NEWS

The Michigan Daily - Thursday, November 4, 2004 - 3A


ON CAMPUS
Human rights event
features diverse
array of speakers
The Institute for the Humanities will
host a day-long conference today focus-
ing on human rights in Africa and Latin
America titled "Human Rights, Political
Violence and the Global South." Speak-
ers come from many countries, includ-
ing Rwanda, Brazil, Peru and Argentina.
They represent a wide array of higher
education institutions and international
agencies, including the Human Rights
Watch African Division, the Pontifical
Catholic University of Peru and the Fed-
eral University of Rio de Janeiro. The
conference will be held in the Rackham
Ampitheater from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Japanese POWs to
be topic of speech
The Center for Japanese Studies is
hosting a talk today by Ulrich Straus, the
former consul general on Okinawa and
professor at the National War College.
His speech is titled "Japanese POWs of
World War II" and will be held at noon in
1636 School of Social Work Building.
e RC grad student to
talk on future of
hydrogen fuel
SNRE graduate student Marc Melai-
na will hold a speech in the Residential
College today at 1 p.m. to discuss hydro-
gen energy and the environment. His
talk will be held in 126 East Quad.
CRIMEf
NOTES
Midnight snack
swiped from 'U'
S hospital room
The Department of Public Safety
received a report from the University
Hospital that sometime Monday eve-
ning or Tuesday morning, cookie dough
was taken from a room in the hospital.
Building materials
lifted from North
Campus shop
North Campus Housing Services
reported on Tuesday morning that mason-
ry and drywall supplies were taken from
the maintenance shop at an unknown
time, DPS reports There are no suspects.
DPS told of attempt
to fill doctored
prescription
An individual from the University
changed a prescription for a pain reliever
and attempted to fill it at St. Joseph's Pro-
fessional Pharmacy in Pontiac on Tues-

day. The person changed the prescription
! to indicate a higher dosage. DPS was noti-
fied of the fraud Tuesday morning.
Hospital patient
left barefoot after
larceny
A pair of women's gray Birkenstock
sandals were stolen from a room at the
University Hospital Monday evening. The
shoes are valued at $40 and there are no
suspects.
THIS DAY
In Daily History
! Student loan
changes suggested
by committee
Nov. 4, 1959 - The Student Loan
Committee suggested to the Dean's
Office two changes meant to make
loans more accessible to students. The
committee suggested increasing the
amount of money that could be loaned

Election results surwrise some students

By Alex Garivaltis
and Justin Miller
Daily Staff Reporters
Yesterday's election results shocked
many students at the University, some of
whom say they are hard-pressed to name
a single friend who voted for President
Bush. According to election results from
seven main polling locations on campus,
6,472 ballots were cast for John Kerry,
while only 1,765 were cast for Bush.
Allison Jacobs, chair of the University's
College Republicans, said she was excit-
ed about the turnout in the election. "It's
great to see all of our hard work pay off,"
she said. Jacobs said that although the
president did not win Michigan, he made
a strong showing, earning 2 percent more
of the vote than he did in 2000.
Ramya Raghavan, chair of the Univer-
sity's College Democrats, was concerned
about what the election means for the
future of her party. "I think the Demo-
cratic Party is in a difficult situation
right now. A lot of people I know who
are very far to the left sucked it up and
voted for Kerry. If the party moves to
the right, I think you'll see those people
leaving the party," she said.
LSA junior Stephanie Persin, who voted
for Kerry, said she was disappointed.
"I thought that Kerry would get us out
of Iraq sooner," she said.
Persin said she is not primarily con-
cerned about the threats to national
security.
"I'm really scared about Roe v. Wade,
women's rights and gay rights," she said.
Constitutional gay marriage bans passed
in 11 states including Michigan. It is also

votes, while all but awarded to the presi-
dent, have yet to be formally declared.
LSA junior Sean King voted for Kerry
because he thought the president failed to
handle the Iraq in war properly. He said he
thought the Democratic campaign erred in
hugging the center while holding on to its
traditional base. "They should have gone
more negative - they were too positive,"
he said.
He thought Kerry's concession was
gracious. "I think he really had no option.
He was behind in the popular vote and all
the Ohio precincts were in," King said.
"I don't think a few million votes will
make a difference in bringing the country
together."
Raghavan said she thought Kerry
would have enjoyed decent chances had
he tried to litigate the Ohio results. But
she thought his concession was done with
grace and dignity. "He put a good face
" on the Democratic Party even though he
lost," Raghavan said.
She said she approved of how the
Democrats conducted their campaign.
"I think we targeted the swing states,
which was important. I think we got the
movement but unfortunately we couldn't
get swing voters in Ohio to swing to
Kerry," she said.
But Raghavan said she was proud of
Americans' response to the president's
first term. "I think that when you have
an extreme president like George W.
Bush, you see this amazing movement
getting started. I think Democrats
can bank on the fact that people are
not going to sit around and let George
Bush run America into the ground,"
she said.
n Prop. 2
But Carla Pfeffer, a Rackham graduate
student who identifies as queer, said she
was saddened by the proposal.
"I think (Proposal 2) is a sad com-
mentary on the way so many people
allow their humanity to be dictated to
them by religious doctrines under the
weak guise of 'morality.' "
She said the issue had nothing to do
with whether she, as a queer woman,
would want to marry a same-sex part-
ner, but that a state constitutional
amendment would now stand in her way
if she ever chose to do so.

Ann Arbor resident Sopa Kung shows her support for President Bush while Pioneer High School freshman Mollie
Fawcett and friends protest his re-election on State Street yesterday.

widely believed that the president will
make Supreme Court nominations in his
second term, possibly threatening to over-
turn the Roe v. Wade decision that secured
abortion rights. .
"I wish the Kerry campaign would
have brought in lawyers - I guess that's
more selfish," she said. But Persin con-

Campus demonstra

By Victoria Edwards
and Karen Tee
Daily Staff Reporters
The passage of Proposal 2, which
amends Michigan's constitution to ban
gay marriage and similar unions, left
many of the gay community on cam-
pus reeling from the blow. Proposal 2
passed with a 59 percent majority in
Tuesday's election.
Yesterday, about 20 students, staff
and faculty of the gay and transgender
community met in the Michigan Union
to share their thoughts and provide sup-
port for each other.
Coordinator of Latino/Latina Student
Affairs Angela Munoz said the passage
of the proposal is especially heartbreak-
ing for her because she has watched
similar proposals pass in the last two
states she has lived in - Alaska and
California. She added that in all three
instances she was working vehemently
to prevent the passage of the legislation.
"One would think I'd be prepared
for (the passage of the proposal), but it
still stings, because here I felt a great
coalition of newspaper editors, religious
and community leaders - there was a
broad-based voice saying that (the pas-
sage of the proposal) is wrong," Munoz
said.
"I had hope. This is what made it
harder, because I still had hope."
The Stonewall Democrats, a student
gay and transgender issues group, had
spent the week prior to the elections
handing out flyers on the Diag and
educating voters on the reasons behind
their opposition. At least the group can
take heart in the fact that in Washtenaw
County, 98,633 voters, or 59 percent of
the electorate, rejected the proposal.
Andrea Knittel, co-chair of the Stone-
wall Democrats, said before the election
the biggest reason why her group opposed
the proposal was not because gay mar-
riage would be made illegal, but because

the amendment would "put discrimina-
tion into our constitution."
The constitutional amendment reads,
"The union of one man and one woman
in marriage shall be the only agreement
recognized as a marriage or similar
union for any purpose."
Opponents interpret this to mean the
state will no longer recognize domestic
partnerships and civil unions between
both homosexual and heterosexual
couples. This could result in the loss of
benefits such as health care for people
who are in such unions.
The University has said it will still
continue providing benefits to same-sex
domestic partners and defend its right to
do so in court if it is challenged.
But Jennifer Almquist, who works in
the Office of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and
Transgender Affairs, voiced an opinion
commonly heard among the gay and
transgender community when she said
that although the fight for equality will
most likely take place in the courts, she
wants to restructure the focus of their
education away from legal issues and
present the members of the LGBT com-
munity as individuals, not blank-face
issues.
"There needs to be a human face to
the issue," Almquist said.
Mufioz echoed this, saying that the
focus needs to be on real people, not
ambiguous ballot proposals.
"This is me you're talking about.
Not institutions (like marriage or civil
union) - this is human beings and how
law is written such that human beings
are dehumanized," Munoz said.
Munoz, a baptized Roman Catholic,
said an added blow for her was her church's
support of the proposal. The Catholic
Church raised more than $1 million, pro-
viding half of the financial funding to sup-
port the passage of the proposal.
"I gave my heart, my gifts and my
time to the Roman Catholic Church,
which had a huge influence in the pas-


ceded that she wouldn't want the presi-
dent bringing in lawyers had the tables
been turned. "On the one hand I think
the concession was the dignified thing
to do because the situation in 2000 was
ridiculous," she said.
LSA freshman Jonathan Nobile was
more apathetic. "I think pretty much
tes deep (
sage of Proposal 2. I feel betrayed by
(the church) as well," Munoz said.
On the other hand, students who
voted for Proposal 2 explained that they
supported the amendment to protect the
traditional definition of marriage as that
between a man and a woman.
Allison Jacobs, co-chair of the Col-
lege Republicans, said the amendment
is a victory for democracy.
"The amendment just clarifies the
meaning of marriage so that judges can-
not change what the people of Michigan
believe in," said Jacobs.

things will stay the same. What Bush
said in his campaign doesn't seem like
it'll make a difference in our country and
around the world," he said.
Nobile, who had expected the presi-
dent to be re-elected, said he thought it
was interesting that the election came
down to a single state. Ohio's 20 electoral
livisions o
For Engineering graduate student Sarah
Bates, support for the amendment stems
from her belief that marriage should be
about a heterosexual couple's ability to
"create and nurture children," not about
intimate relationships between two adults.
"Marriage is a legal institution that gives
a woman and a man certain rights that are
not available to the rest of society because
they have a unique capacity that same-sex
couples don't," Bates said. "The focus of
marriage should shift back to a focus on
children instead of a focus on adults, and
that is why I support this amendment."

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Amp- -lw

Headaches"''
Michigan Head*Pain & Neurological
Institute is conducting an in-clinic research
study evaluating an investigational
medication for migraine.
Participants must be 18 to 75 years old and
suffer no more than 2-8 headaches per month. A total of three
clinic visits are required. Visit 2 is a three to four hour
treatment visit while having an acute headache. Participants
must be available to come to the clinic during normal business
hn rc rQ(2R n m.ton ~mn n

Family
Housin
OSg

Experience the Diverse Community
Apply For Immediate or Winter Term Occupancy!
Efficiencies to Three-Bedroom Townhouses
Reasonable Rates I No Security Deposit
Utilities Included in Rent
Academic and International Community
60 Day Notice to vacate
Close Parking Available
Free Commuter Bus I Near Classes, Work, Shopping
Language Programs / Programs for Children
Close to North Campus Recreation Building
Community Center


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