Editorial: SB 65-70, Summing Up

by: Joshua Howell

We at A&M have a penchant for self-regard. Not only must every good deed, no matter how miniscule, be trumpeted as if it were some herculean effort, we  have failed at what many believe is our core mission: A&M, we are incessantly told, is home to  the friendliest students in the nation.

But if you have to say it out loud…

For 13 of the past 17 years, The Princeton Review has ranked Texas A&M as one of the 20 most “LGBT-Unfriendly” student populations in the country. Recently, in a kerfuffle that garnered national media attention, we secured a spot on The Princeton Review’s list for next year.

The offense centered on The GLBT Funding Opt Out Bill (SB 65-70), which was introduced to A&M’s Student Senate in early March. Authored by Northside Senator Chris Woosley, the bill requested that “students who object to funding the GLBT Resource Center through their student fees and tuition for religious reasons be allowed to opt out from funding the same.”

With its anodyne wording, few realized SB 65-70 would eviscerate the goodwill A&M earned when Johnny Manziel won the Heisman. But ignorance is no excuse. On campus and in the media the bill was rightly seen as targeting one of A&M’s most vulnerable minorities.

The Huffington Post, MSN Now, LGBTQ Nation, San Antonio Express News, and The Eagle all covered the proceedings.

The Human Rights Campaign lambasted the bill as “a direct attack on members of the LGBT community at Texas A&M.” It reasoned that the bill’s implementation would segregate LGBT Aggies into “second class citizens” by “significantly reduc[ing] resources for a much needed institution.”

Perhaps the best response, though, came from Campus Pride, which issued a low-key opinion with which The Left whole-heartedly agrees -- “while SB 65-70 claims to promote religious freedom, we cannot ignore that it only allows students with one religious belief to control how their student fees are used: only religious traditions that disapprove of LGBT interests are given a voice... Whatever the intentions of the bill may be, the effect is clearly discriminatory.”

The Left would add, however, that “religious freedom” does not entail exemptions to rules which are generally applicable. It is a constant refrain of this news site, and deservedly so, that religion is a worldview like any other: the religious can mobilize, advocate, elect, and -- we too often forget -- be compelled to do things they aren’t otherwise inclined to do.

Arguing otherwise is to push for a gross political entitlement never before recognized.

To quell the ensuing indignation -- while simultaneously missing the thrust of it -- Woosley changed “The GLBT Funding Opt Out Bill” to “The Religious Funding Exception Bill.” The new version requested that “students who object to funding various services through their student fees and tuition for religious reasons be allowed to opt out from funding the same.”

The altered document passed the Senate with 35 votes for, 28 against, but was vetoed by Student President John Claybrook. In a confident, well-worded explanation, Claybrook noted that “what this bill represents still remains and must be done away with,” and that “[n]ow, more than ever, is the time to show great resolve and come together”.

Alas, A&M’s faculty was latent in its response; they did not “come together” until after the veto. Two statements stood out.

The first came from the Department of Anthropology, which strongly reaffirmed their “commitment to diversity and support of groups that have felt discrimination on campus,” as well the “GLBT community and the GLBT Resource Center.”

The second came from University President Bowen Loftin, who, in a rather lukewarm email, said that A&M’s recent discourse “has, in some cases, lacked civility and discounted each individual’s right to free expression of their ideas and beliefs.”

Dr. Loftin’s email was poorly timed; an hour later The Dallas Voice broke a story that at least one LGBT Aggie had received a death threat.

In an interview with The Left, Camden Breeding, an activist and senior at Texas A&M, confirmed the incident: “All I can say about the threat is that it was a phone call that threatened death upon ‘faggots,’” he said.

Lacking civility, indeed.

Student Senators recently upheld Claybrook’s veto. Shortly thereafter, a motion to censure Woosley was brought to the floor, but didn’t get the necessary votes for a second.

While solid efforts at rehabilitating A&M’s fractured ego, these legislative moves will not elicit the media attention SB 65-70 did in either of its forms; they will not repair the self-inflicted damage done to our university’s reputation.

We as Aggies must do better.

On: The Bombings in Boston

The Washington Post: Every Gun Control Proposal Fails in the Semate

by: Joshua Howell

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” -- Mr. Rodgers

It is true, if not always affirmed, that the measure of a country’s response to terrorism is akin to the measure of an immune system’s response to disease: It is not solely a matter of prevention, but of perseverance once sickness has prevailed. In terms of the latter, America has succeeded with steely resolve.

At the time of this writing, three have been killed and 176 injured in the Boston Bombings. The news media is still uncovering stories of bystanders inundated with shrapnel. An article has gone viral describing two brothers who each lost a leg in the explosion but nevertheless survived.

Incrementally, information is being revealed that will shock one from their complacency as a defibrillator will resuscitate the heart:  At least one of the bombs was constructed out of plain household and hardware supplies, a.k.a. commodities readily available to the public. We are told that ball bearings and nails were used specifically to maim the living, and that the explosive was placed in a 6-liter pressure cooker. The bomb was dropped into an inconspicuous backpack.  

Yet amidst the tragedy, steal away some inspiration:

For every Martin Richard that might yet come -- and they might, there are 17 who remain in critical condition -- there are a plethora of those who rushed in to provide aid. Carlos Arrendondo was one. The Washington Post reports that after witnessing the bombing, Arrendondo “ran across Boyston Street, jumped the security fence,” and immediately began assisting the disabled. He moved survivors to ambulances and at one point “tore strips out of a sweater he found lying on the ground” to create a tourniquet. His quick thinking saved at least one person from bleeding out.

For every Krystle Campbell there are a score of marathoners who, though tired and wan, immediately diverted their efforts toward the nearest hospital so they could donate blood.

And for every Boston University graduate student (the name has yet to be released), there are hundreds donating support in other ways. Households in the Boston area are providing comfortable accommodations for family members of Monday’s victims, so that the visitors might be with their kin as they convalesce.

This week, the 23,000 runners who participated in the 117^th Boston Marathon will be dwarfed by the number of Americans who will join Run/Walk for Boston events. These symbolic marathons are redundant evidence that while terrorism need not be faced with defiance, only stoicism, defiance can be conducive to the country’s psyche.

Anyone driving through College Station, Texas tonight, a city right on the cusp of rain, will see students from Texas A&M engaging in an impromptu run to show support for Boston. They are in all manners of garb, their bodies different shapes and sizes. Some are natural runners, others aren’t. All are Americans, undeterred. Today they show that when attacked, the brave  don’t scurry away in fear, they double down, they come together.  Their actions echo the words of Bill Iffrig, an elderly runner knocked to the ground by one of the blasts: “Terrorists, whatever they are… I don’t have time for it.”

For its part, the media has been comparatively tame -- by and large, information has eked out slowly but accurately.

The biggest journalistic faux pas emanated from (where else?) CNN, when John King “reported” -- quotation marks seem necessary when a report is erroneous -- that  a “law enforcement official” had identified “a dark-skinned male” suspect.

But his misstep is a far cry  from when NPR and MSNBC and Fox and -- feel free to take a breath -- CNN mistakenly “reported” that Representative Gabrielle Giffords had died two years ago during an assassination attempt. King’s mistake also doesn’t carry the heft of when news organizations mischaracterized the ruling on the Affordable Health Care Act.

Everyone else seems to have been on their game.

Still, for this writer’s money, David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post had the best line of the media blitzkrieg: “When the smart thing to do was run away, many ran into the smoke instead.”

Ran into the smoke.

Two days ago, some person or group initiated a terrorist attack during the Boston Marathon. Judging by America’s stark lack of fear, it was wholly unsuccessful.