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The GW Hatchet

AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Officials name senior vice president, chief of staff
By Fiona Riley, Assistant News Editor • March 26, 2024

CRs alienate diverse GW community

This past weekend the GW College Republicans attended a function that could serve to alienate themselves from the rest of the GW community.

They showed their support for Republican candidates by attending a convention for one of the most extreme and bigoted organizations in America.

The Christian Coalition celebrated its 10th year at its convention this past weekend. Although I did not attend, I am certain Pat Robertson had some bold remarks to express about the state of affairs in America. I cannot believe that 100 reasonably intelligent GW students would take this man’s comments seriously. Throughout Pat Robertson’s career he has repeatedly criticized and condemned others with different religious beliefs.

Robertson has insulted this country further by advocating an understanding of America as merely a land of self-governing Christians, a conclusion that excludes many other citizens. His organization repeatedly displays its hatred for homosexuals, condemning them as an immoral scourge of society. Pat Robertson is a dangerous person, and a person who differs with the very diversity that strengthens not only the American perspective, but the GW community.

It is terrible that the GW College Republicans and so many Republican candidates legitimized the event with their attendance. What I find truly inappropriate is that Elizabeth Dole supported the idea that the Ten Commandments should be on the walls of our public schools. In addition, she advocated an institutionalized moment of silence for prayer in public schools.

School should never be turned into a forum for a state that embodies free society to advocate its de facto state religion. Not only is it unconstitutional, but it is offensive and insulting to the people in a plethora of faiths who do not call themselves Christians. This point of view should offend Christians as well, because it only serves to cheapen their peaceful faith with political pettiness and bigotry.

America is not a Christians-only club. It is a land of many faiths and many different kinds of people. I take serious offense at the glorification of this awful event in The Hatchet. The path to harmony in America is through appreciation of our differences, not through forced socially constructed “values” that teach us there is but one right way to worship and live. It is not moral to inspire division and hatred of other people nor to be the willing followers of leaders who would seek to destroy the progress we have made as a nation that strives for social tolerance.

It is my hope that the GW College Republicans exercise some moral judgment before doing something again that would so insult the diverse student body of The George Washington University.

-The writer is a sophomore majoring in political science and philosophy.

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