Yale Daily News

well written.

This is possibly the most absurd piece of slippery-slope nonsense I've ever read. Allowing people to choose gender-neutral housing leads to coercing people into gender-neutral housing leads to the end of sexuality as we know it - umm, excuse me? Methinks the author is a bit too terrified of freedom of choice, and actually respects too little the role of sexuality in our society if he thinks it is this fragile.

The author also provides absolutely no support for the logical basis of his entire argument, which is the paranoid statement that, "The transformation from liberation to coercion is a trope of liberal policies." Is this really what holds conservatives back from embracing freedom of choice in the social sphere? I suppose by now we should have mandatory same-sex marriages in Massachusetts, and mandatory abortions nationwide! After all, the scary feminists and diversity people are out there, and they're coming for you!

Mr. Johnston, please do us all a favor: Relax, be comforted by the fact that your sexuality and mine is not so fragile, and let those of us who would like to choose gender-neutral housing have that option. Sometimes a little liberation is a good thing.

The Johnston Formula: Ridiculous Assertion = Straw Man + Logical Leap - Credible Explanation. Your last column's gonna be epic, isn't it?

Very well said. Thank you!

Yes. Exactly correct.

Note that commenter #2 accused Mr. Johnston of being "afraid", as all good liberals are wont to do.

2020, 2030, 2040? That's quite an ability for prognostication that you've got there.

I have my own prediction: by 2040, and hopefully much sooner, the prevalence of your worldview in this country will, quite thankfully, be a pale shadow of what it is today, and no one will mind gender-integrated housing the slightest bit.

In fact, everyone will look back on arguments like these and laugh at the notion that anyone would quibble over something so trivial.

this editorial makes zero sense. maybe if you had defined 'feminism' and 'diversity'? or, perhaps, looked them up in a dictionary? the writing style is very pretty, to be sure, but i feel like the content would have been equally intelligible had this been a mad-libs piece.

#6: You do realize that if you are correct, it just goes on to completely support the author's argument -- right?

At least for me. Gender neutral housing for all is certainly my goal, though I expect (and hope) it will happen through the sort of societal change that would make racially segregated housing absolutely unacceptable.

I don't see what's wrong with hoping for that though. The only problem with mandatory gender neutral housing is that it would make a good number of people uncomfortable - but if we live in a world where that's no longer true, and we can live together simply as people, we'll be better off, and far closer to true sex/gender equality.

Please graduate and stop giving Yale's conservatives a bad name with this crap. Thanks.

Considering the number of rape cases and sexual assaults that supposedly happen at Yale every year (stats courtesy of the Women's Center), why in the world is the Women's Center getting behind this idea?

You've made some assertions here about liberalism without even attempting to back them up with something other than a hypothetical.

I'm all for recognition of differences between masculine and feminine, but this idea that somehow a gender neutral OPTION (not mandate) threatens this difference is specious at best. If you think your inherent masculinity will be threatened by gender neutral housing, what on earth will you do if you have a wife and three daughters?

sometimes I think Johnston is just trying to provoke a reaction.

How does it "completely support" his argument?

I'm pointing out that he is a member of an increasingly irrelevant faction in our society: die-hard traditionalists.

The funniest part is that each generation of conservatives thinks that it is somehow different from all the ones that came before it. Modern history is pretty much one long chain of increasingly liberal links. The people have spoken, time and time again: by and large, no one cares about your traditionalist hang-ups. At least, not enough people care to prevent societal change. :D

Peter has made a better argument for the theory that gender is a social construct than the hyper-feminists. Anyone who thinks that gender-neutral housing will destroy the concept of gender clearly does not believe very much in actual gender differences. And they call Peter a conservative. Silly.

Conservatives are there to say "change slowly, as society changes". Liberals are there to say "force society to change".

Conservatives brought us the American Revolution. Liberals brought us the French Revolution.

Considering that "conservative" and "liberal" meant vastly different things back then than they do now, you'll have to be more specific. But I think you'll have a hard time arguing that the instigators of the American Revolution were social conservatives. They were in favor of increased freedoms, greater egalitarianism, less social stratification--all the things that conservatives traditionally abhor.

In a broad sense, yes, liberals force society to change, because they have to drag social conservatives kicking and screaming away from such cherished pastimes as racial segregation, sexism, religious intolerance and homophobia.

These days, only isolated crackpots think it was fitting to treat black people as second-class citizens. In the near future, only isolated crackpots will think it was fitting to rigidly enforce gender-segregated housing.

And the pattern continues. :)

Fill in the progressive canard with whatever fits best:

These days, only isolated crackpots think it was fitting to treat black people as second-class citizens. In the near future, only isolated crackpots will think it was fitting to ___________________.

Is it:

I. rigidly enforce gender-segregated housing.
II. allow parents to tyrannize their child by naming them at birth.
III. treat chickens as tasty food rather than legally-protected persons.
IV. allow people to enforce their views upon others at the ballot box.
V. bail out companies with no semblance of workable business plans.

A) I and II only
B) I, II, and IV only
C) I, IV, and V only
D) II, III, IV, and V only
E) All of them: I, II, III, IV, and V.

The assertions made by the liberals on this page are pretty ideological (i.e. "Modern history is pretty much one long chain of increasingly liberal links." -- what of United States history, 1979-2008?) without taking into account non-Zinn history and historiography. Somehow, Peter is the most balanced thinker here.