There is no reason to infer that the LGBT community is anything but a group of people looking to obtain and preserve civil rights and protections for their families.

I understand where you’re coming from, but I would encourage you to re-read the last few lines of Dr. Dana’s speech and think of what he said not in terms of the same-sex marriage issue, but of any other political issue.

Suppose Dr Dana or President Kennedy said that people who opposed the war in Iraq were unpatriotic, or that people who supported a public health care option were marxists, and that “there was no room here” at UMaine for unpatriotic marxists, and furthermore that “the university is committed” to not tolerating them.

Of course they would have a right to hold those opinions and express them – however to state those views as a representative of the university administration, and to frame it as something to which “the university is committed,” represents that personal opinion as the university’s opinion and, when taken in context, has suppressive effect – especially when the opposing view is an extreme minority. And I think that is inappropriate, regardless of whether the underlying issue is same-sex marriage or health care.

Of course I was not arguing that UMaine has a formal program to eradicate the yes on 1 view – in that case I would have argued that Dr. Dana and UMaine were violating the first amendment (and in such a case they almost certainly would be), and not just that Dr. Dana acted inappropriately. There is huge difference between the two.

I have no problem with the more inflammatory remarks by UMaine students – actually I think that it is great and should be allowed. The issue isn’t just the content of the remarks, it is who is saying them, the context in which they are said, and the effect that has on the open dialog on campus.

You should probably stake out your position more carefully before you call for the Dean’s resignation. Dr. Dana was expressing his opinion and rebuking hate and intolerance on campus. This is no way suppressed anyone’s rights.

What’s more I’d say your being hasty by referring to ‘homosexual elites’ and all that. An examination by a rational person of the state of political affairs in this country will reveal that there is no conspiracy of the GLBT community to destroy the moral fabric of this society. I would urge you not to give in to conspiracy models of explanation, as any explanation of a state of affairs in the world is fruitless if either far fetched or miraculous.

With all due respect, this is not Nero’s court and Dean Dana is not Petronius.

I urge students to speak out against this cretin.

Thanks for the input.

The opinion article was either about Dean Dana’s supposed inhibition of public dialogue via his comments or that his comments indicated a change in University policy. I’ll reiterate the logical conclusion regarding the former: his remarks, themselves, in no way inhibited dialog. With regards to the latter: the concluding line regarding ‘official university policy’ is dubious at best and obvious hyperbole at worst. There are no anti-Yes on 1 policies that have been enacted by the University to suppress Yes on 1 voters. Thus, we would agree that both the capacity of Dana’s opinion to repress dialog or the claim that University policy has suppressed Yes on 1 voters are fallacious premises. Therefore, the argument is unsound.

The address, examined in the context of the gathering on the mall, would reveal that there were more inflammatory remarks made prior to the Dean’s speech regarding the Yes on 1 crowd. Dana’s remarks about not tolerating intolerance and the University being no place for hate are more accurately viewed in the context of said remarks as moderate.

You seem to have been confused about my point regarding where sexuality falls with regards to morality. The point of the controversy around same-sex marriage was that there is some sort of moral problem with the institution. Matt discretely acknowledged this was what was being considered when he stated: “…society must be careful not to endorse something that is morally wrong…”. My point was that even if one were to assume for the sake of argument, that same sex marriage was morally reprehensible, it is none of anyone’s business to infringe upon the rights of the gay community.

A gay marriage does not effect straight marriage.

As far as opponents of same-sex marriage viewing this as solely a matter of morality–not one of discrimination–I would say that, to define “traditional marriage” as the only morally acceptable form of marriage is to disparage same-sex marriage as immoral (you essentially said as much when you said society should be careful not endorse something that is immoral).

Immoral or not, same-sex marriage would provide legal rights, so it’s impossible to divorce the “morality” of opposing it from the reality of also discriminating against a group of people.