Following the recent meeting of the SGA concerning the President’s veto on the Chick-fil-A legislation, I've been thrust into a state of shock and re-evaluation of my priorities concerning recent events. I spoke at the SGA meeting before Fall break against the legislation and its reasoning, and I had prepared a speech for tonight echoing and expanding on those sentiments. Needless to say, I entered Oaks 212 on Tuesday the 23rd confident in my stance and ready to put my foot down on the issue.

However, something that I was not previously aware of was brought up in the speeches of several members of Spectrum - It was that in the ensuing fallout concerning this issue, several gay people on campus have been openly and maliciously harassed and taunted. I'm a Pollyanna, I tend to think that people are generally decent about things to one another, it's just a product of the way I was raised. But upon hearing this, I was beyond startled: I was horrified. I couldn't believe that people were exploiting the support for Chick-fil-A that myself and others have professed as a pretext for being virulent and indecent to their peers. Not only that, but when the question of people who are currently in the closet about their homosexuality feeling like Elon is a safe place for them to come out and that they could very well feel marginalized as a consequence of all this strife was brought up, I was taken aback. In all the time this had been discussed, I had never once considered the people who were quietly carrying a significant aspect of themselves, and I feel rather foolish now for not having done so.

In the time as the vote was going on and now after the meeting, I found myself thinking this: I do eat at Chick-fil-A and will probably continue to do so, but I absolutely do not want to see people being bullied or harassed or feeling like they don't belong. The welfare and happiness of other people is something I value much more than my favorite Chick-fil-A Deluxe with Chick-fil-A sauce and strawberry milkshake. And I say this because last year, in my freshman year here, I felt the very same way. I felt marginalized as a nerdy type person who liked things that not a lot of other people liked, and didn't feel like I belonged at Elon because I couldn't find other people who felt the same way I did - And that really hurt. And I think lots of people from lots of different disciplines have felt this way too at one point or another for all sorts of different reasons.

That's why I feel like I have a personal and moral responsibility, as a Club President and Student Leader, to come forward and say that nobody should feel marginalized and everyone should feel included. I am the President of this school’s Japanese Club, and I feel that if most all campus organizations – Greek life, Student media, Religious organizations, etc. – Join together on the issue of inclusion, I think it will be a big positive to come out of this whole mess. I’ve reached out to Spectrum in the past several days, and they have been beyond receptive to my idea, which I hope will say a lot: We can certainly disagree on certain things, but we don’t have to be at each other’s throats because of it and can agree on a mutual, higher purpose. I don't exactly know how we can accomplish this, considering that I'm new to being a Club President at this level and am trying my darnedest to just reach 10 regular members, let alone 6,000 students, but I'm sure that through organization to organization discussion, we can come up with a means of accomplishing this goal that would be effective.

I’d like to invite all student leaders and organizations at Elon to align to support the motto of ‘’110% inclusion on campus’’ (As a button I have seen reads) so that we can engage in amiable relations for the greater good. I'm grateful for the individuals that have brought this to my attention, and I hope we can set into motion a positive example for all of Elon.

Best regards,

Steven Taranto

Class of 2015

Japanese Club President