Committee on Gay Education

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Committee on Gay Education

• A Step into Our Not So
• Distant Past

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• Never doubt that a small group of committed
  citizens can change the world.
• In fact, it is the only thing that ever has
• -Margaret Meade

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November 9, 1971

• Bill Green and John Hoard, 2 UGA students, speak
  to a group of students
• in Brumby Hall.
• 200 people attend the event to learn about gay
  issues. It is covered in the Red and Black the
  next day.

They begin receiving hate mail and death threats
after this presentation and the newspaper
coverage.
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November 10, 1971

• Green and Hoard decide to begin the Committee for
  Gay Education (CGE).
• CGE meets for the first time with around 70
  people in attendance. Dr. Karl King, a professor
  of child and family development and sociology,
  served as their advisor.

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• The day after this initial meeting, University
  administrators, specifically Dean of Students
  Louise McBee, begin receiving phone calls
  inquiring about the group.
• The Universitys president, Fred Davison, relays
  to Dean McBee that CGE is not to be recognized
  by the University.

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February 1972

• CGE members decide to press for greater
  recognition.
• The group also decides to hold a dance in the
  Memorial Hall Ballroom.

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February 24, 1972

• Under pressure from the administration, advisor
  Karl King resigns as the faculty advisor to CGE.

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Dr. King Wrote

• While I can understand personally your feelings,
  the feelings of the membership and the goals of
  acceptance you are working toward, I am convinced
  it has moved out of the umbrella of education and
  into the arena of confrontation.

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February 28, 1972

• CGE is denied use of university space because it
  lacks status as a student organization which the
  president has decreed will not be granted.
• Members decide to hold a sit in at the director
  of Student Activities Office, the Dean of Student
  Affairs and the Presidents Office.

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(No Transcript)
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From the sit-ins, CGE members send a list of
demands to the president

• University support repeal of sodomy laws
• Allow facilities for committee on gay education
• Committee on Gay Education be
  allowed to have their dance March 10 as
  planned.
• Who has right to control Student Activities
  feesthe students or the
  administration?
• Coxs resignation

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March 1, 1972

• The Dean of Student Affairs responds to the
  demands

NO

• University support repeal of sodomy laws
• Allow facilities for committee on gay education
• Committee on Gay Education be
  allowed to have their dance March 10 as
  planned.
• Who has right to control Student Activities
  feesthe students or the
  administration?
• Coxs resignation

NO
NO
Administration
NO
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March 9, 1972

• Bill Green, Nick Curry, and Rick Gilberg of CGE
  file an equity complaint in Clark County Superior
  Court on March 9, 1972.
• President Davison is ordered to appear before
  Judge James Barrow the next day.
• Judge Barrow issues a temporary restraining
  order, which prevented the University from
  preventing the dance from being held in Memorial
  Hall.

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March 10, 1972

• CGE holds dance in Memorial Hall Ballroom.
• 500 people attend. Diamond Lil from Atlanta
  performs.
• It is hailed as "first publicly designated
  homosexual dance in the Southeast."

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Flyer from the dance in March 1972
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(No Transcript)
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• The dance ends with Bill Green addressing the
  crowd, he ended his address by saying,
• This is not a climax. This is a beginning. And
  its going to go on and on.

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Red and Black article, June 1972
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September 28, 1972

• CGE plans a regional conference and requests the
  use Memorial Hall for the event.

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October 23, 1972

• The director of student activities, denies on the
  basis that the groups mission would promote
  violation of Georgias laws against Sodomy.

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November 7, 1972

• CGE appeals the decision to the Board of Regents.
  The Regents appoint a committee to investigate
  the matter, but it will not report back until at
  least December.

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November 8, 1972

• CGE again files a law suit against the university.

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November 10, 1972

• U.S. District Court Judge Sidney Smith issues a
  temporary restraining order against the
  University, and then he issues an opinion two
  weeks later that set guidelines for granting
  University facility use by student organizations.

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November 11-12, 1972

• In attendance at the conference were gay
  activists from all over the Southeast, including
  people from Atlanta, Raleigh, Nashville,
  Lexington, and Washington, D.C.
• On the second day of the conference, the
  Southeastern Gay Coalition was organized, which
  was to continue coordinating events to advance
  gay rights throughout the Southeast region.

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(No Transcript)
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• CGE began because a group of resident assistants
  looking for information about gay issues found an
  absence of any information on campus. There was
  also no support on campus.
• When Green and Hoard formed CGE, University
  administrators started receiving complaints from
  faculty and alumni for allowing such a group to
  exist at the University.

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Letters to the Editor

• The Red and Black printed many letters to the
  editor regarding the CGE during this time. On
  the one extreme, a student wrote a letter that
  claimed the University was justified in denying
  the use of facilities to CGE because homosexuals
  are not Christians.

March 1972, Dr. Kameny, a prominent national gay
rights advocate, writes a letter to the editor
that urges the University to ban all heterosexual
dances because fornication (which was also
illegal in Georgia at the time) was just as
likely to result from heterosexual dances, as
sodomy was likely to result from CGEs dance.
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Letters to the Editor
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• In 1977, A.C. Sparkplug Jones wrote President
  Davison the following letter
• Dear President of the University of Georgia,
• Dont you hang your head in shame that you would
  permit a bunch of queers to use a hall of our
  university to meet and discuss their abominable
  sinful practices that spit at anything decent?...
• Where is American manhood gone? This stinks and
  you do along with these filthy people.

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• President Davisons response letter begins with
  I share, Mr. Jones, your concern over the use of
  University facilities by certain groups and have
  attempted to do something about it. Davison then
  goes on to explain the court rulings that prevent
  the University from prohibiting CGE to hold
  functions in campus facilities.

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• CGE disbanded sometime between 1980 and 1983, but
  a new group called Gay/Lesbian Alliance for
  Education and Support formed in 1983.

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• The current reincarnation of CGE, Lambda
  Alliance, formed in 1992.

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CGEs work in the 1970s made possible the
formation of Lambda Alliance and all their
activities today.
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On October 11, 2002, Lambda Alliance held the
first National Coming Out Day Ball.
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• The dance was held in the Memorial Hall Ballroom
  that the CGE won the right to use 30 years prior.
  200 people were in attendance that evening.

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2002 and 2003 Homocoming Queens at the 2003
National Coming Out Day Ball.
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2003-04 Lambda Board of Directors at the Welcome
Picnic with Dr. Rodney Bennett, Dean of Students.
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Lambda lobbied at the Capitol during the 2004
legislative season against what eventually became
the anti-marriage amendment.
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After a rally against the amendment at the
Capitol on Valentines Day 2004, Lambda students
came back to campus and held the 2004 Valentines
Day Dance.
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Lambdas first Homecoming Parade appearance in
2004. Lambda won 1st place for most spirited
team.
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(No Transcript)
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National Coming Out Day 2004
The free-standing closet door on the Tate Plaza
Coming Out Party on the Tate Plaza
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Rally for Love at the Arch. About 30 students
rallied Nov. 5, 2004 in protest of Georgia's
passage of Amendment One, which prohibits
same-sex marriages and unions.
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• As Jeffrey Weeks so eloquently wrote,
• the aspiration for a different way of being is
  the energy which keeps the political will from
  wilting.

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• And the work will continue
• to go on and on

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Happy Lavender Graduation!!