Our great civil and human rights leaders have been so successful because they have brought society together while bringing about the de juro change needed in order to live in an de facto-ly equal society.

On a less heated topic the points can be more clearly identified without the rage, anger, and hatred that exists on both sides of this issue, which whether it is in the right or not only serves to isolate the respective camps rather than to unite them. (http://www.studlife.com/forum/2009/10/05/a-response-to-philip-christofanelli’s-letter-to-professor-benson/)

If the campus group here in support of not what was said but how it was said and the exclusionary nature of the access to a moral right and wrong, in general wants to be successful in enacting change there is much to be said for the amount of things they themselves must learn about the way they are coming across before they can present that which they believe in with any accuracy of vision. (See my comment on previous article for clarification as it pertains to rights of other groups in America and the need to advance a real societal change rather than a real de juro change. http://www.studlife.com/news/2009/10/02/‘the-right-side-of-history’/)

Sincerely,
Patrick S. Seaworth

The left has to accept that there are individuals whose religious beliefs will never accept homosexuality as an acceptable form of life management (don’t get caught up on terms, its the very insolence of ‘the movement’, which at this point is seperate and distinct from the actual movement, to begin with).

In order to have a movement where as a campus we come together, and then go out unto the world where our understanding of one another is something that the rest of the world can gain from is not a movement that is advanced by raw unbalanced emotion. The fact that it is a pathetic appeal, technically, is only partially humorous given the manner in which it came across.

And this is the problem with ‘Wash U students’ (that refering to those persons such as this that have the rest of the campus negatively stereotyped in these kinds of circles), that what they presented, and are here in endorsing is seen as the right manner of social change. What it is is on the borderline of rabid bigotry.

I am not against the idea of a ‘Right Side of History’ nor do i find the notion elitist in nature, (and to be quite honest the term is offensive to those individuals that seek perfection as it relates to one area or another, this kid was nowhere near elite in the manner in which he presented his position, nor in the amount of response here on going, even what some of those very persons would deem ‘white trash’ can stir up the media) what was presented to the students was literal crap.

The message, if there even was one, other than that then the individual on stage has a gay friend, that is apparently his identical twin, and that he wants that individual to have the rights that straight citizens have, has turned into another divisive rather than uniting event.

There is much to be said for the manner in which we as a society make it to that day where these things need no longer be discussed as anything other than a horror of the past, and the society we are left with once the wanted rights are granted.

There was a line from a newsweek editorial some time ago were the editorialist quoted a christian who was stating his religious beliefs that just so happened to contrast to her personal opinions. She responded ‘please God deliver him from my right hook.’ And so to is that which was placed on stage, because it was on the sappy side of the emotional spectrum doesn’t differentiate the unprocessed nature of the message and the emotions there attached.

This isn’t the kind of speech, and the kind of action, that brought Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights movement to the forefront. Its the kind of speech that sets back a movement it professes to forward.

I couldn’t stand behind civil rights expansion more if I tried, however, there is a right and wrong way to do things, and a right and wrong way to present those things to a community.

At the time the speech was given to a drunk crowd in attendance for the consumption of the lyrics of one of any number of bands, this newspaper had already spoken on the matter, the individuals in crowd who didn’t know, either would have soon found out, or would have remained oblivious by choice. But that doesn’t mean that that was the way in which to educate them, it was a way which made the efforts themselves appear quite pathetic and desperate in nature and lacking of the very human values, with the exception of emotional desperation, that human rights campaigns must be made of. A human rights campaign that does not present self dignity has no chance of getting others to display dignity towards it, putting a video on youtube and adding typeface that would otherwise be quite exciting to the movement doesn’t change that fact it only further engrains the very problem and the opportunity wasted rather than taken advantage of.

To force a devisive speech, on a crowd, that in all fairness sounded like a young child crying on stage, was beyond the limits of what the school should tolerate as it applies to manners in which the school moves society forward towards a more equal future.

When one student gets up and says ‘this is whats right’, you automatically lose everyone on the other side of the table and no one wins.

This is not to be compared to a manner in which one person says, segregation is wrong, and to stand and accept the opposite opinion. This is a matter were one of the most liberal states in the nation was unable to prevent the ceremony of marriage from attack, regardles of ‘lds morals not welcome here’ signs (signs which only further my point being here expressed).

If the movement truly wishes to enact change then it wouldn’t do so in the manner in which it is ongoing. If you wish to enact change hold events, go out and live your life under public scrutiny without turning into kanye west. if you can’t win the campus through change in perception, you aren’t going to be able to carry the city and much less the state.

What the right is reluctant to accept is the very kind of vitriol that is being attacked in their actions, with regards to the rights protests against healthcare reform.

What the above individuals are talking about is the fact that this self rightous nature can only further entrench the two side of the issue and thus will only lead to political outcomes which in the short term have little afect on the discrimination present in society, rather it only changes what discrimination can be legally enacted.

If you really wish to enact change, change peoples perceptions through the manner in which you live your life, do not get on a stage in front of a group of individuals that could care less about you restating a message that many of them already have decided on.

Take for example, if I had stood up and stated that abortion is murder and that were going to come together and create a cvil rights movement for those persons least able to defend themselves. Regardless of anyones view on that statement it was similar in effect to the one placed on drunk students on a day that was to be a celebration of a society that doesn’t need to be lectured to about values they already hold.

Further, the speech doesn’t smack of moral eletism it smacks of a group of kids within the wash u bubble making themselves self-agrandizing marters for lack of a better word.

The school has forums for these matters, and if it is adequate that the administration can hold forums as a way of addressing matters, then so too can these matters be addressed in forums.

When you stand and yell at a crowd, you missed the entire point of wild. what was really lost was the ability of gay and straight students to stand together and become friends without doing so under the guise of that speech.

What, I assume Ed was getting at above, is the fact that what was put onto the crowd, regardless of whether it was naïveté in speaking in front of a group or not, was something full of social vengeance and vitriol not something full of the moral elitism that others have said is exactly what they are going for.

In order to move the public forward you do not stand and yell at a crowd that knows and or already has opinions based on the material from their own ability to process informaiton and then say were going to be a civil rights movement when you lack the ability to percieve what you are spewing onto the crowd you are addressing is the very kind of thing that stands in between people and coming together to bring forth a civil rights movement.

If you want a civil rights movement give people the chance to accept one another, and if after a reasonable amount of time has passed and the campus does not, then you say this is what we believe in not everyone believes in it and we can’t force them to and you go forth with that notion. You don’t get stuck in a literal mud pit yelling and screaming about your best friend and his rights. You do what your best friend did and sit down with the school newspaper, and let the people themselves come to accept one another as they will without openly spewing the hate towards other groups that you complain is being spewed upon your friends.

And, further, that I would be embarrassed if this is the first light this ‘child’ of a movement sees.

The people that do these things, and that really support them, give interviews to the student newspaper and they make friends with straight people and they bring straight and gay social circles together. They don’t light a social bomb prior to an event that is about the students coming together as a society absent the factors of daily life, i.e. the point is to bring together the student body as a whole, where the very change wanted takes place on its own, where as the speech forced upon those students destroyed the chance of that happening naturally. (Teach a man to fish…)

My parish in a southern Texas city comprised of primarily, middle class, and military families, has never once had anyone in the parish standing up at a lecturn preaching about acceptance of homosexual catholics, however, in its school, in its programs you will find gay and lesbian catholics openly acceptted and embued with very particular religious responsibilities as equals and never once as anything else. This was done by people coming together and finding common ground, not by someone forcing a speech about how superiour he is for having a homosexual friend than the rest of the audience many of whom may not have homosexual friends, which is not wrong unto themselves.

In looking at our nations first minority president, one that will surely have to change his position on gay marriage at some point in his political career, it is easy to think that we as students, enlightened beyond even the most elite of presidents (as far as educational backing goes), are therefore morally superior beings that do not have to worry ourselves with the real concerns that have created many disagreements within our progressive society on the matter despite intelligence and openness to ideas of all matters.

What was wrong with what was said, is the way in which it was presented, there was no moral right to stating the things the way they were stated. It was a public, ‘there’s only one side to this issue’. Rather than coming off as something good and positive that is above the treatment they are receiving from society at large, what was presented was an emotional mirror to the hatred which is addressed at the GLBT community on a daily basis. And, as such what was said failed in its purpose, and only furthered the cycle of hatred in this community and therein further engrained a negative manner of response to a very pressing issue within our nation.

What was given to the crowd was something that mirrored a kanye diatribe at an event that is suppossed to be the very place where two students who may not have met previously can sit back and get to know one another which, if the two students where one straight and one gay, have advanced the issue more credibly than was done by one, i wouldn’t say coward, but I will say this, it is easy to get up with a mic and yell about a friend, what is hard and takes courage to do are the things his friend is doing.

Side Note: I particularly love this comment: “Gays have as good lives in this country as they could ask for given the short history of the movement.”

I remember the day when I first got my good life of equality. I went to the Registry of Good Lives when I was zero years old to sign up. When I gave them my forms at the window, they refused me after checking my WASPS quotient (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Straight). But then I told them, “Hey, we Jews have been fighting for the good life for millennia.” Recognizing their obvious mistake, they apologized and granted me the good life that I now lead. I’m sure in time when the movement gets older, Gays (umbrella term) too will go to the Registry window and show that they’ve been fighting long enough for their rights. Pssh, it’s not like the slaves should’ve been able to start leading good lives just because slavery was over… no, they needed to struggle for over a hundred years to prove that they were deserving of the good life of equality.