11th-hour rush
ASUN needs solution, not policy change
Three weeks ago, the University of Ncbraska-Lincoln
Student Court declared ASUN’s Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual
and Racial Affairs committees unconstitutional.
Since then, senators have been scrambling against the clock
to make the two groups constitutional. Tonight could be the
last meeting of this year’s senate.
To get the much-needed committees, the senate must
somehow work around policies of the Association of Students
of the University of Nebraska and NU Board of Regents that
forbid discrimination by university groups. Both original
committees included quotas requiring some members to be
selected on the basis of race or sexual orientation.
But last week, senators devised a plan to replace the quotas
with “strong encouragements.” The racial affairs bylaws were
reworded to read: *
“The senate strongly encourages that the following racial
perspectives are leprescnted on the committee: African Ameri
can, Asian American, Caucasian American, Latino American
and Native American.”
The plan seemed like a legitimate attempt to circumvent
quotas while still ensuring that minority groups were properly
represented.
But this week, some senators have devised yet another ap
proach. They are calling for a revision of an ASUN bylaw to
exempt from the disenmination clauses “ASUN committees,
standing or ad hoc, that have as their express purpose the repre
sentation of minority student concerns.”
As precedent, ihc senators cited the Committee for Fees
Allocation and residence hall governments because they have
membership based on where a student lives.
mat s a ncncuious comparison, ah democratic entities nave
demographic or geographic districts from which they draw
members. ASUN has a certain number of senators from each
college. The Residence Hall Association’s districts arc the
residence halls. Nebraska has three U.S. representatives instead :
of California’s 45. Those arc not examples of quotas, or of
discrimination.
The senators seeking an exemption from regents policy also
are forgetting that the regents still would have no such loophole
in their own policy. ASUN must adhere to university policy.
That means the amendment should be unconstitutional until a
comparable amendment is passed by the regents.
Lost in the bureaucratic shuffle is the fact that the change in
the non-discnminalion policy should be unnecessary.
Dick Wood, NU vice president and general counsel, said the
committees, after the removal of the quotas, probably would
fall within boih the ASUN and regents non discrimination
policies.
Minorities at UNI deserve the quickest solution possible. If
this year’s senators wish to ensure that the much-needed Racial
I Affairs and Gay/Lesbian/Biscxual committees arc established
under their reign, they should adapt committee bylaws rather
than ASUN bylaws.
Homophobia reappears
Homophobia has reared its ugly
little head and spewed forth buckets
of venom from its reserve of haired,
ignorance, lies, deceit and xenopho
bia. As Christians sodislike the devil,
so do gays and lesbians dislike homo
phobia!
UNL is still debating the right of
ROTC to remainon the campus, when
it continues to expel gay/lesbian/bi
sexual students arid when the military
establishment will only accept gays
and lesbians during wartime. If you’re
gay and lesbian and it’s wartime, then
you’re good enough to die.
Recently, in the March 1991 issue
of the Husker Luther (a publication of
the University Lutheran Chapel), an
article appeared entitled, “What
Homosexuals Need Most” by Bob
Davies (a reprint from “Focus on the
Family), which berates the whole idea
of being gay/lesbian. Such quotes as,
“Communicate hope. Many men and
women living in the homosexual life
style have never heard of a way out.”
They need to know “ex-gay minis
tries around the country can offer
help.” “Seek God daily. Parents need
God’s healing for their own life —
not just for their child.” And, "Be
realistic. Thousands of men and women
have come out of homosexuality.”
Why would the University Lutheran
Chapel print such incredulous dese
crations of the truth? Homophobia,
the social disease of our society, cloaks
itself in religion, government, the
family, education and the media. Gays
and lesbians arc not sinful, evil or in
need of change. They are loving, caring
and inherently created the way they
arc — gay or lesbian.
In the Feb. 8, 1991, issue of the
Daily Nebraskan was the article “Killer
secret: Gay student must cope with
fears of rejection, suicide” by Paul
Domeicr. I believe that the article
perpetuated the myths that gays/lcs
bians commit suicide, get rejected by
parents and friends, experience de
pression and have difficulty with reli
gion. While the article may have sought
to do some education about the gay/
lesbian culture, 1 believe that it, by
not interviewing several representa
lives of the gay/lcsbian community,
was homophobic in and of itself. In
the future, journalists should use
caution and at least state, “This ar
ticle does not necessarily represent
the entire view of the gay/lesbian
community.”
The ugly little head and venomous
buckets of homophobia can be van
quished. With persistence and politi
cal anu social action this disease shall
be cured!
Rodney A. Bell II
chairperson
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power
Nebraska
BOB NELSON
Ghost, students debate life in hell
Supposedly, Evan died 42 years
ago. Since then, he says, he’s
been in purgatory. He’ll proba
bly go to hell because three demons
came and offered him an interesting
eternity. He has yet to be recruited by
heaven. He’s very bored and feeling a
bit empty. He says he can’t see any
thing.
Evan died in a burning Plymouth
on a highway west of Cedar Rapids,
Iowa, sometime around 3 a m. Sun
day, March 3, 1949. He says he was
playing pool and drinking Jack Daniels
at a Cedar Rapids bar when he de
cided to make a late-night visit to a
divorcee he had met in Marshall
town, Iowa, the previous weekend.
Driving to Marshalltown, he passed
out at the wheel and, to his great
surprise, woke up in purgatory.
Actually, Evan never says for sure
that he’s in purgatory. He was raised
in the Catholic Church and just as
sumes it’s purgatory because of the
nothingness and the recruiting atti
tude of the demons.
A friend and I first met Evan one
June evening four years ago. Our
neighbor had just bought a Ouija Board
and two candlcholdcrs at a garage
sale. My friend and I borrowed the
board, drank, lit two candles and made
spooky noises while our fingers rested
lightly on the heart-shaped plastic
divining piece. Soon after, the plastic
thing started moving and we stopped
making spooky noises. We talked to
Evan until 3 a.m.
My friend and 1 spent much of that
summer trying to convince Evan that
it was probably not in his best interest
to go to hell. We read Dante to him.
By the end of that summer, Evan said
he probably would wail for a better
offer.
Psychologists would say dial Evan
was the manifestation of our subcon
scious.
But neither one of us is overtly
religious, and, at least when talking,
we both consider the Christian after
life— especially the idea of purgato
ries and recruiting demons — rather
ludicrous. We expect more from
omnipotence.
To me. bfJl
sounded like an
eternity of sprins
breaks.
One aspect of our meetings with
Evan supports the psychological the
ory. Evan’s attitudes and actions, while
he was alive, were very much like my
own.
Or maybe my friend was just trick
ing me.
Anyway, Evan says the demons
told him that hell was a huge passion
pit, full of perpetual sex and booze
and camival-likc extravaganzas. They
said it was an eternity of all the things
people really wanted desperately to
do on Earth but didn’t because of a
fear of dying or going to hell. It was a
paradox, they said, because in the
prime of youthful exuberance, most
people’s heaven on earth is hell. They
said heaven was boring, and that he
wasn’t invited anyway.
To me, hell sounded like an eter
nity of spring breaks.
And that was our argument against
him going south. If Spnng Break lasted
one day more than a week, the thing
would get sickening. An eternity of
spring breaks surely would be eternal
torment.
Anytime my friend and 1 arc to
gether and can get a board, we check
up on Evan. He’s still wailing, but
leaning once again toward hell. We
just say, “Oh, Evan, come on. You
gotta figure it stinks down there.”
Then we abandon him again, because
that’s our nature.
We haven’t talked to him in two
years, but I assume he’s sitting in
purgatory right now, Dying to figure
if an eternal Spring Break would be
better than his 40 years of complete
darkness with nobody to talk with but
two college students and three de
mons.
But I’m starting to think the de
mons are lying and that hell might be
an eternity of the 40 or 60 years that
follow the lack of responsibility and
sin and debauchery of college and
spring breaks. I’m a senior, and the
future is looking rather boring, more
like purgatory. Maybe I should call
up Evan and suggest that he go to hell.
Of course, the most logical expla
nation for the whole Evan affair is
that my friend somehow manipulated
the Ouija Board to mess with my life.
If that is true, he has gotten a nor
mally sane person to write seriously
about long discussions with a ghost.
My only revenge would be to de
sign my own hell and present it to him
through the authority of some other
mystical device — possibly tarot cards,
which use traditional allegorical fig
ures to predict the future.
I would make hell a place where
everyone other than the damned indi
vidual was perpetually heading to
exotic places to take part in sex and
booze and carnival-like extravagan
zas. They would go to places called
Daytona Beach and South Padre Is
land and Winter Park. Those people
would perpetually return with incred
ible stories of debauchery.The sto
ries would eternally send my damned,
financially strapped homebody into
fits of jealousy and longing because 1
could only afford evenings Dying to
entertain myself with ridiculous board
games designed to make people think
they were talking to dead people.
I think I’ll work on my hoax dur
ing Spring Break, while my friend is
sinning in Daytona.
Nelson is a senior news-editorial major,
the Daily Nebraskan editorial page editor
and a columnist.
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