2008 Woodie Awards
Letter to the Editor
Issue date: 4/13/06 Section: Opinion
Dear Editor,
For the past month, the Central community has been in an intellectual debate over Central's current stance on discrimination and the actions the University has taken to ensure an open and just student community.
In a little over a month, "Facebook" has become infamous. The once fun-loving idea of joining a group, adding pictures and writing messages on friends' walls has turned into a political western front.
This, compounded with David Penner's article "Discrimination: Religion, Racial, Gender [and] Sexual Orientation Issues," has brought me to a point where I can no longer remain silent.
While I do agree with some of the theories from Penner's article, I cannot stop from playing the devil's advocate and proposing another view to the community.
Let me respond to last week's reference to the "Facebook" group "Straight Pride."
The article claims the group is discriminatory against gay and lesbians but fails to explain how. Being a concerned student, I went to the group's profile to see firsthand how the group was discriminatory.
Like the article said, the description read "We like the opposite sex and are proud of it!!!"
After clicking around the message boards, I could not find any information that could support the notion this group was discriminating against anyone.
How then, can the article say this group discriminates. Show me where on the profile members discriminate against another group of people.
Just because one says they are proud of being straight does not mean one is homophobic.
Another group on Facebook, "Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Support," has a description that reads "This group does exactly what its name says it does."
Using the same logic seen in Penner's article, this group discriminates against straights, because it fails to support heterosexual individuals.
While this group does not boast the number of members as "Straight Pride," the message of discrimination is the same.
For the past month, the Central community has been in an intellectual debate over Central's current stance on discrimination and the actions the University has taken to ensure an open and just student community.
In a little over a month, "Facebook" has become infamous. The once fun-loving idea of joining a group, adding pictures and writing messages on friends' walls has turned into a political western front.
This, compounded with David Penner's article "Discrimination: Religion, Racial, Gender [and] Sexual Orientation Issues," has brought me to a point where I can no longer remain silent.
While I do agree with some of the theories from Penner's article, I cannot stop from playing the devil's advocate and proposing another view to the community.
Let me respond to last week's reference to the "Facebook" group "Straight Pride."
The article claims the group is discriminatory against gay and lesbians but fails to explain how. Being a concerned student, I went to the group's profile to see firsthand how the group was discriminatory.
Like the article said, the description read "We like the opposite sex and are proud of it!!!"
After clicking around the message boards, I could not find any information that could support the notion this group was discriminating against anyone.
How then, can the article say this group discriminates. Show me where on the profile members discriminate against another group of people.
Just because one says they are proud of being straight does not mean one is homophobic.
Another group on Facebook, "Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Support," has a description that reads "This group does exactly what its name says it does."
Using the same logic seen in Penner's article, this group discriminates against straights, because it fails to support heterosexual individuals.
While this group does not boast the number of members as "Straight Pride," the message of discrimination is the same.