Homophobia is "a real phenomenon that affects real people's lives," said Bill Leap, a professor in AU's anthropology department, about the topic of a conference held Friday on the effect of homophobic language on people's lives and public policy.
Leap defined homophobic language as "statements of disdain, disgust or hatred of persons who are homosexual or are assumed to be homosexual." Leap and other university professors discussed what they perceive as the motives behind using homophobic language at "Language and Homophobia: A Lavender Languages Mini-Conference" in Mary Graydon Center.
According to Leap, "there is a lot of homophobia on campus."
Many students on campus do not associate with AU's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Ally Resource Center because they fear retaliation, he said. Leap organizes annual conferences about homophobia to help people "discover how homophobia works in everyday life and how language enables that," he said.
"Everyone is capable of producing homophobic language," said David Peterson, an instructor at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
Speakers at the conference said some religious groups use homophobic language to galvanize support for their causes and organizations.
Homophobia is "not really about the gay and lesbian community at all," said Joe Rollins, associate professor of political science at Queens College at the City University of New York.
Rollins said right-wing Christian groups who are taking legal action against same-sex issues are not actually concerned with the rights of gay and lesbian communities but are trying to produce "the other," or an enemy, so they can gain support for religious causes by attacking outsiders.
Kevin Ballie, a freshman in the School of International Service and a staff member at the GLBTA Resource Center, said these comments resonated with him. While the focus of anti-gay sentiment is on the anti-gay message of religious communities, gay and lesbian communities do have many supporters in religious groups, Ballie said. He called them the "silent majority."
Ballie said he regularly goes to classes with the Rainbow Speakers Bureau to talk about gay issues to students. Ballie said it was very important that these kinds of discussions take place on campus.
"We need more individuals to become interested [in these issues]," he said.
Awareness of GLBT issues is high within the AU administration, Leap said. However, he said he would like to see those issues penetrate more deeply into classroom discussions.
"Students seem eager for this information, so it is a great area of growth and curriculum development," he said.
Leap organizes a Lavender Languages conference every year at AU. The 14th annual Lavender Languages conference will be held in February 2007.
Leap said he chose the title "Lavender Languages" because the color lavender has a long-standing association in the West with gay and non-heterosexual desires, identities and practices.
