Prior restraint has once again visited a college campus: this time, at the University of Utah concerning a series of posters planned for the upcoming Pride Week sponsored by the campus Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Resource Center.

With Cathy Martinez, the center director, agreeing, the administration rejected the promotional posters on the basis that images were inappropriately suggestive and that they perpetuated the perception about gays being focused primarily on sex.

Money quote from reporter Carlos Mayorga’s article in the Oct. 2 edition of The Daily Utah Chronicle:

Martinez later approached Kari Ellingson, associate vice president for student affairs, with the posters, and they decided to reject all five.

‘When Cathy and I talked about this, we thought it would be important to break stereotypes that being queer is just about sex,’ Ellingson said. ‘The pictures would take away from all the other events going on that week.’

Later, Martinez is quoted further:

‘I know that the students may say it’s censorship, but the posters were depicting the community in a sexual way,’ Martinez said. ‘My concern was that it would distract what we were trying to do with pride and that it would stereotype gay people in a negative way.’

And, Ellingson:

‘No, it’s not about censorship,’ she said. ‘We want to be able to create allies and have posters people would want to put on their doors.’

As a former adviser to gay student organizations at Utah State University, I am quite disappointed, particularly in the way Martinez responded to these images and the subsequent endorsement of the university’s position. This is hardly reassuring advocacy to the LGBT student community at the U of U.

Despite the fact that the campus has a well-funded resource center, the University ranks among the 20 worst campuses in the country, according to a recent Princeton Review survey, for acceptance of gays. For the record, the U ranks in the bottom as the 16th worst, just five places behind Brigham Young University where the strict honor code calls for the expulsion of students who identify themselves as being gay. Martinez would do well to be more sensitive to the constituency she serves.

More intelligent feedback comes from the students. Again, from the article, this time, a quote from Kevin Ingraham, co-president of the Queer Student Union and a sophomore majoring in gender studies:

‘These images are portraits and expression of the gender identities we express on a daily basis,’ Ingraham said. ‘I felt that when the images were denied, I was essentially being told that I as an individual was deemed inappropriate and obscene.’

And, from the Oct. 3 editorial in the Daily Utah Chronicle:

Almost each month, students flock to the dance floor of Crimson Nights in order to bump and grind each other to the latest Kanye West song. Recently, various members of campus were involved in a date auction to raise money for Rock the U. Basim Motiwala, the vice president of the Associated Students of the University of Utah, was purchased for about $55. At nearly every sporting event, crowds are privy to the color of ‘spankies’ each cheerleader wears under her short skirt. Let’s not even start on the motivation behind the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity’s annual ‘schoolgirl’ party.

Ellingson and Martinez’s objection to the sexuality of the rejected posters is questionable in the face of all the things that could be deemed too sexual at the U. They indicated that, in place of the posters, pictures of couples holding hands, hugging and kissing would be a preferable image. Take a look at the posters and decide which would be more sexual — kissing or glimpses of skin?

And, below are the clickable images created by Bonnie Owens, an intern. Note that these did not represent the final drafts of the posters so layouts might appear rough:

These images suggest healthy expressions of sexuality, a useful counterpoint to recent public dialogue. And, I think students are mindful of the need to correct those perceptions which has been done here tastefully. There have been plenty of scandalous stories – no need to recount them here – about the sexual peccadilloes of political, religious and community leaders caught in a stranglehold of a pathological closet identity that runs opposite to their claims of being the allegedly principled gatekeepers of morals and values.

There is an instructive irony to this debate as National Coming Out Day approaches. The events are as much about a reconciliation of conscience as anything else. The images created by a student artist reflect a confidence that LGBT students can live openly, happily, and comfortably with regard to every aspect of their identity. It is a shame that the administration, perhaps a little too nervous about how an uneducated and uninformed public might react, has forgotten a powerful and simple message that’s being communicated by these images: Straight, bisexual, transgendered, or gay — we all need to come out for a society that believes everyone has the right to express his or her love responsibly and constructively.