In the wake of the alarming veto of Arizona’s religious freedom bill, a recent op-ed by Harvard student Ian R. Van may be worthwhile reading for gay activists.

…Institutions such as the Office of BGLTQ Student Life here at Harvard are counterproductive because they promote the sort of separateness that must be overcome. A superior alternative would be a single GSD (gender and sexual diversity) office that could assist students of all sexual orientations and gender identities, from straight to asexual to transgender, as they navigate the waters of sex and relationships.

To suggest that we need separate institutions for separate groups is to forsake commonality for an “us” and “them” mentality.

Surveys and indicators such as the Kinsey Scale are equally harmful as well as indicative of the sexual paranoia that grips our society. As Paul Rudnick points out in a 2011 piece in the New Yorker, we have a prurient compulsion to scientifically categorize our differences; just consider the burgeoning collection of letters in—and the number of groups that are excluded from—the acronym LGBTQ. For a change, let’s ditch the labels all together—not in a jejune way that overlooks difference, but in a way that accepts diversity as part of a larger whole. I’m not a number or letter, but a human being, and that’s true of us all.

Gay pride, however, seems to be here to stay for the time being, and it might just be the best response so long as the legal cards remain stacked against the gay community. After all, a separate existence is better than no above-ground existence at all.

But at the same time, I feel that the sexual and gender identities of the people we love are of so little import that we must ultimately discard what strikes me as an outmoded, disjointed way of looking at the world. We all owe the gay pride movement our thanks for helping to bring our laws into the modern era, but it’s time to move beyond the politics of separate but equal and embrace the things that make us the same.

A comment made in response to Ian’s piece offers hope his message isn’t entirely lost:

As a member of the Harvard LGBT community, I apologize for the members of my community like commenter “sitdown” who prevent open, intellectual conversations by judging messages not by their content, but by the gender or sexuality or race etc. of the messenger. I have found Harvard to be one of the most stifling environments for the free flow of ideas whenever topics of gender, sexuality, or identity arise. The author of this piece does not “feel oppressed” by the LGBT community. He does not need to “check his privilege” in order to make an observation or put forth an argument. The real problem with the gay community at Harvard is not in its pride but in the way it “engages” with non-LGBT community members. By labeling messengers and jumping to extreme judgments (“you’re too straight to understand!” “you’re a bigot!” “you misogynist!”), we have alienated and silenced our potential allies.