Univ. of Maryland Book Selection “Driving Wedge” Among Students



by Jim Brown and Jody Brown

A Christian attorney says it appears a major public university is attempting to impose an orthodoxy of belief on the issue of homosexual rights.

The University of Maryland has purchased 10,000 copies of The Laramie Project, a play based on townspeople's reaction to the death of homosexual college student Matthew Shepard. The copies will be distributed to freshmen and all others who live on campus, and students in any honors program will be required to read, discuss, and incorporate it into their curriculum.

In addition, the school's theater department will stage a production of the play in November, preceded by a two-day on-campus visit by the playwright, Moisés Kaufman. Staged readings and essay contests on the book will follow. The Terrapin Reading Society, which selected the book, says one of the objectives of the play is to “stimulate discussion on issues of diversity, tolerance, intolerance, community, and healing.”

A Christian legal group, the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy, has expressed outrage over what it calls a pro-homosexual indoctrination program. But the Center's chief counsel, Steve Crampton, says it appears the university has no time for those who morally object to the deadly homosexual lifestyle.

“When a university official was presented with that scenario of objecting conservatives, she actually said that she would welcome that — and let them have a taste for what it feels for a homosexual who would come to class regularly and never have his views aired out or protected,” the attorney says.

Crampton says the whole undertaking has a definite edge to it. “The gentleman that is primarily responsible for it appears to have a distinct pro-homosexual agenda,” he says. “So the university requiring this reading would appear to be taking one side of that explosive issue of homosexual rights — and in the name of building community and healing after September 11, [it] is driving a wedge among students.”

Crampton says he is not sure if most Maryland students even know they are required to read the controversial play. His group is considering legal action against the university.

The Center for Law & Policy recently filed a lawsuit against the University of North Carolina for its requirement that all new and incoming students read a pro-Islamic book. That legal effort was successful in getting the “required” stipulation removed, but the judge in the case ruled use of the book was constitutional.

(This update courtesy of Agape Press.)

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