Tomorrow students will take a stand. What do you stand for? I am tired of seeing politicians pit us against each other. I am tired of being treated like a second-class citizen. The "other" mentality has to stop, and it begins with you.

Tomorrow a national civil rights organization, Tolerance.org, is promoting a nationwide boycott in protest of recent measures to forever demean homosexual citizens to second-class status. President Bush has encouraged states to amend their constitutions to exclude same-sex couples from civil unions. Wisconsin has started a referendum. So have many other states.

Let's get to the point: This is not about marriage. Marriage is a religious issue. But civil unions are about civil rights. It is about the government deeming some people more worthy than others on an arbitrary basis, and we have done it before — most prominently with women and blacks. Have we ever looked back with pride on discrimination?

Tomorrow, students are encouraged to participate in the Boycott for Equality in any way they see fit. But we will also be standing along West Wisconsin Avenue. outside the Alumni Memorial Union from 1 to 4 p.m., passively pleading that humans will once again see each other as humans, deserving of equal protection and dignity in the eyes of the law. Please join us.

It is time to stand for something.

Gruenwald is a freshman biochemistry major.

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