Baylor bans
pro-gay coffee cup

A dining contractor has removed coffee cups with a gay author's quote from a Starbucks at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, saying it was inappropriate for the Baptist school. Aramark, which oversees the coffee outlet, pulled the cups earlier this month from the campus store after consulting with Starbucks' district office and Baylor's dining service, school officials said Monday. "I think they were trying to be sensitive," Baylor spokesman Larry Brumley said. "Obviously, Baylor is a Baptist-affiliated institution, and Baptists as a denomination have been pretty outspoken on the record about the denomination's views about the homosexual lifestyle."

The quote, by novelist Armistead Maupin, reads: "My only regret about being gay is that I repressed it for so long. I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don't make that mistake yourself. Life's too damn short." Cade Hammond, president of the board of directors for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Central Texas, said he thinks the removal of the cups was unnecessarily restrictive. (AP)