Letter to the editor

Roman Catholic, Baptist, Calvinist, Anglican, Presbyterian. It won’t be hard to find the difference, but what do all of these have in common. They are all Christians. Why does it seem like on this campus, a Christian campus, knowing someone’s denomination is so important? It is so frustrating to be discriminated against for something as trivial as I was baptized as a baby, and you weren’t until you were in your a teenager. Or I believe in transubstantiation, and you think the Eucharist is just symbolism. Why are these differences so important to us? All these differences are doing are separating us.

We have clubs and organizations for minority groups, like for African Americans, Latinos, LGBTQIA, gender equality, and for international students. We just now have a club for Roman Catholics, which is a minority on this campus. 7 percent of Eastern’s campus identifies as Roman Catholic, and it is the largest growing population on this campus. Yet, there is still a significant amount of discrimination against Roman Catholics.

I want you to visualize this. Close your eyes, and think about the cemetery at Normandy. Picture all of those white marble crosses. There are 9,387 of those crosses there. 307 of those are unknown burials, but other than that, each one has the name of an American soldier who died protecting us. Now, other than the memorials that have a Star of David, rather than a cross, the only differences you can find on those crosses are the names of the people. Not a single cross lists the man’s denomination. The only differences you can distinguish from that graveyard are the Jewish soldiers from the Christian soldiers. Not the Jewish soldiers from the Baptist soldiers, or the Catholic soldiers from the Calvinist soldiers. Those men who died were not concerned with their denominational differences – they were concerned with fighting evil. If they can put aside and ignore their differences for the greater good in such a high-pressure situation, why can’t we, as Christians on a Christian campus, be more accepting?

With concern,
Laura Temons