The Cavalier Daily
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Unsophisticated reasoning

Ginny Robinson's column yesterday lacked the same "validity of assertion" she said the Love is Love campaign missed. Additionally, she makes groundless assumptions about the University community. Love is Love may have made a claim based on emotional appeal (what else would you expect from a campaign about love on Valentine's Day weekend, by the way?), but Robinson also committed a logical fallacy: anecdotal evidence. She relies on one female student's response to why she was wearing the shirt. Well, I informed both a peer and a professor about the meaning of the campaign without hesitation and also witnessed a friend inform a Charlottesville local. So, if we are only comparing anecdotes, Love is Love wins.

Just as Robinson challenged the campaign, so do other students. She's just the only one who wrote about it in The Cavalier Daily. The campaign works not by the simplicity of the message, but by "the sheer number of participants." They hope students see how many people are wearing the shirt and do one of three things: ask someone wearing it what it is, ask a friend not wearing the shirt what it is, or look it up on the University Web site. College life in general is a time of protest and questioning, challenge and thought. I think the assertion that U.Va. students are participating in "unsophisticated thinking" and falling prey to propaganda assumes that we're all mindless magpies who see something colorful and snatch it up. Although that may hold true for the one person "interviewed," I doubt that holds true for most university students. The word was spread mostly through e-mail, the text of which gives more information than mentioned in Robinson's article.

Additionally, Robinson overlooked a key part of the Love is Love message. She said the campaign "denies the complexity of love by ignoring the variation in human relationships." Acknowledging the complexity of love and variation of relationships is what the campaign is all about. Love is Love seeks to cultivate an appreciation for the variation in romantic relationships. The University community may have missed that point if the t-shirt mentioned the LGBT Resource Center. Students would thought, "Oh, it's about gay rights." They'd be right, but they'd also be missing the point. The statement is much broader than that, that's why it says: "Queer love. Straight love. Love that crosses racial and ethnic boundaries, all love."\n\nMark Manning\nCLAS III

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