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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 19, 1989)
The Battalion OPINION Thursday, October 19,1989 Opinion Page Editor Juliette Rizzo 845-33' Beware of Mr. Chicken Minors who drink need to stop and think You’re standing next to the pinball machines, out of the way, trying to be inconspicuous. You quickly glance around the room as you joke with your friends about surviving last night’s drunken stupor. Ever so smoothly with your (left) hand you pick up the long- neck your buddy bought you and take a fast gulp while no one is paying atten tion. Or at least you hope no one is. You’re at the Dixie Chicken drink ing beer, and you’re not 21. Imagine that. You manage to down one beer with out being caught and boy does that feel good. You let out a small belch to show your satisfaction for your great accom plishment. Nothing to it, just like your friends said, “You’ll never get caught. The Chicken is the place to go and drink if you’re underaged. And, if you do get caught, just tell them you lost your ID or something. It’s that simple.” After two or three more beers you loosen up and decide to wander around. While discussing plans to leave with the person you accidentally spiWed beer upon, someone taps you indig nantly on the shoulder. Angry that you’ve been interrupted just as things were moving so smoothly, you flash a disgusted glance backwards. Ahhh! Horror of horrors! It’s the little dweeb with the round glasses, the one you’re supposed to be watching out for. You’re busted. Your pulse quickens as he asks for you to show him a stamp on your hand or your ID to prove you’re 21. You break out in a sweat, but cleverly come up with an answer for him: “Uh, I wasn’t drinking it, I was just holding it for my friend,” you confidently tell him. Monique Threadgill Guest Columnist The voice bellows again, “Excuse me, if you don’t have a stamp I need to see your ID, even if you weren’t drink ing.” You look at him with amazement. “I don’t have it with me, I left it at home because I came here with a friend,” you tell him. Whew! That sounded pretty believable, you tell yourself. He looks at you with that ‘Do you think I just fell off the turnip truck yes terday?’ kind of look and tells you to follow him. Your heart sinks down into your stomach as you sheepishly follow be hind him, hoping he might lose you in the crowd. He heads behind the bar. Not behind the bar, you think to your self. Everyone and their dog will see you. As you tromp through the muck on the floor behind the bar, looking down in hopes that no one is watching, you hear loud voices screaming, “Ooh. Busted!” and “Have fun going to see the big man upstairs!” The big man? Upstairs? At this point you begin to realize you may be in a little bit of trouble. “Well, what have we here?” a power ful voice calls out as you enter the of fice. A grey-haired, round-bellied man sits in front of you with his big Reeboks propped up on the desk, flicking through television channels. So, this must be Mr. Chicken. He intimidatingly asks you for your driver’s license, and out of the blue it mysteriously appears in your pocket, in spite of the fact that you told the man ager you didn’t have it with you. Mr. Chicken begins to inquisition you about the beer you had. You lean on his desk and plead with him to believe you weren’t drinking it, you were just holding it for your friend. Without even glancing your direc tion he yells, “Don’t lean on my desk. Sit down on that box over there and shut up until I pull your chain and want you to talk!” You sit down on the box and wait for your interrogation to continue. He keeps on watching TV and you wonder if he even remembers you’re sitting there. About 10 or 15 minutes later, he ac knowledges your presence once again. “Are you aware that according to Texas law you don’t have to be DRINKING the alcohol? You only have to be touching it,” he tells you. “That’s what minor in POSSESSION means.” Oh dear, you hadn’t thought of it that way, had you? Next he insults your intelligence, your family, the way you’re dressed or possibly all of the above. You feel about two inches tall and all you can do is stare at the floor. A chill runs through you as you realize that you’re sitting on a wooden box with a glass front that is actually a home for a snake — a big snake. To make things worse, all of this in timidation and embarrassment is con ducted in front of an office full of peo ple he calls his “chronics.” He proceeds to inform you that in all reality he should call the police and have them give you a ticket for $6^.50. He leaves you alone to ponder this thought for a while. You think about it and decide it would be best if you just “suck it up,” admit you were drinking and apologize to him. “Sir, I’m really sorry. I’m not old enough to be drinking and I won’t do it again,” you say. He looks at you to see if he can de tect the slightest bit of sincerity in your face. If so, he lectures you a little while longer on the laws of underaged drink ing and lets you know that whoever bought you the drink could be arrested and taken to jail for contributing to the delinquency of minors on a licensed premise. By now you’re completely humil iated and all you want to do is get out of there. He tells you that although he doesn’t agree that the drinking age should be 21, he has no choice but to abide by the law, and neither do you. He urges you to continue to visit the Chicken, but in order to keep him in business and you out of trouble, you’ll have to just enjoy the atmosphere with a coke until you’re “That’s it, you can go,” he says. “See y a’ later.” Well, it’s over. You survived beic; busted at the Chicken and nowyoutaj go back downstairs and tell all you friends what a jerk he is and how you managed to weezle your wayoutofi ticket. Smart cookie, aren’t you? O.K., the “Being Busted attheDkit Chicken Scenario” is over. Now Iju want to say a few things to those ofyt who have gone through this wonderft experience, or will be blessed with itii the future. Did you ever think of telling yom friends what really happened whl you were up there? You couldn’tposi: bly admit that he intimidated the he! out of you, that you feared foryourit that if you got a ticket your pare® would kill you and that actually he wj pretty civil and understanding? No? I didn’t think so. You wool look like a wimp. Well, I don’t blat you. I just hope you realize thatYOl were in the wrong, not him. He could very easily have calledtk police, gotten you a ticket andhadyw partner-in-crime sent to jail. (The# two things, by the way, are probabl what the police would prefer.) But,k didn’t. He let you off with about! minutes of humiliating interrogate and a great story to tell all your friends This is just an example of one bam College Station, but the laws are th same all over Texas. I’m not going to tell you I nevet drank when I wasn’t old enough, o; that you shouldn’t. But, if you feelyot are mature enough to drink when LI GALLY you’re not old enough to and you get caught, you should be matnn enough to suffer the consequences. Monique Threadgill is a semi journalism major; j#nd assistant new editor for The Battalion. e; o 1 d St lii k Si 01 tc I ai vc : kt w< lo F( cc th dc A CO ve m fn co yo ef pc he of eit al Kt Di IV El im coi it i: lot coi th; wil pic hig Clearing up misconceptions about homosexuality I write in response to the recent dis cussion of homosexuality in The Bat talion on behalf of the local gay com- munity as represented by the signatures attached. Also attached are supporting signatures from some het erosexuals who feel strongly that dis crimination against gays is wrong. I would like to thank Mr. Mathieu for taking the initiative in proclaiming his pro stance on the gay issue in hu man rights. Not many people will do that. I hope that more of those people who support us will be willing to vocal ize their views in the future. I also thank Juliette Rizzo, Opinion Page Edi tor, for her patience in dealing with the flood of articles and other evidence of opinion submitted to her in the last few days. Finally, .1 appreciate that Prof. L.M. Smith seems to have minimally researched this topic before discussing it. Some people don’t. The other rebut tals, for instance, are so laden with mis information and faulty logic that I am compelled to present this article to pro vide a clearer, more accurate view of the gay community. First of all, religion is probably the single most likely source of anti-gay sentiment, and it need not be. Addres sing Christianity in particular. I’ll start by saying several prominent religious figures throughout history have been gay — including both Popes and Saint- s.Also, many texts that people use against us are either mistranslated (the original words having little or even nothing to do with the word ‘gay’ to day) or part of the Old Law rendered inapplicable with the coming of Christ. Similar laws, for example, would pro hibit wearing today’s cotton/polyester Terry Walker Guest Columnist blends, allowing women to pray in church with men and interbreeding cattle. Furthermore, if homosexuality is such a great evil (as many modern Christians seem to indicate by their knee-jerk reaction just to the discussion of this topic), then why did Jesus Christ never speak EVEN ONE WORD about it? In regard to psychology. I’m sure there are indeed professionals who still see homosexuality as a ‘pathological condition’ as Smiths says. But are these ’traditional psychologists’ in the poll he mentioned the same ones who think Freud’s theories are the final statement on human psychology? The DSM-IIIr, the definitive reference in the field of psychology, does not list homosexuality as a condition requiring treatment. But contending with a sexuality that you don’t share is a significant stress that ‘straights’ don’t have to suffer through. People should be careful not to make crude generalizations about the overall mental condition of gays while ignor ing this fact. I wonder how well heterosexuals would fare if they suddenly found themselves forced to adapt to a homo sexual lifestyle because of a change in cultural values. Popular opinion is cer tainly no source of justice in such mat ters. Witness the atrocities committed by the Church during the Dark Ages and the Inquisition or the abuses of po litical power during the Holocaust. These are not rare, disconnected The Battalion (USPS 045 360) Member of Texas Press Association Southwest Journalism Conference The Battalion Editorial Board Scot Walker, Editor Wade See, Managing Editor Juliette Rizzo, Opinion Page Editor Fiona Soltes, City Editor Ellen Hobbs, Chuck Squatriglia, News Editors Tom Kehoe, Sports Editor Jay Janner, Art Director Dean Sueltenfuss, Lifestyles Editor Editorial Policy The Battalion is a non-profit, self-supporting newspa per operated as a community service to Texas A&M and Bryan-College Station. Opinions expressed in The Battalion are those of the editorial board or the author, and do not necessarily rep resent the opinions of Texas A&M administrators, fac ulty or the Board of Regents. The Battalion also serves as a laboratory newspaper for students in reporting, editing and photography classes within the Department of Journalism. The Battalion is published Monday through Friday during Texas A&M regular semesters, except for holiday and examination periods. Mail subscriptions are S17.44 per semester, $34.62 per school year and $36.44 per full year. Advertising rates furnished on request. Our address: The Battalion, 230 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-1 111. Second class postage paid at College Station, TX 77843. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Battal ion, 216 Reed McDonald, Texas A&M University, Col- events. History is riddled with such in cidents. All significant minorities must be recognized. Civil wars and rebellions result when any authority threatens the identity of any group of people. In America, women and blacks have al ready proclaimed their freedom from the white male’s dominance. The gay rights movement, however, is much younger than either of these two, and it owes much to both. For gays, the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969 marks the time when we openly resisted arrest in New York and then rioted for three days to demonstrate our refusal to recognize laws prohibit ing homosexual conduct. Many of the rebuttals in The Battal ion also seemed to imply a relation be tween homosexuality and AIDS. Again I must caution that it was only in this country that HIV infection first showed up primarily in the gay male community (and this percentage is de creasing). Worldwide, HIV shows no such discrimination. It is simply a virus. To claim otherwise is to ignore reality. Finally, I find bestiality and pedo philia both to be terrible degredations of sexuality and human nature. Rape is also horrifying. But homosexuality has nothing to do with these activities. One cannot say these things have any closer relation to homosexuality than to het erosexuality; they do not and neither do lying, stealing, prostitution, drug abuse, the Fall of Rome, or the even tual self-annihilation of our sun. I sug gest David Brooks, Professor Smith and people like them determine what their own prejudices are before laying claim to knowledge about what it means to be a homosexual. Unfortunately, the only ones who can know firsthand what it means to be gay are people who are themselves gay. Although it is roughly estimated that 10 percent of the population is homo sexual, some people will still persist in believing they do not know anyone who is gay and will never have to face this issue again after reading this arti cle. It is for these people especially that I now present what the gay community would like to tell you about itself that may seldom be accurately presented in the news: We are many people. Moreover, we are people that you know. A few of us, you know about. Most of us, you don’t. Many of us would like to be honest with you but fear your rejection. We hide our identity for our own protection. We are agnostic, Catholic, Baptist, Jewish, Muslim, Taoist and atheist. We are Republican, Democratic and non political. We are single and we are mar ried (perhaps previously in a straigli relationship, perhaps now in a p relationship). We are children to out parents. We are parents to our chi? dren. We are scientists, politicians, art' ists, military personnel, programmers religious figures, poets and blue-collar workers. We are white, brown anti black. We are American, Oriental, In dian, African, Hispanic and European More than anything else, however, we are people who want the saint things out of our lives that you want out of yours. We ask for the equal op portunity to pursue happiness in our lives, perhaps in a loving, adult relationship. We fight for decriminal' zation in states that have laws against certain sexual acts, laws that many hen erosexual couples may violate also. You already know us as your friends, just not as your gay friends Think of that fact before you blithe! condemn us as the misfits and throt* aways so often depicted by Hollywood We are as diverse as any group of peo ple can be. We merely ask that you accept usi we are. Terry Walker is a junior philosc- phy major and President of Gay Stii dent Services. This column was ar companied by 31 signatures.