CHAPEL HILL, NC (AgapePress) - Already drawing flack for requiring its incoming freshmen and transfer students to read a book of excerpts from the Koran, the University of North Carolina appears to be embarking on another of area of controversy: the homosexual agenda.

UNC-Chapel Hill is currently considering a report commissioned by UNC Provost Robert Shelton on the state of the university’s homosexual community. The report focuses on promoting the development of the "lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer" (LGBTQ) community at the university, and makes heavy-handed suggestions for promoting tolerance of UNC’s homosexuals and acceptance of their agenda.

Shelton commissioned the report, titled “The LGBTQ Climate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,” to study what he considers another minority group. “In some ways it reminds me of studies done decades ago on the climate for women in universities where we had almost no women faculty,” he said. “I guess you could look at it from an ethnicity standpoint as well.”

The report’s stated goals are to “facilitate the development of a lively LGBTQ community, and to promote an open and tolerant university community that engages the LGBTQ community in intellectual and social change”. The study claims that “sexual minorities” still face “widespread social stigmatization and discrimination ...” and suggests that is because “half the general population continues to believe that homosexual behavior is morally wrong.”

Joey Stansbury, UNC graduate and former campus Republican, discussed the focus of the report. “A 92-page document is not simply about providing rights everybody should enjoy at the university,” Stansbury said. “It’s about furthering some kind of distorted social agenda that has absolutely nothing to do with education. In fact, it pulls resources away during critical budget times when the university should be more mindful.”

Shelton denied propagating an agenda, saying, “It’s certainly not my intent to promote anybody’s agenda. Just like it’s not up to me to decide what classes the political science department teaches or whether they’re going to be left-oriented or right-oriented. We have a strong tradition here of having ... different groups of the community and places where those groups can welcome the entire community in.”

The report takes an in-depth look at the “climate” for LGBTQ members of the university in several areas including academics, support services, employee and faculty benefits, and institutional policy.

Comparing Chapel Hill to other “benchmark” universities across the country, the report finds UNC lagging. While other universities offer majors, minors, and even certificates in “Sexuality Studies,” UNC does not. The report criticizes UNC, claiming, “Over the last three decades, the study of sexuality has become established in the U.S. and elsewhere as a rich, vibrant area of research.”

Recommendations to alleviate the disparities with other universities include to “actively encourage department chairs and faculty to revise existing courses to include material relevant to Sexuality Studies and to develop new courses ...” and to “... explicitly communicate to ... the departments that Sexuality Studies is a valued and legitimate area of research, teaching and scholarship ...” The report also recommends the hiring of a full-time director of Sexuality Studies, and adding several new faculty lines in the proposed new department.

As an alum, Stansbury bristled at the idea of adding these new courses. “You find students now who have difficulty getting into core classes ... because they are full, because they don’t have money to fund more professors,” he said. “It makes it very difficult for a student to successfully arrange their schedule in the course of four years ... yet the university is using its resources to provide classes that ... don’t contribute to the intellectual climate,” he continued. “Once again, it’s part of furthering someone’s social agenda.”

The provost disagrees. “These courses, I think have been very valuable for the university as a whole,” Shelton said. He compared the suggested new courses to UNC’s controversial required seminar for incoming freshman on the Koran. “I think having those kinds of courses, and the opportunities to study these issues, is a part of what we’re about,” he said.

The study’s section on student learning and support services found that UNC’s ”... general reputation as a welcoming and supportive environment for diversity does not reflect the experience of many LGBTQ students.” The report cited several examples of “harassment,” including an incident Stansbury was involved in when he was a student.

In 1995, Stansbury led an effort by members of UNC’s Student Congress to prohibit a homosexual group on campus from receiving student activity fee money. Stansbury said that the effort was not harassment, but an outgrowth of a large number of students objecting to “using their student fees for these activities, particularly when their own efforts to receive funding from student government for their own views were repeatedly rejected and they could receive no funds.”

But the report doesn’t stop at demanding acceptance of the homosexual community at UNC. In an even more unsettling turn, the study suggests silencing opposing views. A long-range recommendation states that, “All recruiters through University Career Services should be screened to ensure that their policies are inclusive of all sexual orientations and gender identities.” The same goes for “internships done through the University.”

Stansbury pointed out that this “would suggest that if a religious or military organization had a policy that did not conform with their guidelines, it would be prohibited from coming onto campus.”

The report’s section on employee and faculty benefits details the lack of benefits accorded to same-sex partners. It states, “When domestic partner benefits are denied, the state and the university are sanctioning and sponsoring discrimination against LGBTQ citizens.” Pointing at the national trend among corporations and other universities, it continues, “providing domestic partner benefits is in line with a nationwide movement toward employers enacting policies that extend benefits to partners of lesbian and gay employees.”

The report calls for UNC to “adopt a clear and agreed upon definition of ‘domestic partner.’ This committee recommends that same sex-spousal or long-term relationships of greater than one-year duration be considered under this category.”

Legally, in North Carolina, same-sex partners do not receive health benefits. As a remedy, it is recommended “that UNC-Chapel Hill administrators, faculty, and staff initiate a legislative advocacy effort to include all domestic partners of employees (staff and faculty) under health insurance coverage options.”

The report goes on to suggest vigorous fundraising efforts to build infrastructure for the homosexual community and to develop a “Sexuality Studies” curriculum. A stated short-range recommendation is that UNC “should provide funding for an LGBTQ Development Coordinator to conduct LGBTQ-related development work at UNC-Chapel Hill.”

And while some of the proposals in the report reference monies from private funds and fundraising events, it also calls for support from the general funds of the university. One specific recommendation was for $15,000 per year for a graduate student to assist a new director.

When asked about the controversial nature of the report, Shelton replied, “That would be the case no matter where we were, and I think ... the state has a wide spectrum of political and social positions from reasonably liberal to very conservative.” He continued, “I’m sure in a state like this there will be people who will say that this isn’t what God intended; they’ll invoke the 'God' word, I imagine, and so people will in their heart of hearts just feel this is wrong. While I respect people’s views and differences of opinion, I don’t agree with that -- I think members of the LGBTQ community are very important to the university here and they contribute as scholars and as students, and we need to be sure they have the support [of the university] .... Maybe in the end we’ll agree to disagree.”

Stansbury believes the provost knows the recommendations are too controversial to enact quickly. He cited an article from The Daily Tar Heel in which Shelton stated, “It will take some time, but the best way to get things done is to approach it incrementally.”

Stansbury responded, “The provost plans to enact parts of this proposal on an incremental basis because I think he realizes the controversial nature of this, and that this clearly flies in the face of what the students ... want to see their tuition dollars being spent on, as well as the citizens of North Carolina -- how they want their taxpayer dollars being spent. He will try to implement these recommendations under the radar screen to avoid any type of public outcry.”