“My one concern is that they’re taking more conservative policy stances and that they have a religious connotation.” said Jennifer A. Delurey ’12, who was on the board for the Harvard-Radcliffe Christian Fellowship. She said she was concerned that non-religious students might interpret the Anscombe Society’s vision of justice as all Christians’ opinion. “People might forget that understandings of what’s just vary within the religious community and the Christian community. I wouldn’t want to be forced to defend what TLR does.”
ALIENATING STANCES
The Anscombe Society’s stance on same-sex marriage, understandably, is deeply unpopular among members of Harvard’s BGLTQ community. But Marco Chan ’11, who served as Queer Students and Allies co-chair for three years, said that the relationship between TLR and QSA did not used to be so strained.
“I’d say the sentiment between our two organizations was somewhere between indifferent and cordial,” said Chan, who also lived in the same hallway was Wagley. “Back then, they were raising awareness on abstinence as being a choice. It never came off as being aggressively moralistic.”
Milano and McGlone say today that they are simply promoting discourse on campus and that they hope any student feels welcome to join the debate.
“This is a pluralistic society,” McGlone said. “If someone disagrees, I’m comfortable with that and I hope they’re comfortable with that too.”
Just recently, in fact, current QSA co-chairs Roland Yang ’14 and Trevor N. Coyle ’14 said that they sat down to dinner with Milano to discuss potential collaboration and to highlight common ground between the two organizations.
But many said they are skeptical that any collaboration could work.
“It’s disingenuous for them to think that they can hold a positive relationship with the LGBT community,” Chan said. “You can’t tell someone ‘I like you and we’re friends, but you’re not my equal’ and be on good terms.”
Students also said they believe that the Anscombe Society’s platform may alienate students who believe in abstinence but not necessarily in the organization’s other positions.
“It’s too bad for those students who are pro-abstinent but who now don’t have a safe space because they don’t agree with the Anscombe Society’s platform,” said Ian D. Lundberg ’15, who is part of both Harvard-Radcliff Christian Fellowship and Harvard College Democrats.
Lundberg, who recently transferred from a Baptist church to an Episcopal church because the Episcopal church supports same-sex marriage, said that he has seen other students who believe in gay marriage feel uncomfortable patronizing churches that denounce it. The same students might steer away from the renamed abstinence group, he said.
“Anscombe Society has a risk of dying out if they hold onto these positions,” he said.
—Staff writer Michelle Denise L. Ferreol can be reached at mferreol@college.harvard.edu.