By JONEL ALECCIA
Mail Tribune

ASHLAND — Fliers urging violence against homosexuals — including murder — have sparked a campuswide safety alert and a police investigation into a possible hate crime at Southern Oregon University.

Several versions of increasingly threatening fliers have been found during the past two weeks attached to doors and tucked into mailboxes on the Ashland campus, said Eric Rodriguez, SOU interim security director.

"They weren’t that violent at first and they got more and more so," said Rodriguez.

Fliers were found just before this week’s student government elections and mentioned a candidate, according to an e- mail forwarded from Danielle Mancuso, interim coordinator of SOU’s Queer Resource Center.

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"The Bible says that homosexual offenders should be put to death!" read one flier.

"Dykes and fags have no soul, so when you kill them you haven’t really committed a crime," read another.

Local gay-rights advocates held a campus protest Thursday and others plan a vigil and rally at 8 tonight on Ashland’s Plaza.

"These are the first steps before serious crimes happen and we all know that," said Jeffrey Foust, Southern Oregon organizer for Basic Rights Oregon.

Creators and distributors of the fliers could face charges of harassment and intimidation, which include crimes of bias based on sexual orientation and other factors, Rodriguez said. Ashland police have launched an investigation, he said.

SOU officials and police are taking the threats of harm seriously, he said.

"That kind of ratchets up this thing when you’re advocating violence against a person or a group of people," Rodriguez said. "That’s when it goes beyond the free speech issue."

In a campus safety alert issued Monday, officials urged students to stick together at night, to call for campus escorts, to close dorm room doors and to report any suspicious incidents.

Several students have indicated that the fliers made them uneasy, even scared, Rodriguez said.

The fliers apparently were distributed in connection with the SOU student election in which new president Kurt Manseau and executive vice president Alicia-Lynne Ryland-Nation ran unopposed.

This is the second time in a month that questions of intimidation based on sexual orientation have been raised at SOU. A 19-year-old male student said he was verbally harassed and spat upon by a group of men who perceived he was gay.

Mancuso said she believed there was a connection between that incident and the fliers.

"These kinds of things spawn more people who feel that same way," she said.

SOU President Elisabeth Zinser sent a campuswide letter condemning the incident and vowing to reiterate the campus culture of tolerance. Zinser and other SOU officials will hold a press conference about the issue at 11 a.m. today.

The 5,000-student campus is in the center of Ashland, which long has been regarded as a place that welcomes homosexuals.

Rodriguez said he was surprised by the fliers, but not naive about the possibility of threats and violence.

"I don’t think we’re immune to the ills of the rest of the world," he said. "We’re not taking anything for granted because of our reputation for tolerance. We know bad things can happen anywhere and we’re trying to make sure they don’t happen here."

Reach reporter JoNel Aleccia at 776-4465, or e-mail jaleccia@mailtribune.com.