Word: reiterating
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...would like to take issue with some of the statements made by Jendi B. Reiter in her column "Noble Principles, Misguided Protests" (February 16 Crimson). First is the assertion that we should accept (or at least sympathize with) the anti-gay policies of the Boy Scouts, the U.S. armed forces and the Ancient Order of Hibernians simply because these groups have "reasons for their opposition to homosexuals...
Does the family analogy actually hold enough water to merit so much of Reiter's attention? Actually, it does not. A government--no matter what kind--has responsibilities and standards far different than a family. Unless the family head in Reiter's example owned some kind of homeless shelter, of course he could choose to exclude whomever he wanted from his home. This would be true even if the shelter-seeker was well-dressed, well-groomed, and carried no infections diseases of any kind. A government, though, is different--especially our government. Save our Native American friends...
...carriers of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, then, pose such a risk to the citizenry that they should be on the list of excluded? Notwithstanding Reiter's almost laughable claims that "routine contact between [the carriers] and the uninfected community will certainly include sexual activity" and that "intravenous drugs may well become another regular medium of interaction," (italics mine) it is well established that casual contact between persons cannot facilitate the spread of the AIDS virus. In fact, if all unmarried couples just practiced abstention, the favorite Reagan-Bush prescription for the AIDS crisis, these immigrants would pose...
...Reiter also attempts to use an overwhelming assumption to assist her argument when she urges Clinton Administration officials to make a "quick review" of the Declaration of Independence. There, she says, they would find it written that "the government is our creation for our needs, not an independent entity that should follow its own opinion in matters that affect us." Whether the Declaration can really be interpreted in this way is questionable, but it is unquestionable that the Constitution establishes a republic in which the people elect representatives to govern on their behalf. This does not imply the sort...
Along the way, Reiter also takes cheap shots at Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, whom she calls "a vocal advocate of campus speech codes," and to President Clinton, with reference to the "already battered iamge of our golden-boy president." Any detailed examination of Shalala's record as University of Wisconsin chancellor (not president) would show that far from being a "vocal advocate" of speech codes, she established such a code only very reluctantly after several racial incidents. And as for President Clinton, despite a run of incredibly bad publicity and, I concede, a shaky first few weeks...