It’s no secret that university graduates are becoming more intellectually lazy with each passing year. It is also undeniable that they are becoming more arrogant, in spite of the fact that they are less capable of forming solid opinions and defending them with well-reasoned arguments. A letter written to me (by a recent UNC-Wilmington graduate) is illustrative. I've reproduced it below with my usual angry and fearful rhetoric interspersed at appropriate intervals:
Dear Dr. Adams: I was perhaps struck most by the tone of your rhetoric, which was both angry and fearful. (By way of background information, this newly-minted graduate is responding to my column "Purple, Lavender, White and Colored," which was recently published on Townhall).
The opening line of her response is typical of today's college graduate in at least two specific ways. First, there is the tendency to respond to the tone rather than the substance of an argument. Second, there is the tendency to project motives of anger and fear onto others simply because they hold a different opinion. Gone are the days when we evaluated arguments. Today we evaluate emotions. This is particularly the case when sexual orientation is either directly or tangentially related to the topic at hand.
I would like to respond to some of your charges against this ceremony; particularly your claim that it consisted of a “separate graduation” for LGBTQIA students, and also your complaint that it segregates queer and non-queer students. The event was not a graduation at all (a fact that I am hoping you overlooked, rather than intentionally misrepresented). It was a “celebration,” which was detailed in the email you so roundly mocked. Students in attendance received a lavender or purple cord to wear on their graduation day, but did not actually graduate until their respective official dates.
Well that certainly clarifies everything. A graduation is a ceremony where they give you a degree. This is to be distinguished from a celebration where they give you a cord to wear when you get your degree.
This may make things clearer but it also makes them much weirder. The idea that UNCW gives students a chord to wear to graduation (in order to signify that they enjoy sex in non-traditional ways) is just creepy. I wish I had known this before I ran my column. It would have been even funnier. (In other words, it would have been an even angrier and more fearful column).
As to the second concern you raise, I can tell you the ceremony did not exclude any student based on their {sic} heterosexuality. I identify as straight and yet I was still invited, and received a lavender cord which I wore with pride at my graduation ceremony as I received my Master’s Degree in English Literature. I may not be gay, but my cord signifies my support of my fellow transgender, gay, and queer students.
So, let me get this straight, no pun intended (okay, pun intended). If you do not get to wear a gold cord, signifying high grades, you can get a lavender cord to signify that you approve of the way the people wearing purple cords like to have sex. And this is a source of "pride." I always thought getting good grades and earning the gold cord was a legitimate source of pride. But I just can't understand how approving of certain sexual behaviors is an accomplishment that justifies a feeling of "pride." Could it be that these young Leftists think that their political and social opinions are marks of intellectual distinction?
Much of the content you create is intentionally inflammatory, designed to incite outrage against minority campus groups (I notice you didn’t raise objections against the annual Men’s Leadership Summit for excluding women in its subject matter).
Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes once said that every idea is an incitement. In other words, most ideas potentially anger someone regardless of their intent. Much of my content is intended to make people laugh. The fact that some readers become angry isn't my fault. It's a character deficiency on their behalf. It is also a sign of intellectual deficiency. When they say "hate speech" what they really mean is that they hate my speech. The reason they hate it is that it reveals their own sanctimonious hypocrisy.
In fairness, I must concede that my critic is correct about one thing. I did not criticize the Men's Leadership Summit. That's because I've never heard of it. All the university emails I get concern events for women, blacks, Hispanics, and gays. The university only advertises certain segregated events. To repeat, this was the thesis of the column: Certain forms of segregation are approved by the university and others are not. In other words, some animals are more equal than others.
I encourage you to examine our campus for the ways in which inclusivity and diversity are important by talking with students who have benefited from these programs. I do not believe circumstances are as dire as you portray them to be, Dr. Adams. In fact, I think they are better than ever.
I noticed that the LGBTQIA Office sponsored a film that promoted partial birth abortion. I'd like to talk to some of the children who benefited from that kind of diversity and inclusivity but unfortunately I can't. Dismembered babies cannot talk. And they’ll never become students.
Furthermore, if things are better than ever then why are the taxpayers being forced to pay for segregated safe zones for homosexuals? I just wish these gay activists would make a woman's womb a safe zone by calling for a cease fire in their war against the unborn.
I understand this letter will be unlikely to change your mind about LGBTQIA or black student resources on campus, as you and I value fundamentally different objectives for UNCW. However, I hope I have effectively addressed the concerns you raised about Lavender Graduation and its purpose on our campus.
And there you have it. This college graduate who took the time to write me a letter and slip it under my office door has completely wasted my time. She began by chastising me for referring to a "celebration" as a "graduation." She ends it by referring to the very same "celebration" as a "graduation." So I guess it really was a graduation after all (a fact that I am hoping she overlooked, rather than intentionally misrepresented).
To the casual observer, celebrating the way people have sex is strange. Conferring credentials upon those who approve of their lifestyles is even stranger. In a few short years it will all seem normal. That’s why I’m writing about it now.