Coming-Out Day '98 featured such gems as, "Have more sex. Join BGLTSA." and "Can I bum a fag?" During the ROTC debate (at which time, both authors of this piece were on the Undergraduate Council and supported the BGLTSA's efforts in that matter), BGLTSA touted flyers depicting a topless soldier accompanied by the caption, "Who's been a naughty soldier?" Gaypril '99 spawned a new marketing campaign for homosexuality--BGLTSA co-opted Nike's logo and slogan by writing "DYKE: Just did it."

Perhaps this last example illustrates most effectively the general public strategy of the BGLTSA--like any good agent of capitalism, it seeks to market non-straightness, as if affection were a consumable good. Since coming out is prerequisite to all non-straight political action, National Coming Out Day is the most opportune moment to posture. By ostensibly contributing to a greater good--namely freedom from having to hide one's affections--all grandstanding, all obscene posters (e.g. "Have you tasted your own menstrual blood? How about starting with your partner's?"), all reductions of complex human identity to the size of a piece of poster-board appear justified.

These actions are not justified, for all they accomplish is the alienation of many in the Harvard community, including those fumbling in dark closets.

We should come out (everyday). We should be politically active. We should hold killer dances and literary events and tables in the Quad and art exhibits and theatrical presentations. But, in addition, there needs to be a safe place within the community where those questioning or hiding themselves can meet with others like them, others who are comfortable with themselves and those who are straight and compassionate. Perhaps the BGLTSA should first provide a more comfortable environment and then, when such students are ready, involve them in the pursuit of political goals that do not divide us.

Sensationalism is puerile, immature and ineffective. It serves only to tear apart communities and individuals within those communities. The suicide of a particular student at an American university last year best embodies this phenomenon. In his own words:

"My ex-boyfriend once told me that if I'm not gyrating to Abba while oozing pride, I'm just not good enough. He thinks that the queer community is lucky to be different from me. That's what bothers me--not being excluded in a straight world but being secluded in a gay one. I can be a minority, but I don't know how to a minority within a minority."