The Peer Advising, Counseling, and Education program (PACE) hosted the first of three Talk Back sessions Tuesday Oct. 5 about the mosque being built near Ground Zero.
The PACE program sponsored a Talk Back session in the Hunt/VA lobby at 6 p.m. The sessions started two years ago as a way to get students talking about current issues. They are open to the public and are free of charge.
“The Talk Back Sessions are simply an invitation to the academic community to come together and participate in an intellectual, respectful and no-bias discussion,” said Graduate Assistant and Student Coordinator Kristen Fautsh.
For each Talk Back session, two members of the PACE program facilitate the discussion, one on each side of the argument.
The PACE program has previously sponsored several other talks, covering topics such as medicinal marijuana, interracial dating and gun control. Attending the gun control discussion was the Gun Club, who came prepared.
“The gun club came and talked to us about the rights of people who have concealed weapons license,” said P.A.C.E team facilitator Maddie Moortel who also helped host the discussion.
On Tuesday the group got together to host the first of their discussions this year—the Cordoba Project, which is a proposed Muslim community center in New York. Controversy arises from the fact that the Islamic community also wants to include a new mosque in the community center, even moreso because the mosque would be a few blocks from Ground Zero. The political issue is under great debate around the country, so PACE opened it up to the Marquette community.
The discussion touched on many subjects, including the war in the Middle East, the fear that has been built up over the years of Muslims in general, and the role of religion over the years in violence. Thoough the issue is controversial, everyone participating kept their voices calm, and remained in control of their emotions.
One of the interesting topics raised during the discussion was the idea that Muhammad, Jesus and Buddha may have all been the same person.
“Historians have linked it, that these three may all be the same person. They just got moved around the country to different ideals,” said Fautsh. “The three religions teach pretty much the same thing—to put others before yourself, to worship only one God, to not worship false idols. If you read about those three major religions, you’ll see a major similarity in them.”
The next two Talk Back Sessions later in the semester will be on hate crime laws and immigration laws. The next discussion, on hate crimes, will be on Wednesday Oct. 27 in the Payne/Halverson lobby. Members of the group strongly encourage students to come out and join, even if they just want to listen.
“I think it’s something that affects us like our daily lives, like our rights,” said Moortel. “I think it’s good to for people to talk about it, so they can be informed about stuff that’s going on in the states.”
