Partially Ordered Thoughts

Despite having lived in Atlanta for 2.75 years, I still religiously read The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead (at least on line). In fact, I don’t even read the Atlanta Journal-Constitution except when there’s a story that I want to seek out. On Friday The Forum ran as their cover story an article about two young men who plan to attend the Fargo South High School prom tonight. Normally, prom is not a newsworthy topic. Sure, there are fluff pieces in the style sections every year about what’s in and what’s out fashion-wise, but this warranted front-page coverage as it wasn’t fashion that was out in this article, it was the two young men who were the subject of the article. See, these guys are gay and a couple and wanted to attend prom together. In fact, they wanted to participate in the grand march like all their friends. (I should note one of the students is a FSHS student and the other is completing his education through the state’s Division of Independent Study, which provided me two top-notch courses while in high school.) South’s principal took a pretty enlightened view on the whole thing and said that they could do as they wanted, and to the best of any of the local schools’ knowledge, these young men are the first gay male couple to attend a local prom together. Frankly, the school’s reaction amazes me considering my home state; however, it also makes me very happy, as it shows that there is hope after all. I was very impressed with the guys’ willingness to put up with whatever the community will throw at them by being so open about it. In high school, I never would have fathomed the idea of attending prom with another guy. Of course, it’s not like I had a boyfriend to take, but even so, I don’t think it ever would have entered my mind, even if I’d grown up in a city like Fargo instead of Halliday. Seven years out of high school and 5.5 years since I first came out, I have no problems with the thought of holding hands with a boyfriend in public (in a couple days I’ll actually have time to think about finding a boyfriend… that would be nice), but back then, anything that bold would have seemed insane.

Anyway, I figured that the article would probably get a follow-up on Sunday talking about how the boys had a good time at prom and that their friends were all very accepting and so on and so forth but that would be the end of it. My, was I wrong. Today, they ran a follow-up about the public fallout. Some in the community have just commented that they didn’t feel it was front-page news. Frankly, I would have agreed with that assessment if it weren’t for all the other public reaction, which shows that it really does need to be on the cover in order to help bring North Dakota out of the dark ages. The people who started calling into talk radio and writing comments on In-Forum’s discussion page were just brilliant. One woman called Scott Hennen’s Hot Talk radio show and said that one of the guys was her daughter’s gymnastics coach and she didn’t want to have to explain to her daughter why her coach was on the cover of the newspaper holding hands with another boy, and there were similar comments posted online about how people didn’t want to have to explain to children at the grand march why there were two boys walking together. What sort of vacuum are these people raising their kids in? For heavens sakes, gay people are everywhere, in all walks of life, and all over this friggin’ country. I think that at home looking at the newspaper would be a much better time to have this conversation than while walking in the mall or grocery store and seeing two men holding hands. Hennen even said that he was “shielding” his kids from the newspaper because of the story. Then there were the comments about how people didn’t want to have their noses rubbed in these guys’ sexual orientation. Um, excuse me, how often do you rub your heterosexuality in my face? Yeah, pretty much all the time. I guess the positive tone of the article and how accepting the school seemed about the whole thing just got my hopes up too much that times were changing. There are a lot of positive comments on the In-Forum discussion, but far too many talk about the boys as deviants and ask questions about if the next thing will be to allow pedophiles to attend prom. I love how people always seem to think that homosexuals are automatically pedophiles or just a step away. I like men, not children. Most pedophiles are heterosexual males, for goodness sake.

I probably never should have read all the comments people posted or listened to Hennen’s discussions with the mother of one of the boys and the editor of The Forum, as it would have kept my blood pressure down. However, the whole situation has made it abundantly clear that my home state still has a long way to go toward being accepting of my sexual orientation. I guess I’ll just have to hope that Jakob and Steven have a great time at the prom and that tomorrow’s paper doesn’t have to tell a tale of how they felt so uncomfortable they had to leave early. If the youth are at least becoming more enlightened, there can be hope for the future.

Oh my. I’m not a big fan of all the battling that’s going on over judicial nominees in the senate. Part of me feels that the Senate shouldn’t prevent these nominees from getting voted on, but part of me feels that they probably shouldn’t be on the court, and as long as party-line votes keep taking place, no one will think for themselves on such things in the Senate. A good point can be made that while the Republicans didn’t actually filibuster President Clinton’s judicial nominees, they used their majority power to hold up a large number of them in the Judiciary Committee. Perhaps the minority is entitled to do the same on the floor.

Regardless, MoveOn PAC’s Save the Republic ad, which I just saw on CNN, is ridiculous.

I’ve been ignoring all like two of you out there who read this, but I think it’s time to get back to posting here. Tomorrow I start the third week of the semester. It’s amazing how fast the first two went by. Of course, the first one flew by even faster since Amy was here visiting, so I played tour guide. It was a lot of fun. We did the usual tourist things (CNN, Centennial Olympic Park, World of Coca-Cola) in addition to viewing the city at night from the top of the Westin Peachtree Center (the western hemisphere’s tallest hotel), visiting the Martin Luther King, Jr., historic site, and attending a special MLK concert by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

Classes seem to be going well so far this semester. I’m only taking three, and I enjoy all of them. I have three straight hours of classes Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, but they go pretty quickly, strangely enough. Activities are also picking up: Senate, Honor Advisory Council, etc. I substituted on the Mandatory Student Fee Advisory Committee during the first week of classes. We recommended raising fees $50 per semester for next academic year. This might seem steep, but half of it will go to increase the technology fee, which hasn’t gone up in something like nine years. I’m sure everyone understands how important a technology fee is to the Georgia Institute of Technology. I’m helping gather and disseminate information related to an impending astronomical increase in health insurance premiums for my fellow graudate students. (We’re talking about a 47% increase, unless we break things out by age, in which case premiums remain the same except for those students 30 years old and older, who would see their premiums more than quadruple.) I feel like I’m becoming part of the campus community and making a difference, and it feels good!

Today I took on another issue—North Dakota House Bill 1364: A bill relating to English pronunciation requirements for individuals instructing students. It’s a misguided attempt by some simple-minded state legislators to micromanage how the state’s 11 public colleges and universities deal with non-native speakers of English in their classrooms. These legislators seem to think that usurping the power of the State Board of Higher Education, the University System Chancellor, campus presidents, and campus provosts/vice presidents for academic affairs is a good strategy for dealing with constituent complaints regarding professors. Read the bill for yourself… it’s the most insanely absurd piece of rubbish that I’ve seen yet. What makes me very sad is that only one of the five sponsors of this piece of trash are from small-town North Dakota. Two are from Fargo, one from Grand Forks, and one from Bismarck. I would think that they would be enlightened enough to undertand that students have more appropriate recourse than getting the highest levels of state government involved with a very local issue. Of course, the sponsor from Bismarck is the representative dubbed Miss D. Meaner by The Forum‘s editorial cartoonist today for her adamant opposition to the repeal of North Dakota’s antiquated cohabitation law. (In her defense, she seems very nice and well-intentioned and responded to my initial email very quickly, but she just didn’t seem to understand that this is not a legislative issue.) I have to thank The Forum‘s capitol correspondent Janell Cole for pointing out HB 1364 in today’s column on legislation that seems to keep resurfacing year after year. If it weren’t for her, I probably would have had a much more productive (although not nearly as interesting or exhillerating) Sunday If anyone’s interested in reading my comments that were sent to the House Education Committee, drop me a note. (If you don’t know my email address, post a comment here.)

Let me begin by saying that I find very little positive in the outcome of Tuesday’s elections. I was pleased to see a couple of good, moderate Republicans re-elected Governor and Attorney General in North Dakota. I was pleased that Tom Daschle lost his bid for re-election in South Dakota. I was pleased that Fargo will have smoke-free restaurants. That’s about it. Four more years… let’s hope they go quickly! (Not that four years under Kerry would have been better, but I’m tired of the republican party being so beholden to the religious right and their entirely un-Christian hatred of everyone who doesn’t fit their tiny little idea of what’s right.) We shall speak of the election of 2004 no more.

Now on to the subject of this post. I just turned in two of my officemates for an honor code violation. It wasn’t something that anyone ever should have to do, but I believe in the honor code. I think it’s an important part of what makes Tech good. A student who signs a statement saying

The attached paper represents my own work. I have not consulted with anyone else during the work on this assignment, and I have not used any sources other than those listed above [text, notes, and handouts]. I understand that making a false statement is a violation of the Georgia Tech honor code.

even after having (1) asked a classmate if she could look at his solution, (2) spending considerable time reviewing that solution, (3) asking for clarifications on that solution, (4) taking notes on the clarifying discussion, and (5) leaving the office for a computer lab with the notes from that discussion and a few pages from a photocopy of a book that quite likely contains the solution to the other problem is a liar and a cheater and needs to reform or leave the Institute (and also the country). The professor was glad that I came to report it, and once he sees their cover sheets and determines if they did sign the honor code statement, he will take action, and I have agreed to testify. There’s a reason that I’ve applied to join the Honor Advisory Council here and will have my second-round interview this afternoon—I take honor seriously. The anonymous note method employed earlier this term apparently didn’t have the desired effect, so now I’m ready to see official action taken. I had thought that I’d feel a lot better about this after talking to the professor, but I’m still a bit sickened by the fact that it happened.