After receiving bi-partisan support, Mr. Thorne-Begland’s judgeship was denied due to his sexual orientation. Mr. Thorne-Begland received only 33 votes of the 51 needed in favor of his judgeship. In the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Richmond Commonwealth Attorney Michael N. Herring criticized the decision to deny Mr. Thorne-Begland the judgeship without any justification as to why he was unqualified.

The decision is a clear display of bigotry. In a comment on the decision, Delegate Robert Marshall (R-Prince William) said, “Would Mr. Thorne-Begland also challenge rules that apply to Virginia courts? Can this candidate swear the required oath to support our state’ constitution if he has already indicated by his past actions that he does not support that section of our constitution barring same-sex legal relationships?”

Ignoring the fact that the laws forbidding same-sex marriage in Virginia are incredibly outdated and unfair, Mr. Thorne-Begland’s sexual orientation should have no bearing on his profession. In a bill passed in 2010, the Virginia Senate passed a bill outlawing discrimination based on sexual orientation. Even Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, a Republican, has commented that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation should not be tolerated.

The resurgence in discrimination based on sexual orientation is reflective of the polarizing nature of the current political system. The lack of tolerance displayed in this debate, as well as in recent debates over women’s reproductive rights, is an example of how extremist voices are distracting the country from larger issues, like the economy. These extremist views bring the United States a step backward in its progress since the Civil Rights movement.

The treatment of Mr. Thorne-Begland is an embarrassment for the Commonwealth and a clear example that prejudice and discrimination remains a clear problem despite actions to guarantee equality. Mr. Thorne-Begland is owed an apology from those members of the House of Delegates who refused his promotion based on his sexual orientation. Furthermore, Mr. Thorne-Begland’s judgeship should be reconsidered.

It is apparent that while the Delegates opposed to Mr. Thorne-Begland’s appointment were deeply concerned about Mr. Thorne-Begland’s ability to uphold the law in Virginia, they should have stopped to learn a little more about anti-discrimination laws in the state. The result of this bigotry is a loss for the entire Commonwealth.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles, 300,000 first-time freshmen at four-year colleges and universities found that 1.2 percent take a gap-year after graduation to study, volunteer, travel, or simply take some time off.

While gap-year programs are popular in England, they are less common in the U.S. Some colleges like Amherst College, Princeton University, MIT, Middlebury and Harvard are implementing official deferment policies to give accepted freshmen the opportunity to take a year off before beginning their studies at the school. Public colleges like the University of North Carolina even offer a Gap Year scholarship so that students can pursue academics and service abroad.

Many students often opt to plan their own travels, jobs, or other endeavors. Students that need a little more guidance typically turn to “Gap fairs,” which have been on the rise in the past few years. Gap fairs introduce students to various programs and opportunities to pursue during their gap years, and as many as 30 are held nationwide every year.

Reasons for choosing this option are as different as the students that take them, though feeling burnt out after 12 years of school is often listed as one of the top reasons.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Casey Santi, 18, of Winnetka, Ill., has been studying French and history, traveling and doing community service in Europe and Africa since she began a gap-year program last June.

Santi said that stress during her senior year in high school forced her to “regain herself and get back on track.”

Sam Helderop, who has been accepted to Michigan’s Hope College this spring, plans to take advantage of the school’s permission to defer and take a year off.

As ABC News reports, Helderop will take a gap year to teach English with the DaLaa project in Thailand and then backpack throughout Southeast Asia.

“I always wanted to travel pretty much my entire life,” Helderop told ABC News, “but after 18 years of the same old routine, going to school and sitting in class, I am not motivated enough right now to go through four years of college. I feel like a gap year will narrow down what I want to study and do in my life.”

Though hearing that children want to defer their college acceptance can be scary for parents, many college admissions experts agree that gap-years are a good idea.

“Admission officers tell you that the gap year increases independence and self-reliance and students have a confidence about them,” Julia Rogers, director of Vermont-based EnRoute Consulting, told ABC News.

Contrary to popular belief, gap-years can also end up being a good financial decision. Gap-years generally cost about $10,000 to $25,000, compared to college tuition, which usually starts at around $50,000 a year, Rogers explains. Because they typically cost less, gap-years can provide an opportunity to save up money for school, especially if the student has a paying job during the year.

Some research even shows that gap-years help students perform better once they enter college.

Robert Clagett, who has worked in admissions for both Harvard University and Middlebury College for three decades, said he and his colleagues noticed a positive trend in students that took time off before they started school.

According to Clagett, ABC News reports, students who took time off not only had higher a GPA during their first semesters, but also had higher grades during all four years.

But not everyone thinks that gap-years are a good idea. Barmak Nassirian, associate executive director of the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, says that unless there’s a solid structure to the gap program, it might not be the best choice.

“If you’re going to loiter around the margins of life for a year, you may be better off in the classroom,” Nassirian told The Wall Street Journal.

If there isn’t enough structure in a program, students often end up feeling lost and even more confused than before they began.

Shoshanna Silverberg — who participated in a gap-year program teaching in Ghana several years ago — didn’t enjoy her experience.

“I felt very disenchanted with it,” she told The Wall Street Journal. According to Silverberg, she wasn’t told what she was supposed to teach, and wasn’t comfortable with the way she was supposed to discipline the children.

Whether students are thinking of embarking on spontaneous travels throughout Europe or participating in an organized, carefully-planned program, the decision to take a year off is a difficult one. Experts recommend that students think long and hard before they defer admission, and consult with parents, guidance counselors and program officials.

1. BlendCam

BlendCam may not serve a practical purpose for every picture that you take, but it is one of the most fun-to-play-around-with camera apps out there.

The app allows you to superimpose a picture over another picture, creating that tripped-out effect so popular with rave pics. You can either choose pictures you’ve already snapped, or take new ones within the app. Not limited to only two layered photos, you can create some really delightfully messed up looking final products. There’s no automatic share feature built into the app though, so you’ll be forced to do all your uploading the old fashioned way.

Bottom Line — Obviously, you won’t want to bust out BlendCam when you’re trying to send your mom a pic of you posing in front of Niagra Falls, but it is handy when you’re trying to make yourself look like a total badass — for free!

2. Hipstamatic

The name does this app justice; it’s for users hip enough to know how Blanko film can affect a picture’s feel or what using a Dreampop flash means for the final product. Or at least for those who want to harness the power of all that vintage camera equipment as if they do.

After buying the $1.99 starter pack, you can pick through several different types of lenses, flashes, and films, each with its own effect. It doesn’t take factorialization to realize that this three-pronged option systems means an enormous range of different combinations. Buying other sets costs $.99, not a bad deal considering each “pack” comes with at least one new flash, film, and lens type.

Bottom Line — Hipstamatic is great because you can create more unique photos than you can with Instagram thanks to almost infinite combination possibilities. Hip, I know.

3. Camera+

More than the other two apps, Camera+ could replace the regular camera built into your phone. Yes, there are effects (You can add a “So Emo” filter to my mirrored seflie, for instance), but the point of it is to capture the best photos possible, not trick them out.

The app acts like a DSLR camera, but allows the user to adjust settings after the picture has been snapped. You can set the scene to one of a variety of choices (portrait, night, cloudy), make adjustments like rotation or flipping, crop the photo, or add borders or effects. One of the best features is that Camera+ has a self-timer setting, something that a phone’s regular camera generally does not.

Bottom Line — This app costs only $.99, but can make your photos feel like they were taken on a camera that costs hundreds. Might as well give it a shot. Camera puns!

Added Bonus — Cinemagr.am

Not a strictly “camera app,” but so cool that it couldn’t be left off the list. Cinemagr.am allows you to create amazing animated GIFS in seconds. The user takes a short video and then chooses only certain parts of the scene to animate. The rest of the shot remains a still photo. The results, which the user can enhance with any of several Instragram-esque filters, can be hilarious, creepy, beautiful, or shocking. Oh, and did I mention that this app is completely free?

“I am admittedly scared of the job market,” Pomerantz said. “But finishing school feels great so far.”

Pomerantz plans on moving to New York City in September after the lease on his Boston apartment expires. He has job security for the summer, working at the meat counter of a Shaw’s Supermarket.

However, finding a job in New York is proving quite hard. And this employment quandary is not a problem unique to Pomerantz. Indeed, a Rutgers University study released May 10th found that only 51% of recent college graduates have a full-time job.

“It’s hard to find hourly pay labor jobs at places like Starbucks,” Pomerantz said. “Finding a job with a salary and benefits for a kid fresh out of college with a BA is even harder.”

Will Huebner, an English major also graduating from BU this May, said he feels ecstatic to graduate, and is somewhat more optimistic that he will get a job.

“The job market is notoriously bad for people our age, but not bad enough to leave me with a depression,” Huebner said. “It’s certainly daunting, but finding a job in this market isn’t impossible, and I’m willing to take a job outside of my field to pay the bills until I can get one that I feel I deserve.”

Colleen Treado, a physics major at UMass Amherst, is going to graduate school to earn her PhD at New York University in the fall. She said she is comforted to have more time in school because friends are not having luck snagging a job.

“Many of my friends who are graduating have not yet found jobs, even though they’re all seemingly qualified to do something with their degrees,” Treado said.  “I feel extremely lucky that I’m not in their position and that I won’t be for at least another five or six years.”

Treado said she hopes that by the time she is out of NYU, the economy will be looking up and jobs will be more plentiful.

The immediate need to make money after college is only magnified by student loans. Two-thirds of all college seniors in 2010 graduated with loans, according to a report by the Institute for College Access & Success Project on Student Debt. The average amount of debt for these seniors is $25,250.

“I have about a full years worth of tuition in loans that is already accruing interest at a rapid pace,” Pomerantz said. “I just hope this investment pays off.”

The same college report also found that many recent graduates receive family support for housing, food, healthcare, and college loan repayments.

Huebner said he is also chilled at the thought of paying off his hefty loans.

“Student debt is probably the scariest part about graduating college,” Huebner said. “Forget getting a job. Even if you do get a job right off the bat, there’s no guarantee that you will be able to pay off your loans.”

Treado, a Massachussets native, said she decided to go to UMass primarily because of the instate price tag. “I applied to nine schools and was accepted to eight, but I couldn’t afford any of the other schools without taking out loans,” Treado said. “My father has always tried to impress on all of us that we should not take out student loans if we can avoid it.”

Treado, who graduated second in her high school class, received a $10,000 a year scholarship from UMass, which, added to the in-state price, meant she owed between $5,000 and $10,000 a year. Her parents were able to pay this, and Treado is graduating debt free.

“I have no money right now,” Treado said. “But at least I don’t owe any money, either.”

On an issue as heated and debated as this, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney wasn’t far behind in responding. Anticipating Obama’s statement on Wednesday, Romney reiterated his opposition to marriage and/or civil unions between individuals of the same gender.

So, both presidential candidates established themselves as being on polar opposite ends of this issue. In fact, as a New York Times article put it, “In short, both Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama have adopted the favored position of their ideological base on a subject that profoundly animates both of those camps.”

But this isn’t the case just when it comes to gay marriage. Obama and Romney have have been characterized as being on opposite extremes when it comes to a whole host of issues. For instance, Romney is the “business” candidate, while Obama fights for the working class. Obama is pro-choice while Romney is anti-abortion. Obama is for increasing government spending, while Romney is against high taxes. The list goes on. For each issue, a Democratic and a Republican side is presented, and each candidate accordingly falls into the respective position.

Obviously, in an election, candidates want to differentiate themselves. The further one is from his or her opponent, the more leverage he or she holds at the voting booth. No one wants a platform that overlaps with his or her opponent’s. Often, a candidate may want to distance him or herself as much as possible from his or her opponent, and then go on to attack his or her platform.

Hence, it’s easy to see why Obama and Romney have taken opposite ends on most issues. Doing so presents voters with a choice — an ideological one — and at that point it’s about which issues they most care and which way of solving these issues appeals most to them.

The problem with this system is that for many issues there aren’t only two sides. In fact, there are rarely only two sides and almost never just two options for solving a problem. However, the dichotomous political system that has come about in America continues to perpetuate this illusion. The illusion is that any given issue has two potential solutions or policy options, and that when a person goes to the voting booth, they must vote for one of these two.

Most social and political issues of today’s time are much more complex than the political system would have us believe. While it’s still possible to separate into ideological camps over something like gay marriage, when it comes to an issue like taxation, the lines are blurred and there is far more gray area. In such instances, the dichotomous system of politics fails us. It provides us with the false notion that we have to pick one approach. It oversimplifies the issue.

While presenting two very distinct sides of an issue can be beneficial to winning elections, it falls flat when it comes to actually solving problems. This recognition gives ways to calls for “bipartisanship.” But what is needed isn’t bipartisanship. In today’s day, bipartisanship means one party negotiates better than the other, getting to implement more of its ideological concepts.

What is needed is recognition that there are views and options neither party has brought forward. There’s a third, fourth and fifth way to look at a topic, address an issue or solve a problem. It’s not about combining both sides, because even if you combine both sides and take from both platforms, you’re still working with only two ideas. In a nation where ideas run rampant, we need to recognize we’ll need more than two to solve most problems.

California cannot continue to keep education on the back burner.

For many years, both the University of California and California State University have bared the load of legislative paralysis and a broken budgeting process. Students at California schools have learned to expect large tuition hikes and funding cuts. Tuition hikes have not been the only problem UC’s have faced. Out of state students complain that attending a UC school would cost them around $50,000 a year, close to the price tag seen at many private institutions. As the UC schools have become increasingly competitive, some have become increasingly unattainable for California students.

UC Berkley and UCLA have lower acceptance rates than any other state’s flagship university in the nation. While some might think that California students are lucky to have two of the best public schools in the nation, the fact is that the standards of the schools are so high that, more often than not, very qualified and capable students do not get in. Cost also comes into play, with some alleging that, when faced with two equally qualified students, a UC school has the incentive to select an out-of-state student who will pay a larger sum to attend.

UC’s are cutting classes so much so that when making my college decision, my high school counselor told me it would likely take an extra year to graduate from a UC. The university had to issue furloughs and pay cuts to faculty in 2009. Many California students feel that because the UC system as a whole is in a state of decline. This skepticism is a problem for UC’s in and of itself because many students are now looking to go out of state.

The Cal State system has faced similar, but less publicized, issues. The Cal State system has over 400,000 students, as compared to roughly 250,000 in the UC system. Because the schools are more affordable and less competitive, they serve the middle class of California in a unique way.

Freezing spring enrollment is a bold step that will hurt both California’s students and future. While spring enrollment is not as large as fall enrollment, it is still a service being cut to thousands who will now either have to start college later, go to a community college in hopes of transferring to a four-year school, or not go all together. If fall enrollment is ever frozen, an entire years-worth of Californian students will be harmed dramatically. If the UC system ever has to take such a drastic step, the consequences for the state’s higher education would be incomprehensible. Freezing enrollment is unacceptable.

The state of education in California is not only declining but becoming increasingly unsustainable for the future of the state. Education must not continue to be cut in the way that it has this past decade. Many young people feel it is plausible that public higher education in the state of California will die in our lifetimes.

The balanced budget amendment must go, revenues must be increased or the cuts must be made elsewhere. The students can no longer be forced to face this grim picture for their future, or all of our futures will suffer.

With the overwhelming majority of students now borrowing to pay for higher education and graduating with enormous debt, what is a college grad to do? It’s not easy to take on the real world while paying off $900 a month in student loans, like one young woman interviewed for the Times. For all borrowers, the average debt in 2011 was $23,300. Even with President Obama’s measure in October capping monthly federal student loan repayment at 10 percent of discretionary income for college graduates, it is still an enormous burden to bear for a young graduate.

Of course, commonly held opinion in this country is that it is far better to graduate with some debt than not graduate at all. College graduates earn more over a lifetime, and eventually, most manage to pay back their student loans. So this leaves college graduates with a dilemma — how to forge our way into the world with thousands of dollars in debt looming over our heads.

What are your stories of paying off student loans? Or, what are your plans to deal with debt post-graduation? What measures, if any, should be taken to ease the burden for new graduates?

While New York State favored President Obama over Senator McCain by a 26 percent margin in 2008, the Russian and Ukrainian neighborhoods of Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach, and Sheepshead Bay (all in Brooklyn) favored McCain by a 10 percent margin.

Travel 1,300 miles down I-95 to Little Havana, and a similar phenomenon exists. Floridians in 2008 favored Obama by a 2 percent margin. Hispanic Floridians by a 57 percent margin. Cuban Americans? They supported McCain by a nearly 30 percent margin.

Anatoly Alter, a 1978 immigrant from Ukraine lived under and fled the left. “Too many people want to rely on free money and socialist institutions, and they want businessmen to pay for it,” Alter told the Times.

Off-the-boat immigrants from Communist and left-wing dystopias find a natural home in the Republican Party. Older Koreans, Cambodians, Vietnamese, Russians, Cubans. They all lived under left-wing hells and will always vote Republican.

But if Koreans don’t transmit the horrors of Kim, the Vietnamese of Ho Chi Minh, the Cubans of Castro to second, third, fourth generation Americans, these immigrant groups will trend Democrat much as Cubans and Vietnamese already are, and non-Cuban Hispanics already have. Take the Jewish experience in America.

Jews, secular and religious alike, have rightly seared the Holocaust into the Jewish mind. One reason that Jews lean left is that they have been taught that Nazism is a right-wing ideology. The Jewish fear of the right, despite the experience of Soviet Jewry, is Pavlovian. “Memory of genocide” + “Nazism is right-wing” = “Vote Democrat.” This fear of the right is a political force—consciously and sub-consciously—within the Jewish community.

Cubans in Miami left Cuba because of leftism. “Memory of life under Castro” + “Communism is left-wing” = “Vote Republican.” Cuban-Americans 65 years and older in Miami-Dade County gave 84 percent support to McCain in 2008. That mirrors black support of Democrats nationwide.

But their descendants under 30 years of age gave 55 percent of the vote to Obama. Alexandra Palomo-Pujol, a 24-year-old second generation Cuban American tried and failed to convince her grandparents to vote Democrat in 2008.

“Over three generations we grew up in completely different places and we all see things differently,” said Palomo-Pujol to The Miami Herald. The 24-year-olds like Alexandra who voted for Obama will eventually be the parents and grandparents of south Florida’s Cuban community. They do not have personal horror stories of life in Cuba. If future Cubans and Cambodians don’t know Castro and Pol Pot the way Jews know Hitler and Eichmann, what would pull them to the GOP?

Herein lies the left’s advantage. Politicians and journalists are hard-pressed to transmit left-wing horror stories to the descendants of Communist refugees. If parents, grandparents, and schools do not teach about Castro, nobody will. And without the instinctive fear of the left in any given immigrant community, that community will trend Democrat.

“Since they [Vietnamese refugees] first began arriving in the U.S. after fleeing Vietnam’s communist regime in the 1970’s, Vietnamese immigrants – much like the Cuban refugees who settled in Florida – have developed a political profile that is almost monolithically Republican,” reported The Los Angeles Times in 2008. But the Republican monopoly on Vietnamese voters is eroding.

“For the first time, registration of new Vietnamese voters as Democrats is outpacing Republicans in Orange County, and the number of newly registered Republicans has declined.” Young Vietnamese did not live under Ho Chi Minh and the community, like other Democratic blocs (blacks, students, unions) financially benefits from liberal policies.

“The widening political bandwidth is a sign of change in the Vietnamese-American community, where the agenda…now includes domestic issues such as poverty, healthcare and Social Security.”

The Republicans would be wise to take this lesson to heart. The grandchildren of conservative immigrants don’t know what leftist policies did to their grandparents. And when they realize how intimate a role government plays in their lives, whether they are government employees or receive government benefits, some will be entranced by the left.

In New York, it could soon happen with descendants of Soviet immigrants. “Alec Brook-Krasny, a Democrat and the first Soviet immigrant to win elective office in New York,” writes The New York Times, “said that despite the antipathy many Russian immigrants expressed toward state programs, a large number of his compatriots worked in hospitals, nursing homes and social-service agencies that received government financing.”

Brook-Krasny thinks that younger Russians will become Democrats.

Republican electoral strength in these communities may be undone by the seeming teleological pull towards the Democratic Party. But it does not have to be that way. Grandchildren of immigrants should find a natural home in the GOP. If only Republicans would let them. (Read Dennis Prager’s open letter to Hispanics.)

By focusing on tangential issues such as illegal immigration, Republicans lose their luster. The party would do better to focus on prosperity and the wealth that spreads when people trade freely. Why not remind American-born Russians, Hispanics, and Koreans why their grandparents left behind their homes, friends, and sometimes their families and came to America?

To live freely, make money, and not worry about the government endangering both.

Such was the focus of a recent billboard campaign by the Chicago-based Heartland Institute, a PR group that denies the existence of human-caused climate change. The only billboard that was actually displayed featured Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber) and read, “I still believe in global warming. Do you?”

The message is clear: if a monster believes something, citizens of good moral standing should believe exactly the opposite. The Internet was quick to ridicule this philosophy, with parodies such as the following:

Similar billboards featuring Charles Manson and Fidel Castro were planned, but never publicly displayed. Heartland also considered putting Osama bin Laden on a future billboard. On their website, they attempted to justify this campaign:

The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.

Given that a majority of Americans accept global warming, people did not take kindly to this campaign. Public outcry and negative media coverage led Heartland to cancel the project after 24 hours. However, their statement showed little remorse:

We do not apologize for running the ad, and we will continue to experiment with ways to communicate the ‘realist’ message on the climate.

Even though the campaign has been cancelled, the Heartland Institute continues to suffer financial repercussions. Dozens of corporate donors, including State Farm Insurance and drinks firm Diego (which owns Guiness and Smirnoff) have ended their support as a direct result of this campaign. Earlier in the year, Heartland lost financial backing from General Motors after internal documents exposed some of the group’s projects, particularly the development of an alternative curriculum to teach K-12 students that global warming is fake.

Will they recover from this failed campaign? Given Heartland’s reliance on donations, their prospects look poor. It seems that the Heartland Institute, previously one of the most influential mouthpieces for climate change denial, is going out with a bang.

There’s a lot of legislation being passed and debated right now that affects students directly, like freezing student loan rates, and being able to stay on your parents’ insurance longer under Obamacare, and, of course, job creation attempts. There are also issues that people of our generation tend to talk a lot about, like gay marriage and women’s rights. But where are we? I ask that in a slightly rhetorical tone, but also in perfect seriousness. College students talk about these issues all the time, but when it’s time to vote, we don’t have the best track record of showing up.

President Obama hasn’t lived up to all the expectations that Candidate Obama created. But he’s also had to deal with some of the toughest policy decisions faced by any President and one of the most deeply divided publics in this country’s history. In fact, given the circumstances, he’s actually been able to accomplish a lot, including , for students specifically, expanding Pell Grant funding, improved student loan refinancing, and increased funding for land-grant colleges. The sad truth of politics in America today is that promises don’t translate to results, and good policy is often not passed because of partisan bickering. I’ll go cliché enough to say that politics aren’t pretty.

In 2008, I was energized about a political campaign for the first time in my life. I wasn’t going to be able to vote in the election, but I volunteered for the Obama campaign anyway. I realized that I hated campaigning (because some people are just cranky), but I also felt a connection with the thousands of other volunteers across the country, and that was beautiful. I was inspired by Obama, and I’ll admit I was a little disappointed when he wasn’t able to accomplish all that I had hoped. But politics are more about pragmatics than hopes, and Obama is a very pragmatic president. The problem is that pragmatism doesn’t really make for a pithy, inspiring campaign slogan.

Maybe the youth vote is disillusioned with our current political process. Maybe we prefer Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart to “real” politicians, because they still know how to connect to the next generation and push past the apathy and frustration present in our generation. Obama needs to do this, as well: he cannot win without young voters stepping up and going to the polls.

The Obama campaign needs to reinvigorate the young voters who turned out for Obama in ’08. Obama’s explicit support of same-sex marriage on Wednesday was an attempt to do this; polls show that young people are much more open to same-sex marriage than older people.  But it’s going to take more than a statement on same-sex marriage or supporting freezing student loan interest rates to energize youth voters.

Young voters are smart, and we understand the political process and why it’s frustrating – but that doesn’t mean we won’t let that disillusionment deter us from participating in the political process. I think that our generation can prove the predictions wrong. I think our generation is smarter than we’re sometimes given credit for when it comes to understanding how government works. I’d like to think we have a slightly better understanding of the political process than being so easily dissuaded from participation, and that we’re able to recognize that not voting makes the dreams of 2008 even less likely in the future.

I supported President Obama when he was running in 2008, but I always found it confusing that the president did not completely support same-sex marriage, despite his other liberal views. When I read about President Obama supporting same-sex marriage, I was expecting a story about meeting more same-sex couples and having time to think it over. For the most part, I was right.

What I wasn’t expecting was President Obama using his religious beliefs to help to help solidify his new view on same-sex marriage.

Same-sex marriage has always been a hot button issue within Christianity. I’m a Christian, but I support the separation of church and state; keep your religion out of my politics and I’ll keep mine out of yours. Same-sex marriage is not conventionally supported by the church.  According to an article on CNN, the North Carolina ban against same-sex marriage had religious overtones.

One group that was supportive of the ban was Vote for Marriage NC. The website goes over what the group considers marriage to be and the threat same-sex marriages poses to their definition. I searched to see if the marriage overview and the threat overview had any mention of God; it turns out they don’t. However, the supporters’ page contains a very extensive list of different churches that support the group. In the CNN article, Tami Fitzgerald, the head of Vote for Marriage NC, mentions that same-sex marriage goes against God’s design for marriage.

In an article by Rick Klein for ABC News, President Obama reflects upon his faith and its connection to the change in his views.  President Obama points out that supporting same-sex marriage will put him at odds with his fellow Christians. It’s very true that it will. I find that Christians are willing to discuss tax policy and foreign affairs, but many view same-sex marriage to be in opposition to their faith. Still, I think the president’s explanation of his new views connected very well to his faith. In the article, President Obama discussed what he sees as the root of the Christian faith: treating others the way you want to be treated.

I’m celebrating the president’s support of same-sex marriage, as a supporter of LGBT rights and as a Christian. It is easy to associate Christianity with old-fashioned, conservative views. My faith has changed me in so many ways and continues to change me; new challenges will always rise up, but that does not mean my faith should keep all my views and ideas the same throughout my life.

Religion and politics can become so intermingled that it becomes difficult to tell them apart. I believe the president did the best thing he could in considering his political views and his faith. President Obama showed how our faith can change us; he evaluated his faith and determined what was most important to him.

The core of Christianity is sharing God’s love. It’s true that not everyone believes in the God that I do, or even a God at all. However, I still believe that God’s love is available to everyone. Our love for each other becomes a reflection of our love for God. Faith does not stay the same; it evolves with us as we grow. I believe the president’s new views are a reflection of the way our faith changes through our lives.

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have Mitt Romney. In the ABC News article, Romney is quoted as saying he does not plan to change his views on same-sex marriage, now or ever.

To Romney I say: Matthew 7:12.

Across Europe, unemployment rates for young adults under 25 continue to reach new highs, with no sign of stopping or slowing down.  Spain and Greece, two of Europe’s worst-off economies, have a youth unemployment rate of over 50 percent. Portugal and Italy’s numbers sit at around 36 percent, and the unemployment numbers for the Euro Zone as a whole are 22 percent.

With nearly half of the countries in the Euro Zone in a recession and the overall unemployment rate at 10.9 percent, people throughout Europe are feeling the pain of recent austerity measures.  But with the unemployment rate for youth more than double that of the overall population, young adults have been among some of the hardest hit by Europe’s recession.  And they aren’t taking it lying down.

Young adults have made their dissatisfaction heard in many elections across Europe.  The election of Francois Hollande in France is the most recent example of how the youth voting bloc has significantly changed the outcome of an election.

The youth vote was a major reason far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen was able to garner 17.9 percent of the vote in the first round of the French elections on April 22.  This was not enough to earn Le Pen a spot in the run-off election but it did send a strong message to incumbent conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy that many young adults were unhappy with his leadership.

Le Pen, who has never been a fan of Sarkozy, declined to endorse anyone in the run-off election and declared that she would cast a blank ballot. She urged her supporters to vote their conscience or abstain.  In the days leading up to the election, Sarkozy attempted to earn the votes of Le Pen’s supporters with tough talk about immigration and secure borders.  These two issues are important to many young adults in France who feel that, in the depressed economy, any jobs available should go to native French workers and not immigrants.

But Sarkozy’s wooing proved to be only partly successful, as polls prior to the vote showed that only 50 to 60 percent of Le Pen voters expected to vote for Sarkozy in the run-off election.  This proved to be a major blow for the French president, whose failure to lock-up these votes led to his defeat.

The frustration of young adults in Europe with government mirrors that of young adults in America, who, after coming out in droves for Barack Obama in 2008, now face an election in which neither Obama nor his challenger, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, seem an appealing option.

Many young Americans who voted for Obama in 2008 are now disillusioned with him and his polcies and feel he failed to carry out many of his campaign promises.  The youth vote has also eluded Romney, as many young Republicans flocked to his libertarian rival Ron Paul during the Republican primary. The American election system only consists of one round of voting though meaning that, barring the entrance of an independent candidate into the race, the dissatisfied youth will not have a candidate to rally around in the general election, like the French youth had in Le Pen.

The French youth were able to send a strong message to Sarkozy and Hollande that they were dissatisfied with their government by voting for a third party candidate.  While America’s two party system prevents American youth from following a similar path, young adults in America will still likely find ways to express their dissatisfaction with the government.

Though the specific issues differ from country to country, young adults in Europe, the U.S. and around the world are using this election season to send a clear message to their respective governments: Enough is enough. It’s time for a change.

I don’t find these arguments sensible: As political scientists have observed that people generally vote based on the trend of party identification anyways (The American Political System, Kollman), classifying his public interview on this issue as a strategic move to sway voters in his direction has little logic behind it. People who have supported Obama and consistently vote liberal praise this move, while people who don’t support him (for reasons other than LBGT rights) may be proud of his open expression, but will most likely not be swayed by this single issue in the election, thus rallying him no extra voters.

I urge everyone, my generation and older generations alike, to look beyond the context of the looming November election and listen to Obama’s words about the development of his viewpoint as if it was just a faceless person talking. Whether you believe that his “evolution” of opinion is genuine or not, his discussion of the issue touches on several significant points, including the idea of civil liberties extending to all groups of people, including minorities.  He mentions that one of the determining factors in his shift in perspective was the realization that his two daughters have friends who have same-sex parents, and it wouldn’t “dawn on [Malia and Sasha] that somehow their friends’ parents would be treated differently.”

Also of significance, is his mention of how religion relates to the topic of same-sex marriage, especially considering the United States is classified as the most religious country in the industrialized world, in comparison to developed European countries such as Britain, France and Germany where “faith plays a far less significant role,” and consequently is less influential in shaping people’s political opinions. Obama makes the simple conclusion that treating same-sex couples with equal respect and acknowledgement represents his attempt at being “consistent” with his values and beliefs as a practicing Christian; after all, the Golden Rule is the epitome of tolerance and acceptance, is it not?

Regardless of whether you identify as a Democrat, Republican, Moderate, Independent, or somewhere in between the various layers, I don’t want these enlightening words to be shunned and disregarded by being embedded in political rhetoric and controversy. I’m proud of the American president for speaking out immediately following the passing of Amendment One in North Carolina. It comes as a sign of hope after the disappointing amendment to the North Carolina state constitution, which blatantly violates the original purpose of the Bill of Rights: the protection and preservation of minority interests against majority rule.

Nevertheless, Obama reiterated several times throughout his interview that these were his “personal” views:” the fact that “he still supports the concept of states deciding the issue on their own” should pacify anyone complaining about the federal government possessing too much say in states’ rights.

People should push the Democrat-Republican catcalling aside, taking his words in consideration as progressive thoughts on the changing landscape of civil rights in our nation; one’s viewpoint of the President of the state of American politics shouldn’t cloud his or her recognition of the rationality of Obama’s analysis of the issue of equality for same-sex couples. As comedian Chris Rock explicitly claims: “Anyone who makes up their mind before they hear an issue is a f***ing fool. Listen. Let it swirl around your head. Then form your opinion. Nah, nah, nah everybody is so busy wanting to be down with a gang!” The “gang” of a political party probably determined peoples’ reactions to the headline of Obama’s support of same-sex marriage before they even read the entirety of the article.

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1. Marriage is a personal/religious matter. The government–federal, state, or local–should not regulate who can and cannot get married.

Oh really? Should the government condone religions that accept polygamous marriages? Should the government accept marriages between fathers and daughters? Obviously, the government should have a say in who can and cannot get married.

The gay marriage debate is about public policy. Marriage, in this context, is not what a rabbi, a priest, or an imam says. The government grants certain privileges to married couples that it does not to unmarried people, even if they cohabit. Some argue that the government should allow gay couples the opportunity to accrue the same privileges as a married heterosexual couples. Others disagree. That’s fine, but the argument is fundamentally about public policy, not personal tastes.

2. By not allowing gays to marry, the government is violating their civil rights.

This argument misrepresents what marriage is. Marriage is a public policy tool to encourage certain behaviors. Since the American people view these behaviors as favorable to society, the government encourages them by providing benefits to married couples.

Hypothetically, the good people of North Carolina would be entirely within their rights to decide that they no longer wanted their government to provide those benefits to married couples. I would argue that doing so would be detrimental to society, but that is a utilitarian argument. It’s not about rights.

The same is true of gay couples. Some argue that refusing these privileges to gay people is detrimental to society. Others disagree. But the ability of two people to file their tax returns together is not a right.

3. Opponents of gay marriage are homophobes.

More often than not, intellectual laziness, rather than incontrovertible proof of bigotry, precipitates this line of attack.

The truth is that bigotry does play a role in some people’s opposition, but that does not account for President Obama’s previous opposition to gay marriage. Does anyone really believe that President Obama is (or was) a bigot? And if he was, is he no longer a bigot just because he changed his tune?

It’s impossible to prove what truly motivates opponents of gay marriage, because opposition to gay marriage can stem from numerous thought processes. Those who blindly accuse others of homophobia are simply trying to close these thought processes, shut down the debate, and bully their opponents.

4. Marriage has been redefined before. After all, some U.S. states used to forbid interracial marriage.

It is true that marriage has been “redefined,” but it’s a non sequitur to then bring up America’s ugly racial past. Sexual orientation and race are two different aspects of our identities.

The current definition of marriage is a union between a man and a woman. The definition of marriage was never a union between white men and white women, or black men and black women.  Laws forbidding interracial marriage were discriminatory, because they tried to stop two specific kinds of people from fulfilling the ultimate purpose of marriage: creating offspring.

Marriage was, let’s face it, created to regulate the act of procreation. The fact that sterile men and barren women may marry does not take away from this fundamental truth. Interracial couples are, of course, fully capable of creating progeny.

This does not mean that marriage cannot again be redefined. It just makes little sense to compare interracial couples and gay couples.

5. If you don’t like gay marriage, then don’t have one.

Proponents of gay marriage are always quick to add that they have no interest in forcing religious groups to perform gay marriages.

It’s not so simple.

First, the Obama administration has already displayed a willingness to intervene in religious affairs by compelling religious employers to provide insurance plans that cover contraception and abortifacients.

Second, regardless of what today’s proponents of gay marriage claim, there is no way to prevent future administrations from punishing religious groups for refusing to marry gay people.

Third, some state governments have already begun to fight the Catholic Church on its adoption agencies’ unwillingness to consider gay couples as potential adoptive parents.

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There are compelling arguments in favor of gay marriage. Namely, proponents could argue that it’s in the best interest of our society to include gay people in the most stabilizing institution ever established. A successful marriage has the potential to benefit all of society. Extending the privileges of marriage to people who are completely capable of having a healthy marriage will, therefore, likely benefit society on the whole.

If supporters of gay marriage truly want to convince the undecided, they should drop the five arguments listed above.

The venues – college campuses in battleground states – emphasize the importance of young voters in swing states for the upcoming presidential election.

The millennial generation, aged 18 to 29, had a great influence in Obama’s election in 2008, according to The Daily Beast; millennials represented nearly one out of every six votes in that election.

However, political activity among the millennial generation has decreased since 2008. The number of millenials registered to vote dropped from 73 percent to 64 percent between 2008 and 2012. Of these, 47 percent say they will definitely vote in the 2012 election, compared to 64 percent in 2008.

“In 2008, he was able to tap into that and successfully activate a group of people who don’t always get involved in campaigns,” said David Cary, communications director of the Young Democrats at VCU. “That helped him win.”

Many analysts predict that the youth vote will again prove influential in 2012, according to the Wall Street Journal. Because the 2012 election is expected to be closer than the 2008 election, analysts predict that votes from counties with high college populations will be essential in winning critical swing states.

Cary, who is a senior at VCU, said the excitement at the rally and the number of people who came to see Obama speak were comparable to 2008. The nearby ‘Obama for America’ office, he said, was packed with volunteers prior to the rally; volunteers were promised a floor seat at the rally.

In terms of the rallies’ effects, Cary said encouraging youth voters to volunteer for campaigns is just as important as encouraging youth voters to choose Obama in November.

“Much, if not most, of the work is done by high school and college kids,” he said. “We have the energy, the enthusiasm, and the time, especially now that it’s summer.”

Dan Lowes, a freshman at Oberlin University in battleground state Ohio, also said he thought Obama’s rallies would have greater significance in recruiting campaign volunteers than in gaining votes. He said he believed college students are more politically active in terms of campaign involvement than the general public.

“I think Obama visiting college campuses may be more of an investment in future volunteers than an attempt to secure votes from students,” he said. “By focusing on college campuses, I think Obama is trying to encourage college students who already support him to volunteer with Democratic campaigns this year.”

In addition, by campaigning at college campuses, Obama demonstrates his value in the country’s youth, said Michael Flannagan, a sophomore and communications director of the College Democrats at OSU.

“President Obama thinks we’re important enough that he kicked off his campaign at our campus at The Ohio State University,” he said. “He cares about us. He cares about college students…He understands that we are going to be the leaders in a few years.”

In spite of contrary statistics, there has been a lot of excitement and commitment among youth voters at OSU, Flannagan added. Obama’s rally attracted thousands of people, even in competition with Cinco de Mayo, the nearby Kentucky Derby, and a 5K race on campus.

This enthusiasm is reflected in Emily Sandoval, a freshman at the University of Colorado-Boulder, who waited from 3:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. to hear President Obama speak about college affordability at her school two weeks ago. Sandoval said she plans to volunteer with Obama’s campaign this summer.

“He won our support four years ago, and our support is a big factor in his reelection,” she said. “If he can inspire young people to get out and vote for him again, he’s got a great chance of winning in November.”