So thus far I've been trying to blog at least somewhat academically, looking at topics such as religion, HIV/AIDS research, and military policy. But I'm not all long wind and research people. I like the funny.

So today, I bring you some things in my internet travels that have made me giggle, and sometimes- dare I say it- outright LOL.

First off, I'm sure many of you have seen the latest ad campaign from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM). In itself, I find it pretty hilarious. Here it is for those of us who haven't seen it, or for those who want to relive the fear:

Hilarity ensued did it not? If you're at all like me, the first thing you thought was "Oh, this is ripe for parody. If only I had a stormy backdrop and a slew of friends..." Fear not young YouTube warrior! Feast your eyes on this!

So we had our meeting Wednesday, and two members of a Christian student organization showed up. It was wonderful. They were very respectful, non-judgmental, and they invited us to a picnic along with another LGBT org, and we hear that they may be inviting other student organizations in general, so luckily this time nothing negative happened.

In preparation to avoid any negative circumstances, our E-Board decided to make this meeting "Closing the Circle". For our organization, at the beginning of the year we do "Crossing the Line" and advertise it to get as many people as possible there, and then a moderator reads statements of identity such as "I have or have had an eating disorder" or "I identify as a person of color", and people step forward as they feel it applies to them, then those who have crossed the line are given a chance to speak, typically encouraged to make their statement "I never want to hear..." and whatever they would like to fill that with. For Closing the Circle, we do not advertise so that it is only those members who have been active in our organization over the past year, and it is a silent activity, meant more for personal reflection and quiet contemplation. We did it at the meeting when the Christians came largely because it is a silent activity to discourage any outbursts or anything of that sort, and for them to see who we are... more than just gay or heathens or however we may fear being seen, but rather as everything we are as people... and a lot of us had things in common with the two who came to our meeting. For me, I was excited to see one of them step forward for "I am an ally". I'm not sure he knew what it meant in the LGBT sense, but even the fact that they participated with us was encouraging.

So... I have an update on the religious issues with my campus. After our meeting this week, some members noticed a Christian group sitting near us discussing gays in the bible, and their leader followed our President to our office and asked her when and where we meet. According to some of our members, they are planning on sitting in on our meeting and praying over us.

Seriously.

So, I have a couple ideas for how to deal with this situation. My first was to let them, then I would get together a bunch of my gay guy friends and our President would get together her bi and lesbian buddies, and we'd go to their meeting and just make out. That idea got shot down. So I guess I'm going with my plan two: I just so happen to have a good relationship with the staff of our campus newspaper, and I'm inviting them to our next meeting. If they don't show up, hey at least they're covering our organization... but if they do, that's a hell of a lead in to our Hate Crime Awareness Week where we deal with issues of bias and hate on campus. Also, it'll be a great way to get the campus involved in taking action against organizations who at this point seem like they're stalking us, and making our members not only comfortable attending meetings, but being on campus at all.

I'll let you guys know how things shape up as they go... right now it looks like things are going to get more interesting before they go boring again.

So tonight is my last taste of sweet, sweet freedom... the Spring Quarter starts tomorrow. This entire week I've basically gotten to spend punishing my tailbone by sitting on my butt for extended periods of time, either in bed with a book, in my computer chair vegetating over old episodes of Buffy, Xena, and the X-Men cartoon from the 90s (PS: Did I mention I'm a crazed X-Men fanboy?), or other various prone, non-contributing-to-society positions. Tomorrow also means the resumption of my duties as Vice President of Rainbow Alliance. I'm actually kind of excited to get back to work. I get to reconnect with some fresh faces I'd only begun to meet, Spring quarter is our busiest quarter for events, and I get to take Intro to Sexuality Studies, the flagship class being tested to see if Wright State should offer a Sexuality/LGBT/Queer Studies major.

There are some drawbacks however. This year we seem to be facing more trouble than usual with our campus's Christian organizations. This is not to say that Christians are anti-gay, or that the Christian students in general are anti-gay... but there has been concerning activity with the Christian organizations on my campus lately. Last quarter, we got an e-mail from a former member of the main evangelical group on campus notifying us that members of the organization routinely pray for God to strike us down and destroy us, and the President of our Christian Student Union followed our President into our organization's office one morning and told her that God came to him and told him to save her, and to top all that off the Campus Bible Fellowship organized on Ash Wednesday to confront those on campus who weren't wearing ash and asked them why they had chosen not to accept Jesus Christ as their lord and savior.