About - Alliance (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Straight, Transgender): Wartburg College

Alliance Members in Drag
Members of Alliance and guests featured in 2007 Cabaret Show

About Alliance
The purpose of Alliance is to provide a supportive and accepting environment for students, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, and to educate and provide resources to the Wartburg community to encourage open discussion about diverse issues pertaining to sexuality. Alliance is open to all members of the Wartburg community.

Confidentiality
Alliance and Wartburg College are very aware of the importance of confidentiality and protecting the identities of LGBT individuals on campus. You should feel safe that information discussed at Alliance meetings will not go beyond the group.

Highlights Alliance Events

During the 2007-08 academic year, Alliance was recognized as the outstanding student organization of the year. Alliance now has a membership of over 100 students (roughly one for every 18 students on campus). Alliance helped encourage bring Judy Shepard, mother of Matthew Shepard, a gay man who was murdered in 1998 due to homophobia, to campus as the first major convocation speaker of the year. She spoke to a near capacity crowd of about 1,000 people. For Coming Out Week, we had a total of eight events ranging from discussion forums to an coming out expression night, where members got on stage to share their own coming out stories through dance, music, or poetry. The week ended a showing of the Laramie Project and a presentation with Erin Davies and her vandalized FagBug that she drives around the United States. In December the President's Cabinet approved our request to become a Reconciling in Christ organization of Lutherans Concerned. We are now rostered nationally with the group and we hope other organizations on campus will also take this step. That same month, the Cabinet gave us an office in Founders 06. It is a very spacious office and will allow us better ways to store and create programming materials.

2006-07 continued the success of the previous year. Alliance now boasts about 70 members. The first LGBT alumni reunion was held on campus during homecoming. Coming Out Week was celebrated with a concert by award-winning musician, Gregory Douglass. The first Alliance Film Series was initiated with the movies TransAmerica, Connie and Carla, Angels in America, and Brokeback Mountain. 11 Alliance members attended the annual Midwest Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Ally College Conference in Minneapolis, Minn. GAYLA Week continued to have a great impact on campus with Sasha Sacket making a return performance. The week also included the annual drag show, a session on transgender issues led by a transgendered Wartburg alumnus, a discussion on spirituality and sexuality, and a NCAA-sponsored lecture by Dr. Eric Anderson of the University of Bath, England, about masculinity and sexuality in sports.

In 2005-06, Alliance had an amazing come back as it planned two week-long series of events for National Coming Out Week and GAYLA Week. Highlights included a singer/song writer Sasha Sacket, a film series, Danny Roberts from the MTV's The Real World: New Orleans, and a cabaret show (about 400 people attended!). A group from Wartburg also attended the Midwest Bisexual, Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, and Ally College Conference (MBLGTACC) in Sioux Falls, SD. Members of the delegation presented programs, attended workshops on how to make their campus more safe and inviting for LGBT students and allies, and networked with students from across the region. Alliance plans to take a delegation to the 2007 MBLGTACC Conference in Minneapolis, Minn. in February.

In 2005, a service trip group went to Seattle to work with the Lifelong AIDS Alliance. Click here for a PDF of their newsletter.

In 2005, Wartburg organized a counterprotest against Phelps' protest in Waterloo for the Jason Gage Benefit. Jason was openly gay and was murdered.

In 2000, the infamous Rev. Fred Phelps (creator of the "God Hates Fags" Web site) and his group decided to protest a Luther College Nordic Choir concert in Kansas because he discovered the ELCA, of which Wartburg is also affiliated, welcomes gays and lesbians. A counter-protest was formed by members of the Wartburg Choir and Alliance. After contacting people at other ELCA colleges around the country, the counter-protest numbers totalled approximately 150 people from 11 ELCA colleges versus Phelp's 25 protesters. The students formed a tunnel to protect the Nordic Choir from the protestors as they entered the church. Weston Nobel, conductor of the Nordic Choir, stated it was one of the most touching events he had experienced.