High: 61º Low: 51º
mar. 6, 2013
Wednesday
TION VOTING UNTIL A.S. ELEC WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2013
WWW.DAILYAZTEC.COM
VOLUME 99, ISSUE 82
First A.S. debate gets the ball rolling
campus
(From left to right) Celeste Rodriguez, Morgan Chan, Javier Gomez, Washington Navarrete and Allie Hillis spoke openly in the first A.S. candidate election debates. Today’s debate will be held from noon to 1 p.m.
Michele Pluss Staff Writer
Yesterday was the first in a threeday series of debates featuring candidates running for executive positions on the Associated Students board of directors. Students gathered in front of Hepner Hall yesterday afternoon to hear candidates for vice president of external affairs and vice president of
university affairs speak on issues ranging from finances to student health and transportation. The debate allowed each candidate two minutes to respond to questions, giving them each three thirty-second rebuttals to use if they desired. Students were also invited to tweet questions to the candidates during the debates using the hashtag #ASelections to @TheDailyAztec. The candidates for vice president
antonio zaragoza , editor in chief
of external affairs included seniors Celeste Rodriguez and Javier; Gomez and junior Allison Hillis, and candidates for vice president of university affairs included senior Washington Navarrete and junior Morgan Chan. Candidates who took the stage this afternoon addressed topics close to students’ hearts and wallets. Speech, language and hearing sciences junior Maddy Main said she attended the event “very open-
minded” and hoped the debates would give her a better idea of each candidate as she prepared to cast her vote. When asked what he hoped to see the incoming executive officers accomplish next year, candidate for student support commission representative and communications senior Kodi Bobier said, “I’m actually really looking for programs that hopefully our executive officers can assist A.S. in developing in regards to (bridging the gap). I really feel that, right now at San Diego State, although there are communities, there’s not a lot of bridges between those communities. So I’m kind of looking for them to find ways to make connections so there’s one Aztec community.” Hospitality and tourism management junior Alejandra Alonso said there is an importance to these debates. “We the students want change in the school and we want to put our full trust in the candidates,” Alonso said. “In order to really know who’s gonna make the difference and who’s gonna keep things the same, we have to come out and support them and attend the debates to know who’s running and what they can do for us.” The next set of debates will take place today at noon on Campanile Walkway in front of Hepner Hall, spotlighting candidates for vice president of financial affairs and executive vice president.
Obama fights for marriage equality in CA
state Christina Koral Staff Writer
Last Thursday, the Obama administration endorsed marriage equality and urged the Supreme Court to overturn Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage. The obama’s administration argues Proposition 8 violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause to deny homosexual couples the right to marry, stating that the proposition fails the heightened scrutiny test. California is one of eight states in the U.S. to provide gay couples with all the economic benefits of marriage through domestic partnership or civil unions, but doesn’t allow them the right to be married. The brief submitted by the Obama administration argued that same sex-couples have already received the rights of marriage in everything but the name and therefore should have the right of actual marriage. Seven other states could be affected if President Barack Obama’s position is adopted by the court. According to the New York Times, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island have “similar all-but marriage frameworks,” which could result in legal gay marriage for those states as well. Though the brief does not directly ask the court to strike down the laws in the seven other states, the implication of the argument is obvious. “I do believe that this could possi-
Two women smile after getting married in Seattle, Wash. Obama urges California to allow same-sex marriage.
bly be the tipping point for marriage equality, and after enough states have it legalized, it would become something to be discussed on a federal level,” San Diego State’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Student Union president Michael Manacop said. “More and more people are coming out and becoming more comfortable with their sexual identities, and I think we will someday come to a point where these types of issues of inequalities cannot continue.” The Obama administration is also asking the court to examine the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman for the purposes of federal laws and regulations. The ruling for the Defense of
bettina hansen , us washington news , mct
Marriage Act will help determine if the federal government is able to discriminate against same-sex couples who married in a state that allows homosexual marriage. Currently there are nine other states as well as the District of Columbia that allow same-sex marriage. Obama has not always supported gay marriage the way he does now. When he first ran for presidency in 2008, he opposed Proposition 8, but didn’t directly say he supported gay marriage. In Obama’s 2012 campaign, he endorsed gay marriage, but stated that the federal government would stay out of the issue. But, by the time of his inaugural address, Obama presented the issue of gay marriage as a simple factor of equality.
“Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well,” Obama said. Obama’s stance on gay marriage reflects the shift of public opinion regarding marriage that has occurred within the past few years. According to Gallup, in May 2008, 56 percent of Americans thought same-sex marriages shouldn’t be recognized legally. However, by the election last November, 53 percent felt that gay marriage should be valid. Obama’s brief could change the way future presidents look at the issue of marriage equality, as it is the first time a U.S. president has asked a high court to expand the right of gay and lesbians to wed. Manacop hopes the support of gay marriage will become a trend among future presidents. “I think it would be very disappointing to see a future president be unsupportive to the LGBT community,” Manacop said. “I would like to hope that we could continually progress as a nation until someday it will not even be an issue anymore.” The Supreme Court will hear the case regarding Proposition 8 on March 26, and the case on the Defense of Marriage Act on March 27. Manacop’s opinions do not reflect the opinions of all the members of the LGBT Student Union.
Baby cured of HIV, but virus still a battle
national
Arturo Garcia Staff Writer
A 2-year-old girl reportedly born with HIV was said to have been cured from the virus with an aggressive treatment. Doctors treated the Mississippi native with drugs before the diagnosis was confirmed that she was positive, according to CNN. The treatment began 30 hours after birth, which is not usually done. Her mother was diagnosed HIV positive just before delivery. According to post doctoral researcher at the Wolkowicz for HIV research Lab at San Diego State Aleksandr Stotland, the “cure” is a potential way forward for mother-to-child transmissions, but not for the leading vectors of HIV spread, which are unprotected sex and intravenous drugs. “It’s great for that family and that kid, but there are many factors that go into HIV,” Stotland said. According to Stotland, the mother had low-titer HIV, which means it’s possible the child never got HIV. The New York Times reported the results have not yet been published in a peer-reviewed journal, and that experts needed to be convinced the baby was truly infected. Associate professor at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center Dr. Deborah Persaud said she was certain the baby had been infected. Five HIV-positive tests in the baby’s first month of life are being cited. Stotland also said the applied therapy might not move ahead because of expensive drugs and side effects. “It’s not financially feasible,” Stotland said. “That might be applicable in a very small subset of people in the Western world, but you can’t apply that to people in countries like South Africa where 25 percent of the people have HIV.” Side effects of the treatment such as liver dystrophy and loss of appetite are also issues, Stotland said. “It looks interesting, but I would be very careful in calling it a cure,” Stotland said. Stotland compared the baby’s case with Timothy Brown’s, the first person cured from HIV who received a bone-marrow transplant from a donor genetically resistant to HIV infection. “Again, that’s great for that person, and it is a step forward,” Stotland said. “And yes, we can cure the virus, but it’s not as if we have a treatment that works across men and women of all ethnic backgrounds, so it’s not a vaccine—and vaccine may not be the way to cure HIV either because the virus seems to be quite good at going around any vaccine approach so far.” HIV has a high rate of mutation, and it doesn’t take much for the virus to evolve out of the drug activity, Stotland said.