Update#2: Get Out!
Well, it's pretty much official. UWO is a school of lacklustre conservatives...or are some of us just prudes? The kiss-in that QWO had scheduled for Tuesday has been "indefinately postponed" by the organization's president due to a sudden surge of online objection. A bunch of Guest Users and a few Registered Users flooded the QWO forums with posts objecting to the now-postponed PDA event. They claim that the QWO is not fulfilling its responsibility to represent its members.

They argue that arousing the phobic feelings of Western's haters must be avoided in order to gain their acceptance. Which I feel is a ridiculous stance. What kind of acceptance are these people willing to settle for? One that is filled with unfair stipulations and a greasy not-withstanding clause? How do they expect to accomplish anything if they are so worried about stepping on toes? Kiss-ins are not the orgies that some people imagine them into. They are, however, certain to offend a few people (individuals generally referred to as bigots). But maybe these are the people that need to be offended. Stretch their minds a little, acclimatize them. Get them thinking about things in way that has evolved since the 1970s.

Kiss-ins are a useful and potentially fun option in a political life. I think that the event has the potential to do two important things for our university: 1) put a spotlight on homophobic sentiments or actions that might flare up, hopefully leading to closer examination by the school press, administration, and student body; and 2) it would establish a stronger queer presence on campus (which isn't setting the bar all that high, considering there is virtually no queer presence today anyway). PDAs are common political activities. They are non-distructive and, obviously, non-violent.

A university should be awash in such progressive demonstrations and activism. Why is Western such an apathetic campus? Why is it that our student body only mobilizes itself in order to quell the prospect of real political action? The Gazette could focus an interesting investigative series on the situation, but the idea will probably never get beyond the conditional because it might, for Western, get too confrontational, too radical. Too Political.
- posted by K. @ 11:48 p.m. |


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