Is America not ready or are you not ready?

Lately I have been hearing a lot of people say phrases like “”America won’t vote for Hillary or Obama because they are not ready for a female or black President.”” As the case was a few days ago Tawfik Maudah made this argument (“”I, John Edwards, solemnly swear…””, Monday) and then made a case for John Edwards. In other words he was saying voting for Hillary and Obama is a wasteful vote because neither will win the general election.

When people make claims like this, they only hurt the chances of a minority candidate and they give into the notion that America is not ready. Now I personally am supporting Barack Obama but that said, I would never vote against Hillary because of her gender, but rather because of her record as Senator. Mr. Maudah did not make this case himself but rather pulled a very cheap stunt by making her gender the case. Absolutely horrendous!

Another thing that Mr. Maudah forgets is that numerous traditional conservative states including Arizona, Kansas, Texas, Louisiana, and Wyoming (and many others) have already elected women at statewide level. This is in addition to the many blue and purple states that have already done so. Right there, Mr. Maudah’s argument is destroyed. If Kansas and Arizona could elect and reelect popular female governors than I think America is ready. Maudah’s arguments don’t have any logical facts or basis to back them up. Rather, he just plays off of dangerous and unfounded stereotypes.

John Edwards himself even said that anyone who would vote against Hillary for her gender or Obama because of his race should not vote for him because he doesn’t want their vote. After eight years of the worst president in U.S. history, America has too much on their mind to consider the race and gender of the opposition. I think America is a lot more concerned about the war, health care, the economy and corruption than they are about keeping the white/male status quo in check.

-Joel Shooster
political science senior

Columnist’s argument ‘biblically illiterate’

May a student of Religious Studies respond to Taylor Kessinger’s Dec. 3 article, “”Pro-Gay Rights: the common sense position””? When Kessinger tells us that the book of Judges is in the New Testament you know we are living in a biblically illiterate society, yet it is precisely this society which attempts to assure us that the Bible approves of homosexuality.

Some laws of the Old Testament indeed seem absurd to our culture, but if we put half of our creativity toward understanding the cultural context of the book, and separating ceremonial regulations from timeless moral principles, we would not find it difficult to understand that the prohibition against homosexuality is an appeal to nature – like we see in Paul’s writings. We should not equivocate and toss the commandment out with the culture.

Kessinger’s article says that, “”anti-homosexual sentiment…is unsupportable from a Biblical perspective””, and the New Testament does not “”pronounce judgment on being gay.”” Kessinger analysis of the un-translated text yields ONLY references to “”strange pleasures, unnatural flesh, and perversions””. However, when one consults multiple translations by learned men and women they see for instance, “”men…abandoned the natural (Greek: phusiken: ‘natural, native’) relations with women and were inflamed in their lust for one another; men with men (Greek: arsenes en arsenin) committed indecent acts with other men”” (Romans I, 26, 27), all we find in the Wildcat is ignorance of religion, and prevarication.

It betrays the potential of the human mind to say that homosexuality is not a choice. If it were a choice, even gay people could give us a thousand reasons why it would be wrong and unnatural. All human beings have control over their sexual expression. Heterosexuality says that there is a purpose for life and sex. Homosexuality says that our feelings can dictate right and wrong.

Can “”anti-homosexual sentiment”” be blamed on the Church? The Church is under no obligation to pander to “”pro-fanum”” morals. The State has every right to adopt the appropriate “”ism”” which is necessary for the approval of homosexuality, i.e. (in my opinion) Indifferentism, but the Church has the right to disapprove of homosexuality, and does so with compassion and understanding.

-Alan Hoogasian
history and religious
studies senior