ditorial
(Daily
Nebraskan
Editorial Board
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Eric Pfanner, Editor, 472-1766
Victoria Ayotte, Managing Editor
Darcie Wiegert, Associate News Editor
Diane Brayton, Associate News Editor
Jana Pedersen, Wire Editor
Emily Rosenbaum, Copy Desk Chief
Lisa Donovan, Editorial Page Editor
---——
I Down to one
Search was a waste of time, money
And then there was one. One University of Nebraska
presidential candidate, that is.
Unfortunately, he’s the same candidate who was
| already in place before a $65,000 search. So just what did that
| money buy?
Martin Massengale, NU interim president and chancellor of
| the University of Ncbraska-Lincoln.
It took a week, but the four outside candidates the 20
member NU Presidential Search Committee selected have
- withdrawn from consideration. After one candidate withdrew
| Tuesday, the final three contenders pulled out Thursday,
jj; That left Massengale — and a host of questions.
- Questions about how the 15-month on-again, off-again
| search failed to produce a single candidate willing to take the
job; about the effectiveness of the committee’s investigation of
■ the finalists’ backgrounds; and about the role of internal
politicking, which should have no place in the NU system.
i lie mini pnase ui me lung aiiu nuw meaningless seaien
f began to sink in a quagmire of politics on Monday. The search
committee announced then that while it had omitted Massen
gale from its list of recommended presidential candidates, the
NU Board of Regents could add internal candidates to the list.
■ In other words, the committee handed the regents the re
| sponsibility of nominating Masscngalc, because it couldn’t
| handle the political repercussions.
But things got worse.
j; On Tuesday, one of the four finalists, Gene Budig, withdrew
| his nomination because he said he could not leave his post at
the University of Kansas.
On Wednesday, Regent John Payne of Kearney said Mas
| sengalc was the front-runner for the position. The same day,
Regent Robert Allen of Hastings said he wouldn’t be surprised
if the candidates named by the search committee dropped out
after Payne’s statement.
That was quite a prediction.
On Thursday, the three remaining candidates withdrew,
j I So it’s back to square one. Allen even suggested Thursday
that Masscngalc withdraw his nomination because of the
political mess the selection process has turned into.
Perhaps he would be wise to do just that By now. it would
1 be appropriate if NU remained without a permanent leader.
— Lisa Donovan
S and Eric Planner
*, for the Daily Nebraskan
Minorities should keep
skeletons in the closet
Homosexuals: “We are normal and
demand recognition!”
Heterosexuals: “Your are perverts,
and belong in jail!"
Psychiatrists: “Homosexuals are
sick people, and belong in treatment.”
These were the words spoken on
behalf of the “homosexual issue”
during the 1950s. Back then, accord
ing to the Kinsey Report on sexual
research, it was a curable disease, and
not a way of life.
Today, the Kinsey report of sexual
research addresses the situation as a
behavior problem, where some of the
blame for the unusual behavior is the
parent’s fault. “If I can’t have it, you
can’t have it cither” is what the per
son is saying. The love between
homosexuals is a pseudo-love, more
often than not simply a reaction for
mation against hatred. The altitude
toward the opposite sex is one of
extreme hostility. Homosexual men,
frustrated in their sex lives early in
life, turn against women with a venge
ance. Similarly, lesbian women ex
press an intense haired of men.
The following explanation is from
“Male and Female Homosexuality,
Psychological Approaches”: “The
biological-evolutionary argument that
Darwinian fitness resides in the ca
pacity to reproduce the species, which
in turn makes heterosexuality an
overpowering drive, cannot be re
futed. Indeed, as time goes on, it
makes more and more sense. Further,
our clinical experience is unanimous:
homosexuality is a curable deviation
from the analytic ideal.”
With this in mind, homosexuals
and lesbians cannot be considered
other than disturbed. UNL’s resource
center should be helping these indi
viduals on the road to recovery, not
insisting on minority rights to protect
such madness.
With homosexuals as the main
thesis, I would like to address the
minority who is trying to let homo
sexuals in the ROTC battalion. This
minority’s only issue of retaliation
against the ROTC is that “it is against
UNL’s policy to discriminate.” To
this minority, you are fighting a futile
war, for it isn ’ t the policies of ROTC,
but that of the armed forces as a
whole. And as a member of such a
force, I support sdch policies.
I’ve noticed that people who are
against such policies have never been
part of the armed forces, had they
been, they would know something
about how a unit or platoon works,
and the internal disruption that a
homosexual could cause.
In closing, 1 would advise such a
minority to keep your skeletons in the
closet!
David Bent/,
freshman
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UNL progress may be long way off
ROTC needs to adopt university policy, end military hypocrisy
In October, the U.S. Supreme
Court took the country a small
step forward for civil rights. But
there is much more to do.
The court al lowed a gay man to re
enlist in the Army. He had been kept
from re-enlisting after the military
decided to act on his confessions of
homosexuality.
Unfortunately, it may be years
before progress like this reaches the
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
campus. ROTC still blatantly vio
lates university policy by excluding
gays, lesbians and bisexuals.
A university policy enacted in the
spring of 1990 by the NU Board of
Regents includes gays, lesbians and
bisexuals under the protection of the
uni» v» 3iijr a iimruixiimukiuuii UdUM/.
•The amendment to the bylaw was
worded to include “personal charac
teristics” — more specifically, sex
ual orientation.
ROTC’s policy is not its own. If
follows the orders of the Pentagon,
which has had a long-standing policy
of excluding those who engage in
homosexual activity or even claim
the desire to engage in such activity.
Defense Department policy says
the presence of homosexual members
adversely affects discipline, good order
and morale and says it causes breaches
of security.
Even so, in 1988 and 1989, the
department published reports that
argued against its own policy exclud
ing gays, lesbians and bisexuals.
In the report, the department
compares the integration of blacks
into the military to the integration of
non-heterosexuals into the armed
forces. The same arguments concem
■ • a • ■_
ing morale and public acceptability
used to be given to exclude blacks
from the military. But when the mili
tary changed its policy, these argu
ments were silenced. The structure of
the armed forces was changed to help
integrate people of color. Soldiers
who resisted the integration faced
military discipline for their actions.
The defense report says, .. there
is no reason that military structure
could not deal with soldiers, sailors
and air force personnel unable to take
orders from or work with their les
bian, gay or bisexual colleagues.”
But societal homophobia keeps the
military from following its own rea
soning. And until the Defense De
partment reviews its own reports and
changes its policies, ROTC will re
main the same.
If the military decided that it was
not going to tolerate anti-gay or anti
lesbian behavior it could stop or, at
the very least, reduce it.
The military argues that homo
sexuals aad bisexuals arc security and
psychological risks because of their
preference. They also arc assumed to
be risks because they can be black
mailed.
But the Defense Department re
port slates that gays, lesbians and
bisexuals arc not only as fit psycho
logically, but sometimes more fit,
than heterosexuals for military serv
ice.
And if homosexuals and bisexuals
were not forced to keep their sexual
ity a secret, they would not be open to
blackmail. If they were allowed to be
open with their sexuality, they would
not have a secret.
UNL’s ROTC program must fol
low the orders of the Defense Depart
ment. UNL also has no choice but to
enforce its own policy.
There woulJ be complications in
enforcing this policy, because the
ROTC program is included in the
university bylaws. Thus there must
be a bylaw change to remove ROTC.
il one pari ol the university is violat
ing a universilywidc policy it must
either change its behaviors or leave.
If that takes changing the bylaws to
eliminate any mention of ROTC —
so be it.
One argument against removing
ROTC is that land grant colleges or
universities are required to include
courses in military tactics. Many people
assume that military tactics courses
must be taught in an ROTC program.
That’s not the case.
The university does not have to
have a ROTC program to offer courses
in military tactics. It already offers
courses in tactics through the history
department And the Morrill Act supu
lates that the courses are to be offered
“in such manner as the legislatures ol
the states may respectively prescribe.”
To eliminate hypocrisy, the re
gents need to make a tough decision:
remove ROTC from campus.
Aspengren Is a freshman philosophy and
aesthetics major and a Daily Nebraskan col
umnist
Signed staff editorials represent
the official policy of the Fall 1990
Daily Nebraskan. Policy is set by the
Daily Nebraskan Editorial Board. Its
members are: Eric Pfanncr, editor;
Lisa Donovan, editorial page editor;
Victoria Ayotle, managing editor;
Diane Bray ton, associate news editor;
Darcic Wiegcrt, associate news edi
tor; Emily Rosenbaum, copy desk
chief; Jana Pedersen, wire editor.
Editorials do not necessarily re
fleet the views of the university, its
employees, the students or the NU
Board of Regents.
According to policy set by the re
gents, responsibility for the editorial
i——I- '3=
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