Scholar and speaker E. Patrick Johnson will cover issues members of the black and Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer and Questioning community face for Pride Month’s final event Tuesday.

His lecture, titled “In Search of Countess Vivian: Queerness and the Making of Southern History,” was promoted on the “Mizzou” Facebook on Monday and sparked a heated discussion on the legitimacy of the event and on LGBTQ issues in general.

Among the first people to comment was Missouri Rep. Kathie Conway, R-St. Charles.

“Really??” Conway wrote. “This is educational? Just what is the percentage of the population that this could possibly apply? .0001%?”

Conway commented a second time on the Facebook thread, this time bringing well-known conservative Sarah Palin into the picture.

“When is Sarah Palin invited to speak?” Conway wrote. “How’s that for open-minded?”

She clarified that she was wondering if there would be similar outcry if Palin were invited to speak at MU.

Sophomore Jarrett Seifert also posted comments on the status disagreeing with the views of Conway and other commenters. He said he was surprised a representative would comment on a Facebook page in this way.

“Are you serious?” he said. “I just wanted to comment, ‘Are you making facts up? Because I don’t want you representing us.’”

The opinions of those commenting ranged vastly concerning the LGBTQ community.

“I overall thought that it was ridiculous,” Seifert said. “Part of it will just be people’s actual beliefs and I understand that but some of it was gay-bashing and just really mean stuff that didn’t have any evidence. They’re saying it’s a choice and saying stuff like, ‘They’re all just going to hell.’”

Comments such as these are what led MU to delete the post. The comment section of the post had more than 90 comments and 67 “Likes” before it was removed from Facebook.

“Posts containing personal attacks, profanity, nudity, hate speech or illegal material are prohibited,” MU’s Facebook posting policy states. “We reserve the right, at our discretion, to remove any post or to revoke a user’s privilege to post to our page.”

When contacted, Conway said she was not opposed to Johnson coming to campus, but was not sure that something with a “very small base of appeal” should be done at university cost.

The event was paid for partially by Student Activity fees and was co-sponsored by the Department of Theatre, the Department of Sociology, the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies, the Organization Resource Group, the Chancellor’s Diversity Initiative, the LGBTQ Resource Center, the Center for the Arts and Humanities and the Graduate Professional Council.

According to the LGBTQ Resource Center, an estimated one in 10 students at MU identify as part of the LGBTQ community, which amounts to more than 3,000 students at MU.

“Apparently, I was wrong,” Conway said concerning the statistic. “Apparently, it’s a bigger issue at Mizzou than I was aware of.”

Conway said she wasn’t commenting as a state representative on Facebook. When asked if she thought she was always seen as a representative because she is a public figure, Conway said perhaps this was true.

“That’s a lesson learned, I suppose,” Conway said. “So I guess that sometimes when you are a public figure you no longer have a personal opinion.”