Ode to the cause-ites

We are all defined by something we do. Some people are athletes, some people are partiers, some people are business persons and some people are devoted to a cause. "Cause-ites," people dedicated to a cause, baffle me on the whole. I understand the obvious ones -- John Kerry opposing the war in Vietnam -- but most of them seem to be a little ridiculous. Maybe it is my general level of apathy that leads to my disdain for these people. More likely though, it is the absurdity of their positions, which causes me to question all they are and all they stand for. \nEarly November saw a "cause-ite" invasion in Dunn Meadow. The Committee for Freedom held an affirmative action bake sale at which different ethnic groups were charged different prices for various baked goods. Sophomore Stephan Jerabek, who organized the event, told the Indiana Daily Student the bake sale was an effort to protest affirmative action. \nI don't understand what drove Jerabek to do this. Is it possible for a sophomore to have experienced enough cases of so-called "reverse" discrimination to lead him to take a campus-wide stand against affirmative action? Perhaps Jerabek is getting ready to apply for graduate school or a job after college and is afraid he won't be able to compete against other privileged kids for the vast majority of openings. While I do think there are some serious problems with affirmative action, I think socio-economic status should be substituted for ethnicity; I don't understand Jerabek or his bake sale. All he did was occupy his time by copying an idea already done on several other campuses. He didn't change any views and deserves no respect for the arguments he regurgitated.\nMoving away from campus, Pastor Fred Phelps is not a student or related to IU in anyway. He heads the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kan. When not leading services, Phelps takes his congregation around the country to protest homosexuals and the showing of the "The Laramie Project." Well, that's not the whole story. He is also a character in the play as well. After Matthew Shepard was murdered, Phelps traveled to Laramie to protest against homosexuals. I don't know how he could have chosen a more offensive and disgusting venue for broadcasting his views than Laramie. There is nothing like cursing a guy who just got tortured to death. Phelps's group cites the Bible as proof homosexuality is a sin. Well, Pastor, I have read that book, too. If we are going to travel the country trying to stress the most literal interpretations of the Bible, where are you on animal sacrifice - the Bible commands it? When the basis of your argument is a book that never questions the institutions of prostitution or slavery, your moral arguments shrivel up and you end up looking ridiculous. \nLast week I read about another "cause-ite," former IU student Christopher Horn. Horn is so devoted to his cause that despite already graduating, he is still involved on campus as a member of Students for Justice in Palestine. What confuses me about him is a shirt he wears emblazoned with the words "We are all Palestinians." For all the research I have done about the Middle East, I have no idea what Horn is trying to say with that shirt. Do we all support suicide bombings? Do we all have a government that is corrupt? Do we all derive our ethnic name from an ancient group of people that has no relation to us -- Palestinian is derived from Phoenician? \nIt's good to have views, and it's good to believe in something. But Jerabek, Phelps and Horn need to realize the manner in which they promote their respective causes does a better job of alienating people than converting them to their belief systems.