Ah, it’s that time of year again. The weather chills, the classes drag. People start staying indoors and writing insanely long editorials to the Daily.

And, at about this time of year (every year), someone writes to the Daily with the verbal equivalent of streaking through campus screaming “Gays are bad! Gays are bad! Whee!”

Thus, I showed a lack of surprise at seeing senior Ted Wlazlowski’s (admittedly well put together) argument against homosexuality.

Or, at least, it seemed that’s what it was. Admittedly, most of what was in the editorial was scripture. I promise not to invoke the cliche “Even the Devil can quote scripture,” because … oh “damn,” I just did. Sorry.

It looked to me as if he were trying to prove that gays are sinners. (Naughty sinners, naughty!) But from his tone I think he’s missing a very important tidbit of information.

Not everyone cares what the church, Bible, Koran or whatever says.

“Blasphemer!” you scream.

Let me tell you a little story. Yesterday morning when I got home from lunch, I was surprised to find a pair of my socks dancing on my desk. Really, they were quite cute, rolling themselves up and all … but anyway. As I looked at them, they said in their own special sockish way “‘Ey thar! Didja know Jews are bad?”

“Really?” I replied. After all, I have several Jewish friends and it never occurred to me that they were somehow bad people. But, as the socks explained, all Jews are bad and I must make them feel like outcasts. So, I looked at the socks, bowed in reverence and left for class.

On my way to class, I ran into a Jewish friend of mine. “Hullo!” he said. Remembering what the socks said, I replied “Go away! You’re a Jew!”

For some strange reason, this hurt and upset him. I tried to explain to him that the socks say he’s a bad person and must change, but he wouldn’t listen — which just reinforced my belief about the universal truth of what my socks said.

I kept walking. I ran into a threesome of friends, all of whom were Jewish. I decided not to join them; the socks said they often get in groups and conspire to make the rest of the world Jewish.

Well, I’m on to them now and most certainly won’t be involved in such a thing. Besides, at any moment they could drop to the ground and start chanting some strange Jewish prayer, and the socks know I would never want to witness a perverted thing like that.

Anyway, after class I was eager to get home and share all I’d learned of with my socks. I was saddened to find my boxers had strangled them. “They were getting on my nerves,” my boxers said. The boxers also told me the socks were wrong — Jews are just fine — it’s the blue- eyed people you have to worry about.

Okay, end of satirically funny (well, I think it is) story. To me, you running around campus with church-applied prejudice seems as silly as me running around campus with socks-applied prejudice.

You may say “But God is MUCH more important than your damned socks,” to which I reply “Yes, for you, he is. In fact, I think you’re silly for not dropping your belief about God and worshiping my boxers.”

Getting irritated? Great, now you know how I feel. Who is to say that one is more valid that the other?

My friends, we live in a world with lots of people sharing more beliefs than you permit in your narrow religious universe. It’s most certainly all right for you to believe in all the things that you do, but don’t high-mindedly speak of them as if they apply to the world as a whole.

A bit of perspective is required at all times; armed with this, you will do a much better job of convincing other people of what you believe.

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Ryan McGinnis

Sophomore

English