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Anti-gay speaker to visit CMU campus during Pride week

By Dawn Wolfe

MOUNT PLEASANT – On April 6, Alan Chambers, president of the anti-gay group Exodus, will be giving a talk at the Lutheran Missouri Synod chapel on Central Michigan University's campus. According to the Exodus website, the organization's message is "Freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ."
Chambers' talk has been scheduled during the University's Pride Week, a time when his purported message about "how to reach out to the homosexual community in love," may seem more than a little ironic.
In response, the co-presidents of CMU's Gay/Straight Alliance issued a statement saying that their group will not be outside protesting the Exodus speaker.
"It is the intention of our group to present ourselves as the bigger person of this situation and not lower ourselves to the level of Exodus," said the March 23 statement signed by Nicholas Linindoll and Jennifer Suidan.
Rather than protesting, GSA members will have representatives outside of the Lutheran chapel after the talk handing out flyers advertising the next day's Pride speaker, John Corvino. Corvino will address the topic, "What is Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?"
The GSA co-presidents also strongly urged individuals who feel moved to protest the Exodus speaker to refrain from using the GSA's name.
"If you choose, as a member of the group, to participate in any activity that is different from [the] position the group has taken, we ask you to please not use the name of the GSA, especially if the press encounters you," the release said. "We feel that [Exodus] will do enough to prove that they are not an effective organization without us outside, angry and protesting."
According to information provided to BTL, flyers advertising the Corvino talk won't be the only pro-gay message greeting Chambers and his audience. The Wesley Foundation, whose building is across the street from the Lutheran chapel, will be displaying a six-by-four foot banner with the message, "People don't choose their sexual orientation; I GIFT it to them. – God."

Support LGBTs at CMU

On Thursday, April 7, the CMU Gay/Straight Alliance will host Wayne State University professor Dr. John Corvino at 7 p.m. Corvino's talk, "What's Morally Wrong with Homosexuality?" will counter the supposedly "loving" message of the anti-gay group Exodus during CMU's Pride week.
Corvino will speak at the CMU Bovee University Center at 103 E. Preston St., Room 302. For more information on the Corvino talk, to learn more about CMUs GSA or to express your support to the students, call 989-774-7470 or email [email protected].

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