Commentary
Oregon Daily Emerald
Monday, January 24,2005
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The Oregon Daily Emerald is pu6
lished daily Monday through Fri
day during the school year by the
Oregon Daily Emerald Publishing
Co. Inc., at the University of Ore
gon, Eugene, Ore. The Emerald
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Unlawful removal or use of
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■ In my opinion
Focus on the §^Y
SpongeBob SquarePants and Wes
ley Snipes are having a long conver
sation about gender roles, and the
male youth of this country are
watching intently.
Focus on the Family, a Christian or
ganization designed to “preserve tra
ditional values and the institution of
the family,” has recently come out in
protest against a video being pro
duced for children in schools featur
ing a number of animated characters,
including SpongeBob.
According to the Focus on the Fam
ily Web site, SpongeBob’s best (male)
friend, Patrick, is pink. The two char
acters have also been spotted holding
hands. A founder and chairman of
Focus on the Family then goes on to
say that a video promoting homosex
uality should not be shown in
schools. To his credit, Dr. Dobson
claims to applaud the idea of increas
ing diversity (well, some diversity);
the issue for him is that children will
think teachers are endorsing a homo
sexual lifestyle because the term
“sexual identity” is used when listing
issues that deserve tolerance.
However, the division of church
and state would surely mandate that
the educational system has no reason
to listen to the requests of this group.
As a public institution, schools are
doing their job by promoting diversi
ty, period. Imagine instead an extrem
ist group who didn’t believe in racial
diversity because of their religion or
culture, and therefore claimed that
Martin Luther King Jr. Day should not
AILEE SLATER
FURTHER FROM PERFECTION
be recognized or discussed in an ed
ucational setting. Schools would not
even consider such a request, and Fo
cus on the Family has a lot of nerve to
deny the need for diversity tolerance
in relation to sexuality or gender.
And then there’s Blade. The furor
surrounding a chatty sea sponge be
came scarier after my late night view
ing of Blade: Third Times The Ah Hell
Let’s Just Kill Everything. This film
provided an unfortunate example of
what the current masculine gender
identity has spawned into: He has re
ally big muscles, a sword and about
five lines of dialogue.
Is this what culture wants the boys
of our nation to become? A positive
role model of male-to-male bonding
that doesn’t involve an elaborate
vampire plot should be lauded, not
made into headlines for being im
moral. If boys grow up believing that
to be feminine is to be gay, and to be
gay is wrong, male aggression results.
The idea that two men holding hands
is an automatic signal for homosexu
ality signifies so much of what is
problematic about rigid notions of
gender. Fear is instilled into young
men of becoming gentle, sympathetic
people who develop platonic yet inti
mate relationships; surely our world
has realized by now that machismo
only leads to men committing nine
times more murders than women.
Statistics such as these are not giv
en any significance. It is expected that
normal men commit aggressive acts;
the nation utters a communal “boys
will be boys.” There has been no
large-scale effort to uncover the rea
son why men commit so many acts of
violence and, until there is, this ag
gression will surely continue. Disgrac
ing a feminine icon for male children
only entrenches the message further
that men who hold hands with
friends are going to Hell, so go load
up that AK-47 and we’ll shoot our
selves some loose women for dinner.
If men committing murder is accept
able, but holding hands with your
best male friend isn’t, groups such as
Focus on the Family need to evaluate
this fallacy.
The Christian right (or wrong) has
surely realized the frailty of its own
belief system if it fears that an ani
mated yellow sponge has the power
to brainwash children. Will kids see a
sea sponge holding hands with a
(pink) starfish and think, “Yeah,
sleeping with people of the same gen
der is a good idea!” That’s almost as
ridiculous as claiming that some laws
set down by god-knows-who over
2,000 years ago could still hold
true today.
aileeslater@ daily emerald, com
INBOX
LTD contract used for
revenge against employees
About four and a half years ago the
management and the union workers
at Lane TYansit District negotiated a
contract. Ken Hamm was the general
manager at that time. Both parties
agreed to and accepted the contract.
Then about halfway throughout
that contract Ken Hamm changed
it by making the employees pay
part of their health insurance. In
the contract, health insurance
was paid for by the employer.
The employees took LTD to court
and Ken Hamm lost the decision.
Now the contract is up and Ken
Hamm wants to punish the employ
ees for standing up for their rights.
Revenge is no way to run a public
transit district.
Vernon Bell
Springfield
■ Editorial
PFC attacks
students
by censoring
publications
Attention University students, faculty
and staff:
Your student leaders are currently abusing
their authority over incidental fees in order to
settle personal scores with campus journalists
— and dismantle your freedom of speech —
by simultaneously trying to de-fund the two
most visible student publications on campus:
the Oregon Commentator and the Oregon
Daily Emerald.
It is no coincidence that both of these pub
lications serve as student government watch
dogs and have a history of exposing the ille
gal, unethical and just plain stupid behavior
of University elected officials.
As principled journalists, it is sometimes
unfortunately our responsibility to bite the
hand that feeds us. The Emerald did just that
by aggressively covering the recent Sunriver
boondoggle and the ASUO’s laughably in
complete self-punishment process. Rather
than adequately punish themselves by return
ing the $3,000 in misused incidental fees, they
are engaging in a misguided and pathetic at
tempt to punish us for reporting on them.
The Emerald is an independent publication
— unlike many university newspapers — so
we are impervious to direct censorship from
the ASUO, the University or anybody else for
that matter. Instead the ASUO and PFC resort
ed to backdoor censorship by attacking our
budget, using a mountain of flimsy rationales,
inaccurate information, fuzzy math and
faulty logic to justify their actions.
The Emerald escaped total de-funding by a
single vote: 3-4-0. In the end, the PFC voted
to approve the Executive recommendation of
a $8,415 decrease; this is not only the greatest
decrease the PFC has handed out so far
this year, but it is greater than all other
decreases combined.
The Emerald provides students and cam
pus groups with the opportunity to have their
accomplishments recognized and their opin
ions heard by the majority of their campus
peers. Furthermore, the Emerald provides a
substantial reduction in advertising cost to
University organizations. These groups might
have their advertising budget explode, cover
age of their group slashed and campus partic
ipation in their events dramatically decreased
if the Emerald is not funded. An attack
on campus publications is really an attack on
all students.
In light of these disturbing developments,
the Emerald editorial board has decided to
publish a week-long series of editorials out
lining why the Emerald and the Commenta
tor deserve to be fully funded, the history of
censorship at the University and the unprece
dented lack of professionalism demonstrated
by this year’s student leaders.
Now is the time for the student body to
fight for their First Amendment rights here in
Eugene. The first step is to write the Emerald
a letter to the editor. Do you agree with the
PFC decision to decrease our funds? Or are
you concerned about the PFC’s decision?
Please send us your opinion and make your
voice heard.
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