On Wednesday, April 11, four candidates ran against each other for the positions of president and vice president of the GLBTQ Leadership Council (GLC). Emerging victorious were Celso Perez, A&S '09, and Lindsay Darras, A&S '08, as president and vice president, respectively. The other two candidates were Kimani Gordon, A&S '09, and Ben Lynch, LSOE '09.
Perez and Darras, who both became involved with the GLC when they participated in the Handprint Campaign - a GLC response to a hate crime on Newton campus in 2006 - outlined a series of both short- and long-term goals.
Perez said that he has already begun doing research on other universities' relations with their GLBTQ communities, which would help them draw parallels with the GLC's relationship with the BC administration.
Additionally, Perez and Darras intend to further the networking among GLBTQ students throughout Boston.
In order to help with social interaction between GLBTQ students at different universities - which Darras says is challenging due to many clubs being 21 and up - a Facebook group titled the Boston Area Undergrad Queer Network (BAQ) has been formed. On the whole, the team intends to be "a resource for the GLBTQ community and a source of support."
"Starting next year, we hope to start engaging more freshmen," said Perez.
"While other groups have explicit freshman mentoring programs, we do not, but we want to make the GLC better known to them," said Darras. The two intend to launch a publicity campaign as a means to reach out to the freshman community.
Also, they are already carrying out plans to form GLC leadership positions. Applications for council positions are currently up online at www.bcglbt.org.
Another important part of their plans is improving relations among the numerous groups on campus; they cited Allies and Lambda as specific groups that they intend to work with. "We feel like the GLC is good common ground and liaison for everyone," said Perez.
The duo has a clear vision for what their longer-term goals are, as well. "We want to engage the Catholic tradition in understanding sexuality," said Perez. "The Vatican today has a definite say in this topic, and we seek to engage their position. But we also want to turn to the Catholic tradition as a source of insight."
"As an organization working at a Catholic college, this is something that is important because Catholicism is something that is often used as an excuse to shut us down," said Darras.
Perez said they wish to look into writings of theologians such as St. Augustine as a means to draw this connection. "We want to understand these writings and sources of experience," he said. They also wish to engage the theology department and the moral theologians on campus as a means to actively engage the tradition.
"We want to engage groups that we haven't always seen eye to eye with. We want to sit down with them and come to a consensus of what a respectable way is for us to treat each other," said Perez.
Darras said that this has been one of the more successful years with regards to working with other groups and clubs on campus. "We would like to work with other culture clubs, like Hillel or the Muslim student organization, and help host events with them. While it is important, we don't want queerness to be the only defining part of the GLC."
They also spoke of engaging the straight community and working with how they view sexuality.
"We want to ask everybody about sexuality, and not necessarily just homosexuality," said Perez. "We want to know, how can we make a constructive sexual ethic for all of us?" n
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