For background see: Student groups plan second Pro-Choice Day and Minister Bails on Ceremony
The same-sex marriage ceremony planned to occur on campus and organized as part of the Second Annual Pro-Choice Day was cancelled. This is the third cancellation since the event was first planned. The event was planned by Common Ground, Northern Kentucky University’s gay-straight alliance, and the Kentucky Equality Federation, a state-wide gay rights advocacy group. According to Mike Volmer, Common Ground’s president, the minister backed out of the ceremony.
This is the second time a minister has backed out of performing the ceremony on campus. In February, Sam Lapin, a Universal Life Church minister, backed out of the ceremony under Unviersity pressure. Lapin also is an instructor at the Grant County Campus and his supervisors and University administrators had contacted him about the event expressing concern it could impact proposed legislation that would not allow NKU to extend benefits to domesitc partners of gay employees.
The KEF did not respond to requests for comment.
The Northerner’s Cassie Stone, assistant news editor, contributed to this report.
A reader e-mailed me the following in recent reports about sexual assaults occurring on the campus of Northern Kentucky University:
“I find it ironic that almost 10 years after I graduated from NKU, the police and the school are still trying to cover up sexual assaults on campus or sweep them under the rug. When I was a sophomore here, living on campus almost 12 years ago, my best friend was raped by a popular basketball player. The police and the powers that be “checked the claim out,” told the victim they would take care of it and to be quiet. To them, this meant that the accused went on the injured list and then left school, the victim dropped out of school, unable to face her fellow peers. These days, in two different incidents, the victim has either been ignored by putting the case on the back burner, or told she was lying about what happened and threatened with prosecution for falsely reporting a crime. Sound familiar? It does to me! NKU wants to maintain the perfect image of a university in this area. [The University of Cincinnati] and [Xavier University] are in high crime areas, their basketball players commit crimes, so therefore they are not “good” schools. Nothing happens at NKU, or so we are made to think. It’s time that the police the university, and the students stand up for the victims. Punish the perpetrators, threaten them with prosecution. Make security on this campus a top priority, not just driving around the perimeter of the campus. Most important, help the victims and don’t make them victims again”
-Anonymous NKU Alum
(The views expressed in the quote reflect soley those of the reader. The Northerner cannot guarantee the accuracy of the comments.)
Please feel free to e-mail me your responses to this comment or the article at callj1@nku.edu, or leave a comment on the original story, here.
Readers,
So, it’s 2:30 a.m. and everyone else in the office is gone. The website just went live not too long ago, and so in a moment of boredom, I decided to breeze through the web edition. That’s when I read my story about minimum wage increases and realized there was huge error in it that occurred when we were editing the story. All of a sudden, a sentence in my article ends with “Asalon said.” ‘Who’s Asalon?’ you ask. Good question.
That’s right. In the editing process, an important part was unintentionally removed, that part indicating that”Asalon” is Penny Asalon, the associate director of financial aid.
After calling and waking up a few editors, we came to the conclusion that this error cannot be fixed prior to print. So, the print edition will have this mistake in it.
This is a very easy mistake to make, but inexcusable. Naturally, when you are adding in and taking out, things have the potential to fall through the cracks.
I apologize for this error, and I also sent an e-mail to Ms. Asalon personally apologizing to her.
What’s even worse is there was another error last week in the headline for my article. When the headline was written in the layout process, The Northerner mistakenly called the incident in University Suites a “robbery” and not a “burglary.” For those of you who are like ‘what’s the difference?’ well, it’s actually a pretty big one. Robbery is a violent crime that involves force being used in a theft. Meanwhile, burglary is a nonviolent crime involving no force. Seeing as how no one was present when the alleged burglary occurred in University Suites, and no force was used, there was no reason for us to characterize it as a robbery. While the article made it clear that it was a burglary, the mistake in the headline was unacceptable, and we apologize to each of you for it. I also apologized personally to the NKU Police and Housing offices.
Sorry.
Sam Lapin may have ultimately chose not, under University pressure, to officiate same-sex marriages on NKU’s campus last month, but in 2006, he ran for a political office that’s only remaining function is to officiate weddings. As part of that campaign in Boone County, Lapin created and distributed the entertaining video below in an effort to win over the voters.
Lapin, who ran as a Democrat, lost the election to Republican rival Justin Cringler. Lapin received 33.8% of the vote and Cringler received 66.2%.
Click here to watch the Lapin Campaign Movie
At halftime the Norse hold a 10-point lead over the Miners.
Northern Kentucky University shot 59 percent in the first half, compared to 33 percent shooting by Missouri-S&T.
The game started off with the Norse having a 38-17 lead with 4:49 remaining, with the Miners going on a 14-3 run to close out the half.
Junior guard Jessie Slack and junior center Cassie Brannen lead the Norse with 11 points a piece. Senior point guard Nicole Chiodi has seven points and four rebounds.
I will keep you up to date on the game as it continues.
Hey Norse fans.
The Northern Kentucky University Softball team is in Kissimmee, Fl. in the Rebel Games.
I will update you on how the team is doing and what the team will do this weekend.
In the first game the Norse are down 9-0 in the bottom of the fourth inning against Ferris State.
The Bulldogs have scored in every inning so far and have held the Norse hitlless.
Hello Norse fans!
I know it has been a while since sports has seen a blog post. I felt that since the Northern Kentucky University Women’s Basketball team is in the semi-finals of the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament, I will update you on the game.
With 12:43 in the first half, the Norse have a 16-9 lead over Missouri S&T.
Junior guard Jessie Slack leads NKU with seven points in the game.
Stay tuned for more updates with a halftime report.
This is Matt Birkholtz signing off.
Updates written about what matters to you!
RSS 2.0
