The rampant bickering, degree of anger and absurdity of some of the debate at last Tuesday’s Student Government Association meeting were a disgrace to the body and call into question the ability of SGA to represent the students’ interests.
    Two issues were in question.
    First, whether or not SGA should endorse a moratorium of the death penalty, and secondly, a proclamation remembering the victims of the Columbia space shuttle disaster.
    Neither issue directly affected the student body. In and of itself, this was not a problem. The problem was how bitter and angry the attacks got on the moratorium issue and the disgusting absurdity in the debate on the Columbia remembrance proclamation.
    It would be nice to see SGA get so angry with issues that actually do have a direct effect on students.
    Before the meeting, opponents of the moratorium passed out a flier reading, “Send a message to admitted rapist murders like Daniel Lee, Vote No on the moratorium.” Lee currently sits on death row for the 1989 brutal rape and murder of Appalachian State University Student Jeni Gray.
    Characterizing the other side of the debate as not punishing rapist murderers enough is a pretty low tactic, and things didn’t get any better from there.
    Two senators got into an argument about a personal matter and had to be brought to order by Vice President Ezell P. Williams.
    Williams, to her credit, kept order well considering how angry many of the senators got during the meeting, limiting each to one-minute speaking time and cutting them off when personal attacks came up.
    As angry and bitter as the debate was on the moratorium, it was to some degree understandable. While both sides should have kept their emotions under better control, there was cause for legitimate debate about the issue.
    What happened in the debate about the Columbia disaster proclamation was far less excusable.
    In a better world, the passage of the proclamation would have been a formality, a gesture showing that despite whatever political and personal differences they might have, SGA members could agree to remember those killed in a national tragedy.
    Instead it became a forum for some of the most absurd statements made this year in SGA senate.
    Nathan A. Winkler’s politically correct nitpicking over the inclusion of the word “mankind” in the bill as being biased toward women and senator Sarah L. Hall’s morally disgusting statement equating the dead astronauts to truck drivers were so ridiculous they had to be heard to be believed.
    Coming on the heels of SGA’s failure to organize effectively against the administration’s athletic plan, the lack of self-control and the absurd statements made in the senate meeting raise some serious questions.
    Senators need to start looking at themselves and the organization and question how, if at all, they are working for student interests on campus.