It’s well-known (and quite unfortunate) that some universities, namely private religious schools, aren’t exceptionally friendly to their LGBT students. But Shane Windmeyer of nationally recognized Campus Pride says it’s time for these schools to shed their discriminatory policies and welcome all their students with open arms.
The central news story here is that Pepperdine University, a school affiliated with the Churches of Christ, this week denied the creation of an LGBT support group - the fourth time they’ve rejected such an idea. Likewise, the University of Notre Dame has refused to allow the formation of gay-straight alliances since 2007.
The schools say LGBT organizations conflict with religious teachings and ideas of sexual morality. Pepperdine claims students involved in LGBT organizations cannot stay neutral, and Notre Dame goes as far as to say it “cannot distinguish between sexual orientation and behavior.” I wish I were kidding.
But Windmeyer steps in with the argument that seems obvious to most of us: love thy neighbor. LGBT kids come from all walks of life, including religious backgrounds, that lead them to attend schools like Pepperdine and Notre Dame. Because these schools are private, they have the right to enact such policies, but they have a greater responsibility to provide a safe and supportive campus for students.
With visibility comes a moral responsibility for administrators to create a safe learning environment, regardless of sexual or gender identity. Public and private colleges are held responsible for the safety of all their students. It is not a surprise that the LGBT and ally students at both Pepperdine and Notre Dame give their negative experiences of bias and prejudice as reasons for forming a student group on campus. Ignoring these anti-LGBT incidents will only hurt the university and its students.
Windmeyer rocks it in this column - activists at these schools should really take note and pass it along.
I’ll seriously never attend a religious university, and this is just one of the reasons. It’s unfortunate that institutions that are supposed to promote good will, spirituality, and uphold the morality (whatever that means) can’t even allow for diversity amongst their students, can’t see that sexuality is a part of human nature. I wish every lgbt student could just transfer, and every Ally with them. Then maybe these places would see that they’re hurting real people, not just “protecting moral sex” or whateverthefuck.
Because my last few posts have been all about boys and sex, I’m gonna get a little more professional. Specifically with something that’s been bugging me;
When people claim that Obama has not done anything. People; you fail at life. But I don’t blame you. The democrats are really, really bad at bragging about their accomplishments.
This is only 20 of a much larger list. And I didn’t take this all from my own memory, I actually had to google some shit to check my sources. Why? Because mainstream media simply does NOT tell you all about this.
We’re too busy covering all the protests and town hall meetings and celebrities and what’s WRONG with America to focus on what’s being set right.
Plus I think a lot of it is people being ignorant of how our government works. In their mind the president is an Ubermensch, an emperor, a king, a god, some kind of all powerful voice that lounges around in inaction. To those people, I encourage you to look up what a representative democracy is, and pay more attention in US History Class.
Our system? Not a fast one.
Then when you factor in the sheer amount of bullshit that went down before and during Obama’s first two years, you have to wonder if you would have done a better job.
You don’t have to think that these twenty items on this list are a good thing to acknowledge that they HAPPENED. So think about that the next time you tell someone you don’t like Obama because he “doesn’t do anything.”
Here are some much larger and well thought out lists of Obama’s various actions that you might consider checking out.
Or you can google Obama Accomplishments.
It’s okay to dislike our President, just pay attention and give me a better reason than inaction.
Design by Simon Fletcher. Powered by Tumblr.
© Copyright 2010
