The Insurgent, a student publication paid for by our fees, recently printed an extremely offensive image of Jesus Christ and published a error-ridden rant insulting the Christian faith and more specifically insulting Catholics. It struck me as I read it that it is now OK to discriminate against the beliefs of Christians in our campus community, which hypocritically prides itself as being tolerant. As a practicing Catholic who has never done anything to oppress or put down the beliefs of others, I am extremely offended by this and that The Insurgent would have the lack of respect to run it during Holy Week (a very solemn and spiritual time for Christians), but also I am simply dumbfounded at the fact that a publicly funded publication can get away with this. In essence, I am directly paying for a publication to slander and ridicule my belief system. It would be as if a Jewish student were forced to pay for a neo-Nazi publication on campus.
People who think this is not an problem need to wake up. The ignorance of The Insurgent can be dismissed because it is obviously just a low-quality campus paper, but the fact is that it has become socially acceptable in the campus community to discriminate against Christianity. The majority of Christians at the University have never hurt anyone and hold their religious principals as core to their life, and yet here we have their funds going to something which ridicules them.
Would we allow a paper to come out and ridicule Islamic or Jewish beliefs? Of course not; never in “tolerant” Eugene! So why is it OK to slander and ridicule Christianity? Let me tell you: The attitude of the people who work for The Insurgent is no different in regard to their bigotry and intolerance than that of the Nazis, albeit The Insurgent doesn’t have nearly as much organization or power. But the hatred and lack of understanding is there. The campus community needs to make a stand and fight discrimination at all levels, and until it does, the University will never be a tolerant environment for a diverse student body.

Zachary White is a University student