All day today, GU Pride is stationed in Red Square with over 300 free “I am” t-shirts and a door for students to walk through in support of LGBTQ issues, or even to come out of the closet. The group set up their yearly installment for National Coming Out Day at 9 a.m. and will be there till the end of the day. This is the second event in a series of October events during “Coming Out Month 2012″ to celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning people and allies.

“It’s really a day to celebrate our identity,” President of GU Pride Meghan Ferguson (COL ’15) said.

Each year on National Coming Out Day, the group holds an ‘affection-in.’ “We had eight to ten couples and a whole bunch of other people holding hands, making out, and hugging in Red Square,” she said. “Many people walked by today, ranging from prospective students to professors who will say ‘Happy Coming Out Day, thanks for being out here!’ It’s great to see a lot of support on campus.”

The celebration will end with a barbecue on Leavey Esplanade at 5 p.m. Other events for Outober Month include a lecture with Chairman and President of Export-Import Bank Fred Hochberg, one of the few openly gay senior officials in the Obama administration.

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Last night, Barney Frank (D- Mass.), America’s most prominent gay Jewish politician, spoke on the current state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the initial event of “Israel Issue Week”, hosted by the Georgetown University College Democrats and J Street U.

Meandering from Israel’s treatment of homosexuals to his opinion of the new Clint Eastwood flick J. Edgar to the national allegiance of the many Portuguese-Americans in his Massachusetts district, Frank entertained his audience with a variety of anecdotes, jokes, and pragmatic assessments of the Arab-Israeli conflict and America’s relationship with Israel.

Throughout his speech and the question and answer session that followed, the Massachusetts congressman expressed both criticism for the policies and attitudes of Israel that he considers extreme, such as expanded settlement activity in the West Bank, and general support for the strong relationship between Israel and the United States. Reflecting on this nuanced position, Frank said that “the notion that when you’re friends, you don’t normally express criticism, is simply wrong.”

On current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Frank said that “If I was an Israeli, I would not be voting for Prime Minister Netanyahu.” But he also applauded Netanyahu for defending gay rights, harkening back to the Israeli leader’s speech to a joint session of Congress in May during which he said that “in a region where women are stoned, gays are hanged, Christians are persecuted, Israel stands out.”

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Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin characterized her decision to go into politics as a “professor” moment—as a twenty-three-year-old in her first semester of law school, she asked one of her professors if she should run for the open seat on the Board of Supervisors for Dane County, Wisconsin. He said she would make a great lawyer, but if she really wanted to do this politics thing, he was behind her all the way. She won the seat, and after six years in the Wisconsin State Legislature and 13 years in the House of Representatives, she is currently running to be the first openly gay Senator in the United States of America.

Baldwin told this story to a room full of eager Georgetown students last night, in an event co-sponsored by the College Democrats and GU Pride. And while she shared her own story, she also talked about the nitty gritty of being a member of congress and the important responsibilities that representatives have to their constituents.

She also encouraged her audience to get involved—regardless of the opinions others may have. Like many forward-thinking politicians, Baldwin was, according to her, told she was “too young, too progressive, too this,” and that she probably shouldn’t “bother”.

“Can a woman win? Can a lesbian win? Can a liberal win?” she said, recounting the challenges of her early political career in the traditionally red Wisconsin.

After telling the story of her rise into politics, Baldwin shifted to more current matters, and discussed the last congressional session. “I know how much the work of that congress was maligned in the midterm elections,” she said.

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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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If there’s one thing every college student loves, it’s free food. Each week, Vox will highlight a few events to help you survive without a meal plan. Send tips and suggestions to gbible@georgetownvoice.com.

Get charmed

Duff Goldman, star of the hit Food Network TV show “Ace of Cakes,” will perform some of his cake magic on Tuesday at 8 p.m. in Gaston Hall.

Goldman will discuss how his life and his passion for cake making—all while creating one of the unique cakes that made his bakery, Charm City Cakes, famous.

The tickets cost five dollars online, or eight dollars at the door—and yes, we know that we broke our own rule about the food being free. However, this is probably the only time you can get a cake like this for cheap, since cakes regularly cost upwards of $1,000.

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Joseph Graumann (SFS ’11), left, and Carlos Leon (COL ’10)

In this week’s issue, the Voice spoke with co-Presidents of GU Pride Joseph Graumann (SFS ’11) and Carlos Leon (COL ’10) about their organization, the recent hate crimes on campus and the challenges facing the LGBTQ community.  This is the extended transcript of our interview with them.

The Voice: How did you get involved in GU Pride?

Joseph: Well, I came out on campus during the Out for Change campaign. It was a lot of the issues at the time and the struggle that went on for recognition of the LGBTQ community really made me look inside myself, and, I mean as corny as it sounds, my so-called “brothers and sisters” are off fighting the good fight and I am not even secure enough to tell my friends.

Ever since then, I realized that there is work to be done. And my good friend Ellen, who was already involved with the Out for Change campaign, Ellen Greer, she really encouraged me to be involved in the community and I started out as historian, when there was an opening in the beginning of my sophomore year [2008] and then sophomore year, December, they had elections for co-chair and I ran and got elected.

The Voice: What is one thing you wish to change about GU Pride?

Joseph: I would like to see GU Pride become a more welcoming and open place for people who are in the process of coming out or who feel like they are unable to find a safe place with other aspects of the community that administers to LGBTQ people.

The Voice: The best thing about GU Pride?

Joseph: What I like about GU Pride is that although not everybody who is affiliated with the organization shows up to everything, we have a pretty good sense of comradery and we’ve developed a very good sense of community on campus, which is really important, given the nature of our identities, it’s really hard to do that, it’s hard to forge a cohesive and diverse, both racially [and] socio-economically, group on campus.

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A couple hundred students gathered in Red Square Monday evening holding candles to speak out against the recent anti-gay violence.

Representatives of student groups from GU Pride to the Georgetown branch of the NAACP spoke at the vigil, as well as Georgetown faculty, staff, and administrators. Chris Farris and Todd Metrokin, Co-Chairs of the D.C. group Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence, and Sergeant Carlos Mejia from MPD’s Gay and Lesbian Liason Unit also made an appearance.

“We are here today in solidarity with the victims of these crimes,” Co-President of GU Pride Joseph Graumann (SFS ’11) said. “But solidarity is more than sympathy. It’s more than just standing by. It’s about action.”

Students at the vigil advocated a range of responses to improve student safety and address what they perceive as a campus culture that tolerates homophobia. Among the suggestions were a student community watch program and higher pay for DPS officers, as well as individual precautions like programming the DPS number into cell phones and reporting crimes when they occur.

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About 70 students met in Red Square this afternoon for a flash protest against the recent anti-gay hate crimes.

The rally was organized by Carter Lavin (SFS ’10), a supporter of LGBTQ rights but not a member of GU Pride.  Lavin said he was so upset upon hearing about the most recent incident, the assault that occurred at 36th and N Streets early this morning, that he couldn’t focus on his work and decided to organize a protest.

Lavin spread the word by texting 40 to 50 of his friends, many of whom spread the word on Twitter.

“I hope people start caring, start noticing,” Lavin says.  “[I think the protest is important] so we can say students reacted.”

Joseph Graumann (SFS ’11), Co-Chair of GU Pride said he was “dismayed” by the recent hate crimes but was glad that the LGBTQ community at Georgetown has such strong allies and was “amazed that someone took it upon themselves” to plan the protest.

Graumann said that the campus climate has improved significantly since the 2007 hate crimes that prompted the creation of the LGBTQ Center, but work still needs to be done to “raise awareness that hate is a problem on campus.”

“When LGBTQ students are targeted it’s scary,” Graumann said.

According to Graumann, GU Pride is planning to hold a community event later this week.

During the rally, students made a circle around Red Square and shouted chants “Hate crimes are ridiculous / My Georgetown is better than this!” and “Georgetown students are under attack / What do we do? Stand up, fight back!”

Update 9:30 p.m. There will be a vigil tomorrow night in Red Square at 8:30 p.m. For more information, check out the Facebook event.

Photos by Helen Burton

UPDATE: Pride co-President Scott Chessare (COL ’10) has sent out a letter to administrators and media outlets; it is posted below the jump.

The two co-Presidents of GU Pride, along with Bill McCoy, the part-time coordinator of LGBTQ resources on campus, are in Chicago at DePaul University tonight, attending a conference on LGBTQ issues on Catholic campuses. I just received an e-mail from Olivia Chitayat (COL ‘10), one of the co-Presidents. Though obviously dismayed by the incident, she’s happy that the University got the news out faster this time (“Five days is better than three weeks”); interestingly, she says McCoy hadn’t heard about the incident yet. You’d think the University would want to tell him. More from Chitayat:

The University can’t just say that we do not tolerate homophobia on this campus and expect the culture to change. … These incidents are going to keep occurring, they already occur every day, [until] we step in and start talking about the issue, start providing safe spaces for members of the community, start listening to the needs of people that live and breathe on this campus and MAKE A CHANGE. We have to keep talking and keep pushing people out of their boundaries until everyone realizes that homophobia will not and cannot be tolerated, until everyone understands why treating a member of the community in such a disrespectful, hateful, and violent manner is unacceptable.

We’ll be reporting as much as we can on this issue tomorrow, so keep an eye on the blog.

- Tim Fernholz, Editor in Chief

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