Main Point: Leave discrimination in the past By Chad Stevens

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.” Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke these words in 1963, but it is almost chilling how applicable they are in light of recent cases of discrimination against homosexuals. America should not be dealing with a problem of discrimination of any sort — especially when it could be against a fellow American. Looking back on the country’s history of racial discrimination makes Americans’ skin crawl. However, priding themselves on new generation-thoughts against racial discrimination is premature. Discrimination is still very much alive in this country, and the target has been placed on the gay and lesbian community. Discrimination against sexual preference and homosexuality has been on the rise. In the past year, bullying by certain individuals — many of whom are students — has led to suicides of those targeted by the discrimination. Students of all ages, such as 18-year-old Tyler Clementi of Rutgers University, 15-year-old Justin Aaberg of Anoka High School in Minnesota and 13-year-old Asher Brown of Hamilton Middle School in Houston, all took their own lives after losing an emotional battle against bullies within the education system. The discrimination hit Texas last year. According to an article in the Nov. 18 issue of The University Star, signs promoting the Texas State Allies were being ripped up all over campus.  American’s actions only falsify idealism for a truly free country. Parents criticizing children for bullying gay and lesbian classmates need to look at themselves before pointing fingers at the students. In a country run by an older generation, where gay individuals and couples are not permitted the common rights given to those who are straight, children are simply following in their elders’ footsteps. If the country is ever going to see an end to this bullying, the inequality needs to stop. The institutionalized discrimination handed down from the country’s lawmakers is the lens through which young people view homosexuals. If a significant population of America is told it does not have the same rights as its coworkers, classmates, friends and family, is it really surprising when hate crimes are committed against that population? It is important now, more than ever, for gays to stand up and step out of “the closet.” It is most important that they have support in this decision. Members of society perpetuating the hateful bullying can be intimidating and might deter some from ever truly expressing their sexual identity but as more people leave the confines of the closet, the minority becomes less minor. National Coming Out Week concluded Monday and should be a reminder prejudice is perversely pervasive and we should all take a stand against it.

Prejudices, paradoxes and the twilight of the retrosexuals By Juan Tristan

One truism of politics is “success is rarely total, typically transitory.” It is why I cringe when I hear party loyalists boast of a “permanent majority” when their tribe scores a big victory, because it is almost guaranteed they’ll see the walls cave in on themselves during the next election. I reminded myself of this after reading about the little commented-on (outside the gay weekly Dallas Voice) Texas Lyceum Poll showing a majority of Texans now support either gay marriage or civil unions. This is not exactly news. Previous polls have produced similar results, but it is worth noting the now solid and consistent support for either proposal. This also strangely follows the wide margin which the 2005 amendment to the Texas Constitution banning gay marriage and “any legal status identical or similar to marriage” — meaning civil unions — was given by voters. Indeed 2005 was a bleak year, but little did I know public opinion would shift the way it did. There’s a peculiar phenomenon at work here, and considering Monday was National Coming Out Day (a much under-served civil awareness day), it is time to spend a moment defining exactly what is going on. Hays County also makes a suitable base for gay-rights activists. Though voters here approved the amendment, the margin was actually closer than anywhere else in the state, save Travis County, the sole county alone rejected it. The “retrosexual revanchism” popular several years ago was less pronounced here. That’s the framework in which anti-gay laws are best viewed. If the goal of anti-gay legislators and homophobic activists is to keep the closet door shut (as such laws are argued to be necessary, lest homosexuality be “encouraged” by the state). And for a return to the days when homosexuality was simply not talked about — not thought about — then by the very process of attempting to do such a thing, one ends up talking about homosexuality a whole lot. The journalist Mark Simpson formulated this paradox when he wrote, “Putting cats back into bags, because you don’t like cats involves, unavoidably, a lot of thinking and talking about — not to mention handling of — cats.” The push by anti-gay forces to condemn homosexuality, then, has the opposite effect intended. It has pushed homosexuality even further into the public eye. It has also shown the necessity for gays and lesbians to come out of the closet, and how much harder it is to condemn a friend, brother, sister, son or daughter for whom they love, than it is a complete stranger. Coming out can be, to say the least, very difficult. Those who do, may lose friends and be left incredibly vulnerable, but whatever is lost, the freedom and dignity gained is a mountain. Smashing the closet is in the interest of heterosexuals too, in case you were wondering. With the exception of grossly defamatory slurs about the private behavior of gays and lesbians (often enough signaling hidden temptations from the ones doing the defaming), anti-gay laws are often framed as not in response to what gays do, but what straights should do. Marriage, the proponents say, is for raising children, which the state should encourage as the “natural” order of human relationships (with a muscular father figure at its head above a subservient stay-at-home wife), and heterosexuals should be encouraged to conform to this standard. However, being married is simply one option among many, as is having children. The existence of married gay couples, then, would confirm the fact the nuclear ideal is at best an illusion, and it would show heterosexuals have a variety of options, not the least being non-procreative sex. I doubt many people in this country would want to do away with that.

The people decide who gets the keys By Jamal Allen

"I don't think any of us here has cornered the market on wisdom or that good ideas are the province of any party." This is a quote from President Obama, one that I am very much in agreement with. He said this in February 2009, when discussing and urging members of Congress to pass the stimulus bill. On Labor Day, the President spoke about a new stimulus plan in Wisconsin. His new plan involves highways, railways, schools - basically construction jobs to help our economy and our infrastructure. It all sounded great, and then I realized I had heard this before. Does the phrase "shovel-ready jobs" ring a bell? If we already passed this huge stimulus, and a part of that money was for the shovel-ready jobs, where did it go? You may think this is an attack on Obama and the Democrats; it's actually not. This particular speech isn't even the main point I wish to address. My point is that in American politics today, for the most part, it doesn't really matter what party you're in. There might be a few differences in how people vote, but the actions are pretty much the same. Think back several years to when Bush was in office: if you didn't agree with the president, do you remember what you were? You were unpatriotic. And now, if you don't agree with the president, you're a racist. Now obviously this is a broad generalization; not everybody holds this type of opinion, but it is out there. And it's not an opinion exclusive to Fox News, CNN or MSNBC: I've seen it on all three networks. The president recently said that Republicans have no new ideas, only want to do things the old way, that they drove the country into a ditch and that they can't have the keys to the car back because they don't know how to drive. There are both things I agree with and things I vehemently disagree with in what he said. Republicans don't have a lot of new ideas - he is right about that. But I don't think the Democrats have a lot of new ideas either. After all, if you look at the beginning of this article, we passed a huge stimulus bill, and a year and a half later, the President wants to go back to this idea. I really disagree with Obama's driving metaphor. It's not up to the President who gets the keys to the car; it's the people of this country who vote and decide. I understand where he was coming from and most likely what he meant, but it felt like such a slap in the face to voters that I can't stand to hear it being played. One criticism I may get about this article is that I'm trying to tell people how to vote. I am not. If you want to vote Democrat, I support you. If you want to vote Republican, I support you. If you're a Tea Party supporter, I support that too. But think about who you are voting for and what they stand for. Are you just voting for a party? Or does the person you vote for actually care about what the people who elected them want? Politicians today, for the most part, don't seem to be concerned about the people. Politics is no longer about serving your country but about serving yourself. It used to be that you felt an urge to serve because your country needed you. And so you would do your time and then you would go back to your life, your job. Now being a politician is the life, the job. It's not odd to see members of Congress who have served for 15 to 20 years, some a lot more than that. There comes a time that we must ask who these people are serving. There's a lot of news out there from many sources -- some good, some not so good. But if you don't think, if you either don't vote or just vote along some party lines without really putting any thought into it, then don't complain when you get politicians that do whatever they need to in order to keep their prestige and their power. And that goes for both Republicans and Democrats: power is the key. They have become a ruling class that we have voted into power, so when you cast your vote, think about whom you want to have the power and whether the person you vote for remembers that they aren't entitled to the position; they get there because of the people.