(no subject)
plinko writes a letter to her university newspaper regarding the funding for the LGBT Resource Center being cut:
Howdy,
I am glad to hear about the funding for the GLBT Resource Center being split in order to help provide for the Traditional Family Values Center. At first, of course, I found myself quite shocked, because I didn't believe that a Traditional Family Values Center was needed. Whose traditions would we be following, anyway?
Surely not the Bible, because I recall a whole separation of Church and State thing that we have going on in this country, and since Texas A&M is a state school, I would assume that such a practice would be unconstitutional. Not to mention the fact that stoning children for disobeying their parents (Deut. 21:18) tends to be frowned upon in this day and age. And I'm also not sure how well forcing one's virginal daughters to be raped by an angry crowd in order to appease them (Gen. 19:8) will go over, but I guess we'll have to try it out to have any official and concrete data. Also, I do worry about teaching students that it is okay to get your parents drunk and then sleep with them to conceive children (Gen. 19:32), but I guess I'm a bit of a heathen, and probably don't understand the way families should work. That's why we need a Traditional Family Values Center in the first place, I guess, to teach people like me.
Anyway, slowly, I came to see how this could be a Really Good Thing. Those crafty student senators, not to mention our state legislature, was opening the door up for grander ideas!
Now, I am very much looking forward to the new Atheist Resource Center, which will surely be built when the campus All Faiths Chapel has their funding split to provide for those students who are non-religious. Atheists are in great need of a place to meet, and to discuss issues regarding the stigma placed upon the non-religious. I am absolutely sure the religious students on campus will see how such a move would be fair, and wouldn't resist wholeheartedly accepting it, because nobody would be such a hypocrite as to favor the GLBT Center funds split, and not favor the All Faiths Chapel funds being split. Although, I do understand that a lot of the funding from the All Faiths Chapel comes from former students (just as a great deal of the GLBT center funding comes from former students), I'm glad to know that the University will provide just as much land, personnel time, and operating costs to the Atheism Resource Center as the All Faiths Chapel. I'm sure the Atheists don't mind doing the rest. They have all of those extra Sunday mornings to work on getting things organized, anyway.
The Atheist Resource Center could hold classes about how one might have morals and ethics without appealing to to oft-arbitrary and invisible deities. There could be workshops on how to practice tolerance towards one's neighbor without needing a thousand-year-old (practically incomprehensible) manual. And I'm very much looking forward to a small lending library to help expand the horizons of so many students who may be questioning their choice to blindly follow the dogma of their parents.
Oh joyous day! Now I see the wisdom of this decision. Thank you, student senate, for being so open and giving as to even sacrifice the funding for this most cherished A&M icon in the name of fairness. When the Atheist Student Resource Center opens, we will all be thinking of you, and your valiant fight to make sure all students and all ways of thinking are represented.
Context is posted in its entire, unedited awesomeness.
Howdy,
I am glad to hear about the funding for the GLBT Resource Center being split in order to help provide for the Traditional Family Values Center. At first, of course, I found myself quite shocked, because I didn't believe that a Traditional Family Values Center was needed. Whose traditions would we be following, anyway?
Surely not the Bible, because I recall a whole separation of Church and State thing that we have going on in this country, and since Texas A&M is a state school, I would assume that such a practice would be unconstitutional. Not to mention the fact that stoning children for disobeying their parents (Deut. 21:18) tends to be frowned upon in this day and age. And I'm also not sure how well forcing one's virginal daughters to be raped by an angry crowd in order to appease them (Gen. 19:8) will go over, but I guess we'll have to try it out to have any official and concrete data. Also, I do worry about teaching students that it is okay to get your parents drunk and then sleep with them to conceive children (Gen. 19:32), but I guess I'm a bit of a heathen, and probably don't understand the way families should work. That's why we need a Traditional Family Values Center in the first place, I guess, to teach people like me.
Anyway, slowly, I came to see how this could be a Really Good Thing. Those crafty student senators, not to mention our state legislature, was opening the door up for grander ideas!
Now, I am very much looking forward to the new Atheist Resource Center, which will surely be built when the campus All Faiths Chapel has their funding split to provide for those students who are non-religious. Atheists are in great need of a place to meet, and to discuss issues regarding the stigma placed upon the non-religious. I am absolutely sure the religious students on campus will see how such a move would be fair, and wouldn't resist wholeheartedly accepting it, because nobody would be such a hypocrite as to favor the GLBT Center funds split, and not favor the All Faiths Chapel funds being split. Although, I do understand that a lot of the funding from the All Faiths Chapel comes from former students (just as a great deal of the GLBT center funding comes from former students), I'm glad to know that the University will provide just as much land, personnel time, and operating costs to the Atheism Resource Center as the All Faiths Chapel. I'm sure the Atheists don't mind doing the rest. They have all of those extra Sunday mornings to work on getting things organized, anyway.
The Atheist Resource Center could hold classes about how one might have morals and ethics without appealing to to oft-arbitrary and invisible deities. There could be workshops on how to practice tolerance towards one's neighbor without needing a thousand-year-old (practically incomprehensible) manual. And I'm very much looking forward to a small lending library to help expand the horizons of so many students who may be questioning their choice to blindly follow the dogma of their parents.
Oh joyous day! Now I see the wisdom of this decision. Thank you, student senate, for being so open and giving as to even sacrifice the funding for this most cherished A&M icon in the name of fairness. When the Atheist Student Resource Center opens, we will all be thinking of you, and your valiant fight to make sure all students and all ways of thinking are represented.
Context is posted in its entire, unedited awesomeness.