Pickets Protest Loyola Ruling on Gay Group : Colleges: Demonstrators charge president with discrimination. Foes say a club for gays and lesbians is inappropriate for a Catholic campus.

Chanting “Two, four, six, eight, God does not discriminate!” about 50 students picketed the office of Loyola Marymount University President James N. Loughran Thursday afternoon to protest his decision to deny full recognition to a club for gay and lesbian students.

More than 100 others watched and listened to statements by members of the Alliance of Gays and Lesbians, attorney Gloria Allred, and students representing groups at Loyola Law School, including the Lesbian and Gay Law Union.

Last week, Loughran declined to officially recognize the alliance but granted its members the right to meet on campus and to have access to “facilities, services and staff.”

Alliance members have expressed disappointment with the decision because it was issued in an unsigned statement through the university’s public relations office and because Loughran did not explain the reasoning behind the decision.

Leigh Kirmsse, a member of the Lesbian and Gay Law Union, read a letter from 12 student groups at the law school, including the Student Bar Assn. and several groups for minority students, urging Loughran to approve the club.

“If you pay equal fees, you deserve equal access,” Kirmsse said.

The alliance has also argued that the university set a precedent when the union was allowed to organize at the law school, even though that group received recognition under the school’s previous president, Donald P. Merrifield.

Loughran was not at the university during the rally because of a previous off-campus appointment, said university spokeswoman Leah Chester-Davis.

Allred, a graduate of Loyola Law School, is representing alliance President James Munselle in the group’s campaign for recognition. She said she has requested that the alliance be allowed to address the university’s March 5 board of trustees meeting and that alliance representatives would ask the board to override Loughran’s decision.

Several students in the crowd heckled Allred and Munselle as they marched outside St. Robert’s Hall on the Westchester campus. A few said the club had no place on the Roman Catholic campus.

“I just don’t think a club of that nature should be on this campus,” said junior Paul Evleth. “It could lead to other corrupt clubs, like an atheist club, for example.”

The rally was staged with the permission of the university, which granted the organizers a permit giving them the right to advertise and to distribute fliers, Chester-Davis said.

Early Thursday morning, rally organizers were stationed at the 80th Street entrance to the campus, handing out fliers to drivers as they entered the school grounds.

Whether a club for gay and lesbian students should be allowed on the Catholic campus has been the subject of debate among students and faculty members. Earlier this week, more than 100 students discussed the issue at a campus forum.

The alliance has received a vote of confidence from the faculty senate, which earlier this month passed a resolution urging the president to approve the club. A similar resolution was also passed by the student senate, although the president of the Associated Students later vetoed that resolution.

Last week, an attempt to override that veto failed by an 11-5 vote, said Brian Gurwitz, the student senator who sponsored the resolution. However, the student senate passed a proclamation asking the Associated Students, which is the senate’s executive branch, to grant probationary approval to the group, Gurwitz said.