Texas A&M student senate votes to allow students to "opt out" of funding LGBT Center

The student senate at Texas A&M University voted Wednesday night, by a vote of 35-28, to allow students to "opt-out" of having their activities fees fund the campus LGBT center.

Originally, the measure was called the “GLBT Funding Opt Out Bill” but was renamed the “Religious Funding Exemption Bill” so that it would not sound as bigoted. Thomas McNutt, a co-author of the bill, tried to say the name change changed the point of the bill and that it did not discriminate against specifically against gays. "We came up with the new bill -- the new bill that does not point out anyone," McNutt said of the reworked proposal. "If you think this is pointing someone out, it is a fabrication in your head that you have created on your own."

Student Andrew Lupo, who identified as openly gay, spoke against the bill.

"The Religious Funding Exemption bill is a facade to deprive GLBT students of resources to create a safe environment," Lupo said to the senators. "I see so many of you, you're young -- 18 and 19 years old-- and there is a great future for you. Is this how you want to begin your career -- by attacking your own Aggies, your own community?"

Student Aaron Ackerman disagreed and somewhat overly dramatically compared forcing students to pay for the GLBT center to forcing doctors to perform partial-birth abortions.

The bill now moves to the desk of student body president John Claybrook, who told The Eagle that a "veto is always on the table" but that he was still mulling the decision.

The traditionally conservative university landed at the top of the list of "LGBT-unfriendly" schools in Texas by the 2012 installment of Princeton Review, and was ranked as the seventh least-friendly public university nationwide.

(source)