Reis Pearson, coordinator for the Lesbian-Gay-Bisexual Student Services Office, stood in front of a crowd of about 110 people and joked that even though she’s lesbian, she treats heterosexuals like real people.

“Though I may not support their views, I still treat them like anyone else,” she said at the National Coming Out Day rally held south of the Campanile on Friday.

She read from a column in the Iowa State Daily by Robert Zeis which said that people who do not agree with homosexuality are not homophobes.

“I just don’t understand why gays expect the public to approve of their behavior. These ‘gay pride’ festivals express the collective shout of ‘I’m gay.’ So what. I’m straight, and that fact doesn’t dominate my life,” Pearson said quoting Zeis’s column.

“We take two days to celebrate. The heterosexuals have 364 days to celebrate. I treat them with decency and respect like anyone else,” she added.

Pearson said because she is from Washington state she tends to forget that the coasts are “more liberal” than the Midwest.

However, she emphasized that the point of National Coming Out Day is “no matter where you live in the United States — conservative or liberal — there are always people to support you.”

Paul Wesselmann, a motivational speaker and creator of “Stone Soup Seminars,” a discussion seminar which tours campuses, said there are two ways to deal with people who harass homosexuals and keep them from wanting to “come out of the closet.”

The first is to take the high road, he said, and worry about people’s reaction. The second is to take the low road and tell them off.

“Sometimes I take the high road. Sometimes I take the low road,” he said.

Voter turnout is also important to him. Wesselmann said people who do not vote cannot complain about issues because they didn’t attempt to exercise their role as citizens in a democracy.

He cited African-Americans, women and Jewish movements as paving the way for the gay rights movement.

“We would not be where we are today if it were not for the people who struggled before us,” he said.

He said gay activist groups should be all-inclusive because “the people who think we are disgusting and perverted, they are very organized.”