9-20-05 - Coffee cups with a gay author's quote about growing up homosexual have been pulled from Baylor University's Starbucks.

Dining contractor Aramark pulled the cups earlier this month from the campus store following an e-mail sent to Baylor's dining service, saying the quote was inappropriate at a Baptist University.

Aramark, which oversees the coffee outlet, consulted with Starbucks' district office and removed the cups to avoid offending others, Baylor officials said Monday.

"My understanding is it was a decision made by Baylor dining services staff, and I've not yet been able to trace it back to any Baylor administrators telling them point-blank to pull the cup," Baylor spokesman Larry Brumley said. "I think they were trying to be sensitive. 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 from 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."

Concerned Women for America, a national Christian women's organization, says Starbucks is promoting a homosexual agenda with the cup.

Cade Hammond, president of the board of directors for the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Central Texas, said he sees pulling the cups as unnecessarily restrictive.