BY BENJAMIN BRADLOW

In print | Published February 28, 2008

It is easy to make too much of nothing at Swarthmore. The College Republicans blanket campus with posters urging students to “come out” as Republicans and a few queer students put up other posters denouncing the appropriation of queer terminology.

Judging by the popular comments section of the Daily Gazette on articles about this issue, many students felt these queer students were taking things too seriously in getting up in arms about the original posters. Some of the critics were queer themselves. So were the Republicans really on sure footing, as the “bargainers” — to use a term conservative social critic Shelby Steele used to describe an equivalent group among black activists — argue? Or were their posters mocking and appropriating the use of queer terminology, as the “fabulously queer” posters claimed? The College Republicans pulled out all the petty stops.

A letter by group president Justin Shaffer ’08 on the Gazette website took on Tatiana Cozzarelli ’08, a potential lightning rod for criticism on the issue. Too bad she did not actually write the response to the original Republican posters. It is laughable to suggest that Republicans face the same kind of overt or implicit discrimination that queer students do on campus. In his letter, Shaffer made the claim that “academia has tended to be increasingly liberal recently and the speech rights of conservative students appear to be impinged upon.” He has presented no evidence to back up such an argument. There is no reason to accept the notion that Swarthmore is part of a perceived oppressive liberal academy, as no one has even tried to put forth this argument besides half thought-out encouragements for Republicans here to “come out.”

The fact is that coming out as queer says a lot more about one’s intrinsic place in our society than admitting to conservative views. Sure, some students here may find the idea that someone could actually be a Republican shocking. And yes, that aversion to Republicans does not foster the friendliest environment for those with minority political opinions.

But such a quality is mutable, unlike the permanence of being queer. Distaste for a political opinion is not such a fundamental judgment about a person as is one’s rejection of a person’s sexuality. The question remains: was this really a fight about nothing? Maybe it was just a bunch of posters, all of which were offensive to varying degrees for different people.

What could be most significant is not the issue of the posters, but how the debate transpired. Last week’s Phoenix editorial gave a backhanded compliment to three queer students (the same students responsible for the anonymous response posters) for their signed op-ed on this issue, by arguing that the debate should not include anonymous voices. Shaffer first put forward this line of reasoning in his letter to the Gazette. Such arguments are calling for all queer students who want to participate in the debate to come out. One cannot enter the debate, the argument goes, unless one is willing to put one’s name and one’s identity on the line. There is a lot to be said for privileging the acceptance of responsibility for one’s words. But it is a lot easier for dominant groups (in this case, non-queers) to make this claim, when revealing their identity does not give them a subjugated identity.

The Republicans’ posters stayed up, everyone had their say — anonymously and self-identified — and everyone went home feeling a little more self-righteous and marginalized. Queer activists will continue to fight from a position of weakness in a heteronormative society; Republicans will continue to fight against the non-oppressive, vaguely progressive academy. And at the latter group’s meetings, members will claim to be “Rockefeller Republicans,” opposed to the national party’s homophobic social policy. Would we be so cynical as to absolve a supposed abolitionist Democrat on the eve of the Civil War sitting by smugly as his party defended slavery?

Benjamin is a senior. You can reach him at bbradlo1@swarthmore.edu.

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