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187
Violence committed
by younger offenders
The Daily Utah Chronicle
SALT LAKE CITY (U-WIRE) — In an
attempt to experience the sensation of mur
der, two New Jersey teen-agers baited two
pizza delivery people to an abandoned build
ing to slay them.
To settle business concerning “old girl
friends, new girlfriends and old boyfriends and
new boyfriends,” three Salt Lake women —
ages 17, 18 and 20 — pinned down Roldon
Edmond, 22, and stabbed him until he died.
Allow us to reiterate:
Two New Jersey teen-agers, chasing af
ter the thrill of the kill, repeatedly shot two
pizza delivery people in the head and upper
torso with .22- and .45-caliber pistols. The
delivery people were responding to an order
for two cheese pizzas.
With a long-bladed knife Roldon Edmond
was repeatedly stabbed because he intervened
in an argument over boyfriends.
Repeatedly.
Three lives exchanged for cheese pizza
and girlfriends and boyfriends who have prob
ably gotten over their murderous ex-girl
friends.
Three lives.
Franklin, N.J., Salt Lake City, Utah —
what is the difference if each city’s citizens
are killing each other for thrills and wounded
egos? It brings new meaning to the term petty
crime.
Petty crimes, like shoplifting, can be ig
nored. What refuses to be ignored is that the
average age of murderers is decreasing.
Recent legislation aimed at opening the
records of juvenile offenders arose largely
because research has discovered the most vio
lent juvenile crimes are committed by 11- to
12-year-olds. Those kids know what it is like
to kill someone before most have had their
first kiss.
This is not intended to frighten parents
or students into thinking that the boy next door
could easily be the next Charles Manson. It
is just to say that as life moves faster, so do
those nefarious influences.
Children are experimenting with eveiy
" thing from drugs to murder to robbery to
gangs sooner than most parents realize.
It is a delicate situation to suggest that
parents need to look after their children more
closely. As the statistics indicate, however,
the wires cross earlier and earlier until a child
goes haywire.
And despite the rush that may be attached
to a smoking gun or a blood-smothered knife,
at 18 you are still a child.
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Guest
VIEW
The next step...
After watching the Legislature’s
attack on my future during its
supposed “debate” over same-sex
marriage, I feel it necessary to speak
up and show where many of these
arguments lead. Banning same-sex
marriages is touted as a first step in
restoring and protecting the sanctity
of the American family. I hope to
demonstrate how this “first step”
suggests further steps, initiates a
march to sanitize American society
and ultimately leads to insidious and
violent implications. Are we ready
to take responsibility for where these
arguments ultimately take our
society?
The Rabbit Test: Did You
Procreate Yet?
Another claim is that the primary
purpose of marriage is to procreate.
This position argues that gays and
lesbians can’t procreate and they
must therefore be excluded from
marriage. However, doesn’t this
argument apply to others as well?
Some refute the argument that
sterile couples should not marry
claiming that they intend or desire
to have children even though, as a
coupie, mey are oioiogicany unauie.
Best intentions aside, they are still
not fillfilling the supposed primary
purpose of marriage any more than a
same-sex couple could.
If it is logical to exclude one
group (say gays and lesbians)
because of its inability to fulfill this
purpose, then it is logical to exclude
those who can’t and those who
choose not to. Why is it not argued
that couples who choose not to have
children ought to be excluded from
marriage? Before the marriage
license is granted, shouldn’t a
couple guarantee their ability as well
as the intent to procreate.
How long should a marriage be
allowed to fulfill its primary
purpose? One, five, 10,20 years?
After a certain period of time,
shouldn’t childless couples have
their marriages annulled for not
having met the “primary purpose?”
The logical extension of this
argument demands that the list of
those excluded from marriage
included the elderly, the sterile,
those unwilling to procreate, and
those who don’t ultimately procre
ate. This fundamentalist’s view of
marriage should clearly demand
such an extreme next step.Questions
left unanswered: If the family is
already degenerating, as many
demonstrate by pointing to the
increasing divorce rate, how is it
that same-sex marriages (which
don’t exist yet) cause the degenera
tion?
How can gays and lesbians be
condemned for being promiscuous
when promiscuity, as fundamental
ists define it, is sex outside of
wedlock (pre-marital sex and
adultery)? .
The argument denying gays and
lesbians the institution of marriage
forces them into a deceptive and
inescapable immorality. As long as
they are never allowed to marry,
they remain the right’s immoral
scapegoat. The circularity of these
assumptions should be clear, without
same-sex marriage all same-sex
couples are promiscuous by defini
tion.
Isn’t it this very refusal to allow
monogamous relationships that
leads to the demoralization of
society so feared by fundamentalists'?
Marriage was created for the joining
of one man and one woman? What
are the origins of marriage? People
of many diverse cultures or religions
around the world have their own
concepts of marriage. Even the
Judeo-Christian tradition isn’t
clearly defined (see John Boswell,
Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modem
Europe).
How many of those cultures
intersect within the American
melting pot? Isn’t this religiously
based prescription for marriage
criminally exclusive? American law
is based on the Constitution, the Bit
of Rights and the Declaration of
Independence. Though it should be
obvious, these documents guarantee
religious freedom and separation of
church and state. The fundamental
ists have every right to freely
express their religious marriage
doctrine. However, what right do
they have to impose it on the entire
population?
Conclusions: The Inherent
Appeal to Violence
To hear our elected officials make
these claims and spread the un
founded myths of the radical right is.
frightening. Fueled by intolerance
and cultural exclusivity, they violate
people’s existence with their
language and rhetoric, and further,
they encourage and even incite acts
of physical violence.
Hatred and fear form the founda
tion of this rhetoric and parallel that
of the fundamentally religious right
as described by Dr. Mel White, the
former ghostwriter for Pat Robertson
and Jerry Falwell and, more re
cently, author of “Stranger at the
Gate,” the story of his coming out.
While visiting campus last semester,
Dr. White recounted the story of a
man who had been abducted by gay
bashers, taken to a remote quarry,
and shot in the legs and arms until
he defecated and urinated on
himself.
When they grew tired of terrify
ing him, the bashers riddled his
body with so many bullets that the
medical examiner was unable to
count the holes. Though guilty and
convicted, the bashers received little
punishment because, as the judge
said, the victim of their crime was
merely a “homosexual.” The man’s
, parents, who follow the same
bashers, offended their fundamen
tally religious beliefs.
The political right, at the national
and now the local level, has the
dangerous need to blame gay and
lesbian people for the decay of the
American family and the moral
corruption of American society even
though they fail to give any substan
tial argument to support this claim.
How long shall the scapegoat remain
I passive? How long would you
endure unfounded hatred so others
don’t have to take responsibility for
the problems in their own families
and relationships? How long until
the persecuted and those who see the
injustice of their persecution begin
dumping the proverbial “tea into the
harbor.”
We must speak up, now!
Robert Heist is an English and
communications studies major.