LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
University Daily Kansan, November 7, 1964
Page 5
Choice is whether to have sex, not abortion
To the editor:
I was totally appalled by Tracy Mahoney's letter (Nov. 2, "Sexual freedoms endangered by Reagan").
Mahoney seems to think that people who have respect for human life are somehow mentally deranged, and that the only people with their heads on straight are those who have sex every time their hormones stir, then kill the baby that results if their birth control methods failed.
Contrary to what Mahoney says, there is and always will be a choice: whether to go to bed with someone. Killing the human life that results from a sex act should never be a choice.
Yet Mahoney seems to think that the sexually promiscuous are somehow more "free" than those who limit sexual activity to marriage. But who is truly free — the one who jumps in bed every time opportunity knocks or the one who can say 'no' out of moral conviction?
Mahoney's brand of "sexual liberation" leads only to emotional scars and slavery to our passions. Human beings were not created to treat each other as sexual objects, throwing our partner onto the rubbish heap when they get old or boring. Surely a person as stridently in favor of sexual liberation" as Mahoney knows that one of its former advocates, feminist Ginebræ Greer, is now advocating chastity in some cases because she has discovered the harm that sexual promiscuity leads to.
Perhaps the most disgusting part of Mahoney's letter is her reference to having one's life "screwed up" by an unwanted child, "Screwed up" in this case means a crimp put on one's cash flow. Money is certainly the reason that the abortionist slaughter 1.5 million fellow humans annually has created for those who created the aborted child to be motivated by money also. We are in sad shape, however, if money — and unbridled sexual activity — are our sole purposes for existence. What ever happened to love?
Mahoney's sick attitude is poignantly expressed in her closing remarks which label President Reagan a "screwed-up, fundamentalist, dying old man." Well, what should we do? Kill him for convenience sake as we do to those other 1.5 million humans every year?
Damon JaspersonLenexa senior
Question is love
To the editor:
have the right to speak — they do,
and they have — but whether GLSOK
has the right to stop others from
giving their viewpoint.
The real issue in the controversy over Gay and Lesbian Services of Kansas is not whether homosexuals
GLSOK has a legal right to exist. But does the student body have a moral obligation to fund it? If so, is this moral law written down?
The New Testament says that the act of homosexuality leads to death (1 Cor. 6:9). Why should students be accused of homosexuality? Conscience tells them leads to death?
The issue is not discrimination against homosexuals. I would be for a group that helped homosexuals by helping them stop wrong and illegal conduct that leads to disease, family heartache and enslavement. This organization, which might also help with crisis pregnancies, should receive student money because it would be helping people.
The real issue is love. Do we love our fellow man enough not to support his self-destruction?
It is wrong to take money from people without allowing them to have some say in how it is spent. Because only a minority of students voted, we got what we deserved — taxation and enumeration. We need to vote this time.
Mark Cole
Lawrence senior
Liberal bias
To the editor:
I am responding in extreme anger over the overwhelming liberal bias of the student-supported, student-run newsman
My money is going to the Kansan, but I don't like what I'm seeing or reading.
What I'm seeing is liberal columnists, liberal cartoonists, liberal syndicated columnists, liberal editoors and liberal-slipped news stories
The Kansan is supposed to represent the views of all students, not just the radical left.
Case in point. The student organization, KU Young Americans for Freedom, sponsored a student rescued from Grenada. Here was an excellent chance for the Kansan to find out the whole Grenada rescue mission story firsthand. One of the most important events of the 1980s, so far, was passed up by the Kansan as part of their training. Except for a television station and a radio station, no other news operation did a story on the student, and I personally contacted everyone between Topeka and Kansas City.
However, the Kansan did afford the time and space to cover a College Young Democrats fundraiser. The
Democrats even got a huge frontpage photo! Republican students had had no such luck.
What prompted me to write this letter was the totally biased coverage of the last College Young Democrats-KU College Republicans debate. The whole story covered only one topic, a question from the audience that was an obvious setup, planned in advance by the Democrats. Almost the whole story was devoted to the Democrats' reaction to it. Is this what the Kansan calls fair reporting? The Republicans clearly won the four main topics that were debated, but I guess that the reporter didn't consider that newsworthy.
If the Kansan can't find any columnists with other points of view, I hereby offer my services as a columnist.
One final thought — cut out half of the United Press International stories. If I want to read liberal-biased national and international stories, I'll read the Times and Star.
Personal matter
topupsture
Topeka sophomore
chairman,
KU Nursing America for Freedom
I am going to hell. At least, that's what one of the wandering Jayhawk Boulevard evangelists told me last week.
To the editor
Funny, I always thought that God and I had a pretty good relationship. We at the University of Kansas have been treated to — or inflicted with — this kind of appointed prophets recently, who use all to see the error of our ways.
I know that a lot of college students are disillusioned with Christianity; after listening to these pessimistic, judgmental preachers, I can understand why. But in defense of my faith, I'd like to bring up two very important things Jesus said: Love God and love one's neighbor.
The evangelists have the first one worked out — they see what they're doing as a function of loving God. The second tenet, however — the one about loving one's neighbor — that's being overlooked.
Now, "tie" love) doesn't mean that one has to approve of everything a neighbor does, nor does it mean that one must agree with everything he says. It means that one has respect for him as a person - always.
Many women today who choose abortion, and many adults who have chosen a sexual preference that the Moral Majority types find unacceptable, are the victims of a lot of persecution in the name of religion. This is wrong. This attitude of walking around telling people that God does not approve of them is wrong.
Is it that difficult
My relationship with God is a personal matter. What I do, I will answer for — to him. So unless the next person who tells me that I'm going to hell is standing on Potter's Lake at the time, I will continue to resent that person's intrusion on my life and my beliefs.
Rebecca LaRue Salina senior
Noisy distraction
I used to enjoy studying in the Hawk's Nest, on the second floor of the Kansas Union. It was a nice, quiet place to drink a cup of coffee and start that calculus assignment that's due in an hour.
But no more. Now I must listen to some distractive radio station. Don't get me wrong; I'm not one of those hardcore "rock'n'roll will curdle your soul" fundamentalists. I like rock and many other varieties of music, but it's really distracting if a person is trying to study.
No doubt there are people who will say, "If you want quiet, go study in the library." That would be great if I could grab a quick lunch or a cup of coffee at the library but, for obvious reasons, I can't.
I imagine that most of the people who cannot separate themselves from a radio are the same ones who walk around campus all day with their Walkmans, wired for sound. Let them use those Walkmans instead, and leave the rest of us in peace and quiet.
Steve Bradt Lawrence junior
The University Daily Kansan invites individuals and groups to submit guest columns. Columns should be typewritten and double-spaced and should not exceed 625 words. They should include the writer's name, address and phone number. Columns can be mailed or, brought to the Kansan office, 111 Stauffer-Flint Hall. The Kansan reserves the right to edit or reject columns.
I've come to realize that I might be beset by a serious social defect.
Calling for help
This first was pointed out to me on a recent evening, when I placed a telephone call to a friend of mine whose first name is Paul. His wife, whose first name is Maggie, answered the phone.
I said, as I always say when calling him, "Is Paul there?"
I heard Maggie take a deep breath. Navely, I supposed this was in preparation for calling out Paul's name.
She informed me that I was rude, callous, insulting and mean-spirited to ask for Paul and of making chichet with her.
Instead, Maggie gave me a mern lecture that began, "Would it kill you to say a few words to me when I answer the phone?"
I thought that a wizard attitude for her to take. After all, I had called with the intention of talking to her. She was steamed, however, and she made sure that I understood.
A couple of nights later, I was having a drink with another friend of mine, named Roger. Midway through out conversation I said, "Boy, Maggie really acted weird the other night."
"What do you mean?" Roger asked.
"Well, I called their home to talk to Paul. So she answered, and I asked, 'Is Paul there?' Then she went crazy on me. She said that it was completely to use and terrible for me just to ask for Paul like that. She said that any decent person would take the time to talk to her before asking for Paul. Can you believe that?"
Roger was silent. "Can you believe that?"
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"Actually, Marcia has hated you for years for the same thing." Roger said. Marcia is Roger's wife.
"Would it be all that hard for you to have a brief conversation with the person who answers the phone?" Roger asked.
"That's not the point." I said. "I was calling Paul for 15 years before he got married. The reason I call him is that I want to talk to him. If I wanted to talk to Maggie, I would call Maggie. Same with you. When I call you, I want to talk to you, so I ask for you."
"You're the one who's missing the point," Roger said. "When you see someone at work in the morning and say, How can I help?" He could be his. But you do it anyway because it's a polite thing to do. It's just a social
grace that you have to acquire. Same thing as talking to the person who answers the phone."
"I disagree. Why waste time like that? It's small talk, and I hate small talk. I physically can't do it."
"Look, think about it this way."
Roger said. "Try thinking in terms of what you say when you call your parents. Now, if you call your parents, and you want to talk to you mother, but you father answers the phone, what do you say?"
BOB
GREENE
Syndicated
Columnist
"'Is Mom there?''
Is Mom there. "You're kidding."
"No." I said. "If my father answers and I want to talk to my mother, I just ask for her."
"How long has this been so?"
"How long has this been going on?"
"My whole life."
"Boy, you've really got a problem there." Roger said.
I've almost come to the point at which I accept the fact that he might be right. If everyone says he is wrong, then perhaps I'm in the wrong.
Viscerally I don't think that I'm mad. Just because someone answers a phone — that means that I have anything to say, even if there's nothing to say.
Paul — who was involved at the start of this dilemma — told me that he had figured out the situation.
"It's obvious that you have a fear of intimacy," he said.
In the ensuing days I made an attempt to change. The next time I called Paul, as a matter of fact, Maggie answered, and I said, "Hello, Maggie, this is Bob Greene. How is your day going?"
My voice, however, sounded as if I were reading lines in a particularly badly written play. I couldn't go on with it. Maggie, surprised, began to answer me, but I cut her off.
"Is Paul there?"
"You know, you've really got to work on this." Paul said.
She inhaled again and summoned him to the phone.
"I think that my attitude is perfectly normal. It's the rest of you who are wrong."
In truth, I'm not sure. Any comments?
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