Newspapers / University of North Carolina … / Oct. 25, 2016, edition 1 / Page 3
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THEBLUEBANNER.NET OCT. 25,2016 3 Ikiesday 8:15 p.m. Religion and the Queer Com*munity Humanities Lecture Hall Wednesday 4:30 p.m. Open Mic Night Highmith Union Grotto 8 p.m. SEC Film Screening Karpen Hall Lobby Thursday 11 a.m. 2016 FallJob and Graduate School Fair Sherrill Center Mountain View Room Noon Live at Lunch Series Highsmith Union Grotto 4 p.m. Refugees in Crisis: From Texas to Turkey Karpen Hall Laurel Forum 12:30 p.m. Live at Lunch Series Highsmith Union Grotto 8 p.m. Movie: Crimson Peak Highsmith Union Grotto Friday 9 a.m. African American in WNC Conference Sherrill Center Mountain View Room Saturday 8 p.m. Movie: The Witch Highsmith Union Grotto Campus faith group establishes new policy, students angered BAILEY WORKMAN News Staff Writer bworkman@unca.edu Savannah Purdy, a senior so ciology student from Hickory, participated with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship since her freshman year, rising through the ranks from member to small group leader to outreach coor dinator, but a recent change in policy leaves her feeling uneasy. According to InterVarsity, the organization asks employees who disagree with the their po sitions on issues such as human sexuality to come forward for termination. “I’m really upset about it. Kind of " like I said, we’re an interdenomina tional group. And as far as my ex perience and my understanding, it’s been a space that people are coming from all different back grounds and denominations and people have different ideas and opinions on things,” Purdy said. “And that’s something I really appreciated, that you can have open discussion and things.” Purdy said the aim of the group is to be a space where anyone, whether a lifelong Christian or just a curious in Purdy dividual, can come to build community and learn more. She along. with many others were unaware of the policy until re cently and were not happy to find out. If It's an unspoken rule that if you're a queer person who works for this organization, you risk losing your job if you talk about existing. Mason Logan “The students didn’t know what was going on. This whole conversation, it was all Inter Varsity staff, and the students had no idea. So we were kind of blindsided. We were completely blindsided by the Time article,” Purdy said. “And so a lot of us are really upset about it. I’m up set about it, just because I feel like it puts up a barrier to loving people.” According to the InterVar sity website, the organization . has 1,011 chapters across 667 campuses, with focus outreach- es such as Greek life and inter national student outreach pro grams. Mason Logan, president of Alliance at UNCA, said he thinks the policy change is un fair because the group serves a university. “One, that’s kind of a prob lem in it’s own because these people are supposed to be ser vicing a university,” Logan said. “And the idea that a university would be having a group doing things that, for any other pur pose, would constitute a Title IX violation is in and of itself a huge problem.” Sarah Walker, a sophomore from Tallahassee, said while she does not agree with the message the decision puts across, Inter Varsity has the right to discrimi nate, but this ordeal provides an opportunity for growth. “InterVarsity’s decision to fire anyone whose set of Chris tian values doesn’t align with theirs isn’t shocking or illegal, but it does put the organization in the spotlight,” Walker said. “Liberal college campuses and a new generation of Christians now have an opportunity to dis tance themselves from groups like InterVarsity to celebrate an inclusive and truly more Chris tian faith.” Logan said he thinks this will affect the company’s LGBTQ-h workers, who might be uncom fortable with the new policy. “On top of that, I think there’s a huge problem that goes under stated in issues like this where, when groups set policies in this way, it kind of sets a tone where no queer people want to work for them,” Logan said. “It’s an unspoken rule that if you’re a queer person who works for this organization, you risk losing your job if you talk about exist ing.” Purdy said InterVarsity is not specifically searching for peo ple to fire, but rather is encour aging staff to step forward on their own. “From my understanding and talking with the staff member associated with our campus, staff members who disagree with the position that Intervarsi ty has taken are asked to volun tarily come forward and say T disagree’ and then leave,” Purdy said. “So it’s not like people are going to be ratting one another out.” Purdy added the policy change will affect how the orga nization and those who partici pate in it are perceived. She is worried about the association, even though those she knows Continued on page 16 Students debate the validity of voting for third-party candidates CODY JONES News Staff Writer cjones7@unca.edu Voting for third-party candi dates can send a message to the two major political parties, but that message could have nega tive consequences. “I think of ‘protest voting’ or ‘sincere voting’ as voting for the candidate that you think should win the election whether or not they’re a major-party candi date,” said Ashley Moraguez, an assistant professor of polit ical science at UNC Asheville. “If enough people do it, I think it could cause the major parties to adopt new issues or shift their platform. So I think there is an effective argument to be made for protest voting or sincere vot ing.” Moraguez said if this choice is carried out in significant numbers it could result in an undesirable outcome for those voters. “But you have to recognize that if you do it, because we have such a strong bias toward the two-party system in the United States, that it may be at the cost of you not getting the person that you like the most elected into office,” Moraguez said. “It’s a very personal choice and you have to gauge the risk. A lot of people think one vote doesn’t matter, but if everyone has the same calculus as you, it could matter.” Moraguez said the U.S. fa vors a two-party system because of Duverger’s law. The law states when there is an electoral system with single-member dis tricts, where each voting district has one representative and when there is plurality, or majority rules, then the representative with the most votes wins. “That’s why we don’t have multiple parties in the United States like Europe does, because they have a different electoral system,” Moraguez said. “So for that reason, I tend to think that in the general election, it does make more sense to vote for one of the two major-party candidates. It’s very unlikely a third-party candidate will win because of how our electoral system is set up.” “That being said, I do think that voting sincerely could send a signal to the parties and isn’t a wasted vote,” Moraguez said. “We still see a lot of Bemie supporters who are saying they may not turn out to vote, which, in my opinion, is the incorrect way, only because the party will only receive your signal if you vote.” Caitlin Poteet, a junior ac counting student from Candler, Continued on page 16
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