The Rice Thresher, Vol. 91, No. 4, Ed. 1 Friday, September 12, 2003 Page: 3 of 20
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THE RICE THRESHER OPINION FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 2003
Guest column
Gays undermine marriage's meaning
The following is the second in a
series on gay marriage.
The notion of sanctioning mar-
riage between two people
of the same gender is ab-
solutely outrageous. Yet
America must face and
deal with this idea. It can-
not be ignored, and the
outcome of the debate is
very much in doubt.
It is interesting that
people in homosexual re-
lationships want to be of-
ficially "married." Why
aren't they satisfied to
have their relationships
be like other unwed
couples who live together?
According to Representative Ron
Paul (R-Tex.), "If homosexuals were
only interested in having a monoga-
mous relationship with each other,
we wouldn't hear this debate going
on. What they really want is to not
only have all Americans condone
the practice, but force them to pay
for it."
As a "married" couple, gays would
be entitled to employee benefits and
family packages offered through
Social Security, the U.S. Department
of Agriculture (which provides food
stamps), and other welfare pro-
grams. Gays want to be accepted as
ordinary people doing an ordinary
thing, and they want their "relation-
ships" put on the same level as those
of traditional married couples.
This must not happen for several
reasons. First, and seemingly most
obvious, homosexual behavior is not
Pat
Hastings IV
natural. This is not a paper on biol-
ogy, but it is safe to say the male and
female bodies are designed to facili-
tate having sex with one another.
And the function of a
sexual relation is to pro-
duce offspring.
Homosexual behavior
does not appear to be a
normal function of the
body, and it definitely
does not produce chil-
dren. There is a myth, still
purported by many pro-
homosexuals, that a criti-
cal mass of 10 percent of
the human population is
"gay." However, during
the Lawrence v. Texas Su-
preme Court case this spring, even
the pro-homosexual side admitted
these numbers were a steep exag-
geration.
According to the Lawrence brief-
ings, "The most widely accepted
study of sexual practices in the
United States is the National Health
and Social Life Survey (NHSLS). The
[1992J NHSLS found that 2.8 per-
cent of the male and 1.4 percent of
the female population identify them-
selves as gay, lesbian, or bisexual."
Second, gay marriage would de-
stroy the very meaning of the union.
The concept of marriage is not dis-
criminatory. But by definition it is a
union between two sexes, not just
two people. The concept of marriage
is so important to society that it has
been uniquely protected by law and
by culture.
If marriage can be defined differ-
ently, why couldn't it take place be-
tween a man and a monkey? Where
can we draw the line? What about
"marriage" between a man and a 10-
year-old boy? And who says mar-
riage can only be between two
people? How about three women
getting married? Or 14? These ex-
amples may be extreme, but so was
the idea of homosexual marriage in
the not-so-distant past.
Finally, gay marriage is not like
traditional marriage. Marriage en-
courages a monogamous relation-
ship; homosexual relationships are
the complete opposite. In fact, ac-
cording to a 1996 survey by Genre,
an upscale gay men's magazine, 42
percent of readers said they had had
sex with more than 100 different
partners. Despite this promiscuity,
legally "married" homosexuals
would have every legal right to pur-
sue adoption on an equal basis with
traditionally married couples.
If gay marriage is sanctioned by
the government, and it may be in the
near future, some very important
principles will be turned upside
down. Gender will become irrel-
evant. Sexual differences will be
more like personality types. Mar-
riage will be meaningless.
Gay marriage must not be per-
mitted. To put it on the same level as
the traditional American marriage
would not elevate homosexuality to
a new level. Rather it would destroy
the principles of the family unit and
signify the painful beginning of the
death of marriage.
Pat Hastings IV is a Martel College
freshman.
Guest column
Terrorism not the biggest threat to democracy
Two years ago yesterday, the
United States lost over 3,000 citi-
zens in the worst single-day tragedy
in its recent history.
Thirty years ago, in its
own Sept. 11 tragedy,
Chile lost something
much more valuable: its
very democracy, once the
oldest and most stable de-
mocracies in Latin
America.
On Sept. 11, 1973, a
CIA-supported military
coup overthrew Chile's
elected president, Salva-
dor Allende. General
Augusto Pinochet, the
man who replaced him,
ran Chile as a dictatorship for al-
most two decades.
We are right to see the terrorists
who attacked us in 2001 for what
they were: theocratic radicals at-
tempting to bring down our demo-
cratic way of life. But as we take
stock of worldwide threats to democ-
racy in the post 9/11 world, we tend
to ignore other dangers more press-
ing than outright terrorist attacks.
Blowing up buildings, to my
knowledge, has never directly de-
stroyed a democracy. Instead, by
examining more serious threats to
world democracy, I think we do well
to remember Chile's fall into tyranny.
In the fall of 1973, the United
States committed the sin that has
become its habit of late: valuing its
own geopolitical interests over true
democracy.
Allende was a democratically
elected socialist head of state. But
instead of supporting the democratic
rule of law, the United States spent
millions of dollars encouraging re-
bellion in the name of Cold War
containment.
And when Pinochet seized
power, America was the first, and
among the only, democracies to rec-
ognize the legitimacy of his regime.
Not just Pinochet but the United
Stales itself proved to be the enemy
of freedom. The blood of more than
1,000 political murders and the suf-
fering of 17 years of state terror rest
in part on American hands.
David
Berry
At the beginning of the 20th cen-
tury, America was likely the most
popular Western power in the world,
especially in the Middle East. The
reason: 'Hie United States
appeared to be a sincerely
democratic nation, one
that would never be a co-
lonial or imperial power.
Today, despite sym-
pathy for our 9/11 trag-
edy, the U.S. commit-
ment to democracy is the
subject of scathing but
just criticism around the
world. The critics won-
der, with events like the
1973 coup in mind, why
the world's foremost de-
mocracy does not behave like one
on the world stage.
They ask: How much more could
the cause of democracy advance if
its most powerful practitioner val-
ued it over anti-leftism, oil, and free
trade?
Chile's experience with tyranny
has yet another lesson for we practi-
tioners of democracy who live in
Attorney General John Ashcroft's
America: the danger of a perpetual
state of domestic warfare against a
vague enemy.
Pinochet always insisted Chile
was a free society adopting sensible
security measures to combat the
"terrorist" threat of socialism. The
catch was that the "terrorists" en-
compassed not just violent, Marxist
radicals, but also any potential en-
emy of the state.
In practice, every Chilean was a
potential enemy, so almost no one
enjoyed the democratic liberties
granted to "non-terrorists."
In other words, Chileans could
not speak out, could be searched at
any time and lived in fear of torture
and murder.
President George W. Bush's
America isn't Pinochet's Chile yet,
but it has taken the first step in that
direction by declaring the civil liber-
ties of suspected terrorists expend-
able. The next step — pushing the
portfolio of possible terrorists be-
yond reason — seems to be well
under way.
A small, radical group brought
down the Twin Towers, yet Bush's
administration isconfusingal Qaeda
with Saddam Hussein and with
hardworking Arab immigrants. All
the while, Ashcroft insists that pub-
licly verifying what makes someone
a suspected terrorist is "impossible."
Yet such clear definitions are ex-
actly what should be demanded. If
we are to consider different laws for
terrorism suspects, we must insist
that we draw a carefully monitored
boundary around who they are.
In international and domestic
scenes still dominated by the after-
math of Sept. 11, we get a better view
of the threats to democracy if we
consider not just our own 9/11 but
Chile's as well.
David Berry is a Baker College junior
studying abroad in Valparaiso, Chile.
Rice Voices
If alcohol policy goes,
college system goes too
Indulge me for a second, and
let's imagine the ramifications of
the Rice campus going dry. There
are some obvious consequences,
such as having to go off
campus to drink and
consequently increas-
ing the number of traf-
fic injuries. However,
there are much deeper
implicationsthan these.
I was buying birth-
day cards recently, and
I found one that said,
"Congratulations!
You're 21 ... now you
can party like you did
before you were 21,
without the fear of jail
time." I didn't find it that funny
either. Do you know why? (Be-
sides the fact that it was obviously
written by someone over the age
of 35.) It's because at Rice we
never have to experience that fear.
Without Rice's Alcoholic Bev-
erage Policy, every party here
would turn into one of those lame-
ass parties from high school where
most people stood around and
drank, talking about one of three
subjects: the girl or guy they
wanted to nail, the party last week
that got busted by HPD, or the
hope that this party didn't get
busted by HPD. HPD may not
seem ready to pounce on our ev-
ery move right now, but if all par-
ties moved into West University,
they would pick up the scent.
This is far from the worst effect
of the loss of the Alcohol Policy.
Try this on for size: the utter col-
lapse of the residential college sys-
tem. From public parties to Beer
Bryan
Debbink
invested in the college system than
the rest of Rice combined.
The fact that they don't want to
scrap our right to drink on campus
has nothing to do with
whether or not they will.
The Alcohol Policy is
written so that no one
can sue the university if
something tragic were
to happen involving al-
cohol. However, law-
yers are a wily bunch. If
it can be shown that the
policy taken by Rice can-
not be properly en-
forced, Rice could be
exposed to a great deal
of liability.
I could lecture readers, say-
ing, "The Alcohol Policy is a privi-
lege, not a right," or "A few people
will ruin it for the rest of us." I'm
not going to say anything like
that. In fact, that second state-
ment isn't even correct; we're all
digging our own graves.
The truth is that people are
degrading the system in three
ways. First, students break the
rules. Enough said. Second, stu-
dents do not send complaints to
the proper authorities. Do wof call
the Rice University Police. Do not
call the Texas Alcoholic Bever-
age Commission. These are ways
to get on track for the future de-
scribed above. Do call members
of your college government. Do
call your masters if your govern-
ment is not responsive.
Finally, students do not attempt
to stop violations from happening.
This last one is the trickiest, but
most important, of the three ways
Bike to keeping the vast majority in which the system is degrading.
of students on campus, alcohol is
the glue that holds the college
system together. Without our Al-
cohol Policy, Rice's social system
would move off-campus and be
comparable to those of Hometown
State University or Duke.
This is a grim painting of the
future indeed; however, I believe
it is all too possible if students are
not responsible about the Alcohol
Policy. Trust me when I say the
administration is not trying to
make the campus dry. A long-term
strategy could be developed, but
the administration's decisions to
expand the number of colleges
and work with students on the
issue suggest there is no such plan
to turn the campus dry. Also trust
me when I say that the Board of
Trustees loves the college system.
That group of people may be more
When you're throwing a party
or even just attending a party,
simply asking someone to go in-
side with a beer or closing a door
that shouldn't be open will help
keep the current rules in effect.
Nearly all partygoers at Rice
fit into this last category. If we all
sucked up our pride together and
did something about it, we'd still
have fun, and the class of 2015
would also have fun.
In the end, I want to remind
you that I'm saying this not as
someone who hates alcohol, but
as someone who loves it. I've en-
joyed the benefits of our alcohol
policy since I was 18.1 hope you
and the Rice of the future can, too.
Bryan Debbink is a Mess College
senior and Student Association
co-President.
the Rice Thresher
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Berenson, Mark. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 91, No. 4, Ed. 1 Friday, September 12, 2003, newspaper, September 12, 2003; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth398516/m1/3/: accessed May 8, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.