University of New England.

Gay students at the University of New England in Australia have been getting the support they need through gay student groups funded by the school's mandatory fees, Now the student association, worried that gays might be getting "preferential treatment," has elected the nation's first college "heterosexuality officer," charged with the vague mission of safeguarding straight rights.

The officer, third-year law student Dave Allen, 22, told the newspaper The Australian that he has no objection to homosexuality as long as gays and lesbians aren't being given special treatment. "It doesn't matter whether you're straight, gay, black, white, or brindle," he said. "But when it starts getting, 'Oh, we need a space for us to hang out,' it's crap. Just come down [to] the pub and have a few beers with us."

But Craig Comrie, the gay officer for Australia's National Union of Students, told the paper he thought the appointment is "a really unfair reaction to the fact that student unions support queer activism and women's activism on campus."