Regents hear class complaints

By Jen Fish

Daily Staff Reporter

FLINT - Although it was a short agenda, there were some surprises at yesterday's meeting of the University Board of Regents at the University's Flint campus, with more criticism for the English course "How to Be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation."

The course, taught by English Prof. David Halperin, has become an issue in this year's regents election. Regent Dan Horning (R-Grand Haven) has spoken out against the class, but administrators have said they have no plans to cancel it.

While criticism of the class has lingered since its initial listing in the fall course guide, there was a new twist to conservatives' condemnation of the class at yesterday's meeting.

Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, delivered a petition to the regents signed by about 15,000 Michiganders urging "Gov. Engler, the Legislature, and the U-M Board of Regents to do everything possible to stop U-M officials from using my tax dollars to recruit teenage students into a class whose stated intention is to 'experiment' in the 'initiation' of students into a high-risk lifestyle of homosexual that is immoral, illegal and a serious threat to personal and public health."

Halperin, who was not at the meeting, repeatedly has said the literature class is not an effort to "recruit" students into a homosexual lifestyle.

Glenn also accused the regents of committing a "politically correct double standard" by divesting its tobacco stocks but endorsing a class that Glenn says is more dangerous than smoking.

"The reckless, negligent and hypocritical double standard by which the University glorifies politically correct but deadly homosexual behavior will cost lives, including, over time, no doubt, some of the same U of M students you made much of protecting from the politically incorrect behavior of smoking," Glenn said.

"If the lives of U of M students are worth protecting from the hazards of smoking, they are worth protecting from the hazards of even deadlier homosexual behavior" he added.

Glenn pointed to a study by Oxford University that claimed the life expectancy of gay and bisexual men is eight to 20 years less than for all men.

In accordance with the regents' public comments policies, the board members and University executive officers did not respond to Glenn's statements.