CSULB Gays Start Fraternity to Banish Feeling of Exclusion

After years of feeling unwelcome in fraternity life, a group of gay students at Cal State Long Beach has founded a fraternity of its own.

It’s called Delta Lambda Phi, and it’s the university’s first Greek organization for gay men.

“It’s a support system,” said Kevin Edmonds, 27, a psychology major and one of the fraternity’s vice presidents. “It gives you a chance to make friends with other gay men, build up your self-esteem and deal with being gay.”

Jack Carrel, 31, the group’s president, said: “We felt there was a real need for gay men to have a fraternal experience.”

The men, who meet at various members’ homes because they don’t have their own house, say they formed the organization eight months ago after realizing the extent to which gay men are generally excluded from campus fraternities.

“When you are excluded, you don’t make the contacts to really feel like part of campus life,” said Carrel, who believes he was rejected by at least one fraternity on another campus because of his homosexuality. In several other cases at CSULB and elsewhere, he said, he decided not to pursue membership after it became clear that the fraternities in question were not open to accepting gay members. “It’s a real problem,” Carrel said. “I really felt like I’d missed out on something.”

Nap Harris, director of student life and development at the university, denies that the more than 20 fraternities on campus routinely exclude gay men. University policy, he said, prohibits them from discriminating on the basis of race, religion or sexual preference.

That policy is written into the bylaws of the Interfraternity Council, an organization representing 15 fraternities on campus. But according to the group’s president, Andrew Leigh, the bylaws can’t always be enforced. “There are lots of fraternities, and their personalities are very different,” Leigh said. “There is a Jewish fraternity, a Christian fraternity, black fraternities and Latino fraternities. Some are looking for a (certain) look or image, and others are extremely diversified.”

Although he knows of a handful of fraternities on campus that accept gays, Leigh said, the acceptance is by no means universal. In some houses with gays, having them does not seem to be a problem, he said, “and in others, that’s not what they’re looking for.”

Delta Lambda Phi, part of a national organization founded in 1987 and based in Washington, boasts about 20 chapters nationwide, several of them on California campuses.

Unlike other fraternities that accept or reject would-be members on the basis of popularity, Carrel said, “anybody who really shows an interest in (this) frat can be part of it. We feel like society kicks us around and puts us down enough so that we don’t need to do it to ourselves.”

Although the fraternity is oriented toward gays, he said, it would not discriminate against a heterosexual who wanted to become a member.

So far, none have. Of the group’s 23 members, Carrel said, about half are openly gay while the rest are at various stages of the “coming-out” process.

As with other fraternities, Delta Lambda Phi raises money for its favorite causes, participates in competitive events such as a recent trivia contest and throws lots of parties. Once a month, members say, they hold a dance party at a local gay nightclub. And recently the fraternity chartered a boat for a moonlight Valentine’s “sweetheart cruise” during which members and their dates danced until midnight.

Some activities have a particular connection to the local gay community. Last year, fraternity members participated in a candlelight vigil to protest alleged instances of “gay bashing” along the city’s Broadway corridor. More recently they participated in AIDS Walk Los Angeles. And they have donated goods to a Long Beach thrift store to raise money for people with AIDS.

The brothers of Delta Lambda Phi say they feel generally accepted on campus, despite some early rumblings from other fraternities apparently concerned about the gay group’s presence. “They kind of got freaked out,” Carrel recalls. “We heard that they were afraid. . . “

Since then, he said, the fear has waned and some Delta Lambda Phi members see that as the beginning of acceptance.

“There haven’t been any problems” echoed Harris, the administrator who oversees fraternities and sororities on campus. “We (hardly) know of their existence.”

Fraternity members hope to change that. “We’d like to make our presence known on the campus and in the community,” Delta Lambda Phi’s Edmonds said.

Said Carrel: “(We want people to) see that we’re people. We’re no different from anybody else.”