Patrick Henry College, a Northern Virginia-based fundamentalist Christian school, has gotten into an uproar about a new blog they've been introduced to; it is, appropriately enough, called "Queer at Patrick Henry College." Run by three alumni of the college, it was founded in the tradition of other LBGT-friendly support groups at other Christian fundamentalist universities, like BJUnity for Bob Jones University.
The school's chancellor is convinced that this is an elaborate hoax.
“[Homosexuals] could not sign our honor code,” as “part of the honor code is to be sexually pure.”
“We don’t think that there are any such students,” Farris said of LGBTQ students at the school, adding that the administration thought our blog was a “hoax.”
(Quick! Clap if you believe in fairies!)
Ahem.
There’s a stark difference in the definition of our terms. In the eyes of those like Farris, homosexuality is just a sexual action or sexual lifestyle. For us, it’s an orientation, a marker of personal identity. Is it possible that there are no students having gay sex while enrolled at PHC? Entirely possible. But that doesn’t erase the existence of LGBTQ students at the school.
Chancellor Farris, who has a long legal career and at one point was a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of our fair state, initially threatened to sue the blog for a copyright violation in using the school's name as part of their name. I'm sorry, I haven't even taken any classes remotely related to intellectual property yet and I know the difference between a patent, a trademark, and a copyright. Not to mention that there are numerous reasons that this would never be considered a trademark violation. He also wanted to sue the creators for damages related to violating the honor code. I almost want him to try, but I want the (apparently closeted) creators of the blog to be able to maintain their anonymity as long as they deem it necessary.
Read more about this at the Loudoun Times.