<p>As a straight student, I’m obviously limited in answering your question, but I’ll give you as complete an impression as I can. In general, I’d say the guidebook rankings are pretty well deserved. Queer Union is one of the largest and most visible organizations on campus, and they run a lot of events, such as coming out week and the queer cabaret (which seems to be pretty popular among everyone judging by attendance), among other smaller things. There’s also strong LGBT presence in a lot of other events such as sex positive week. It seems to me that being “out” there isn’t really out there at Mac at all–this is true of the student body in general too. In fact one complaint against queer union from some of my LGBT friends is that they’re too focused on “out and proud” types of things that some people aren’t as comfortable with/enthusiastic about. There’s also a support group for LGBT students (as well as many other groups) but I don’t know how widely used that is. Another thing Mac does is lavender graduation, which is an optional recognition ceremony. Here’s a link to a bunch of stuff: [LGBT</a> Resources](<a href=“http://www.macalester.edu/lgbt/index.html]LGBT”>http://www.macalester.edu/lgbt/index.html). Overall, gay students seem to be well integrated into the community as a whole. I don’t know of any hangout places or activities besides theatre maybe, but I don’t think it’ll be hard for you to find your place by any means. One thing that’s coming up in the next calendar year too is the gay marriage ban ballot referendum in 2012, which is definitely going to get a lot of organizations on campus involved in the opposition–I honestly can’t imagine any organizations advocating for the ban either, even the MacGOP is more progressive than that.</p>