4A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, March 11, 2004 OPINION 4 420 MAYNARD STREET ANARBOR, MI 48109 o nion .michigandaily .com tothedaily@michigandaily.com EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 JORDAN SCHRADER Editor in Chief JASON Z. PESICK Editorial Page Editor Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. NOTABLE QUOTABLE John Kerry is a close friend of mine. We have been friends for years; obviously I would entertain it." - Republican Sen. John McCain, not ruling out accepting the Democratic vice-presidential nomination, if offered, as quoted yesterday by the Associated Press. COLIN DALY THE MICHIGAN DAlY -__. r- N OWT YOU PROMISE NOT TO EX ERCISE ~C OH YES SIa OF Pa.LL .U S,K-iEP7T1 (Loo~ooo) WERE CAUSE 6 4~tLllDlm OESITY e & iNAtcrtrY GDLZD °ccow DON'TEND U L-IK BI L D I I TH4IS MAN WA~hNTS You2 7p oE - ~S o Lb \' S4CC\ LO A short history of gaydom STEVE COTNER My BACK PAGES 44 G ays did not always have a political move- ment. Socrates, Shake- speare, Oscar Wilde, even Andy Warhol appeared before there was much activity. But in 1969 there was an incident at the Stonewall Tavern in New York City, when lesbian and gay street people, Puerto Rican drag queens and bar gays fought back against a routine police raid, and this formed the basis for the gay liberation movement and the introduction of "queer theory" (the trailing edge of the New Left movement) into academic discourse. Those early violent confrontations in this country have since turned into disputes in the legal and intellectual realms, except for occasional incidents in Texas. Gay mar- riage, specifically, is today's preoccupation at a national level and the first such issue to concern the president since President Clin- ton's military policies a decade ago. We are presently swept up in what major media has deemed "the culture war." That designation could mean one of two things: (1) Conservatives are fighting to maintain culture (shorthand for civiliza- tion) against the forces that will destroy it, or (2) the fight is between two contending cultural forces which may both find a home within the bounds of civilization, but which cannot co-exist. Conservatives would probably take up the first argument, leftist radicals the second and liberals a third proposition: Everything can coexist. The third seems the most likely to cause problems for society, but it is also the most historically accurate - we have, in fact, been a society of coexisting cultures for many years now. There are certain points that American society passes through irreversibly, and one of them occurred when dance choreog- rapher Katherine Dunham traveled to Haiti in 1935, endured a never-spoken-about seven-day voodoo initiation rite and returned to New York with secrets of Afro- Caribbean dance that no one else knew. The "Dunham technique" entailed moving the hips and sexual parts to a beat and swaying the arms in an opposing rhythm. It was, for Dunham, a return to her cultural heritage. For America, it was the arrival of open African sexuality - a holistic view that did not mark any parts of the body as off-limits. From that point on, in a very real sense, you could say that Western society has been voodoo society too, for our culture is only the sum of its ideas, and open sexuality is now one of those. With homosexuality, the idea of off-lim- its parts of the body was for a long time codified as legal fact, as the U.S. Supreme Court only recently struck down a ban on sodomy. Norman Mailer described the off- limits with much restraint in a 1992 article on the Republican National Convention: "Was excrement a side-product of nature, offensive to some, as the Democrats would doubtless have argued, or was Satan in everyone's shit?" But that strange question seems mostly resolved for the courts. The new question involves the notion of homo- sexuality itself - whether one can be defined as a person by the sexual act and whether one can, operating on that defini- tion, sustain a monogamous relationship with another person. If biological data is what people want, Bruce Bagemihl's book "Biological Exu- berance: Animal Homosexuality and Nat- ural Diversity" observes that at least 450 species exhibit homosexuality, including lifelong pairs. In the Central Park Zoo, The New York Times has reported on two chinstrap penguins, Roy and Silo, who are completely devoted to one another. At one point, they were "so desperate to incubate an egg together that they put a rock in their nest and sat on it, keeping it warm in the folds of their abdomens." After their keep- er gave them a fertilized egg, they sat on it for 34 days until a chick, Tango, was born, and this they raised into independence. But research like this, or even sincere wedding vows between gay people, will not persuade some that homosexuality is real, and that is because Americans are in denial. They have ignored the sum of ideas that have flowed into this country over time and that have invalidated their old puritanical ways. This is to be expected in the compli- cated times of late capitalism in an advanced industrial democracy - it would be too hard for people to always think of the forces that affect them. But Americans are also making policies out of these delu- sions, and this is where they have hurt peo- ple throughout history. President Bush's constitutional amendment would send us backward, and gay marriage would chart a new course. There is no middle road this time. Let's hope we take the right one. Cotner can be reached at cotners@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR 4 Detroit revitalization should include Michigan Central Station TO THE DAILY: I took great interest in reading Don't Rush Renaissance (03/09/04) concerning the pro- posed renovation of the Michigan Central Sta- tion for use as the new Detroit Police Department headquarters, but feel several important facets of the issue have been omit- ted. Regardless of whether the city picks the MCS or not for the project, a new DPD head- quarters is needed. The current location is out- dated and far too small to give the DPD the facilities it needs to serve the citizens of Detroit to its fullest potential. Currently, the MCS is unused, vandalized and left open to the ele- ments. This is a blatant misuse of a prominent building in the city's history, not the proposed renovation and revitalization of the structure. Renovation of the MCS is good for the sur- rounding businesses and spurs further develop- ment of the historic Corktown and southwest Detroit area, giving a much-needed boost to an area on the verge of revitalization. The symbol- ic importance of a newly renovated MCS can- not be quantified in statistics, facts or figures. The station today is a testament to the unfor- tunate downturn of the city, but in the future can serve as an indicator of the new Detroit that is slowly emerging through similar projects like the current renovation of the Book-Cadillac Hotel. It takes large-scale projects like these to encourage the future redevelopment of other historic structures within the city. It is essential this opportunity to rehabilitate an important link in Detroit's history not be overlooked. The time for renaissance is now, before the bulldozers and demolition crews further destroy the architectur- al heritage of Detroit's past. ARAM SARKISIAN The letter writer will be a freshman in the fall Anti-Arab advertisement is unfair propaganda TO THE DAILY: I was appalled today when I turned to Page 11 of the March 10 Daily and found an entire page dedicated to anti-Arab propagan- da. Did you even bother to read it before you eradicate homosexuals and Africans, and urg- ing everyone to support President Bush's constitutional amendment to "protect the sanctity" of their own beliefs? It is exactly this kind of propaganda that inflames every- one and incites more hatred. ADI PESHKESS Rackham Real education not just about getting a job, but leading the right life TO THE DAILY: Wednesday's letter to the editor about gen- eral studies was quite disappointing (General Studies is too broad to be marketable, 03/10/04). I am not a general studies major, but I have looked at the requirements and realize that the program is no joke. For every student who has not read these requirements, I suggest you take some time and see for yourself that it can be quite a challenging field. Another thing that bothers me about many students whom I meet on campus or attending other universities is that they all want that big job, but don't think about how it will affect peo- ple. We have so many resources at this school that all students have opportunities far greater than most people on this planet. It is my opinion that if a person is at a university, especially of this caliber, he should be interested in the means of his education and not the ends. It is unfortu- nate that our society makes us want a job with a large salary so we can pay off all of our college debts. Maybe if we chose to live simpler lives - no car, no satellite TV, no new clothes every week, eliminating useless "stuff," etc. - our debts would not be so large. I will not end my letter with a snappy or sarcastic line aimed to hurt the people reading this. In closing, all I wish to say is that you can make whatever course of studies challenging, rewarding, and beneficial to society and your- self - if you think, not just go through the motions. EVAN W. THOMAS LSA junior LSA majors designed to teach people to think TO~ 'T14 fAnTV! Since the title of the said major is non-descript, we do not know if these credits are fulfilled with courses such as modern dance and under- water basket weaving, physics, chemistry and philosophy or even all of the above. Degrees from LSA, unlike those obtained through the College of Engineering or the School of Education, are not designed to pre- pare students for a given profession. Instead, as stated in the LSA bulletin for 2004, degrees from this institution are to signify to employers that graduates have "develop(ed) their ability to think, to respond to ideas and to test hypothe- ses." These are skills that all graduating seniors, despite college or school of enrollment and degree granted, should have cultivated by the time that they receive their diploma. It is unfor- tunate to see the large numbers of future alumni seeing their skills and talents go unrecognized in today's economy. Those who are unlucky enough to face an uncertain job outlook imme- diately following graduation should not be told that their chosen degree alone is the reason why they are not hired. AMELIA AUSTIN DESCHAMPS LSA senior Broad education provided by general studies equips students well TO THE DAILY: While I agree with Douglass Douma's point (General studies is too broad to be marketable, 03/10/04) that the student in the recent job hunt story (Frustrated in the job hunt, 03/08/04) has limited career options based on her general studies major, I do not think that students in a more science-related major have "worked hard- er" and deserve to "be more frustrated in the job search" than those of other concentrations. Every major here at the University requires a significant amount of work and effort from each student. Just because student are LSA majors does not mean that they have not worked as hard or do not deserve a job as much as students in the School of Engineering. I agree that to find a certain job you must develop specific skills, and those with a broad educational background do not have specialized experience. However, that does not disqualify them from having the necessary skills in order to perform tasks, or even the ability to think for themselves. I scnt f+T~nnmn 'c.nffttnira tat if Yfl'rfl not n I 4 4 ;: ' I A