Blue Jean Thursday
I noticed an article in the Statesman issued on the 9th of February that struck me rather odd. It is about supporting gay marriage on Thursday by wearing a normal pair of blue jeans. The article says “the primary focus of the event is to raise awareness to issues in our society regarding homosexual marriage.”
The thing that I find odd is how by doing something completely ordinary is going to raise awareness about anything. Usually, in similar cases, something is done out of the ordinary, for example, wearing a ribbon pinned to your shirt. Someone might ask a person wearing a ribbon, “Hey, what’s that ribbon for?” and the person wearing the ribbon would go on describing the reason they are wearing a ribbon.
But I believe that even if every person on campus was to wear blue jeans, not one person would be asked, “Hey, why are you wearing blue jeans?” In fact, I do not think anyone would even notice.
Another problem with doing something ordinary in a case like this is the fact that many people “supporting” the cause are completely unaware. Suppose there was a day to wear a red shirt to support communism, you didn’t know about it, wore a red shirt that day, and found out later what you had done. That would make me feel pretty silly seeing how I definitely do not support communism.
Scott NielsenStudent ID# 529735187sanielsen@cc.usu.edu