Homosexuality Is Key to Some College Scholarships

CNSNews.com ^ | January 21, 2002 | Michael L. Betsch

[tdadams]

(CNSNews.com) - Need money for college tuition? A group of employees from telecommunications giant AT&T will help pay the bills of students who identify themselves as homosexuals.

Grades and extra-curricular activities don't count as much as sexual orientation for this type of financial help.

The scholarship comes from the AT&T Foundation's LEAGUE, which is an acronym for Lesbian, Bisexual, Gay & Transgendered United Employees.

LEAGUE is one of seven "Business Resource Groups" at AT&T, serving as a homosexual advocacy resource for the telecommunications giant, its customers, shareholders, colleagues, families and the global community.

For the past six years, LEAGUE at AT&T Foundation has awarded a handful of $1,500 academic scholarships to self-identified homosexual youth. LEAGUE Foundation spokesperson Charles Eader noted that applications have doubled every year since the fund was launched.

And for those homosexual students who have demonstrated leadership in promoting diversity and understanding in the community, the LEAGUE Foundation offers a $2,500 scholarship dedicated to the memory of Matthew Sheppard, whom it considers a model of courage.

Sheppard, who was homosexual, was tortured and beaten to death by two men on Dec. 28, 1998 in Wyoming. He was 21 at the time.

LEAGUE Foundation said it hopes Shepherd's memory will inspire lesbian, bisexual, gay & transgendered applicants and recipients of scholarships to persevere against anti-homosexual intimidation both in and out of the classroom.

According to Eader, applicants must be high school graduates; identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered; have achieved a cumulative grade point average of at least 3.0 on a 4.0 scale; be actively and substantially involved in community service; live in the United States; and have been accepted to attend an accredited college or university in the United States.

But conservatives are outraged by the notion that homosexuality is being rewarded by corporations such as AT&T.

"It's sad that teenagers are being deceived about sexuality and recruited into a lifestyle that is unhealthy and immoral," said the Family Research Council's Kristin Hansen. "It's definitely evidence that homosexual activists are organized at many facets of society -- in the corporate world, in schools and in the media."

Eader noted that LEAGUE Foundation is funded wholly by donations and does not receive any financial support from the AT&T corporation. AT&T allows LEAGUE Foundation to conduct its communication and planning activities -- including phone calls, faxes, and emails -- on corporate premises. However, Eader noted that LEAGUE and LEAGUE at AT&T Foundation "are 2 different and distinct, even though related, organizations."

Membership in the AT&T Business Resource Group LEAGUE is reserved solely for AT&T employees. According to Eader, any homosexual advocacy group or its members may become part of the 501(c)3 LEAGUE at AT&T Foundation charity . This charity also "welcomes financial support from the larger LGBT community and its allies," according to the group's Web site, which is hosted by AT&T.

"The level of organization is not a surprise," Hansen said of LEAGUE's wide-open membership requirements and financial practices.

Eader said homosexual scholarship recipients who have been outspoken in their communities are encouraged to continue such activism when they get to college, but he said they have no obligation to do so. Eader added that the names of scholarship recipients remain anonymous, no matter what path they choose to follow.

But scholarship recipients are not discouraged from performing acts of "community service." In fact, Eader said LEAGUE and its supporters would benefit from having a fresh voice on campus promoting the homosexual issues and diversity.

Hansen said LEAGUE's scholarship offering is just another example of incentives encouraging behavior. "And if there's money available," she added, "it legitimizes a behavior."

[tdadams]

You seem to enjoy the concept of fascism just a bit too much.

[Leisler]

For being a rich, snotty, over educated east coast limpwrist and then going into working class shot and a beer joint and dising the locals. Duh!

[Khepera]

We are free to suffer the consequences and that is the only thing we are free to do in this country.

[Leisler]

Illiterate dolt.

Those are Private organizations, not a public company.

[BikerNYC]

I have no problem with AT&T offering scholarships to homosexual students, just as I have no problem with the Boy Scouts refusal to change their policies to accommodate what is probably less than one percent of the one to two percent of the general population that is homosexual.

Good post.

[Rightly Biased]

That's my point I understand that you can have a scholarship for whatever or whoever you want but to just say its for homo's would be the same as saying its just for white people so hence the discrimination.

[wwjdn]

You seem to enjoy the concept of fascism just a bit too much.

So show me how I'm wrong...

[tdadams]

So show me how I'm wrong...

What's the point? You're not going to listen to anyone but those who agree with you anyway.

But I will say this... this is a free country. We have a Constitution that sought to severly limit the role of government in the everday lives of American citizens. American citizens have the right to be left alone (that is in the Federalist Papers, since you'll ask). It also made clear that America is not to be a theocracy, so you cannot refer to your own religious values as some kind of authority on what the law should be.

[ConservativeLibrarian]

Does anyone have access to information about Matthew Sheppard that is not presented to score political points? His case was so laden with ideology that it was hard to determine the truth of the matter. Bias works both ways of course-- they are plenty of people on the right who wish to prove that he wasn't killed for being gay, although not nearly as many on the left who want to prove that he was.

ConLib

[wwjdn]

It also made clear that America is not to be a theocracy, so you cannot refer to your own religious values as some kind of authority on what the law should be.

America was built on Godly values, it is clearly evident in early law, early writings by the founding fathers, etc. The right to practice religion freely was never intended to be freedom from any religion. I don't want to spread my religion to others by force, not in the least. I do want good Godly laws that protect my children and my future gand-children from perverts and immoral people. Without moral laws, we have no forundation of which to build law.

[Clintons Are White Trash]

You and their parents are responsible for protecting your grandchildren from the ungodly and immoral, not the United States Government. The laws of the land are there to try to discern and prevent actions which are harmful - not just in the opinions of some - but all. If you don't like homosexuals or homosexuality, nobody is forcing you to be a part of it, but you have no more right to tell a gay group what they can do in their organization any more than they do telling the Boy Scounts what they can do that is called freedom of association.

The hate and venom spewed on these threads is sickening most of the time. I have gay friends and a gay nephew - I love them all dearly. When people stop treating gay people as a "thing" and treat them as real live human beings we will all be better off. (If that sounds a bit familiar, it's a lot like what we as pro-lifers are asking of pro-abortionists.) I prefer to leave judgment on this and any other situation like it to God.

[tdadams]

I do want good Godly laws that protect my children and my future gand-children from perverts and immoral people.

The law already protects you, your children, and grandchildren from perverts and immoral people. If someone molests them, that person will go to prison and should stay there for a long time, if not for life.

But the law does not allow you to prescribe how other consenting adults are allowed to live their life. Simple as that.

Religion is a personal thing. You can choose to believe in whatever faith you choose and worship in any manner you choose. No one can take that away from you.

But you can't dictate your religious values to others under the aegis of law. That's a theocracy. Whether you call it a theocracy or not doesn't change the fact that it is a theocracy.

[tdadams]

Excellent reply, CAWT. You stated very well my sentiments.

The right to practice religion freely was never intended to be freedom from any religion.

I agree completely, and am constantly disabusing people of the popular fallacy that the Constitution calls for a "separation of church and state." That is an invented phrase used by the left to drive religion out of America. It's increasingly effective as the size of government (the public sector) continues to grow and get its tentacles in every facet of American life.

I am a Christian and would fight to the death anyone who would try to make America an atheist nation. But at the same time, I'm respectful of others choices in life so long as they do not initiate force or fraud against me.

I look to the example of Jesus at the well and decide that it's not my place to judge others. That's God's job, and if God gives a man his entire life before he is judged, who am I to preempt God?

[OWK]

I say jail all openly homosexuals if they refuse to go back to normal moral lifestyle.

Your buddies already tried that.

[OWK]

The right to practice religion freely was never intended to be freedom from any religion.

It is impossible to practice one's religion, if one is not free from the imposition of his neighbor's religion by government force.

Maybe you missed that fact.

[OWK]

There is a freedom to commit sodomy? Odd...I don't recall reading that in the Federalist Papers.

Have you ever comitted sodomy?

I'd bet serious money that you have.

[OWK]

Look at how much they have costs us in medical expenses (AIDS), etc.

And yet instead of rightly opposing the government social programs that pay these medical expenses, you attempt to use one wrong (government socialism) to justify another (government imprisonment of all homosexuals).

You sure have a funny way of looking at things.

[JMJ333]

I'm not for jailing people, but I'm not in favor of of removing the stigmatism from two men performing anal sex with one another. Concrete truths do exist. If you normalize homosexual behavior, you are sending a signal to the youth of this country that it is an acceptable and legitimate lifestlye. That would be a lie, and it would also be negating the moral obligation we have has American citizens to pass on the best society for the next generation.

It is the same reason why drugs should not be legalized. Smoking pot encourages behavior that shouldn't be looked upon with indifference. Laziness, losing your sexual inhibitions, gluttony are vices, not virtues.