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Once again, the Penn College Republicans have become the target of distortion and demagoguery on gay issues.

But, unlike last year, when comments at a public forum and in a subsequent Daily Pennsylvanian column by our chairman sparked a bruising furor over the Republican Party's attitude toward gay issues, the recent accusations leveled against us by PennForum Co-chairman Guy Margalith are wholly unjustified.

This year our organization has found that the divisiveness of gay marriage as a political matter extends into our own ranks, as we have not reached a consensus ourselves. Margalith assumes our group has reached an agreement on our stance.

The fact is we have abstained from declaring an official viewpoint, and will continue to abstain until we have reached a compromise. For now, no speaker can make a statement representative of our uniform position.

My announcement to the College Republicans' membership early in the year did not instruct Republicans to refrain from participating. I merely asked our members not to take a position on behalf of the organization. In short, conservatives could express themselves on gay marriage, but to say that their position represented that of the Penn Republicans would have been premature.

Margalith contends our decision was an act of political cowardice, with the implication that it was made against the will of our group members.

Sadly, he is decidedly in the minority. The truth is our decision was greeted with enthusiastic support by our membership. Hardly a word of criticism was uttered by any of our members.

If a public forum on same-sex marriage fails to attract Republicans, it is not because Republicans skirt the issue out of fear. It is simply because, as a political matter, it has little resonance during a time of national conflict.

It is perplexing that Margalith frames gay marriage as a matter that divides the country along party lines. The truth is that many Democrats across the country, including Philadelphia Mayor John Street, have stood in strong opposition to gay civil rights. And President Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, defying the shrill liberal faction of his party.

If the Democrats are just as divided as our party, why didn't Margalith seek out anti-gay firebrands in the College Democrats as well?

Another fiction that he presents in lambasting our organization is that we would have earned "respect" for taking a stance against gay civil rights. Perhaps, but in many parts of the campus, this was not the case at all. Last semester, people suddenly spoke of the College Republicans and our chairman, Philip Bartlett, with an unqualified rage and disgust.

Bartlett was immediately ridiculed as a caricature and a symbol of right-wing hysteria. Instead of inspiring people with his arguments, Bartlett only succeeded in alienating a large part of our potential base.

What Margalith terms a "buzz," I interpret as an outcry. That has been our experience with the gay marriage issue. Do our opponents really think we're going to let it happen again?

Bartlett, my predecessor, was an able leader of our organization. During his tenure, he and I were cooperative colleagues. But we differ considerably in our approach to hot-button issues. He believed in truculent confrontation, and rarely made any effort to reach out to students outside his own ideology.

In contrast to this idealistic stalwart, my approach so far has been to emphasize issues on which there is consensus -- the war on terrorism to name just one.

Working on issues where there is agreement, and spurning the emotionally-charged matters that only succeed in instilling fear and anger is, in my opinion, the best way to run a political organization and represent a constituency. Controlling the more dangerous elements of the organization is another essential ingredient to its long-term success. It is all the more ironic that Margalith has faulted us in this respect.

Indeed, one of our aims this year is to succeed in building our party's base of support. That entails setting aside the debates that polarize the electorate. We will reach out to moderates, independents and Democrats on campus who are disillusioned with the College Democrats' liberal agenda.

Needless to say, our goal of broadening our appeal to the student body figured in our decision to nix the public forum.

The College Republicans should not be condemned for respecting our ideological diversity, and for attempting to preserve the spirit of universal cooperation during this period of national conflict. We will not allow the re-igniting of a backlash that should be left in the past.

Brett Singer is a junior History major from Brooklyn, N.Y. and chairman of the Penn College Republicans.

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