| OCR Text |
Show The Daily Utah Chronicle, Monday, December Page Eight ASUU passes judgment on morals of GSU members At the ASUU Assembly meeting Thursday night a representative from the Gay Student Union petitioned the body for student funding for a Gay Awareness Week. The application was rejected by a wide margin and for a variety of reasons. guost column - it- Gays feel brunt orAtSUUbigofry It is with a mixture of anger and sadness speakers and programs for a "Gay Awareness that I feel a need to write this column' Week" in January. Both the newsletter and ASUU's rejection of funding was at least in part because of some other reasons. "I feel it's immoral and perverse," stated one assembly member who went on to say that "we should not fund what we don't believe in." not-so-va- lid To be sure, there are good reasons not to grant student funds to the Gay Student Union. The organization has only been in existence for a month and a half and has yet to raise money on its own. The ignorance and evident in so much of the moralizing done by ASUU Assembly members, was appalling and only served to underscore the need for a Gay Awareness Week on our campus. With or without ASUU funding, the Gay Student Union is an organization whose time has come. It represents a minority no longer willing to be ignored by the rest of narrow-mindedne- The funding of GSU would also be unfair to other student organizations such as Campus Crusade for Christ and the College Republicans which, although very active on campus, receive no student funding because of their religious or political ss, society. die programs would have been available to the entire campus and would have served as a means for improving relations and exploring issues of mutual interest. All students of the University would have been invited to what promised to be an exciting and informative exchange of ideas, ideas which would help on this campus to both the gays and non-galive, learn and erase some ofthe institutionalized ignorance that led ASUU to deny us our concerning Thursday's defeat by die ASUU General Assembly of a funding bill sponsored by the Gay Student Union. Anger that we, as a minority, must still face this kind of institutionalized discrimination and ignorance, and sadness that tile ASUU Assembly was so inexcusably misinformed ys and ignorant concerning the subject of homosexuality that it could not even debate our proposition on its merits, but only by Junding. inflammatory emotional generalizations. During the course of the debate, speakers made such negative statements as: "Homosexuality is deviant from the It seems that ASUU is no longer simply involved in funding intelligent and natural force of life. It is immoral and in the and programs speakers interest of present University students with perverse." varying opinions, but has moved out of that "In the long run, this bill will have an role and decided to play God by deciding adverse effect as far as other students and what it, as a body, sees as emotionally and their ideas of ASUU representatives." morally righteous, and funding only those "Due to the controversial and . . . eyendue programs. This is dangerous, and represents to the general community I'm against this! a precedent unheard of in student governbill." ment. The ramifications could be devastat"I don't think we should fund what we ing. What if, in the future, ASUU is faced don't believe in." with bills concerning speakers and programs Obviously, these and other issues could be . on such moral issues as abortion, women's dealt with more appropriately if we would rights, gun control, religion or capital just be given the chance. punishment? ASUU has funded speakers on controversial topics such as these before, but I would like to thank the 13 of In do we now, as students, wish to give ASUU the 35fairness, members who did vote in favor of our the right to bring us only those sides of the proposition and those who spoke positively issues that it sees as moral? and did a good job presenting the affirmative. But I guess you shouldn't confuse someone No amendments were proposed to our bill. with the facts when their mind is already No debate was even made on the content of the made up. proposition. The entire debate of nearly 30 well-inform- ed minutes centered around issues completely extraneous to our bill. Questions were asked, but no challenge was ever made concerning My main purpose for writing this letter is just to let the general student body know of the attitude now represented in the ASUU. It is not only discriminating against gay students, but against all students who just want to be informed enough to make their own decision. When presented with the facts, we can make a better decision of personal morality than ASUU. the suitability of our speakers or the educational nature of our organization, both for the University community and the "campus at large. - The money we were requesting, in the amount of $640, would have gone to produce a newsletter and fund a large number of jeff arrington For example, if relations significantly leaving one leg to guarantee retaliation. deteriorated, the Soviets may fear we would launch our Minuteman forces first, trying to avoid their elimination from a Soviet attack. The Defense Monitor explained why this may in turn give the Soviets itchy fingers:". . .in a crisis the Soviets might fear that we would intend to launch our ICBMs first so as to avoid their destruction, and the Soviets might then be more inclined to get in the first blow in a war they are sure is coming." But perhaps the most dangerous result of vulnerable ICBMs is the increased likelihood of a (LOW) military strategy. Without the deployment of the MX, Air Force General Ellis said, ". . . there are no plans to improve Minuteman survivability other than the option to launch under warning." The rationale behind LOW is that our ICBM force could be saved by launching it upon warning of a Soviet attack, thereby deterring it in the first place by negating any of its benefits. But the most important leg of that threesome the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) has become acutely vulnerable to a surprise Soviet Unfortunately, this posture would force us to rely exclusively on the accuracy and dependability of our warning systems to prevent the United States from mistakenly hurling more man 500 missiles at the Soviet Union. MX strategic weapons system. Today, the primary rationale, ICBM vulnerability, is discussed. Because the proposed MX'missile system carries a $30-billi- on price tag, many citizens in this country are asking why the United States needs this new weapon when we already have nearly 30,000 nuclear warheads. well-intention- ed The answer is simple, but complex. Without the MX, our nation will lack the necessary "nuclear punch" to confidently deter a Soviet first strike in time of grave international crisis. launch-on-warni- Presently the United States relies on a nuclear triad consisting of land, air and sea-bas- ed delivery systems. The theory was that it would be impossible to defeat all three, pre-empti- ve : Wesajolley MX necessary for establishing strategic balance Editor's note: This is the first ofa five-pa- rt scries examining the issues surrounding the proposed t, 132 strike. ICBM vulnerabilty his political effects as well. One expert said, "If we were to abandon our ICBMs in the face of a direct Soviet threat, it can only be viewed by the world's military and political observers as an act of weakness. No amount of rhetoric could convince them that a dyad was equal to a triad." This perception of U.S. strategic inferiority "could lead to a more aggressive and emboldened Soviet foreign policy, increasing the likelihood of conflict," according to the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. Recent events suggest the Soviets are more than willing to exploit this advantage abroad. Ellis remarked that "Soviet activity in Africa and South Asia can be traced, not to a change in our overall conventional force capabilities, but rather to a hift in the strategic balance." Indeed, nuclear superiority is a meaningful concept in both military and political terms. The only means of restoring a stable strategic balance is to insure the United States has a survivable land-basICBM force. The MX missile is the answer. ed ng SB The Rand Corp. warned that "launch on warning . . . increases the likelihood of an accidental or miscalculated launch." Progrestive Magazine wasn't far from the truth when it opined, "We may be approaching the point where a computer chip could assume the role of commander-in-chi- ef and decide A study of the highly respected Rand Corp. found that the newest generation of Soviet missiles is being deployed in great enough numbers and with the required accuracy to destroy well more than 95 percent of the Minuteman force in a first strike. It is no exaggeration that Minuteman's vulnerability is our most pressing military problem, and if not redressed, the prospects for nuclear war between the superpowers will be greatly heightened. While hard to accept, in the context of an whether to go to war." This is one case where the benefits do not outweigh the risks. As former Department of Defense official Fred Ikle said, "A LOW posture might increase' the deterrent against the calculated first strike, involved (the oil fields or food), situations may develop that make nuclear war seem rational. accidentally unleashing the destruction of our international crisis where large stakes are but at the price of .increasing the risk of - nation." . DEATH VALLEY PAYS I |
