How does one fight discrimination? Ask Marc Adams, gay activist who spoke at the College on Sept. 17. He’d tell you about questioning his sexuality, religion and family to find himself at the forefront of an unpublished struggle: aiding gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students in suppressant religious schools. Coming from a fundamentalist Baptist family, he understands the denial and guilt that many gay or questioning students have when placed in such a setting, he said.

“It can be a very serious situation for a gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender person who finds themselves in one of these schools,” Adams said. “Parents enroll their kids in these schools without even considering what might happen. Sometimes they enroll their kids in these schools because of their homosexuality.”

When a gay student finds himself or herself in one of these difficult situations, Adams’s organization, HeartStrong, is there to help.

He founded HeartStrong in 1996 and has since helped over 1,000 students deal with the strictness and unaccepting environment of being a gay student in some religious schools.

The organization is “committed to educating the public about the persecution of GLBTs and others at religious educational institutions,” Adams said.

According to Adams, many students believe that they can “reform their sexuality” like undergoing plastic surgery. Formerly a student at Liberty University in Virginia, Adams believed this was true, but after spending three and a half years as an undergraduate student, witnessed his administrators personally call out suspected gay students simply as “anecdotes during speeches,” and he started to question his beliefs.

Being gay at such a place as Liberty University was not an option, Adams said.

“Those students who were suspected of homosexual activity were expelled and their parents were called. No (concrete) evidence needed to be provided, suspicions were enough by themselves,” he said. He was told that there wasn’t so much as a cure for homosexuality, as much as it was “something you’ll have to fight everyday for the rest of your life.”

Instead of being defeated, Adams spent months reflecting, and finally grasped that he was changing his behavior to look for acceptance from others. He felt like something “less than human.”

Adams said he realized that the way he was raised to treat women — merely as housewives — minorities and other religions as inferior was severely incorrect.

Now, 13 years after starting his gay outreach program, Adams helps those who find themselves in similar situations.

For more information on HeartStrong, go to heartstrong.org.