Editor’s note: This is in response to Gerard Keiser’s column “There is no room for co-ed housing arrangements,” which ran Sept. 7. Parker Hubbard is a former employee of Student Media.

For the sake of The Daily, I hope that Gerard Keiser’s opinion column “There is no room for co-ed housing arrangements” is meant to be taken satirically. If not, it is mind blowing that an article so imbued in bigotry and illogical reasoning would be published in the opinion paper of a public university.

There is so much wrong with the article that for the sake of brevity I will focus on one especially troubling section of his column.

Keiser argues that “traditional mores have an uncanny tendency to be right, or at least to have some element of truth.” By “traditional” he evidently means “straight white Christian male” mores. Don’t believe him? “Then, of course, there is the fact that Oklahoma is against it.” Never mind where this statistic comes from, or what exactly is meant by “Oklahoma.”

His two examples of traditional mores are so irrelevant to the argument that they are almost laughable. Caught up in praise of humble hominy, Keiser forgets to mention other, more problematic “traditional mores.” Was there “some element of truth” in slavery? Did laws banning women from voting or entering the workplace have any particular “uncanny tendency to be right”?

And my personal favorite: “As a result, making things a little easier on a few homosexual students could have a big [negative] impact on everybody, including those same students.” So rather than offering constructive criticism for improving overall student life, Keiser instructs those who don’t share his unwavering “traditional mores” to learn their place as soon as possible: “If they are mature adults as [Stanfield] says, they should be able to deal with it, and it is surely a realistic preparation for situations later in life.”

In short: accept the fact that you are wrong and unimportant and just pretend to blend in. Life isn’t fair, so the university you pay to attend shouldn’t be either. That, as I understand it, is his solution to the housing debate.

We should be shocked that, in 2010, a piece of this nature is not only written but actually published. We should be shocked, but, as Keiser wryly reminds us: “You know, this is Oklahoma.”

— Parker Hubbard, visual communications junior