Quote:
Originally posted by CarolinaCutie
I would really have to disagree. I do understand that people join GLOs for many reasons... but ritual is what my sorority is about. If a non-Christian woman was to join Phi Mu, she could adapt it in her own mind to conform more closely to her own religious beliefs. But if she completely disagreed with it and refused to participate... I would not want her in my chapter. What's the point, really?
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But in order for this to be true, I think we would need to make our rituals public.
You can't really say, "Don't join my organization if you don't agree with the principles that it was founded upon . . . but I can't tell what those principles are until after you join."
As Kath said earlier, in many cases there are clues, but you can't make assumptions. I didn't realize how common religion in ritual was until a while after my initiation. There are a lot of students who join sororities or fraternities without even understanding that they involve ritual at all!
I think that, generally speaking, we must either:
1) make it more clear that our rituals do involve Christianity or religious references or Judaism or whatever your particular ritual involves -- many national websites, pledge manuals, etc. downplay this because they don't want to scare off potential rushees
2) offer a modified non-religious version of the ritual for those who object
or 3) accept that these kinds of things will happen and that we will probably lose some potential members (or, like in this case, initiated members) because of it.
Anyway, as for this particular case . . . I wonder what Sig Ep's national stance on this is? I.e., do they offer a modified religion-light ritual for those who request it? I don't think that this guy was particularly wrong to join the fraternity when he didn't agree with the religious nature of the rituals, but I have to agree with those of you who questioned why he ran for VP Programming if he knew he wouldn't be able to perform all the duties that office requires? Isn't that kind of like, I don't know, having a VP Finance who doesn't know how to add and subtract?
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