make a statement on campus this semester.
"We're still a new organization and we're trying to figure out how to do the things that we want to do on campus, but basically, we'd like to try and raise awareness and tolerance for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender community, as well as other groups of people that receive a lot of negativity in general from other students," King said.
King plans to host movie nights every month for the rest of the semester. This month's movie, "Dorian Blues," attracted about a dozen students to the Varnado lobby Thursday night.
The group attempts to reduce homophobia, inequality, hate crimes and discrimination against the GBLT community, which Lambda parliamentarian Tim Gattie said includes additional groups, such as transsexuals and people who are questioning their sexuality.
Gattie, a senior English major, explained that in Lambda, it doesn't matter whether a member is gay or straight - they don't even ask. As Gattie put it, "Everyone's a human being."
Gattie also pointed out that Lambda's message does not focus only on GLBT rights.
"It is about being individuals and recognizing that we all come from different kinds of aspects," Gattie said. "My coming out story is unique, as is anybody's. And, you know, even a straight person's coming out story - they really don't think that they have one, but they do."
The straight community is an important part of the organization as well. "Straight allies" - heterosexual people who support GLBT equality - lend a unique perspective and voice to Lambda and similar organizations, according to the Lambda Web site.
Lambda's NSU chapter will host several events throughout the year, including the annual Day of Silence during the spring semester, King said.
"We don't speak for a day in order to represent those who don't have a voice in their community or in their nation, and that's everyone from the GLBT community to battered women, abused children, everybody like that. And it's a really powerful day, I think, and it's really symbolic of the changes we'd like to make," King said.
The taciturn participants carry cards with them during the day as an explanation for those unfamiliar with the event. King said some members make exceptions during class, but that it's the message that counts.
Another important event for Lambda is National Coming Out Day, scheduled for Oct. 11.
A few years ago, National Coming Out Day proved that there is still tension between members of Lambda and some students at NSU.
The first time Lambda attempted to raise awareness for National Coming Out Day on campus, one of the officers created a large poster and put it up in the Friedman Student Union.
The organization left pencils near the poster and encouraged students to write their own short stories and advice for people who were considering coming out.
By the next day, people had scribbled quotations from the Bible on the banner, followed by "God hates fags" and other hateful comments, Gattie said.
Gattie said he personally found the comments amusing instead of offensive. Still, such intolerance is precisely what Lambda members aim to change.
"It's that kind of thing that we hope to stop," Gattie said.
King, the organization's president, noted that National Coming Out Day is an event for which the Gay-Straight Alliance tries to create a comfortable environment for members to express themselves if they feel motivated to speak out - and come out.
"Lambda tries to create a safe place for people to do that where they won't be ridiculed and so that they can see the people who have done it before them," Gattie said.
Gattie came out to select friends in his freshman year of high school, then moved to New York. When Gattie came out to his family a few years later, he said his parents weren't surprised.
"I was wearing at least three or four rainbows a day. It was kind of obvious," Gattie said.
The rainbow has become a widely recognized gay pride symbol, and it is actually incorporated into one of the Lambda association's flags. The flag depicts a rainbow, a pink triangle and the Greek letter in an arrangement that echoes the American flag. The Gay Activists Alliance of New York adopted the lambda as a symbol in 1970, according to the Lambda Web site.
There are several theories about the reasoning behind the rainbow as a symbol of the GBLT community, but Gattie summed up his favorite explanation.
"The one that works for me is the idea that the rainbow shows all the different colors, and it shows all of the different colors in society...just like all the different sexualities that we have, but then, it doesn't try to merge them or push them into one form, but it recognizes each and every one of them," Gattie said.
The NSU Lambda association holds meetings every Thursdays in room 221 in the Student Union.
