Shekinah Samaya-Thomas
In the 1980s, Concordia College was not as accepting as it is today, specifically towards gay and lesbian people. The biggest opposition that homosexual people on campus faced was from conservative, Evangelical students and faculty. Carroll Engelhardt writes in his book about this conservative group on campus: “their biblical literalism and conservative cultural beliefs occasionally led to complaints about the historical-critical study of the Bible undertaken in required religion courses and public condemnation of rock music, homosexuality, abortion and extramarital sex.”[i] Occasionally, these views would be challenged however, which led to students voicing their opinions through Concordia’s student newspaper the Concordian. One graduate from Concordia, Shekinah Samaya-Thomas, recalled her time here and how she was involved with this issue,
"I don’t know what it’s like here now, but [in 1986] there was much less tolerance for people of the same orientation sexually to the point where a statement was made by an administration official that because this was a Lutheran college, and to be gay or lesbian is not really approved by the Lutheran tradition, therefore there was no one on campus that was gay or lesbian. Now that was a bunch of crap, we knew that was a bunch of crap and a friend of mine and I decided to address it in a letter to [the Concordian.] So we wrote a letter to the Concordian that set about a whole bunch of controversy… and basically what we said was this is a bunch of crap and we know a bunch of people that for really important reasons aren’t able to be true to who they are and it’s time we start to address it."[ii]
Unfortunately, it was much more difficult for this issue to be addressed than it had previously been in the 1970s.
Concordia had always been a conservative school, so it was hard for any progressive movements, such as the Gay Rights Movement, to gain any traction. Unfortunately for gay and lesbian people at Concordia, as well as the rest of the country, the progress that they saw in the 1970s was soon ground to a halt. This was due largely to the growth of religious fundamentalists or the “New Right” as well as conservative public officials, including President Ronald Reagan and the Supreme Court. The newly conservative Supreme Court proved to be very detrimental to the Gay Rights Movement. One example of this, found in a recent history article, recounts how in 1986, “the Supreme Court upheld a Georgia law that punished consensual sex between men with up to twenty years in jail.”[iii] The AIDS epidemic of the 1980s was also a hindrance to the Gay Rights Movement. AIDS wreaked havoc on the gay community in the United States due mostly to politician’s hesitancy to contribute funds to the issue, mostly because it was viewed as a “gay man’s disease.”[iv] These decisions made by politicians in the 1980s expressed the discrimination towards gay and lesbian people that many individuals, as well as institutions had.
Fortunately for gay and lesbian people in the United States, the discrimination of the 1980s did not last. With the election of Democratic President Bill Clinton, a new page was turned which ushered in a much more progressive era in the history of the United States. Although President Clinton did not completely fulfill his campaign promise to end a ban on gay people in the military, he did accept a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which was a small step in a progressive direction.[v] This was just the start of a revitalized Gay Rights Movement that has continued to increase. According to freedomtomarry.org, 35 states have now legalized same-sex marriage, with an additional ten states where judges have issued favorable rulings towards same-sex couples.[vi] One of the biggest reasons for the Gay Rights Movement’s success is because of the activism from young people, specifically college students. Many campuses, including Concordia, now have student groups which show support for gay and lesbian campus members. This shows just how far the Gay Rights Movement has come since the 1980s, both in the country as a whole, as well as campuses such as Concordia.
[i] Engelhardt, Carroll L. On Firm Foundation Grounded: The First Century of Concordia College (1891-1991). Moorhead, MN: College, 1991. Print.
[ii] Shekinah Samaya-Thomas, interview by author, October 10th, 2014
[iii]Norton, Mary Beth. A People and a Nation: A History of the United States. Vol. 2. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2014. Print.
[iv]Norton, Mary Beth. A People and a Nation: A History of the United States. Vol. 2. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2014. Print.
[v] Norton, Mary Beth. A People and a Nation: A History of the United States. Vol. 2. Stamford, CT: Cengage Learning, 2014. Print.
[vi] "Freedom to Marry." Freedom to Marry. N.p., 4 Dec. 2014. Web. 10 Dec. 2014.