Tuesday night in White-Gravenor, LGBTQ rights advocate Ryan Conrad shared his unconventional opinions about the futility of marriage rights.

“Is [marriage] the battle worth fighting for?” he asked. “I think not.”

As the author and founder of Against Equality, an online critique of “mainstream gay and lesbian politics,” Conrad was invited to campus by GU Pride, the Lecture Fund, the LGBTQ Resource Center, and the Women’s Center as a part of Gender Liberation Week.

“What does marriage do for us?” Conrad said, explaining that marriage would do nothing to help the queer community in terms of health care benefits or monogamy. Marriage, he claimed, is an arbitrary, social institution that is coveted beyond its usefulness.

“The conservative Christian Right and the gay liberal [political] narrative look exactly the same,” he argued.

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Last Friday, George Washington University President Steven Knapp announced that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will give the GW’s commencement speech this coming May. Last year, First Lady Michelle Obama gave GW’s commencement speech.

“Sounds like GW got a terrific speaker,” Julie Green Bataille, associate vice president for communications, admitted in an e-mail.

If history is a precedent, Georgetown is unlikely to announce its commencement speaker for several more months. Last year, Georgetown didn’t officially release its list of speakers until late April.

Although Meghan Hogge, director of academic events, declined to comment on GW’s pick and the status of Georgetown’s own selection process, all signs suggest that this year’s announcement will have to wait until next semester.

“Georgetown will have individual commencement speakers for each ceremony and I do not anticipate having a final list until much closer to our actual commencement dates,” Bataille wrote.

At last May’s commencement ceremonies, the nine speakers—one for each school and one for the ROTC commissioning ceremony—included Dikembe Mutombo (SLL ’91) and Bob Schieffer.

Photo: Flickr user “shootingbrooklyn“

Last month, the Student Public Interest Research Groups, a non-profit lobby group, organized a Affordable Textbook Day of Action to oppose high textbook costs. To help “spread the word about textbook affordability solutions,” PIRGs representative Brien Dinella visited Georgetown last Thursday.

Dinella, a student at St. Nobert College who is studying at American University this semester, spent the day visiting Georgetown professors, prepared to educate them about textbook costs and affordable solutions.

“The professors are the demand,” Dinella said, “If they want change, publishers will listen.”

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The world of Georgetown restaurants is cut-throat. From cupcakes to kabobs, most end up in ruthless competition with at least one rival. (Think Chipotle vs. Qdoba, Georgetown Cupcake vs. Baked & Wired, or Wingo’s vs. Wing Co.)

The result? The restaurants that survive the brawl are delicious and provide top-of-the-line service. So, when a new crêperie opened its doors last week to challenge the likes of Crêpe Amour and Café Bonaparte, I decided to scope out dessert juggernauts’ competition.

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Beginning in early December, select Georgetown faculty members will pull onto campus in a new, high-tech ride—the Toyota Prius plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHV).

Two of the plug-in hybrids will be loaned to the University as part of a global study conducted by Toyota and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Clean Cities Program, according to a Toyota press release.

“By taking steps toward accommodating electric vehicle use, Georgetown continues to advance our sustainability goals, including the reduction of our carbon footprint,” Karen Frank, vice president for university facilities and student housing, said in the release.

Georgetown employees will have the opportunity to drive the cars in three-month shifts before passing them on to other faculty members. There’s a catch, however; each PHV takes between 90 minutes and three hours to fully recharge, meaning that test drivers will have to charge the cars at special parking spots underneath the Hariri building. (The Hariri building is LEED certified, so it is fitting that it will be housing these reduced-footprint cars.)

The Prius PHV is able to operates solely on electricity for 13 miles at normal traffic speeds, then reverts to a hybrid electricity and gasoline-fuel model.

Data from Toyota’s national demonstration will be posted beginning in early 2011. The data will be used to aid in the development of the next generation of Toyota vehicles available for sale in 2012.

Photo: Sustainability at Georgetown University