To appease critics, maybe school officials could volunteer to administer the necessary details of the scholarship during personal lunch hour time. WSU stands out among state agencies when it comes to attitudes and treatment directed toward gays and lesbians. When considering those individuals and decision-making bodies from head of state to the local school boards, Utah's record, generally speaking, is dismal. We present an image of a state still caught up in mid-20th century conservatism and exclusivity. Hate crime bills are tabled.
City councils refuse to include gays and lesbians in anti-discrimination policies.
An outstanding volleyball coach is fired because she is a lesbian. The predominant church of the state spends millions of dollars peddling political influence in California, Hawaii, Alaska and other states to thwart gays and lesbians from achieving a small measure of their civil rights. I salute the administrators at WSU for being courageous enough to step out of the primordial muck of provincialism and homophobia and allow just a slender shaft of the light of compassion and empathy to penetrate the dark clouds of intolerance that is our state's stigma and legacy. Macdonald stays on safer ground when his commentary is about legality, rather than morality. Labeling all Shepard scholarship applicants in this manner is prejudicial and inflammatory.