Sumner E. Anderson '92 says he doesn't exactly like controversy. He says he doesn't exactly search for controversy.

But he doesn't exactly shy away from controversy, either.

Since assuming the presidency of the Harvard Republican Club (HRC) last December, Anderson has managed to antagonize administrators, club members and liberals alike by moving the HRC to a vocal, right-wing ideological stance that has found few adherents on campus.

"In the past, the club's discussion was centered around, 'Is this going to offend anyone? Is Dean [of Students Archie C.] Epps going to get mad?'" Anderson recalls. "That's a waste. You compromise all your positions and you're not taking stances."

"Now, if our executive board agrees on something, we're going to say it in public," the Lowell House sophomore continues. "If Dean Epps hates us, big deal. Who's Dean Epps? He doesn't know any more than we do. He doesn't like controversy--he wants smooth sailing. If the administration doesn't like us, if gay groups don't like us, if pro-choice groups don't like us, tough luck."

Anderson's father Don, a devout Christian who had contemplated entering the Lutheran ministry, instilled Sumner with a deep belief in an absolute Christian morality early in his childhood in Summit, N.J. Although Sumner is quick to point out with a boyish grin that he converted his dad to the Republican Party, he admits that his father is greatly responsible for his conservative politics.

"My political beliefs are based on religious beliefs, personal values I guess I got from my dad," says Anderson, who says he is convinced that America would be a better place if everyone were Christian, or at least adopted some religious code. "But a lot of it is logic, common sense. These are decent moral values. Government has a responsibility to protect society, to keep it decent."

Articulate and quick to quote theorists, statistics and court decisions, Anderson can discourse for hours on the evils of abortion, promiscuity, affirmative action, dovish military policies, women in combat, overtaxation, overspending, overregulation and the "intolerance of the left."

Homosexuality as 'Deviant Behavior'

But it is his public anti-gay proclamations on behalf of the HRC--especially his letter to The Crimson titled "God Bless Peninsula" in which he called homosexuality "deviant behavior"--that have gained Anderson notoriety on campus.

"I just think it's unbelievable that people are so accepting of homosexuality here," Anderson says. "It's just downright deviant, promiscuous, life-threatening behavior. It's repulsive. It's a disease...It's just totally abnormal. It's not a natural activity."

A member of the Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC), Anderson says he is convinced that Harvard's toleration of gays is evidence of a "moral malaise" on campus, a situation he plans to address next fall by having the HRC issue anti-gay pins with blue squares to protest against the pink triangle worn by supporters of gay rights.

"The pink triangle has its roots in the oppression and extinction of a minority in Nazi Germany," says Jarrett T. Barrios '90, co-chair of Bisexual Gay Lebsian Students Association (BGLSA). "For him to want to oppose that with a blue square is to call for discrimination, hate and intolerance in our society. It underlines the ludicrous goals of the Republican Club."

But Anderson is not making any apologies--not for his deeply held beliefs, and not for making those beliefs the official platform of the HRC. No stranger to leadership, the former three-sport captain, president of the National Honor Society and local teen Republican club says he was elected to lead the organization to the right and is achieving that mandate.

Of course, even Anderson's election was controversial. There were only about 20 or 25 voters present, and Anderson had personally invited 15 of them, including many of his teammates on the Harvard swimming team, club members say. And several of Anderson's invitees paid their membership dues at the meeting, instead of the month in advance required by the club's constitution.