4A the university daily kansan
opinion
thursday, October 2, 2003
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Free for All Call 864-0500
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com
I know it is getting chilly outside, but the drama is sure heating up on the seventh floor of Lewis.
□
I second the motion for a smoke-free campus.
perspective
I just flicked my cigarette and hit somebody with it. Again, I would just like to say that I am sorry.
perspective
Is there any food that cream cheese does not go on?
Hey, while you are all giving blood, don't forget that I can't donate because I am gay, and that is the only reason.
perspective
Thirty-five down on the crossword puzzle says protruding parts, but penis does not fit. I am perturbed.
The roof is on fire. It is time to get out The Beatles Anthology.
--perspective
People demand the freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought, which they avoid.
回
I love my arms. That's where my hands live.
The Tri Dalts tried to be the bigger people. They indeed succeeded. What did they win? A box of Twinkies.
perspective
People need to stop being such big babies.
perspective
This is for the guys on the ninth floor of McCollum: Oh man, you rock my world!
meigs' view
WE INTERRUPT OUR DAILY HURRICANE TERRORISM, WAR REPORTS WITH BREAKING NEWS CONCERNING J. LO'S ASS...
Connor Meigs for The University Daily Kansan
Annul Romeo and Juliet statute
Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline is a bigot. He is dedicated to keeping a young gay man in prison for 15 years even though, had the man been straight, he would have served a maximum of 15 months for the same offense. What was Matthew Limon's crime? He engaged in consensual oral sex with another male teen.
GUEST COMMENTARY
Because of a Kansas iaw dubbed the "Romeo and Juliet" statute, consensual sex between one teen, between the ages of 14 and 16, and anotherteen, older than 16 but under 19, garners a maximum sentence of 15 months if the two participants are of the opposite sex. In Matthew Limon's case, the same circumstances applied, except that both participants were male. As a result, a Kansas court sentenced Limon to 17 years in a state prison. If Limon or the other participant had been female, Limon would already be free.
The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that sodomy laws are unconstitutional. The reasons behind the decision were clearly issues of privacy, by but ruling as it did, the Supreme Court sent a clear message: It is not OK to prosecute a
Patrick Ross opinion@hansan.com
Perhaps, as Kline argued, Matthew Limon gave up his right to privacy because the sex act was performed in a state-funded school. However, the Supreme Court seemed to think the case warranted further investigation and sent it back to the Kansas Court of Appeals for reconsideration. The Supreme Court sent another message: We think this kid has done his time and we shouldn't have to hold your hands while you free him.
certain class of people differently than others for the same offense.
Kline, though, seems determined to let Limon rot in prison. He does not do the right thing, instead he does anything but. According to the Associated
Press, in a Sept. 15 story, Kline equated freeing Limon with destabilizing Kansas marriage laws. He said that to free Limon would pave the way for bestiality and pedophilia to become legal. Despite the fact that bestiality and pedophilia are far from consensual, unlike the oral sex Limon and his partner engaged in, Kline is obscuring the larger question: Can you sentence a gay man to 15 more years of prison time than a straight man would receive for the same offense?
Matthew Limon should be freed. He has obviously served more time than a straight man would serve. Yes, he made a mistake, but he did not coerce the other boy into engaging in oral sex. Yes, he should have been punished, but he has done his time. Only the bigotry and zeal of our state attorney general thing keep him in prison. I urge everyone to tell Phill Kline he is being ludicrous by sending him an e-mail at general@ksag.org.
Ross is a Topeka sophomore in journalism and a member of the editorial board.
Jayhawks deserve jail time for tearing down posts
perspective
I have almost always been proud to be a Jayhawk. Generally, the students, faculty and alumni of the University of Kansas have treated themselves and others with the level of respect that has earned the Midwest a good reputation. But some Jayhawks do things to tarnish that reputation. The most recent example is the mob who torde down the football goalposts and threw them into Potter Lake to celebrate the victory against Mizzou.
This action was illegal. Because the Athletics Department didn't give the mob permission to take its property, and took steps to prevent it from being stolen, taking the posts meets the legal definition of theft.
Breaking the law is not always a terrible thing. Most of the crimes we commit are lesser crimes, misdemeanors. These are acts such as speeding by a couple miles per hour over the limit or jaywalking.
Matthew Dunavan opinion@hansan.com
COMMENTARY
over the limited time frame. However, under Kansas law, if the stolen property is worth more than $500, the theft
is a felony. That means society frowns upon it so much that it should be punished by jail time. Because the posts cost about $3,500 apiece, the theft is clearly a felony. If the law were to be enforced, everyone in the strong who helped the goalposts move an inch closer to the lake should be in prison.
On the front page of Monday's The University Daily Kansan is a large photo of a mass of students carrying the goalposts.
One person I talked to suggested that because we pay taxes, we own the goalposts and have a right to do with them what we will. This argument is false on its face even if the goalposts were public property which they are not. They are owned by the autonomous corporation known as the Athletics Department of the University of Kansas. It would be like stealing them from a private citizen, not from the state of Kansas.
Similar pictures appeared in the Laurence Journal-World and several other newspapers in the area. If this were court, we would have photographic evidence of individuals engaged in the crime.
This post-game tradition has been a part of college football for a long time, but tradition can never justify something if it is wrong. If it could, slavery might still be legal.
Others have told me that it is a victimless crime. Nobody got hurt in the process.
All of you who participated in this should be ashamed of yourselves. You've made the University a worse place to be, albeit by a little bit. It's not that I have something against the University. This school is my home. Stealing from and destroying the property of my school is not love of the University. It is criminal.
Aside from any considerations of public safety that go along with carrying heavy metallic objects through teeming crowds where not everyone is sober, there is property damage to consider. There have been rumors of people's cars damaged by the posts as they made their way out of the stadium. Even without the property damage, the Athletics Department will suffer a financial hit when it replaces what was stolen.
Dunavan a Toptek senior in political science and philosophy.
editorial board
Campus needs more women speakers
When former Attorney General Janet Reno spoke on campus last week, her presence carried another significant message, one of professionalism and success for college women to aspire to.
We need more women speakers like Reno.
With her experience as the only female ever to direct the federal Department of Justice, Reno showed that women are continuing to break into and find success in male-dominated fields.
It's not new by any means—the fight for women's progress and empowerment has been going on for more than a century but even so, it is beneficial to have that occasional reminder come to campus.
Unfortunately, at the University of Kansas, speakers of Reno's experience, caliber and gender have been relatively scarce. It seems that the number of male lecturers or guests on campus regularly exceeds the number of females. That is one of the reasons why it was so refreshing to see the School of Law and Student Union Activities bring Reno to Lawrence.
Look at Reno's success as a citizen, public servant and administrator. Her experience says more than her hour-long question/answer session ever did. Over the last three decades, she has challenged the boundaries of traditionally male-dominated areas such as law and government. Today, in the denouement of a long career, while Reno serves as a role model to all women young and old, her success and stature might be most significant to college-age women. Her presence allows women to see the result of perseverance and hard work, and likewise, it allows men to see perspectives on a professional world that is increasingly extending power and equality to both genders.
It would be nice to see more women speak around Mount Oread.
Fortunately, the Emily Taylor and Marilyn Stokstad Women's Leadership Lecture Fund is already set aside every year by KU Endowment expressly for that purpose. In past years, the Women's Leadership Lecture Series has included novelist Sara Paretsky and others. This year, it is bringing Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to campus to speak.
But while the Women's Leadership Lecture Fund is a great program, it certainly shouldn't be the only effort. Other groups and organizations around campus — the Robert J. Dole Institute of Politics and the University's professional schools, for example — should make more of an effort to draw respectable, successful women role models to speak at the University. For while these lecturers' speeches might say a lot, their identities might say more.
Steve Munch for the editorial board
letter to the editor
'Free-For-All' callers should back up their weak arguments
As much as I enjoy reading the colorful, if borderline slanderous comments about me in the Free-for-All, I would be more interested in reading a thoughtful, meaningful critique of my arguments. For example, the caller who said "Congratulations Arrah Nielsen, you are now officially the stupidest person on campus," though bold, failed to go beyond merely insulting me personally. The caller who allegedly slept with my Bible schoolteacher and is gay, failed to make what is called a "point."
Not to be outdone by previous callers, the person who apparently didn't care for my piece on the 24-cent gender wage gap declared me "the most hated person on campus." I hadn't realized that 24 cents could incite such deep emotions in people. If it means so much, I'd be willing to give that person a quarter.
The campus feminists are always good about sending in response columns and letters to the editor. Sure, their logic is faulty, and they always misconstruce my arguments, but at least they're trying harder than the callers in the Free-for-All.
Granted, I don't expect to find rational thought in the Free-for-All. I just expected college students to be capable of more sophisticated arguments than "you're stupid!" The little kids I baby-sit for can do better than that. But obviously Free-for-All callers have proven me wrong.
Arrah Nielsen is an Andover senior in anthropology and a Kensan columnist