<p>There was absolutely no ad-hominem attack in Jason’s post. He left a brief statement about gay life at Lafayette based on his own experiences and came back to elaborate on it later. Giving an honest opinion about what a school is like isn’t an attack even if it’s a strong statement, and it’s certainly not ad-hominem unless candyman92486 thinks he IS Lafayette College. Which would be very strange. As is, it seems like candyman92486 is over-identified with Lafayette to the point where he sees any criticism of the school as an attack on him personally, which won’t exactly help anyone get accurate information for their college search.</p>
<p>My girlfriend graduated from Lafayette in 2006, and while she loved the academics, she and Jason have very similar things to say about what it’s like to be gay there. Short version: it sucked. </p>
<p>She didn’t come out as queer to anyone at school until her senior year, and still wasn’t out to a lot of her social circle when she graduated. There were other factors at play in addition to the homophobic environment at Lafayette, but it’s hard to argue she wouldn’t have come out and been more comfortable with herself sooner at a more tolerant school. A lot of the personal growth and discovery I did around my sexuality my first couple of years of college (at a by no means perfect, but much more open and accepting large state university), she didn’t start to do until she was in grad school. That’s a pretty big delay when you take into account that a lot of queer students who come out when they get to college are already making up for lost time and missed experiences from being closeted in high school.</p>
<p>I’ve only been to the Lafayette campus once, but it was a very uncomfortable experience. It’s certainly very pretty, and my gf’s friends and former professors I met were very nice, but we also got a lot of strange looks if we were the slightest bit affectionate. I felt like I was constantly being judged and gawked at for not looking like a stereotypical feminine straight woman (short hair + masculine clothes + boobs was apparently too much for people to handle).</p>
<p>Again, there were some individual people my girlfriend knew at Lafayette who were fantastic, professors and students alike, and she enjoyed the academics there a lot. That doesn’t change the fact that the overall environment was/is very intolerant to an extent I didn’t expect to see at a college in this century.</p>