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Tuesday, October 14, 1986 / University Daily Kansan
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Intolerant of free speech
Religious enthusiasm often can be the inspiration for good deeds that benefit humanity. But too frequently that zeal is misdirected into acts of intolerance.
Certainly, the protesters had every right to express their disapproval of the content of the film. But the fact that many protesters advocated that the movie not be shown at all indicates an appalling ignorance of the principle of free speech.
This unfortunate fact was evident again last week when about 150 demonstrators gathered in front of the Kansas Union on Wednesday night to protest the showing of the movie, "Hail Mary." The controversial French film is billed as a contemporary version of the biblical story of Mary and Joseph. In the movie, Joseph is portrayed as a cab driver, and Mary is shown nude in several scenes.'
The opinion that something in the media is in poor taste, or
insulting to deeply held beliefs, or even sacrilegious or blasphemous, shouldn't be considered grounds for censorship. Would the movie protesters have us turn back the clock several centuries to the days when the writings of heretics, and often the heretics themselves, were routinely used to light bonfires?
One person's sacrilege is another's art. We're all entitled to decide whether we think a particular work is one or the other, or somewhere in between. No one has the right to impose their own definition on others, or to decide what would be edifying for others to see.
The right of free expression means there's no such thing as a wrong opinion. But many of the protesters will have to excuse us if we don't take their opinion too seriously. Many of them admitted they were condemning a movie they had never seen. Those who called for censorship should re-read the First Amendment and curb their zeal.
Core curriculum needed
What does a degree from the University of Kansas mean? If the University eventually adopts a core curriculum, the answer to this question will be made more concise than ever before.
The core curriculum proposal, which is being debated by the University Senate Executive Committee, would establish a common set of course requirements needed for graduation from all schools. If two main negotiating obstacles can be cleared by next spring, KU may have a core curriculum in place by fall 1988.
The first problem will be to convince faculty that the University ought to be empowered to enforce certain minimum graduation requirements upon all students. Some faculty, especially those in professional schools, may oppose the imposition of additional liberal arts and sciences requirements upon their students.
University, already stretching inadequate funding to the limit, would have to open more sections of classes and hire more instructors to accommodate, for example, music majors taking math classes.
The other big hurdle, not surprisingly, is financial. The
The University needs a core curriculum. This doesn't mean KU graduates aren't being adequately educated. In fact, many schools within the University already have strong, diversified curriculums.
But it would enhance the University's already fine academic reputation if graduates could say that their degrees represent a common base of knowledge with other alumni, not just the fact that they attended school on the same campus. A core curriculum would attest to the University's commitment to giving students a well-rounded education, not merely producing specialized robots.
Assuming that additional funds can be obtained, the other issues appear to have ample room for compromise.
Inefficiency is no joke
If it weren't so serious, it would almost be funny.
Technically, the government is broke, because none of the regular spending bills have been passed.
Since Oct. 1, the end of the fiscal year, the government has been running on overtime. Congress passed a stopgap bill to finance the government while it tries to wrap up the session.
President Reagan criticized Congress, even as he signed the latest stopgap bill Saturday, saying that this was no way to run a federal government. He also accused members of the House of Representatives of using omnibus appropriations bills to push through unnecessary spending.
Reagan has vowed not to sign any more stopgap bills, but the damage has already been done.
It's quite possible that many congressmen will be able to shrug off this fiscal year fiasco as business as usual. But if the looming deficit isn't frightening enough, consider what this is doing to our image abroad. Just how do we expect the Soviet Union to trust us to manage an arms control agreement when we cannot manage a simple appropriations bill? How do we expect Corazon Aquino to trust our advice on how to run her government when we can't manage our own?
Shaking our head at those naughty congressmen isn't going to do it.
News staff
News staff
Lauretta McMillen ... Editor
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Jacki Kelly ... Photo editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news administrator
Business staff
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Beverly Kautsen ... Traffic manager
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Opinions
U.S. 'golden door' not open to all
The Statue of Liberty's 100th birthday provided a terrific opportunity for media hype this summer. The statue is supposed to welcome immigrants to the "golden door" of America.
Meanwhile, it is this country's official policy not to allow people from certain countries to immigrate. While the U.S. government welcomes refugees from official enemies — mainly communist countries — it refuses to grant refugee status to people from some countries it supports. Guatemala and El Salvador are two such countries.
The U.S. government signed the 1949 Geneva Conventions treaty, which says that refugees fleeing civil war in their homelands may not be deported.
The U.S. government signed a United Nations treaty in 1967, which forbids the deportation of people who have fled their country for fear of
persecution.
Congress passed a Refugee Act in 1980 similar to that treaty.
Jan Underwood
Columnist
Nevertheless, most people fleeing violence and persecution in El Salvador and Guatemala will not be granted refugee status in this country.
Guatemala has the worst human rights record of any country in the Western Hemisphere. A government survey shows that 200,000 children have been orphaned by violence since 1978, and, according to the Progressive magazine, the civilian death toll runs as high as 100,000 — more than one percent of the Guatemalan
The new president of Guatemala, Vinicio Cerezo, noted 69 extrajudicial executions in his first three weeks of office.
population.
In El Salvador, death squads have been responsible for 60,000 murders and 5,000 "disappearances" since 1980, according to the Nation. Under the presidency of Jose Napoleon Duarte, not a single army officer has been prosecuted.
The governments of El Salvador and Guatemala are buddies of the U.S. government. Congress curtailed military aid to Guatemala in 1977 because of human rights abuses, but nonetheless the U.S. government has secretly sent Iethal aid to Guatemala. According to the Progressive, arms shipments from the United States to Guatemala exceed in value those received from anywhere by any Central American country.
The U.S. government has sent $2.3 billion to El Salvador since 1979. Last year, 65 percent of the nearly half-billion dollars it financed the civil war. Forty percent of this year's proposed aid package is considered "war-related."
Congress is now considering a Pentagon request for $10 million in military aid to Guatemala.
Our government will not grant refugee status to Salvadorans and Guatemalans because it will not admit that the governments it finances commit atrocities.
Give me your tired, poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free, unless they happen to come from Guatemala or El Salvador.
So people fleeing certain death in these two countries are being turned away at the golden door. And this summer we celebrated a statue that stands in the harbor to welcome refugees.
WASHINGTON — Steeped deep in the shadows cast by the epocaly fight for control of the Senate is another election with a significance that extends to the end of the century.
)distributed by King Features Syndicate
Steve Gerstel
State seats kev to political dominance
This, reminds Curtis B. Gans of the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, is the election for state legislatures, which he says is the true battleground for political alignment.
Except within the states, and not even always there, the election of seats in the legislatures get very little attention.
UPI Commentary
They are overshadowed by the headline-grabbing contests for the
But it is in these elections — in 1986, 1988 and 1990 — that the Republican fight for political dominance will be fought.
Senate, the House, governor, lieutenant governor, initiatives and just about everything else — except maybe dogcatchers.
A dramatic party switch, such as the one made by Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, or GOP gubernatorial candidate William Lucas in Michigan, excites the faithful and lends marginal impetus.
But these switches have little to do with the long-range shift of the parties, if there is to be one.
The next three elections for state legislatures, however, could radically alter the landscape. In 1991—following the 1990 census—the congressional districts, as well as the legislative districts, will be redrawn
The party that controls the most legislatures, Gans points out, will be in a position to redraw district lines in its favor. The map making, even keeping within the one-man, one-vote requirement, can be delicately balanced so that a Democratic stronghold turns into a Republican bastion — or the other way around.
and the map makers will be the legislatures.
More than one solidly entrenched incumbent has found himself, following the census, in a district of a far different composition — and lost.
For those not watching as closely as the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate, the Republicans are gaining.
The committee points out that since 1976, the GOP has gained 533 seats in the lower houses of state legislatures and 135 seats in the upper houses.
The once invincible Democratic majority has shrunk from a 68 percent to 32 percent advantage in the lower houses and from 66 percent to 31 percent advantage in the upper houses.
Democrats, who controlled both state houses in 36 states; now have double rule in 29 states.
Even more important, the Republicans are within 10 seats — in each state — of gaining two-house control in 19 legislatures, compared with the present 11, and of having control of at least one house in 30 states.
"If the Republicans continue to make inroads in state legislatures, the U.S. House of Representatives and the entire cast of American politics could have a very different partisan coloration in the 1990s," Gans said.
Mailbox
Get real, Goodpasture
I am so glad to have read Victor Goodpasture's own simplistic and egocentric account of how the U.S. lost the Vietnam War — the "liberal" press. Now I understand why more than 58,000 young persons died, and why several thousand are still missing or prisoners of war.
Having seen each documentary several times, as well as having served personally in several of the military operations depicted in them, I can unequivocally state that both contain major reporting inaccuracies about the actual events and their interpretations.
If Goodpasture was as responsible a journalist as he has claimed to be, he would stop his petty fingerpointing and call for a journalism forum in which the role of the journalist in the Vietnam war is presented and discussed objectively, without party politics.
In the words of today, "Victor, get real." While you were watching "Sesame Street," my friends were killed by bullets and rockets and not by the words of liberal or conservative reporters spoken twenty years later.
Thomas J. Berger,
Chairperson
Memorial Committee
Film showed insight
The possession of opinion and the ability to reason sets the human race
We possess the ability to reason.
Why, then, can people not reason behind the vulgar language and nudity to see the meaning it attempted to convey? I left the Union understanding, not condemning.
I have not yet determined which was better, "Hail Mary" or the protesters allied at the Kansas Union. Both had their merits.
There were good things in "Hail Mary." By a subtitle, I was told joy comes from the heart, from inside. I do not claim to understand all of God's thoughts, but I believe that he would agree. "Hail Mary," not the protesters of the film, left me with a spiritual feeling. The members of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property did nothing to convince me I was wrong in viewing the movie. Perhaps for this I should ask forgiveness.
above that of the animal. At times, I wonder if that is good. Wednesday night was one such time.
What they did do, in their suits, was raise money for SUA. I do not think that was their purpose. But, yes, I imagine holding their sign, marked with that same opinion that sets us apart from animals, did make God love them more. In Micah, it says to walk humble with God. Is that why they were in suits and would not answer many questions? As they are people of God, I guess so.
It was controversial. It contained vulgar language and nudity. But the Bible does too. And I've allowed myself to read it. However, the men
Deb Grurer,
Garden City sophomore
of the society are right. I'm one of those kids with an open mind and weird hair. Thank God for some things.
I have a great deal of information
Along with his cheap shots at religion, politics, motherhood and education, Chavez takes a crack at the Attorney General's Commission on Pornography. Chavez is partially correct in stating that the commission has linked pornography to crime. However, because of his omission of adjectives, many Kansan readers do not realize that the commission has linked hard-core pornography to organized crime.
With his account of a visit to a local bookstore, Chavez again leads the reader to believe that the commission was "leading a witch hunt against the infidels and heretics of pornography" (the publishers of Playboy, Penthouse, et al). In actuality, the commission was not out to investigate so-called soft porn. Instead the commission was investigating the hard-core pornography industry, an $8 billion a year industry in the United States alone.
Pornography report
on the attorney general's commission and would be glad to pass that in formation along, should Chavez ever desire to write an enlightened col umn on pornography.
Susan E. Smith Lawrence resident
It is naive and dangerous to act on the misguided belief that drugs can be expunged. Naive in that people throughout human history have been ingesting, snorting, sniffing, drinking and generally putting themselves in altered states of consciousness. The so-called "war on drugs" is dangerous not only because "innocent" persons are victimized but that the "guilty" are wrongly labeled deviate and severely punished for behavior that normally takes place in the privacy of their homes.
Dangerous drug war
The implications of "the war on drugs" and drug testing are socially frightening and personally devastating. At what cost to humanity are we risking by this mindless attack on civil liberties? We ought to heed the advice of the social critic and psychiatrist, Thomas Szasz: "We ought to judge all Great Moral Programs, especially if backed by the power of Churches or States, by the inverse of the Anglo-American decision-rule for judging defendants— 'immoral until proven otherwise.'"
Brian Kennedy. Lawrence graduate student