As a male, gay, lower-class, college student, I am clearly not voting for Gov. Mitt Romney this election. He has no actual plan for how he would make the country better, does not care about almost half of the country and does not support something very important to me — marriage equality. He disgusts me, and I do not know what is worse — the fact that he is a presidential candidate or the fact that he has such a strong following. Romney is not a politician. He is a business man. Countries cannot be ran like businesses.

It is unethical to force Americans to choose between their religions and their choices of presidential candidates. Issues such as gay marriage, abortion, birth control and other religious matters have no place in politics. Many extremist Republican and Democratic advocates are playing the religious card in order to persuade citizens to vote for a particular candidate. I have heard everything from ‘Romney practices polygamy’ to ‘vote for Obama and you are going to burn in hell.’

Race, ethnicity and politics were among the issues discussed by Denise Travis, professor of social work at IU Northwest, in the Hoosier Room East at IU Southeast on Friday, Oct. 17.

As a journalism student, I like paying attention to the news, but most of my friends don’t know squat about the election coming up between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain.