In 2003, the first year of Syracuse University’s Rainbow Banquet, only 30 people attended. It featured a lunch buffet and a disc jockey in the Goldstein Faculty Dining Center.

On Thursday, more than 300 people attended the same banquet held in the Regency Ballroom at the Sheraton University Hotel and Conference Center.

As attendees mingled beforehand, their tone and attitudes represented the theme and purpose of the night: a celebration of legacy and a charge to continue fighting for the tolerance and equal rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

‘This is a rainbow of arts, activism, race, gender, age and class,’ said keynote speaker Kate Bornstein, a musician, author and playwright active in the LGBT community.

The banquet began with a slideshow titled ‘The Queer Year in Review.’ The crowd revealed itself as a closely linked community when hoots, hollers, laughter, applause and tears broke out for friends during the slideshow.

The slideshow’s photographs came from such events as National Coming Out Day, Transgender Day of Remembrance, the Reel Queer Film Festival and the Loud and Proud Rally, among others.

‘The banquet is about embracing the fact that we are a community assaulted for characteristics offensive to others,’ said Jennifer Spinner, president of Pride Union and a senior policy and women’s studies major. ‘We view those characteristics as assets – it is a reclamation of those stereotypes.’

During her keynote address, Bornstein said the banquet is ready to ‘graduate’ in its fourth year, which means it is a time to reflect on the legacy of what is being left behind.

‘What’s important is the spirit of the people that are here … the realness with which these people live their lives every day,’ said Adrea Jaehnig, director of the LGBT Resource Center.

If the event is to continue to grow, a new location will be needed, Jaehnig said.

‘We are here because what we want, who we love and how we feel has an effect on the amount of power we have in the world,’ Bornstein said. ‘We’ve come together in the name of desire.’

Bornstein recalled the legacy of her grandmother, who as a 14-year-old traveled to Siberia to free her boyfriend, who had been sent to prison for trying to upset the Tsarist Russian government.

‘I think political activists are sexy,’ she said. ‘Let’s always keep our politics sexy.’

Bornstein compared her story to that of Condoleezza Rice, whose great-grandmother, as revealed in a recent biography, hid her father’s horses from the approaching Union army.

‘She will hide what she needs to hide to keep her daddy and master safe – to protect her daddy’s house,’ Bornstein said. ‘We must tear down the house Bush has created.’

Toward the end of the program, Vice Chancellor and Provost Deborah Freund presented a rainbow-colored cord to 20 soon-to-be graduates active in the LGBT community. The cords are to be worn with each person’s graduation gown at the commencements.

Roger Batson Jr., a graduate student at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, said despite only being at SU since July, he was amazed at the difference in the presence of the LGBT community compared to Baylor University in Texas, where he was an undergraduate.

‘You must be the change that you want to see in the world,’ Batson quoted of Ghandi after receiving his certificate.

Also presented were Foundation Awards, so named because those people form the foundation of the ‘queer community,’ said Spinner, who won the Foundation Award in the undergraduate category.

While she considers herself lesbian, Spinner said she uses the term ‘queer’ because it was created to eliminate the boxes of sexuality.

Foundation Awards were also presented to Tanya Bowen, associate director of counseling at the Office of Multicultural Affairs.

The Rainbow Banquet was sponsored by several SU groups and organizations including the College of Human Services and Health Professions, the LGBT Resource Center and the Office of Orientation and Transitions Services. It also featured a performance by co-ed a capella group Groovestand.

Bornstein said she searched for a mistake the SU community had made so she could tell the audience how to correct it, but she couldn’t find one.

‘You’ve done everything right,’ she said. ‘Honor whatever radical legacy you’ve got, and if you don’t have one, find one. Grab a torch and run with it.’

Published on April 20, 2006 at 12:00 pm