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Senate speaker should step down
By Post Staff
As a senator, I am calling for Speaker Russ Rueden to immediately resign from the Student Association. The investigation he is responsible for starting has tarnished the Student Association to a state that will take years to repair. No elected official who respects the institution s/he has been elected to serve would remain in office while under such serious investigation.
I am also calling for the bank records of the SA bank accounts to be released immediately. There is no rational reason for refusing to provide the bank account information. This is not a self-governance issue — this is an issue of transparency. SA should not be hiding any information from anyone.
Senators and officers: stop protecting this suspicious, dishonest activity and start calling for accountability.
Student governance will suffer for years to come because of this debacle.
Andew Hable
Student Association senator
It’s not just banning gay marriage
Chris Walker wrote a column (“Don’t legalize discrimination,” Sept. 25) describing the proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions that will appear on the ballot this November.
He wrote about how the proposed ban amounts to nothing more than discrimination of gay and lesbian couples. While the ban certainly does discriminate against gay and lesbian couples, this amendment, if passed, would have consequences that are much more far-reaching — that would affect all unmarried couples, both gay and straight.
We only need to look at similar bans passed in other states to see these far-reaching consequences. In Michigan, for example, the attorney general overturned domestic partnership benefits for state employees. And in Ohio, judges have thrown out domestic violence cases brought against men who abused their girlfriends, simply because they were not married.
The proposed ban could also harm universities in Wisconsin. In August, an engineering professor with a well-funded research lab left the University of Wisconsin-Madison for the University of Pennsylvania, which offers domestic partner benefits. He left Wisconsin because he is gay and wants to be able to provide health care for his partner. If the ban on civil unions and gay marriage passes, we will probably see more professors around the state follow in that professor’s footsteps.
Because of its far-reaching consequences and the harm it would cause to our university, I am opposed to the ban. Many people support this ban based on their religious and moral values, but I know that I cannot in good conscience vote to deny people legal protections.
I am opposed to putting anything in the Constitution that would keep victims from getting the legal help they needed. We have enough violence in the world today. I will not tolerate boyfriends and girlfriends seeing their domestic violence charges dismissed, just because they are not married.
I also believe that we need to vote “no” to show that we will not let laws classify gay and lesbian people as second-class citizens. They pay taxes too and should be able to have the same rights to health care benefits, tax breaks and mutual property ownership.
Twenty states have voted on anti-gay amendments similar to the one on Wisconsin’s ballot this November, and in 20 states, they have voted “yes.” Students have the power to help make Wisconsin the first state to defeat one of these bans.
Join me in voting “No” on Nov. 7.
Melissa Eder-Fowles
UWM senior
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