It's Only Homecoming, People

Warning...another post is coming in which Berne will occupy a soapbox...I seem to be posting more of those these days...

Yet another controversial issue has been in the air this week that I've been going back and forth whether to comment on or not. But I've been reading about it a ton, and it's even been on TV, so why not?

By now you've likely heard, read or seen that students at St. Cloud State did something very unusual last week...they named a male homecoming queen. Granted, a very unconventional move, but the controversy and anger this has generated is unbelieveable. In the past week, this coronation has been covered by the Pioneer Press, Star Tribune, St Cloud Times, WCCO TV, and others. It even made ABC national news.

My perspective: This is Homecoming for goodness sake. Within a matter of years,maybe even months, chances are nobody will remember who was crowned what without a trip to the university archives...it's not worth the hoopla.

Over the past week, I've read a multitude of articles and the comments they generated, particularly on the SC Times site. I offer the following assessment:

• This choice was made, fair and square, by SCSU students. The voter turnout wasn't huge, but very few elections on any campus draw a huge turnout.
• The nomination was not a joke. I can tell you from experience that SCSU Student Government, who nominated this man, are very serious people.
• Yes, this does break "tradition", but aren't traditions subject to be broken?
• This HAS happened before, as someone pointed out to me earlier this week, at UofM Morris I believe.
• If this were an attempt for SCSU Student Gov't to push a liberal or radical agenda, they'd be asking everybody to endorse this or do the same thing in order to quash gender stereotypes. They have not.
• Homecoming has NOTHING to do with the academic performance or mission of the institution. For a parent to threaten to remove his/her student from SCSU as a result of this would seem to be a gross over reaction to the situation.

Above all else, I find it absolutely disgraceful that people have actually threatened the lives of both the man crowned queen and the Student Government President over this. That is inexcusable, and really crosses the line, whether you agree with them or not. Seriously, if you'd sink so low as to threaten someone like that, you must have serious problems.

I'm not attempting to say this crowning was "right" or "wrong", but I think the hoopla is crazy. It's happened before, It'll happen again, and none of us has the right to judge the students involved. It was their choice. I wish the media, and society in general, would get a clue and move on to more pressing matters.