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Much like members of any other student organization, Pepperdine students who are involved in the Malibu GLEE club gather together regularly. Like members of any other club, they sponsor movie nights, coffeehouses and the annual “white elephant” Christmas party. Like members of any other club, they spend time hanging out, talking about the club’s purpose, planning events and getting to know each other better.
There’s a difference, though, between the Malibu GLEE club and other student-led clubs. Malibu GLEE does not have official recognition as a student organization. When GLEE members gather together, they do so in their own residences or at off-campus locations. When they sponsor events, each member must pay out of pocket to help cover the costs. When they spend time talking with one another, they’re often talking about the frustration they feel as part of a quiet — until recently — minority at Pepperdine.
The full name of the club is Malibu Gays, Lesbians and Everyone Else (GLEE), and the club, organized last year by current senior Jamaal Crowley, has more than 50 members at Pepperdine with an additional 13 Pepperdine alumni who are also members. According to Crowley, a telecommunications production major, the club's purpose is to serve as a support group for gay students and their friends, regardless of orientation. Crowley said this goal is sometimes difficult to accomplish in light of the lack of support from student activities and the administration.
“It’s a lot harder doing it off campus — money issues, finding a place to hold an event, all that stuff makes a big difference,” Crowley said. “We just want to be recognized officially as a group that wants to do nothing but good. We want the same rules and restrictions as any other group.”
According to Crowley, the cruelest irony of the situation is that, because as long as at least four or five Pepperdine students attend the group's off-campus events, they are still required to abide by Pepperdine rules in spite of the club's non-official status.
“We’re forced to adhere to these Pepperdine rules when we’re together, but we’re not getting Pepperdine benefits,” Crowley said.
According to the Student Organizations Handbook, privileges afforded only to official student organizations include, among other things, the use of the University's name, the use of campus facilities and services, the ability to fundraise and recruit on campus, and the ability to advertise on campus as well as membership in the Inter-Club Council, “which includes the privilege of requesting financial resources from the general student fund.”
Dean of Student Affairs Mark Davis said it is important to distinguish between the individual rights of students and the University’s recognition of a student organization. “The University affords all students the same individual rights to hold and express their viewpoints — including perspectives that don’t support the University’s mission or Code of Conduct, which they voluntarily agree to uphold when they enroll at Pepperdine,” Davis wrote in an e-mail. “While the University respects the right of any individual to hold different views from the University, we are under no obligation to support the formal organization of groups with opposing purposes.”
Crowley said he felt the need to form a gay-affirming support group when a number of incoming freshmen contacted him over the summer with concerns about the Pepperdine community. Crowley responded by creating a Facebook group to support gay students at Pepperdine and provide a forum for them to come together.
“When [students] come out and their family and friends are un-accepting, what are they supposed to do?” Crowley said. “They need support. They need to know that they are still a child of God. They don't need people telling them that what they are doing is sinful and wrong, which is what they get from a lot of students here.”
Crowley, now the president of Malibu GLEE, said he does not understand why the University is opposed to the creation of a student organization with that explicit purpose. The Student Organizations Handbook defines a student organization as “a group of at least fifteen Seaver College undergraduate students who voluntarily gather for a common purpose.” The handbook goes on to state, “The University administration recognizes student organizations that evidence clear support of its Christian mission and educational aims.” According to Davis, this includes the University's principle, outlined in the Seaver College Student Handbook, that sexual relationships are “designed by God to be expressed solely within a marriage between husband and wife,” and that any sexual relations outside these parameters are inconsistent with the teaching of Scripture and should be avoided by all members of the University.
Crowley argues that Malibu GLEE is not about sex, but about gay lifestyle and culture, and that being gay does not equate to having gay sex.
“We don't even talk about sex. That's on your own time,” Crowley said. “We're just like any other group except we happen to be attracted to the same sex. It's offensive when people think of us only in that way.”
Crowley said he does not view homosexuality as a sin and believes that Biblical interpretations that use the Apostle Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians 6:9 to suggest such are taken out of context.
“It’s difficult for me to see it from Pepperdine’s perspective, because the Bible addresses only homosexual acts — and we’re not about gay sex. The group is about supporting gay students,” Crowley said. “I don’t think God is going to send me to hell because I’m gay. I think God created us all in his own image. If we’re in his own image and we’re gay, that means something’s up.”
Senior political science major Kristen Compean said she opposes the formation of a GLEE club as such at Pepperdine but believes GLEE might better serve students on campus if the organization were designed as a support group for all students learning to understand homosexual friends and family members and if the club encouraged homosexual students to abstain from promiscuity.
“As a Christian living in a world when the times are changing and homosexuals are receiving more acceptance, I stand strongly by my beliefs, supported by scripture that the lifestyle is unacceptable, “Compean said. “I have many friends and a few family members who have chosen and struggled with homosexuality. I have not loved them any less for who they are, but I strongly believe that the lifestyle is a choice.”
Freshman business major Alex Pennekamp, a GLEE member, disagrees.
“Being gay is not a choice, and is just a part of who we are,” Pennekamp said. “We are still good and moral people that can add richness and diversity to the Pepperdine community.”
Some students, like freshman international studies major Keith Cantu, agree with Pennekamp and even take it one step further by arguing that Pepperdine's lack of alternative sexuality diversity hinders Pepperdine's rise in national rankings.
“[It] affects [the University's] academic and social reputation among its peer colleges,” Cantu said, “an example being the Princeton Review ranking it #13 in the category entitled ‘Alternative Lifestyles Not an Alternative. ’”
Cantu is not a member of Malibu GLEE although he did serve as an advocate for the group in his role as an SGA senator. He said his desire is to seek out “a real solution rather than endless rhetoric.”
“A survey should be conducted among all students,” Cantu said. “If the majority wishes for the club to be formed on campus, then by all means it should be done. After all, aren't student groups by their very definition for the students and not the administration?”
Freshman business administration major Joe Grable, on the other hand, said he applauds the University's decision to prohibit the formal recognition of a Pepperdine GLEE chapter and believes this decision will help deter Pepperdine from following the secularization model set by formerly Christian institutions like Harvard and Yale, “who have rejected their roots and chosen a secular path.”
“If Pepperdine continues to follow God's Word in matters of policy, then we as a university will continue to receive His blessing,” Grable said. “Pepperdine University, as proven through this decision, is a university that shows its students the importance of ‘loving the sinner yet hating the sin.’ We are all sinners, but that doesn't mean that we have to accept sin in any form, including homosexuality. I respect the courage of those who made this important decision.”
Though he said the group was wary of “stepping on Pepperdine's toes,” Crowley said the group continues to strive for progress in the Pepperdine community. Members are currently working to classify the club as a nonprofit organization and will host a number of events off-campus this semester, including a gay coffeehouse and an end-of-the-year celebration. He said the group is also looking forward to the March visit of Christian homosexual civil rights advocates, a group called Soulforce, to Pepperdine's campus, even though GLEE is not responsible for hosting the event.
Meanwhile, Crowley said he and other club members have agreed to refuse offers by the administration to allow GLEE on the condition that the club will operate under specialized restrictions including a version of an equal time rule which would require all GLEE meetings and events to present Biblical arguments that support the opposing viewpoint, a situation that Crowley described as “watering down” the group.
“I wanted it to be a reaffirming group, not one that reaffirmed and then cut it down,” Crowley said. “The people in the group agree. We don't just want half credit for being gay.”
Submitted 03-01-2007
MALIBU, CA
