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| Debate on Columbia bill
surprises authors |
David Forbes
SGA Beat
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Members
of the Student Government Association passed a proclamation remembering
the victims of the Columbia space shuttle tragedy Tuesday, after
an amount of debate that surprised the bill’s authors.
The proclamation passed 46-2 with four senators abstaining.
“On this bill I’ve gotten a lot of e-mails, I’ve
gotten grilled on things I’ve never been grilled on before.
All this bill seeks to do is honor the lives lost in the Columbia
disaster,” off-campus senator Justin W. Moore, one of the authors
of the bill, said.
The bill’s proponents cited the bravery of the astronauts and
asserted the experiments they were doing benefited all humankind.
“It might be the American space program, but the world participates
in it; the experiments benefited everyone,” Moore said.
“Although other countries didn’t have astronauts on the
mission, other agencies that participated included the European,
Canadian and Japanese space agencies. Other nations involved included
Australia, China, and Liechtenstein,” Christian H. Greve, senator
from Justice Residence Hall and one of the authors of the bill,
said.
The objections to the bill centered around some of its language,
and views on the space program.
“I don’t like that the astronauts died or anything, but
two places in the bill I think the language is sexist because it
says ‘mankind;’ that’s saying half of the Appalachian
students who are non-male aren’t important,” Nathan A.
Winkler, a non-senator who spoke at the meeting, said.
“Innocent life just doesn’t include the astronauts, it
includes the 100 Iraqi children who die every day from starvation,
or the 3,700 civilians who died in Afghanistan,” Sarah L. Hall,
senator from Mountaineer Apartments and one of the only senators
to vote against the bill, said. “The astronauts died on the
space shuttle, but that risk was part of their job, are we to write
legislation every time a truck driver dies doing their job?”
“This is absurd. Certain people are using this as a political
motivation for something else,” Aaron Whitener, one of the
bill’s authors, said in response to the objections. “All
it is for is a memorial to people who died in service not just to
our nation, but to the world. I can’t believe, personally,
that someone could compare astronauts, on a mission, to a truck
driver.”
“This was not meant to be political; it was just meant to honor
the people who have died as part of the disaster. If you want to
write legislation honoring Iraqis or Afghanis who died, then do
so.” |
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