A&M SGA Bill

[meanJewGreen]

SGA bill passed by A&M allows religious students to opt out of paying for the LGBT center on campus

Yes, the conservative argument probably is "Well, they should fund a Heterosexual support center too"

However, there are certain student service fees for things we never use. However, other students might use them. At A&M, a university founded on military and religious values, it's probably a hell of a lot harder to come out of the closet and be proud of who you are without fear of some kind of backlash. This center helps those people, and their supporters do just that.

There is a bill in the Texas House that also calls for decreased funding of these centers, saying they lead to "risky behavior".

I'm proud to be an alum of UNT, a school that promotes tolerance and fosters a community where people don't feel oppressed and don't fear backlash because of their religious beliefs or sexual orientation and can empower others to do the same. Yes, we had the whole same-sex homecoming court bill in 2009, but that pales in comparison to what the A&M SGA is doing.

Edited April 4, 2013 by meanJewGreen

[UNTcrazy727]

SGA bill passed by A&M allows religious students to opt out of paying for the LGBT center on campus

Yes, the conservative argument probably is "Well, they should fund a Heterosexual support center too"

However, there are certain student service fees for things we never use. However, other students might use them. At A&M, a university founded on military and religious values, it's probably a hell of a lot harder to come out of the closet and be proud of who you are without fear of some kind of backlash. This center helps those people, and their supporters do just that.

There is a bill in the Texas House that also calls for decreased funding of these centers, saying they lead to "risky behavior".

I'm proud to be an alum of UNT, a school that promotes tolerance and fosters a community where people don't feel oppressed and don't fear backlash because of their religious beliefs or sexual orientation and can empower others to do the same. Yes, we had the whole same-sex homecoming court bill in 2009, but that pales in comparison to what the A&M SGA is doing.

Can't really comprehend how this passed the student senate. Seems like the vast majority of A&M students want the bill defeated, which I'm sure the admin will do.

Question: You think the homecoming bill should have passed?

[MeanGreenTexan]

I'm going to hi-jack this thread with a question I've had for quite some time...

I get how L_esbian-G_ay-B_isexual fit together, but how did T_ransexual get lumped in with this movement??

[Mean Green 93-98]

I'm going to hi-jack this thread with a question I've had for quite some time...

I get how L_esbian-G_ay-B_isexual fit together, but how did T_ransexual get lumped in with this movement??

They wanted a replacement for P_edophile?

[Legend500]

Ignoring that obvious trolling attempt, A&M's student council did expand the language to allow anyone who has a religious objection to any University fee to opt-out of paying it. That's not gonna happen, and even if they did, it's profoundly unenforceable (as a committed Pastafarian, all such "fees" simply deny pirates their Noodly-given booty, and are therefore objectionable).

[MeanGreenTexan]

Ignoring that obvious trolling attempt, A&M's student council did expand the language to allow anyone who has a religious objection to any University fee to opt-out of paying it. That's not gonna happen, and even if they did, it's profoundly unenforceable (as a committed Pastafarian, all such "fees" simply deny pirates their Noodly-given booty, and are therefore objectionable).

I promise sir, I'm not trolling. That is an honest question.

EDIT: I guess, to take it a step further to explain my question, it doesn't seem like people who want to identify themselves as the opposite sex, even to the point of having an actual "sex change" (the person still has either has a Y chromosome or doesn't, but I digress) fits with a movement of homosexuality. I understand that a large amount of transexuals may also be homosexual, but how is that practice a part of the same movement?

Edited April 4, 2013 by MeanGreenTexan

[meangreendork]

I promise sir, I'm not trolling. That is an honest question.

EDIT: I guess, to take it a step further to explain my question, it doesn't seem like people who want to identify themselves as the opposite sex, even to the point of having an actual "sex change" (the person still has either has a Y chromosome or doesn't, but I digress) fits with a movement of homosexuality. I understand that a large amount of transexuals may also be homosexual, but how is that practice a part of the same movement?

You kinda answered it right there, actually. That and a lot of the same level of persecution follows the transsexuals as the homosexuals as well.

Edited April 4, 2013 by meangreendork

[MeanGreenTexan]

You kinda answered it right there, actually. That and a lot of the same level of persecution follows the transsexuals as the homosexuals as well.

It just seems like the L-G-B portion of the movement are standing on a platform of equality: Love between a man & another man is the same as love between a man & a woman. Regardless of how I or anyone else thinks about that platform, at least L-G-B people are who they are.

I just don't understand where transexuality fits in as they're altering themselves and THEN trying to stand on the same platform of equality.

Psychologically this would have to be approached differently wouldn't it?

[10Eagle10]

SGA bill passed by A&M allows religious students to opt out of paying for the LGBT center on campus

However, there are certain student service fees for things we never use. However, other students might use them. At A&M, a university founded on military and religious values, it's probably a hell of a lot harder to come out of the closet and be proud of who you are without fear of some kind of backlash. This center helps those people, and their supporters do just that.

There is a bill in the Texas House that also calls for decreased funding of these centers, saying they lead to "risky behavior".

I'm proud to be an alum of UNT, a school that promotes tolerance and fosters a community where people don't feel oppressed and don't fear backlash because of their religious beliefs or sexual orientation and can empower others to do the same. Yes, we had the whole same-sex homecoming court bill in 2009, but that pales in comparison to what the A&M SGA is doing.

I might be wrong on this, but it seems like a student who is GLB should probably know that A&M is not the place for them. I don't think there are any programs where A&M is the sole provider in the state. Let A&M pass their bill..perhaps more GLB will come here to UNT where we're more tolerant and will eventually become donors to the Alumni Assoc and MGC

[MDH]

I'll be shocked if this actually goes through. If so, it will give me on more reason to dislike that school.

[Christopher Walker]

Can't really comprehend how this passed the student senate. Seems like the vast majority of A&M students want the bill defeated, which I'm sure the admin will do.

Question: You think the homecoming bill should have passed?

I was the Senator at the time who authored most of that bill in 2009. I subsequently was the one who had to battle uphill left and right to get the thing out of committee and to the floor; voted upon; struggled with our then Speaker when the final amended and passed legislation was "lost"; and then played out a waltz with our SGA President at the time to come to terms on the whole ordeal. The piece was never "found", the President took surveys and field studies until his term expired, and the bill that should have been just up and disappeared. The following semester, SGA attempts to wash their hands of the whole ordeal by getting rid of any input on homecoming activities. It was sad, petty, but totally worth it: because for two years I got to witness first-hand the pathetic 'wins' and back-room 'losses' of 'legislating'.

I just wished for the LGBT groups I worked with, the outcome had been different.

I'm going to hi-jack this thread with a question I've had for quite some time...

I get how L_esbian-G_ay-B_isexual fit together, but how did T_ransexual get lumped in with this movement??

Are you sure the T isn't for T_ransgender? Because the two are wholly separate.

[JesseMartin]

Mmmkay, you guys probably knew I would have to throw some info in here.

I actually authored something similar in our SGA, I think it was 1997 but may have been 1998. One of my friends pointed out that Courage (later GLAAD) discussed fielding candidates who "self-identified" as the opposite sex; the official rules stated that one must apply as their gender, not their sex.

And yes, this brings up psychological implications. "Transgender" is the area with the least amount of research and results thus far, and therefore the most controversial. So, after we talked about it, since everyone apparently always assumed that I have the biggest balls, I agreed to play "Devil's advocate" and request that if they were going to deny application per the GLBT preferences, that we should change the rules to state that one must apply "based on their legal sex per their official UNT records" or something along those lines.

When it came before the student reps, there was very little discussion and it was voted down. Courage chose not to field a transgendered person as a candidate after all, so there was no more debate or controversy at the time. A couple of my friends were mad that I didn't go a bit further and request that the rules be changed to "gender identification" or something equally compatible, but the fact was that there were very few interested parties at any level to approve such a measure. This was when the "Ally" stickers on staff members' doors probably numbered less than ten.

Then, in 2000, a 1996 case out of Wisconsin - University of Wisconsin v. Southworth - came before the Supreme Court. The case had been ruled an unconstitutional abridgment of free speech by requiring students to pay for ideas they didn't agree with. The SC ruled that in the "marketplace of ideas", everyone is granted free access, so in turn GLBT groups would be equally responsible for any funds the University deemed worthy of a conservative group's events.

So, basically, the aTm Student Government is willing to distance itself from their GLBT constituents in order to try to get a case all the way up to the Supreme Court to see if they will reverse their previous ruling. As you can read in old NT Daily clippings, I wasn't really worried about it then and I'm certainly not worried now with over a decade of progress.

As the Aggies will eventually learn, the more people you try to exclude...the more will leave you out in the cold when you come knocking. Luckily they have a huge alumni base to support them, and of course there aren't any gay Aggies...right?

[JesseMartin]

I promise sir, I'm not trolling. That is an honest question.

EDIT: I guess, to take it a step further to explain my question, it doesn't seem like people who want to identify themselves as the opposite sex, even to the point of having an actual "sex change" (the person still has either has a Y chromosome or doesn't, but I digress) fits with a movement of homosexuality. I understand that a large amount of transexuals may also be homosexual, but how is that practice a part of the same movement?

I think he was referring to the "pedophile" comment right after yours.

But since you're actually asking a serious question, I'll try to help, even though the "T" area is still a bit fuzzy for me.

First, there tends to be a lot of confusion (which was recently cleared up for me, hence why I can explain) between transgendered, transsexual, and transvestite. A transvestite wears clothing normally worn by the opposite sex. They may or may not have same-sex tendencies, which is why you hear random stories about truckers wearing lace panties but not being into dudes. A transsexual is someone who has a sex change, which is usually (but not always) a subset of transgender, which is someone who feels psychologically/emotionally/physically? that they were born a man but should be a woman, vice versa, or maybe hermaphrodite. So yeah, it's a little complicated.

To make it easier, I can use some humorous anecdotes from conversations I've overheard (or randomly been stuck in the middle of). If you make a dirty joke and a gay guy says something like, "*Gasp*, I am a lady", then he is both homosexual and transgendered if he is being serious. On the other hand, if you hear somebody say, "Oh, girl!" and the other guy says, "I'm not a girl, what's the matter with you?", then he is gay but not transgendered. And if you watch Alexis Arquette on MTV reruns and he says "I still have a penis, but it's going away soon" (yeah, the same Arquette from Summer of Sam and the Chucky movie and Wedding Singer), then he's transgendered but about to also be transsexual, and since he usually wears womens' clothes, he's also a transvestite.

So it's a part of the same movement because people "identify" themselves as something different than the accepted norm that most of us live in. But a big chunk of the people who have been kind to me (and not in a weird way) fit into one of those Gs, or Ls, or Bs, or Ts, and since they've been better to me than most of my blood relatives and everyone I grew up with, I'm certainly willing to support them in their happiness and fulfillment as well. In this sense, the only way it "affects" me (in terms of legislative and social movements against people in this demographic) is that I have a bigger and better surrogate family to replace the ones that I didn't have when I needed them. Plus, I have all of you lunatics on here to supplement that too

Oddly enough, the same people who treated me poorly were the same ones that tried to make me opposed to the GLBT community. I sincerely doubt that they are capable of stepping outside of their "comfort zone" to try to understand someone whose life is different than theirs. I'm still a straight, white, Christian man...but my life would have been considerably worse if I had turned away from everyone who didn't fit any of those demographics. And yes, I was also "steered" away from racial and religious minorities, feminists, etc.

And though I can't assume that everybody "gets it", that's sort of the point. We can partially identify with others through similar experiences, problems, and ideas, but it's impossible to completely understand what someone else is going through. Compassion, empathy, and sympathy help push us towards understanding, but at some point we have to take that leap of faith in supporting someone else, even when we don't fully understand, because we feel that they just might do the same for us.

It is this amalgamation, this gestalt of differences, that allows us to function as a society. Demographics have no bearing upon a person's worth. The content of their character and the net value of their actions, both positive and negative, determine their importance in our lives. Those of us with the eyes to see it, the will to find it, and the conscience to value it will reap the benefits of cross-cultural awareness.

And remember that awareness doesn't equate to understanding. It means, "I don't understand. But I'm willing to learn more."

[Mean Green 93-98]

I think he was referring to the "pedophile" comment right after yours.

No trolling there, although it was a joke. But a joke with some truth in it. It's interesting how the homosexual and pedophile movements used to run so closely together, but the past 15 years or so the homosexual movement distanced itself from the pedophiles when they thought it would help their cause. But when they've taken everything they can, I imagine they'll link back up with the pedophiles again.

[JesseMartin]

You mean NAMBLA?