by Sophie Nye
Last Tuesday evening in South Lounge, the new student group Student Campaign for Increased Political Engagement (SCIPE) hosted a debate on whether or not the U.S. Constitution should be amended to define marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman.
SCIPE invited Dr. Mike Hartwig and Bo Shuff to campus to debate the pros and cons of the issue. Hartwig of the Iowa Family Policy Center came to support the amendment. Shuff of the Human Rights Campaign argued the opposition.
“Gay marriage is a big topic right now,” said Renata Sancken ‘07, a member of SCIPE, “and because this is Grinnell, we don’t often times get the conservative viewpoint.”
During the debate, Hartwig argued that the amendment addresses a public health issue as well as a protective measure against cultural degeneration. “We are opening a Pandora’s Box by allowing same-sex marriage,” he said, alluding to what he purported to be the ground work for future struggles to condone pedophilia, polygamy and polyandry.
Hartwig cited statistics that showed that gay men have higher rates of HIV than do their heterosexual counterparts. Homosexual men and women also have higher rates of cancer and of smoking and drinking, he said, and lower life expectancies across the board.
Shuff began his address to the audience by restating the question. “Should the U.S. Constitution be amended to define marriage as exclusively between one man and one woman?” he asked. “No,” he stated flatly. He paused for a moment to let the simplicity of his answer sink in before adding, “Now I have nine and a half more minutes to elaborate.”
“This is not a public health debate,” Shuff asserted, “This is a civil rights debate.” He addressed Hartwig’s Pandora’s box by naming it a “fictitious slippery slope in pedophilia and polygamy.” He talked instead about what he thought was a much more real slippery slope into the erosion of civil rights by amending the constitution.
The reaction of the audience was lively and divided. The turnout was large and there were a number of town members and faculty in the audience as well as students.
The goal of the founders of SCIPE is to increase student involvement in politics. “What we really are hoping to do is get people to vote, to realize the positions of their representatives, and to get involved,” Sancken said after the debate. “We’re hoping that both sides will realize that this is important on a level that affects you.”
Engagement in the issues was the big theme of the night. “I often say to people, ‘If you want to get married,’” Shuff quipped, “‘you’ve got to get engaged.’”
Dr. Mike Hartwig is an ordained minister and has served as both an Associate and Senior Pastor. He currently serves as Executive Director of Marriage Matters.
Bo Shuff works with the Human Rights Campaign as the Central Region field organizer. Before joining the HRC, he served as the gay, lebian, bisexual and transgender outreach coordinator for the Iowa Democratic Party.
—information from SCIPE
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