<p>Haven’t read all the back and forth above, but it seems that today’s headline on american.edu is appropriate to the discussion. The headline is, “Sexuality and Queer Studies Minor on the Cutting Edge,” accompanied by a rainbow flag. This link is to the article, but if you visit american.edu today, you will see this is featured prominently on the university’s home page. [Sexualty</a> And Queer Studies Minor | American University Washington DC](<a href=“http://www.american.edu/media/news/20130213_Sexuality_Queer_Studies_Minor.cfm]Sexualty”>http://www.american.edu/media/news/20130213_Sexuality_Queer_Studies_Minor.cfm)</p>
<p>This thread reminded me of a funny story my AU daughter relayed to me a few weeks ago. She was telling her male friend that he should go date a Latina girl and he gave her this weird look with a “Really?” So my daughter thought she had offended him and said “Oh no, I mean you should date a Hispanic girl.” Again, her friend said “Really???” So my daughter cried, “I’m so sorry! What did I say wrong???” Her male friend said, “Girl… I’m GAY!”</p>
<p>Remember that according to most surveys, Washington, DC is the most “gay” town in America, with the largest percentage of LGBT people of any major city. </p>
<p>I think you’ll find that besides being very “political”, you will find AU to be among the most “pre-professional” schools around. Many if not most students have internships, for which they have to dress, and the academic week, for some, is organized around their internships. The percentage of liberal arts majors and, especially, science majors, is very low (relatively speaking); there is no engineering school; and business/international service/communications majors make up a majority of the campus. </p>
<p>My d. thought the political level of the campus was very active, but mostly not very deep, primarily due to a lack of life experience that took people outside of their comfort zone. But that’s what college is for - real learning only happens with discomfort.</p>
<p>I think that AU is actually one of the easiest campuses to “fit in” because it is so very diverse that there is no one overriding culture on campus. As long as you have an open mind, of course.</p>
<p>AU attracts a very curious, active student body. Many students do have, or develop, strong opinions–but they do listen to one another and learn from one another. And students develop friendships across all the various 'groups" on campus. One valuable lesson learned from these friendships is that every person you meet is multifaceted and can’t be categorized according to just one dimension.</p>
<p>As far as the OP goes, I think the OP could be very comfortable on campus as long as s/he goes with an open and nonjudgmental mind. Don’t let the presence of some “gays” on campus put you off–because being gay is only one facet of each of the gay students’ being–and what you would learn from that alone would be life changing. </p>
<p>A gay student does not spend an entire day on campus going around being “gay” any more than you would spend a day on campus going around being “straight.” As far as PDAs go–it’s not high school anymore, students aren’t making out in the hallways or on the sidewalks outside the buildings–whether straight or gay, they have a lot more class and maturity than that.</p>
<p>I’m a rising soph here at AU and a conservative as well and the only real problems I have about campus are the food and housing, so politics isn’t really an issue for me. The College Republicans here are a pretty tight-knit group and very welcoming, so you’d feel at home with them. The only gay people I must say that truly annoy me are the exceptionally flamboyant types that talk like loud obnoxious valley girls and seek nothing but attention (even some of my more center and liberal friends get annoyed with those types). We do get a couple of those, but it’s easy to avoid them. It’s more of a personality thing.</p>
<p>pushydad is pushing nothing but nonsense. Why is it that everyone thinks we conservatives just don’t have enough “real world experience”? I’ve grown up in an underprivileged area and graduated from a Title I school. I went to school alongside minorities, liberal teachers (some of them ridiculously brainwashed), and plenty of gay people. I still don’t agree with homosexuality and refuse to condone it. There, bite me. College hasn’t changed that one bit for me. It has nothing to do with “open-mindedness”. I don’t mind being in an environment with gay people as long as they keep that to themselves. I don’t need to know the details of who they prefer shagging, which is why the ones that keep putting themselves out there and making sure everyone knows every detail of their personal lives are the ones that don’t click with me and I would rather not associate with–that goes for pretty much everyone and not just gay people either. </p>
<p>And if anything, I haven’t seen as much diversity here as people like to boast about. If I could describe the AU community in a couple short words, it would be white, rich, liberal, and Jewish. The only one of those I fit into is white, and even then I have almost nothing in common with the “white” group here since I’m Mediterranean. That doesn’t really bother me anyway since the minorities here on campus (like conservatives) tend to form very close communities that don’t back down from the marginalization. </p>
<p>If you assert yourself and show you’re not willing to be walked all over in your beliefs, people won’t harass you much. For the record, the freshmen can get incredibly out of control here; the older students are more mature and adult and balance things out. I take great comfort in my studies and friends back home, so if that works for you then you won’t have a problem here. I have two or three good friends here and we have a bunch of other stuff in common, so I don’t feel the need to constantly socialize either (was never much one for that anyway).</p>
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Someone’s sexual orientation is not something you can “agree with” or not–any more than you can agree with someone’s eye color. And who is asking you to condone anything? I suspect not one gay student at AU has ever asked you to condone his sexual orientation or practices. Not one. But heck, you’re just a freshman. I’d be interested to see how you’ve grown and matured after three more years at AU. In any event, counseling OP that the way to get by at AU is to huddle with a few people who think exactly like you do strikes me as totally wrongheaded. And sad.</p>
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<p>Ladyelizabeth, you almost had me with this one. There’s a legitimate point to be made here about the assumptions liberals often make about conservatives, and it’s an important point. I thought you were going to make a good argument for your conservative beliefs. But instead, you quickly raced to the bottom. By asserting that your liberal teachers have been “ridiculously brainwashed,” you go straight for stereotyping. Sure, there are ridiculous liberals like my numbskull sister, who feels the need to share every left-leaning sentiment that enters her Facebook news feed, whether it’s sensible or hysterical, fact-checked reporting or Internet sewage. They’re the ditto-heads of the left. But there is also a serious, reasoned case for liberal politics, just as there is a serious, reasoned case for conservative politics (which you haven’t advanced here).</p>
<p>Do you have a problem with Jews, I wonder? You characterized the AU student population as “white, rich, liberal, and Jewish.” It’s true, Jews are way overrepresented at American U. compared to their percentage of the American population generally: about 25%, if you include everybody who ever self-identified as Jewish or ever made any contact, however fleeting or half-hearted, with Hillel or the JSA ([Reform</a> Judaism Magazine - 7th Annual RJ Insider’s Guide to College Life](<a href=“http://reformjudaismmag.org/fall_2012/college/index.cfm?]Reform”>http://reformjudaismmag.org/fall_2012/college/index.cfm?)). Yet Jewishness is a defining characteristic of the student body for you?</p>
<p>As for your “open-mindedness,” I would submit to you that you’ve demonstrated very little of it by saying, “I don’t mind being in an environment with gay people as long as they keep that to themselves.” The fact of the matter is, straight people don’t “keep it to themselves.” Straight people share information about “who they prefer shagging” all the time when they put photos of their families in their work spaces, when they bring their spouses to social events, when they use the very words “my wife” or “my husband.” You want gay people to have to keep all this to themselves? How is that not back-of-the-bus thinking?</p>
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<p>This, I agree with, except that given the context, I doubt you mean what you’ve said. “[T]hat goes for pretty much everyone and not just gay people, either” rings a little hollow when it comes at the end of a long complaint about the gay population on campus. In fact, if your beef is with over-sharers who “[make] sure everyone knows every detail of their personal lives,” why are you talking about gay people at all? I don’t buy it.</p>
<p>You think being gay is a sin? Fine, that’s your prerogative—just as it’s my prerogative to think you’re wrong about that, and to tell you I think so. You want gay people to have to “keep that to themselves”? That’s not fine, and it’s not your prerogative. And inhibiting other peoples’ freedom to be who they are, to express who they are freely, and to live how they wish to live (as long as they’re not harming others or limiting the freedoms of others)—well, I am afraid I still need you to explain to me how that’s a conservative political value.</p>
<p>Ladyelizabeth, others on this thread have made the point about your narrow world view but I have to add that in my opinion most liberal minded people would freely acknowledge your right to your beliefs. If you believe homosexuality is a sin, then that is between you and your god. But what happened to the Christian teaching that we are all god’s children? There are annoying gay people and annoying straights. There are annoying liberals and there are annoying conservatives. To think that one group has a greater right to be annoying than another is what I have a problem with. You should associate with whomever you like but to limit your associations because of assumptions and labels is to cheat yourself of the full human experience.</p>