t h e o f f i c i a l s t u d e n t n e w s pa p e r o f t h e u n i v e r s i t y o f h o u s to n s i n c e 1 9 3 4
THE DAILY COUGAR
®
GET SOME DAILY
thedailycougar.com
63 LO 47 Thursday HI
Owls hand Cougars another loss, get the best of cross-town rivals SGA
Deadline to run for student government: 2:30 p.m. Friday The registration deadline to be a candidate in the Student Government Association elections is 2:30 p.m. Friday. Any student with a GPA of 2.0 or higher is eligible to run and can turn in their application at the SGA Election Commission Office in University Center Underground room 95. “Anybody can run for SGA,” said Arsalan Razakazi, who is the senior election commissioner. “If you are enrolled in the University of Houston, you are a part of SGA because you have a vote.” — Cougar News Services
EVENT SERIES
UH, Rice collaborate to host poets’ off-campus reading The first event in UH and Rice University’s collaborative Visiting Writers series will feature a talk by poets Mark Halliday and J. Allyn Rosser at 4 p.m today. in the Graduate Student Library of the Roy Cullen Building, followed by a reading by the writers at 8 p.m. at the Jung Center. Halliday and Rosser are also published authors who teach at Ohio University. The Visiting Writers Series is curated by English professors Kevin Prufer and Ange Mlinko of UH, and Joseph Campana of Rice. Their goal is to make national and international prominent writers more accessible to young writers, said UH officials. For more information, contact Kevin Prufer at kdp8106@yahoo. com or (660) 441-7044. — Annette Santos
CREATIVE WRITING
Grad students’ work to be showcased in bookstore UH graduate students will be featured in the Gulf Coast Reading Series’ next event at 7 p.m. Friday in the Brazos Bookstore. Creative writing students Sam Amadon, Liz Countryman and Thea Lim have had work published. Gulf Coast, A Journal of Literature and Fine Art, is the result of a partnership between UH’s Creative Writing Program, the Museum of Fine Arts-Houston and the Menil Collection. Students wishing to attend can find the Brazos Bookstore at 2421 Bissonnet St. — Cougar News Services
February 9, 2012
Houston opens its doors for Two Door
Issue 72, Volume 77
STUDENT GOVERNMENT
Students: voting was unfair Senators at bi-weekly meeting were met with complaints from athletics referendum opposition Audris Ponce
THE DAILY COUGAR Students voiced their concerns about the way voting during the athletics-fee referendum was handled in Wednesday’s Student Government Association meeting at the Rockwell Pavilion.
Three UH students, including biology and French senior Dustin Phipps, felt the atmosphere on voting day for the referendum was biased and unfair. “When I showed up to the polling places, I saw folks passing out propaganda right next to the ballots,” Phipps said. He added that the flyers handed to the students did not disclose all of the facts of the referendum and only included messages for them to vote “yes.” “Nowhere did it include that it would be $100.” Phipps said. “Tell me how that is an election conducted in good faith?”
Journalism senior Carl Gibson said he previously worked for elections in Houston, and the manner in which voting was handled on campus did not meet the same standards. “I was shocked that people were handing out fliers near the ballots,” Gibson said. “For anything related to the candidate, we have to do it across the street to not sway voters.” Gibson said that making students pay the $50 each semester makes it tougher for those who are already facing economic hardships. SGA continues on page 3
LAW CENTER
Debate tackles marriage definition Lawyer, organization founder square off over same-sex unions Jose Aguilar
THE DAILY COUGAR As the US Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals was preparing to hand over its decision on California’s Proposition VIII, two people on opposing sides of the gay marriage issue went head-to-head Tuesday inside the University of Houston Law Center. The debate, “Defining Marriage,” was sponsored by Outlaw and the Federalist Society at UH — organizations which support liberals and the gay and lesbian community. In an email to The Daily Cougar, representatives of the Federalist Society said that although the Society is composed of conservatives and libertarians, it hosts debates on a variety of issues in order to address both sides of the conservative and liberal arguments. “The best legal minds are sharpened by full debate on important subjects, but the conservative message is often mischaracterized or completely ignored in law school classrooms,” said Marcella Burke,
Houston attorney Mitchell Katine argued gay marriage is an issue of equality in Tuesday’s debate. | Courtesy of Jessica Faz/UH Law Center vice president of the UH chapter of the Federalist Society who also served as the moderator. “So we host debates so that law students can be exposed to rigorous and dynamic analysis of both sides of complex legal issues.” Houston attorney Mitchell Katine, local counsel in Lawrence v. Texas — the landmark Supreme Court case that overturned sodomy laws in the US in 2003 — presented his case for legalizing gay marriage. Jennifer Morse, founder of the Ruth Institute, a project of the National Organization for Marriage Education Fund, presented her case on maintaining traditional marriage. Morse opened the debate by presenting a case that focused on defining marriage as a “prepolitical naturally occurring reality that can be defended with rational arguments.” Morse discussed the public and
private purposes of children as a major factor of marriage — stating that the primary purpose is to attach the mother and father to each other and their children. “Same-sex couples and opposite-sex couples are situated differently with respect to this purpose,” Morse said. In the 2010 decision by US District Court Judge Vaughn Walker that first struck down Proposition VIII, the purpose making children had to be removed to make marriage a gender-neutral institution, Morse said. This gender-neutrality results, Morse said, in biology not being the “normal” and default factor that determines paternity. Presumption of paternity is now being replaced by a presumption of parentage, which is another gender-neutral concept. Morse closed by stating marriage is “something that belongs to
In a top research university, we should be open to hearing different opinions from our own and keep an open mind, so students can learn and grow throughout their time at UH.” Beverly McPhail, on the importance of seeing both sides of an argument the people, and something that is created prior to the state and that the state has no right to interfere with.” Katine opened his argument by stating that many people never imagined having the opportunity to marry their partners, but that society and the law are moving quickly. MARRIAGE continues on page 2