4A =The Michigan Daily - Monday, February 17, 1997 ahje 420 Maynard Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan JOSH WHITE Editor in Chief ERIN MARSH Editorial Page Editor NOTABLE QUOTABLE, 'Well, does he have as much personality as Barbie?' - Keith Or,; co-owner ofAnn Arbor bar and restaurant Aut, commenting on "Billy - the world's first out and proud gay doll" JIM LASSESREHARP AS OAST ./ Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the ma jority of the Daily's editorial board. A ll other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. FROM THE DAILY Outproud 'U' communi ty fig A merica's commitment to individual rights has an unacceptable and gaping exception - society still prefers to sweep gay and lesbian lifestyles under the carpet. At the University, the lesbian, gay, trans- gender and bisexual community is diligent- ly committed to dispelling misconceptions. The annual Queer Unity Project Valentine's Day Kiss-In is the most visible of these efforts. On Friday, more than 100 students gathered on the Diag to hear poet- ry and speeches supporting gay rights and to spend the day, in the open, with their sig- nificant others. These events serve as a valuable eye-opener - they show hetero- sexuals that life as a lesbian, gay or bisexu- al should be no different from their own. The gay community, especially upon realizing their orientation, often face identi- ty crises and chronically low self-esteem. The media floods the airwaves with sexual images and innuendo - all heterosexual. There is often pressure from home to date and marry an opposite-sex spouse. The University, through the Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Programs Office and various student-run organizations, pro- vides a support system that helps gay stu- dents come out of the closet. A significant portion of America, often estimated at 10 percent, is gay or lesbian. Nevertheless, a gay lifestyle, in the eyes of the majority of the public, remains taboo. The only way to change attitudes is through increased visibility. There is a misconcep- tion that members of the gay community lead wildly promiscuous lifestyles. The media perpetuates this myth by stereotyp- ing gay characters. The reality is that a majority of gays and lesbians are monoga- mous and lead dating lives similar to the rest of America. Television shows and :hts anti-gay trends advertisements could help change American attitudes by focusing on the mainstream, rather than a small periphery, of the gay community. Moreover, gays, les- bians and bisexuals may be more comfort- able facing their identity were the media to eliminate unwarranted stereotypes. In addition to increased visibility, estab- lishing the legality of gay marriage would further equality for the gay community. Hawaiian courts have established that the state must recognize gay marriage, but many conservative lawmakers oppose the decision. Republican Mississippi Gov. Kirk Fordice, upon signing a bill making Mississippi the 17th state this year to ban gay marriage, denounced same-sex rela- tionships as "perverse," claiming "cultural subversives have engaged in trench warfare on traditional family values." The Mississippi law also denies recognition of gay marriages performed in other states. Fordice's reasons for opposition are unsound. Gay couples are no different than their heterosexual brethren - they should have identical rights to marriage and enjoy the subsequent benefits. Moral and reli- gious opposition are personal matters and should remain outside of the hallowed halls of America's legislatures. Today, gays, lesbians and bisexuals should feel more open than ever before. The QUP Kiss-In demonstrates the strength and openness of the University's gay community - but gays are still unacceptably restricted. Efforts to dispel discrimination must be fur- thered through the media and establishment of legally recognized gay marriage. The Kiss-In must become more than a once-a- year occurrence - gay and lesbian couples should be able to feel comfortable and act affectionately at any time and in any place. E . SO M E W H E R E IN .L IFO R N IA ... atrR NURS E I THINK WEf'RE L-o.SIN- ON~ Hit ,H-IM! EVE&v'oNE c&Er T REEARE. ALRI/HT... CLEAR ! DOCTO. 1 I ici- --. - 0 - a LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 'I A clean battle Needle exchanges help fight spread of HIV L ast Thursday, a panel of experts con- vened by the National Institutes of Health announced findings that safe-sex education and clean-needle exchanges are effective means of preventing the spread of HIV - and that the federal government should fund and encourage such programs. In its report, the NIH committee found that clean-needle exchange programs in New Haven, Conn., and in Amsterdam did rot lead to increased drug use, encourage young people to start using drugs or cause more needles to be discarded in public places. In fact, such programs did reduce - by 80 percent - the amount of needle-shar- ing among drug users, which the committee found led to a 30-percent reduction in new HIV infections. The government should embrace the NIH's findings and put similar programs into action elsewhere; they are life-saving strategies. Needle-exchange programs also have fringe benefits. Health care workers have found that drug users who build a trusting relationship with clinicians from whom they receive clean needles can be - carefully - encouraged to eventually come in for drug treatment. However, the motives behind safe-sex education and needle-exchange programs have left conservatives howling. Their main concern is that, despite findings, safe-sex education only encourages promiscuous behavior, and that needle-exchange pro- grams condone illegal drug use. Such opin- ions must not stand in the way of preventing thousands of U.S. citizens from continuing to aequire HIV everv vear Drugs are already illegal in the United States -- but that does not mean the health of drug users should be ignored. The feder- al government's primary concern should be the health of the nation - not just for those who are already infected with HIV, but for those who are at risk to acquire it. AIDS is a preventable disease and it is not a mystery to the federal government how it is spread. However, millions of citizens do not have the advantage of HIV-preventative education. The behavior that is placing pub- lic health at greatest risk may be occurring in legislative bodies. The government must remove significant political and legal barri- ers in order for interventions like the nee- dle-exchange programs.and safe-sex educa- tion to protect the population from the spread. of AIDS. The United States has about 100 needle-exchange programs - pathetic when compared to the 2,000 pro- grams in Australia, a country with just one- tenth the population of the United States. Some people feel that keeping safe-sex education out of schools and banning clean needle-exchange programs is a way of keeping their children "safe." But this safe- ty is nothing but ignorance - and an igno- rance of one of the nation's top killers. There is no time to decide whether program participants are "right" or "wrong" - AIDS is widespread; any and all prevention tactics are desperately needed. Needle- exchange programs are not about morals. Safe-sex education is not about trying to corrupt "family values." These programs are trying to keep the nation from killing itself out of ionorance - nd are aivine Term does not include bisexuals To THE DAILY: I want to commend the Daily on Thursday's coverage of the Kiss-In and the Sexual Orientation Panel in which I participated. However, by using the term "homosexual" to encompass the experiences of lesbian,.gay, bisexual and transgendered people, the Daily both mischaracterized my comments and ignored the experiences of the many students on this campus who identify as bisexual. The term "homosexual" means "a person who is pri- marily attracted to persons of the same sex." As a bisexual woman who is involved with men more often than women, but remains deeply commit- ted to queer activism, this term does not speak to me at all. Therefore, I explicitly reject the term "homosexual" in favor of "queer" or "LGBT" when talking about non-heterosexual people. Ironically, the Daily quoted me as saying I wanted more "non-homosexual" people to come to the sexual orientation panel - missing the fact that I myself am not homosexual, and neither were the bisexual audience members present. ZackRaimi's column on the Kiss-In ("Kiss-In allows freedom of expression - and of affection," 2/13/97), while extremely supportive, also exclusively discussed homo- sexuality - for example by referring to "the homosexual community" and its goals. As one of the organizers of the Kiss-In, I feel strange coming across this reference to a community to which I do not belong and the assump- tion that the organizers of the Kiss-In are all homosexual. In fact, some of us aren't. The term "queer commu- nity" or "LGBT community" more accurately reflects the composition of campus activist groups like Queer Unity Project. Bisexuals have historically been excluded from both het- erosexual and homosexual communities and are even told that we really "don't exist.' This is beginning to change, but language needs to changeaas well in order for bisexuals to feel that our experiences are validated. I self-identify as a bisexu- al activist working within a queer community. The Daily needs to refrain from mis- quoting me and other bisexu- al students as talking about "homosexuality,' a word with which we do not identify. The Daily and the wider Michigan community needs to acknowledge our existence. NEA GHnHAL student group. To me, there is a bigger issue at hand than the actions that Probir took. During his term as MSA vice president, Probir has always made it known that his first goal is to assist the students and their organizations in any way he can. In this way, he has been more than just vice president, he hasn't been only involved in the day-to-day legislating of MSA. Probir has been a true voice of his constituents, always campaigning for more funding and assistance from MSA for student organiza- tions. True, a mistake was made, but it was made with good intentions: to help the students. Probir is not trying to hide his mistake, so there is no reason for this investi- gation to be happening. The real issue is if MSA is doing what they are elected to do. They are there to assist the student body. The fault here is not in Probir's actions, but in the problem of how to prevent this from happening again. How can MSA correct the system so that organiza- tions can receive funding in the summer? This is what they should be concentrating on. MSA should be forming committees of student leaders to discuss this problem, not committees of investigation. If MSA really wants to "right a wrong" as LSA Rep. Andy Schor was quoted as saying, then I urge MSA members to try to correct the funding system to better assist student groups. To Mr. Schor, righting a wrong means to correct the situation, not to try to see who you can punish. By faulting Probir for an action he took to defend the students and to assist an organization, we gain noth- ing. MSA, I urge you to be true leaders, recognize that the fault lies in the system and to take a stand to correct it. Show us before the upcoming elections that you sit on MSA to be leaders not just to be politicians. TUSHAR SHETH ENGINEERING JUNIOR Social factors explain need for state plan TO THE DAILY: In Patrick Elkins' letter ("Debate over school control is 'classist,"'"2/12/97), he accuses me of showing clas- sism in a previous letter ("Local control hurts public school quality," 2/10/97). Although I was not trying to demonstrate or support clas- sism, his interpretation is understandable. a good thing. Elkins says that people who have experience with failing schools will be able to improve them more easily than state government offi- cials. Possibly. But the state government can bring in tal- ented personnel who have either turned around failing schools or who have at least had experience in schools that are not failing, so that they know what characterizes a successful school. Elkins is skeptical that good teachers leave troubled school districts in our present system. Let me first say that I taught in an urban high school and I actually observed the migration pat- terns I described in my previ- ous letter. Teachers are real people and they have many different motivations, altru- ism being but one. Money is a motivator, although when a teacher leaves a poorer dis- trict for a more wealthy one, money is generally much less of a factor than location and working conditions. There are ways to justify leaving to yourself without feeling like a shameful deserter. When I was getting my teacher train- ing, a master teacher instruc- tor who taught in a nice sub- urban school told us, "If you find that the environment in the school you are in makes it impossible for you to teach and help children, then move out as soon as you can to a school where it is possible. That is what I did." No, I do not think police- men and real estate agents are idiots. But I do think that the quantity and quality of academic training of the peo- ple running the schools will have an effect on the educa- tion the children will receive. That brings us to the class thing. If we have families who for generations tend to fall in the same relative income bracket and do a sim- ilar kind of work, then we have classes. If we have whole towns where the peo- ple are predominantly of one class, then we not only have classes, but we have segrega- tion by class. The breakdown of classes begins with social mobility. Social mobility means that a child has a chance to end up doing a very different kind of work and having a different income level than his or her parents. Of course we have some social mobility. But we would have more if the edu- cational opportunities for children were more uniform, which would be the case if we had a statewide school system instead of locally- controlled schools. There would also be less economic segregation, since the huge variation in the quality of local schools is one of the forces that causes affluent families to live together in The Material Girl, material goals and judging success Ignore every opinion you have about Madonna and imagine you are her. You have just starred in a role you have fought over for years, receive critical acclaim and taken home a Golden Globe. You feel you have finally suc- ceeded. Then, the Oscar nomina- tions came out last week and thet. only major nom- ination you got is Best Song. NotsBest MEGAN Actress. Not SCHIMPF Best Picture. PRESCRIPTIONS So, have you really succeeded? It is difficult to argue that Madonna is unsuccessful. She has sold millions and millions of records worldwide, pioneered a place for women in the music industry and created - the recreated - a profile known across the globe. But in the eyes of the film industry, she is not successful. She remains a music star. Success is one of the most intangible goals to grasp, and challenging to define. It is difficult to attain and even more difficult to hold onto. Admissions committees, hiring com- mittees and professors each have ways to evaluate how much we have accom{ plished. And so we collect letters of recommendation, honors and grade point averages and we write essay upon essay about where we see our- selves in 10 years and what motivated us to apply. In some ways, it is accurate. Most of us have invested long hours and high stress levels to get our academic records to where they are now. To see that goal realized is satisfying. And grade point averages are not entirely random - they do represent, to some degree, how well we per- formed in a majority of our classes. Over time, the "average" part should eliminate the class you just couldn't care about, or the one you just couldn't understand, no matter how hard you tried. But in the end, numbers, letters and words do not paint a complete pictur of who we are or what we have attained. Because they are not the whole picture of what it took to suc- ceed, or what it takes to continue to be successful. When we leave school, and enter the "real world" - whatever that may be - the ability to memorize facts or recite details is not usually a predictor for success. Thus, people with the highest grade points don't always en up with the most prestige. At the University, we have a sense of this seeming paradox. To be accepted here, everyone had to be smart or very good at something. Everyone had an impressive high school resume. .But not everyone makes it past the first year, and not everyone graduates. Including Madonna. So there is adquality to success that has nothing to do with studying, exams or research. It has to do with perseverance, the ability to fail and start over again, strength, determina- tion and the power to leave it all for a little while to stay sane. And the sense to determine when you are a success, even when no one else agrees. Getting a good grade in a class might not require any of these traits. Ironically, getting a less-than-good grade might require all of them. The most educational classes tend to be the ones that confine us to long hours ofg studying, to attending every lecture and office hours,, and to challenging our limits each time we open a book or read through notes. And so we are left with a definition of success that is constantly changing depending on the circumstances. Everyone, in truth, has their own way of defining when we have succeeded - it is when we sit back and think we have done exactly what we wanted to do, and done it well. It is when we finally stop and take a deep breath for a moment before tackling the next goal. While graduating from college is a step toward later success, it is not com- plete. It is not enough to forget the lessons college has taught us, beyond exams, facts, equations and essays. Strength, determination, perseverance and grace in the face of failure are just as important off campus as they are on. The problems, readings and experi- ments that have determined grade point averages over the years will be I rI 0 i