4A
Tuesday, March 28, 1995
OPINION
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VIEWPOINT
THE ISSUE: SEX EDUCATION
Sex education bill inadequate
On March 1, the Kansas House of Representatives passed a sex education bill that includes the following: "Teach that abstinence from sexual activity outside of marriage is the expected standard for all school-age children. Teach that the best way to avoid sexually transmitted diseases and other associated health problems is to establish a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in the context of a marriage."
Abstinence is an important component of any comprehensive sexuality education program. Even in a society that has delayed marriage, accepted divorce and is coming to terms with sexual minorities, abstinence and the mutually exclusive marriage-type relationship are still the ideal. The monogamous sharing of one's sexuality creates a beautiful bond between two people and is deserving of the distinction that society places upon it.
The bill, although it expresses an ideal, is naively invested in the incorrect notion that by teaching abstinence, school-age children will stop having sex. This is turning a blind eye to such problems as rising rates of HIV transmission among younger people and teenage pregnancy. The wording of this bill would effectively free schools
Schools should teach both safe sex and abstinence to children, and allow them to make an informed choice.
Although abstinence remains the only absolutely safe route in the perplexing realm of modern-day sexuality, it is not one that most school age children will choose to follow. Children need sex education that teaches abstinence not out of fear and shame but based on personal integrity and ethical responsibility toward others. Children also need to know the facts on how to protect themselves and others in the likely event that they should choose to express their sexuality before entering a monogamous relationship. The child armed with the facts is the one most likely to make a wise decision. We are faced with the reality of AIDS as a possible consequence of unsafe sexual activity. By leaving out the option of safer sex from the wording of this bill the Legislature could be the sole guilty party in the further spread of AIDS and possibly needless deaths of many of our younger people.
from instruction in other very effective methods of birth control and sexually transmitted disease prevention, such as condoms and safersex.
JOHN BENNETT FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
THE ISSUE: KU BASKETBALL
Hawks praised for great season
Basketball season is over for the Jayhawks. Their loss to the Virginia Cavaliers certainly crushed many Final Four dreams.
But instead of looking at what didn't happen for the Jayhawks, their fans should look at all the crowning moments that the team had.
As cliche as it sounds it is an honor to make it to the sweet 16, and winning the Big Eight Conference title is nothing to sneeze at.
The team deserves a hearty congratulations for all of its hard work. The loyal fans should also be applauded for their unfailing support of the team.
So now that March Madness is over for the Jayhawks, many fans are beginning to look forward to next year. And maybe next year will be the year of the Hawk, since much of the team will be returning, and there will surely be some new recruits to add to the talented team.
KU basketball has another stellar year, and fans should be proud.
Coach Roy Williams probably put it best when he said, "I think they've given you some special memories by how they played basketball and how they conducted themselves as representatives of the University you love."
HEATHER LAWRENZ FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Jeff MacNelly / CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Murder result of bigotry, not television talk show
Imagine this scenario: A white man is told on a talk show that a Black woman has a crush on him. He is against interracial relationships and repulsed upon finding out about the woman's attraction to him. Three days later, he shows up at the woman's door and brutally kills her.
Would the media and authorities blame the talk show and not the killer for the woman's death? Of course not.
Would there be a great deal of sympathy for this bigoted, cold-blooded murderer?
Yet something very similar has happened, and in the real-life case, the murderer is being touted as a good guy who got pushed too far.
STAFF COLUMNIST
On March 9, Scott Amedure, a gay man, was shot to death while he stood unarmed in the doorway of his home. The confessed murderer, John Schmitz, had appeared on "The Jenny Jones Show" with Amedure three days before the murder. The episode's topic was secret crushes, and Schmitz was told by the show's staff that his admirer could be either a woman or a man. On the show, Amedure admitted his crush on Schmitz, with whom he was acquainted casually.
The county prosecutor and sheriff's department have made several statements about poor John Schnitz, who was "surprised" and "humiliated" by those mean old
tabloid television people. Schmitz's relatives and friends are being quoted widely in the press about the killer's embarrassment and turmoil upon finding out that a gay man had a crush on him. Little concern is being voiced regarding the emotional state Medured
must have been in as he lay dying from two gunshots in his chest.
What would happen if women started blowing away every man who had paid them unwanted attention? There probably wouldn't be many men left. No amount of humiliation Schmitz might have felt could possibly begin to justify his actions, yet it looks as if that will be exactly the defense used when the case goes to trial. This is a hate crime, pure and simple, and the cause isn't a talk show. "The Jenny Jones Show" certainly showed poor judgment in putting Schmitz on the spot publicly, but Schmitz was the one who bought a shotgun and went to Amedure's house three days later. The cause is not tabloid television but rather the homophobia in our culture which so many Americans find excusable.
Some reports now are surfacing that suggest that Schmitz may not be so heterosexual after all. Employees of a gay bar in the men's hometown said they had seen Schmitz from time to time in the establishment. That the killer may have been gay or bisexual only serves further to demonstrate the insidious effects of homophobia. If Schmitz was so tortured by the thought that people might perceive him as queer that he was willing to kill to keep himself in the closet, what does that say about how American culture treats gay, lesbian and bisexual people?
That someone would be murdered simply for being gay is tragic and inexcusable, yet Scott Amedure is not alone. According to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 59 gay people were killed in the last year in bias-motivated murders.
Rather than wringing their hands over the "humiliation" of John Schmitz, the media and our leaders should be taking this opportunity to soundly and unequivocally condemn the homophobic bigotry and violence which brought about Scott Amedure's death. Making excuses for a pathetic murderer like John Schmitz only sends the message that it's OK to kill gays in our country.
Chris Hampton is a Lawrence graduate student in higher education.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Student Senate not a bully; fee raise needed
Once again Robert Tapley has displayed gross ignorance and a seeming animosity toward Student Senate by oversimplifying a very complex issue. His "Tax and Spend" cartoon of March 3 portrayed Senate as a hulking bully who demands money from two KU students. The cartoon obviously alludes to a recent Senate proposal to increase the student activity fee.
Among the variety of issues that Taples' cartoon clouds over is that the activity fee has not been adjusted for inflation in several years; this was one of many reasons for the proposal. You don't need to be an economist to realize that services purchased five years ago for $25 cost considerably more today. To illustrate this simply so that even Taples would understand, you can use the cost of vending machine goods as an example: One year ago a Snickers cost 50 cents; today that bar costs 55 cents, a 10 percent increase. Therefore, to expect an organization such as KU Legal Services to operate with the same budget it has received for more than two years is unreasonable. To
maintain — not upgrade or add to
— existing services, many senators
believe it necessary to turn to students for financing.
Consider some of the programs for which Senate attempted to provide adjusted financing: Legal Services for Students, Hilltop Child Development Center, Rape Victim Survivor Services and Center for Community Outreach. These and several other services simply cannot operate for free. Because enrollment has declined in recent years there is a shallower pool from which to derive funds. Some senators believe that this coupled with inflation necessitates a raise in the activity fee to continue the level of services these organizations already provide. In other words, if we desire these services, we must pay for them; a government costs money.
However, Tapley depicts Senate as shaking down the weak. This is a flawed comparison. Not only are all senators students paying the same fees as any other student, but all senators are directly accountable to the student body — those who disagree with the policies of
this year's Senate need not re-elect incumbents. A fee increase is not an attempt by Senate to push KU students around financially for its own gain. Senators are not paid, and no money from a fee increase would line anyone's pockets. The money would be distributed to services that benefit the entire student body.
I, like Tapley, am guilty of oversimplifying a complex issue. My short letter cannot explain fully all the subtleties and matters associated with the proposal. However, unlike Tapley, I not only spoke with senators on both sides of the issue to further my understanding of the proposal, Iattended and participated in the meeting at which the proposal was debated. And since every Senate meeting is open to public attendance — Senate's access policy has been published in the Kansan — Tapley has no excuse for such a poorly conceived and inaccurate editorial cartoon.
David Tumer Chicago senior and fine senator
Are you liberal or conservative? It seems like a reasonable question to ask. A more thoughtful and helpful question, though, might be this: How do you define "liberal" and "conservative"?
The first time I asked this question,
Political party definitions lack reality of the real world
a suit says things such as, "Those liberals can all die and go to that extremely humid part of hell that's reserved for atheist communists like themselves." Such hate couldn't possibly be explained by a simple preference for less government.
the answer I got from my dad was that "conservatives want less government, and liberals want more." Now, that's not a bad first definition, but it's a little too glib for the real world. There are a lot of uses it doesn't seem to cover. Like when a big white guy in
Moreover, no one (and I mean no one) seems to want more government anymore. In 1995, if you say you want more government, people of all ethnicities, backgrounds and cola preferences will look at you as if you had just said, "Why, yes, I do think the world is flat. And I also think we should allow grade school teachers to impose the death penalty, if they feel like it."
There are additional linguistic complications. Sometimes people are described as being "liberal conservatives" or "conservative liberals." To me, this seems more like describing someone by saying "He's really fat for a thin guy." Also, it's a problem that the liberal political ideologies of the Enlightenment, which served as philosophical cornerstones for our government, are embraced by many conservatives and liberals alike. Add to that the fact that sometimes — when speaking in economic terms — to be a liberal is to be in favor of conservative (laissez-faire) policies, and it seems pretty clear that we don't always know what we're talking about when we say "liberal" or "conservative."
So maybe, in looking for a proper definition of these terms, we should ask the people themselves. Conservatives say that they embrace traditional American values and value systems. The problem, of course, is figuring out whose values they're maintaining, as well as how to restore the glorious values of the past when those values don't include just things like love and nurturing, but also things such as ignorance, closed-mindedness and bigotry.
Thus, many young people (including me) would rather be called an unbathed, freeloading, beer drinking, liberal than to be called conservative. The word itself seems like another name for an arthritic, hemorrhoidal, paralyzed pessimist. But we have our problems, too. We're really pretty conservative when you get right down to it. If every liberal really was liberal, none of us would ever get married, make money or go to church. In short, we wouldn't turn into our parents by age 30.
So if anyone has a better classification system for political values, let me know. Until then, you can call me "moderate."
Chris Reedy is a Topeka junior in English and philosophy.
HUBIE