Chick-fil-A serves up homophobia

Many GW students and faculty eat at
the Chick-fil-A in J Street, unaware of the restaurant chain’s deep ties to anti-gay organizations.

Chick-fil-A has, in the past, partnered with such homophobic groups as Focus on the Family, the National Organization for Marriage, the Family Research Council and Exodus International; these are some of the most infamously anti-gay organizations in the country, pillars of the protect-marriage movement, and all of them have direct ties to Chick-fil-A.

Additionally, Chick-fil-A’s WinShape Foundation expressly states that it does not allow gay couples to use its facilities.

Chick-fil-A’s profound homophobia – to the point of blatant discrimination – could not be made any clearer. And it is operating in our school, and profiting off our students.

In light of Chick-fil-A’s long history of anti-gay behavior and deep ties to other anti-gay groups, I strongly urge all students and faculty to boycott Chick-fil-A indefinitely. I further call on University President Steven Knapp and the GW Student Association to eliminate Chick-Fil-A from J Street and replace it with another Sodexo-partnered institution. Such a radical organization should not be getting a single dollar from the tolerant, accepting community of GW.

Removing Chick-fil-A from J Street will show the entire country that ours is a school that supports all of its students and faculty, including those who are LGBT.

Alexander Laska is a junior majoring in political communication

Men can be attractive without being jerks

The Hatchet can’t seem to get sex right. Whether it’s a scandal about Shark Week or a misshapen theory hypothesizing the attractiveness of the “dickish man,” there’s neither foresight nor editorial oversight about the quality of information published. Let me offer a counter-perspective to the “Gotham City Theory,” one that is grounded in common sense, practice and rationality.

In the 1990s, the Seduction Community, an underground group of men interested in developing and sharing methods for picking up women, postulated that attraction is not a choice. It developed models based on statistical collection for attracting women based on this first principle, utilizing bio-psycho-social theories to explain how attraction functions.

Is douchebaggery attractive? I’ll concede to the Gotham City Theory that part of the answer is yes. The answer, however, is also no. Through bio-psycho-social reasoning the pickup gurus discovered that women possess attraction switches, and by flipping or activating these switches women will inevitably be attracted. These switches include: alpha male/leader of men characteristics, social competence, pre-approval by other females, confidence, playful and cocky humor, touch and the demonstration of loyalty and protection to loved ones.

An outspoken, “dickish” male can flip a number of these switches simultaneously: He is courageous to put himself above other men. He is socially competent, and remains unaffected when a gripy female tries to make him jump through her hoops. He is often touchy. But most of all, he is the leader of men, being the one that directs the social interaction and shuts other men down.

These are all very attractive qualities. But we, as males, shouldn’t underestimate women. People are smart enough to figure out what’s bad for them. While that same dickish character might be good for a lay, he’s bad to keep around. Instead of blaming other males for being the cause of our not getting sex, let’s stop playing the blame game. As males, let’s improve our own pickup, practicing all the attraction switches whilst keeping a positive vibe. Let’s take responsibility, learn how to be attractive men, and give women the dynamic sexual adventure they crave. We can do it without becoming douchebags in the process. And, in the future, let’s expect The Hatchet to put greater efforts into providing quality sex articles. Because, like bad sex, bad sex articles aren’t worth our time.

Patrick M. Rawson is a freshman majoring in international affairs.

Changing JEC rules to smooth the SA election

There are many reasons the Student Association Senate has decided to take away the power of filing complaints from the elections officers and Joint Elections Committee members.

Excessive violations and overly rigid enforcement of campaign rules have turned students against the SA and the election process as a whole. It has been the SA Senate’s effort to change the role of the JEC from judge, jury and executioner to one of a group that monitors the integrity of SA elections while affecting day-to-day student life as little as possible.

The JEC filed 102 of the 140 complaints last year. The SA Senate feels that while at the time it was indeed its duty to do so, we believe the elections are better served removing the organization from the complaint filing process. This will reduce the number of silly violations that were filed in the last few years. If there are any egregious violations, particularly ones that affect day-to-day student life or the functioning of competing campaigns, there are mechanisms in place that allow any student or opposing candidate to file with the JEC.

Last year, a specific candidate and his witnesses had to go to a violation hearing because he was found guilty by a JEC committee member for not having a campaign team member place a name tag on his back right shoulder while hanging posters nearly alone on the Vern. Cases like these are just a nuisance for everyone involved. Clearly this incident had zero effect on the election results, and having to interrupt the lives of students to pull them in as witnesses to testify on these accounts is ridiculous. If a student feels that the election process is infringing upon his or her rights or privacy, he or she has the power to file a complaint. Fewer trivial violation hearings will lead to a more respectable process that will help both candidates and the wider student body.

The SA Constitution doesn’t say the JEC can “file” complaints, but rather that it can “act upon” complaints (Article V, Section 1). If the framers wanted to explicitly protect the right of the JEC to file complaints, they would have put it in plain language. The term “violation” in the SA Constitution should be interpreted as meaning, “a finding of fact in which a candidate is officially determined to have broken a rule,” and “act upon” is restricted in that sense to assessing penalties when violations are found. The SA Senate looks forward to the JEC serving as an impartial judge of the violations filed this year.

I understand that there are concerns with the fact that currently only JEC members have access to financial expenditure complaints, considering the reports are not open to the public. At our SA Rules Committee meeting Tuesday we plan to pass an amendment to the charter that will allow financial expenditure reports to be open to the public. This will make it so that if a candidate is in fact exceeding his or her budget it will be public knowledge, and a student will be able to file a violation against that candidate.

In the end we all have the same goal – to allow for the most fair and smooth election process.

Amanda Galonek sophomore in CCAS, is the SA Senate Rules Committee chair.

JEC restrictions will allow for unchecked corruption

I write this letter out of disgust and disappointment in the so-called student leaders of the Student Association Senate. After reading their comments from this past week’s SA Senate meeting in The Hatchet and hearing first-hand accounts from those in attendance, I felt compelled to reply to their patently false claims about the Joint Elections Committee and the election process for the SA.

I’ve twice served as a member of the JEC, overseeing elections that involved incredibly competitive races, difficult decisions and record voter turnout. The claims that the JEC has abused the power granted to it in the SA Constitution are not only false, but offensive to those of us who served on the committee. If any of the senators can name one instance in their GW careers where the JEC was proven to have abused its power in any way, I invite them to publicly do so. The fact is, they will not be able to.

There have been very few instances in which JEC decisions were appealed to the student court and every single time the decisions went to appeal, the court ruled in favor of the JEC. Other than claims that came from bitter candidates who refused to take responsibility for their actions and follow the simple rules laid out for them, there never has been nor will there ever be evidence of abuse of power by the JEC in the past two years.

The power to draft campaign rules is the responsibility of the JEC and not the SA Senate, for a very clear reason. When you have senators who feel the need to go into an executive session to debate rule changes they shouldn’t even be making in the first place, it’s fairly obvious they are not acting in a forthright and honest manner.

The SA Senate passed rules that make unsolicited electronic communication legal, and campaigning before the campaign period legal. They are infringing upon the rights of students to be involved in the election simply because they choose to be members or staffers of the JEC. These rules are self-serving, draconian and most importantly, they go against the SA Constitution.

I do not stand proud of the fact that I helped perpetuate the SA’s ego for the past two years. What I do stand proud of is doing the job I was asked to do with competence, dignity and honor, and I don’t take kindly to my reputation being attacked by what amount to be overzealous wanna-be politicians. Do what you want amongst yourselves but don’t attack other people for doing the job your organization asked them to do.

Tom Luley an alumnus, was the 2010 vice chair of the Joint Election Committee.