by Nicholas Boyd | Hating conservatives helps get them elected!
Tufts Republicans frayed leftists’ nerves when they recently ventured into uncharted territory: the club invited guests with the audacity to suggest that homosexual behavior brings with it an array of health risks and that its cause may be psychological, not acquired at birth.
Not surprisingly, for some this viewpoint was too much to bear on a campus accustomed to pronouncing innovative variations of “gay” and learning from chalking that inanimate objects around campus subscribe to a any one of a dozen genders.
Tufts welcomed the return of the long-ignored side of the homosexuality debate with talk of a special forum to address hurt feelings, an advertisement to list whose feelings were hurt, a University petition slandering the club for ignoring people’s feelings, a selection of Viewpoints more closely describing the ways in which feelings were hurt, and threats against conservatives who, logic suggests, must have no feelings. Above all, the Republicans were promoting “bigotry” and “homophobia.”
The message is clear: Tufts liberals don’t want exposure to “antiquated,” “hateful,” and “uneducated” opinions. As it turns out, this is great news for conservatives. Zooming out from Tufts for a moment, one recalls a special type of poll conducted recently, referred to primarily by those who accept its results as an election. It showed an impressive majority of Americans expressing their support for President Bush and his generally conservative agenda. Additional polling revealed that most of these voters were motivated by concerns about gay marriage, abortion, and similar moral issues.
This leaves the coasts, including Tufts, rife with perplexed liberal columnists and commentators desperately seeking explanation and insight into the motivation and reasoning that prevailed in the heads of fly-over country America, or “Bush Country.” Liberals want to know why they lost, and though this is the first step to recovery, it is as far as they will get. For beyond their curiosity lies a truth so painful they will either refuse to listen to it or deny it altogether.
Understanding Bush Country means listening to speakers with whom one disagrees, not denouncing them for their bigotry. Understanding Bush Country means not dismissing religiously motivated voters as “ignorant hicks.” And winning an election requires understanding Bush Country.
The prospects for Tufts students, a reliably Democratic block, appear bleak, as they have been conditioned to support the elimination of dissident views. The Bias Response Team works to counter and publicize incidents of “bias,” many of which conservatives would agree are deplorable, but some of which ultimately amount to little more than somewhat vulgar expressions inconsistent with liberal ideology.
In the feel-good, do-as-you-please environment liberals have created at Tufts there is no room for a discussion about the merits or even dangers inherent in some lifestyle choices. It therefore surprised no astute observer of the Tufts campus when, for example, shortly after the Republicans’ lecture a petition and draft Daily advertisement accusing the Republicans of promoting bigotry and homophobia began circulating by e-mail. Quoting the very sources that were discredited in the lecture, the ad attempted to “debunk” the arguments made, while offering recipients the chance to add their names in classic “not in our name” fashion.
What ought to worry students is the University’s involvement in this effort. The Pachyderm tells us “the university will strive to uphold the right of a campus organization to invite speakers or hold programs, even controversial ones, and to hold them without disruption.” Yet, the Bias Response Team, operating out of the Dean of Students Office, took the lead in organizing and distributing the e-mail petition in question.
The appalling hypocrisy in play is stunning and suggests the University’s rules are simply applied in concert with school administrators’ personal beliefs and preferences. University action to condemn difference of opinion and those involved in it intimidates others from following in their paths. Whether it is an intentional side effect or the actual objective, it is a dangerous and undesirable omen.
Shortly after the initial e-mail circulation, a final version of the petition went to print in the form of an advertisement in The Tufts Daily. Featuring toned down language but stronger reference to the Republicans, it became unclear whether the University stayed its course or considered the implications of its involvement and handed the project off to a separate campus group. Irrespectively, the administrator and faculty names listed were many, and one can only assume most signed on to the originally-worded and highly slanderous version.
The Tufts Republicans expected, but were not seeking an immature reaction to their lecture on homosexuality. Whiny, liberal Tufts activists proved they have not yet finished digging their political graves. Not all Bush voters would have agreed with the Republicans’ lecture—but most would have given its contents due consideration. This is much more than can be said of this University, where no act of dissent against left-wing activism goes unpunished or un-“corrected,” and where the administration is all too eager to lend a helping hand in smearing conservatives.
The upside to all this: So long as liberals can’t tolerate the small minority of conservatives at Tufts, they have no prospect of coming to terms with or garnering the support of a growing majority of like-minded Americans.
Mr. Boyd is a junior majoring in Political Science and Economics.
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