Monday, October 25th, Penn State students arrived at the HUB to start the school week. Many of us were appalled to see a poster stating "Pray the Gay Away," promoting an event speaker promoting gay conversion therapy.

The poster alone is enough to consider hate speech. Implying that one needs to "pray the gay away" means that homosexuality is a choice and implies it is the wrong choice. This is not the message that we should be sending students or prospective students touring the campus for the first time. It implies that there is something wrong that needs to be changed to 'fix' being gay.

The poster and the event were partially funded by UPAC, with money directly from student tuition. LGBT students are having their own tuition money used to promote hate speech against themselves. Under no circumstance should anybody have to face hate speech, but especially not in a place of higher education. It is incredibly insulting to these students that money from their tuition is being used against them. University funds are meant to be beneficial to some if not all students but should never be used to harm a student in any way.

Furthermore, it is appalling that the University would approve of a speaker who has openly claimed that pedophilia is okay, but homosexuality is not. On top of this notion, the entire speech promotes gay conversion therapy, which is physically, mentally, and emotionally abusive. Conversion therapy should be banned, as it already is in State College, but promoting these homophobic ideologies should not be allowed in a public university. 

We encourage Penn State to remove "Pray the Gay away" posters for blatant hate speech and uninvite Milo from campus. There is no place for hate at Penn State, WE ARE who WE ARE, and WE ARE stronger together.