Posted by
The Conservative Manifesto on Tuesday, September 25, 2007 1:43:17 AM
Texas Rainmaker makes a
great point in his post entitled "Irony of the Day."
Columbia University continues to ban the U.S. military Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) from campus because "the U.S. military remains closed to openly gay personnel."
But the same Columbia University is hosting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose country executes homosexuals.
I
asked a staunch liberal cohort of mine her thoughts on this irony. She
told me that she sees it as two separate issues; Ahmadinejad's case is
one of free speech, where as the case of military representation on
campus is about not allowing gays to serve.
Interesting.
I,
however, see these issues as quite similar. The University in essence
refuses to allow ROTC on campus because the US military is an
organization that actively discriminates against open homosexuals who
wish to serve - or who wish to come out while serving.
Institutionalized discrimination, one could call it.
Iran, as we know, is a nation with a government that actively discriminates against - and worse,
executes
- open homosexuals who wish to do nothing more than live. As a nation's
government is also an institution, one could also call this
institutionalized discrimination.
There-in-lies Columbia University's double standard.
Am I wrong?