`SEXUAL ORIENTATION' VOTED DOWN AT SEMO

A Student Government election on "sexual orientation" at Southeast Missouri State University will have little bearing on the actions of the university's affirmative action committee, the committee's chairman said Friday.

Committee Chairman David McElreath said that neither the vote by students nor any future vote on the part of other campus groups such as Faculty Senate "will have any real impact on what the affirmative action committee does."

McElreath, a member of the university faculty, said the committee is continuing to study the issue of adding sexual orientation to the university's anti-discrimination policy. Ultimately, the committee will report to the university president, Kala Stroup.

Both student and faculty leaders have been pushing for such a change.

Last week students voted on a measure to amend the Student Government constitution to include sexual orientation in its anti-discrimination policy as it relates to student organization elections.

The measure won a simple majority but failed to capture the necessary two-thirds majority needed to change the constitution. The vote was 348 for the change and 207 against.

K.C. Martin, Student Government president, said that the measure fell only 22 votes short of the margin needed to amend the constitution.

"I think the fact that it passed by a majority proved that students are interested in the issue," he said.

Martin said he wasn't concerned by the low voter turnout. He said he still believes the vote demonstrates strong support among the nearly 8,000 students for including homosexual rights in university policies.

The Gay and Lesbian Student Association on campus has been one of the student groups that has called for a sexual orientation provision.

"I think it is more principle than anything else," said Martin. "I don't think that the Gay and Lesbian Association is out to get themselves a special privilege. They just want the same basic human rights that everybody else has."

Martin, who last week lost his bid for re-election as Student Government president, said he doesn't understand why the university has not gone ahead and amended its anti-discrimination policy.

Martin came in second in a four-candidate race. Derek Hudson, president of the Association of Black Collegians, won the election.

McElreath said he doesn't view the sexual orientation issue as "a popularity issue.

"Sometimes the most popular thing may not be the right thing," he said.

The task force members, he said, "are trying to look at a very complex and complicated issue from as many different directions as they can."

McElreath said that he believes it's important to define sexual orientation.

The whole issue is a difficult one, he said. "Obviously, if it was an easy thing, it would not be so controversial."

McElreath estimated he has received more than 20 telephone calls from area residents opposed to adding sexual orientation to the university's anti-discrimination policy.