Parker spoke about the need to get rid of welfare in the United States. The satirically named "Right Wing Liberation Front" planned to present our skit after Parker's speech and after the question-and-answer session. However, audience members grew frustrated and began to leave when she presented such ideas as the alternative to welfare being for poor women to get married. We decided that waiting until the end of the question-and-answer session might exclude too many supporters.

Here is a line-by-line of some of the skit. Seven women, six dressed in military fatigues and one drill sergeant, stood up and marched to the front of the Kern Auditorium.

The drill sergeant blew her whistle saying, "Locate scapegoat." The drill team, of which I was a part, responded, "Poor woman with children, sir."

When she asked, "Where should middle- class mothers be?" we responded, "At home with their children, sir."

"Where should mothers living below the poverty line be? Working at McDonald's, sir."

"And what about their children? Who cares, sir."

"What do we tell them when they ask why we haven't cut corporate welfare? Women and children first, sir."

The incident, which took no longer than a few minutes, was reported by YAF in the Campus Report to have lasted for 15 minutes. This type of exaggeration is analogous to the one made by Ronald Reagan several years ago when he introduced the "Myth of the welfare queen." He claimed that there was a woman who collected $150,000 dollars in welfare benefits illegally by placing her name on the welfare roles 80 times. In actuality, this woman was receiving $8,000 for registering her name 4 times.

The myth touted by Reagan and sustained by groups such as YAF, presents poor mothers who need welfare to raise healthy kids as lazy. In the United States, a single mom with two kids working 40 hours a week at minimum wage makes $10,712 a year. That's $2,600 below the poverty line. Is supplemental welfare income necessary?

Most countries in the world with wealth comparable to the United States guarantee people a living wage. Fifty years ago these rights were declared by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), a document written in order to prevent atrocities of World War II from reoccurring. The United State's welfare reform violates three articles of the UDHR.

Welfare reform limits the "just and favorable remuneration" (for work) in Article 23 to five years. Minimum wage jobs do not provide sufficient income. In 1996, the U.S. Conference of Mayors revealed figures showing that 20 percent of homeless people work in full-time or part-time jobs. People rely on welfare when minimum wage jobs do not provide a living wage for a full day of work.

Welfare reform also violates Article 25 by denying the right to "food, clothing, housing ... and necessary social services" after five years. Article 26 says "Everyone has the right to education ..." Welfare recipients are limited to 12 consecutive months of education, locking people into skilled labor jobs and denying them their "right to education."

Are these rights that United States -- the richest country in the world -- should respect?

Parker and YAF say no. They say that such programs limit the freedom of the individual, and the free market to run a "natural" course. They claim to hold freedom as the highest value.

However, they conveniently argue that individual rights are conditional, providing they do not infringe upon their own rights. YAF claimed that when the performers exercised their individual rights of freedom of speech, they violated Parker's rights.

Ironically, welfare recipients' rights are violated when the individual freedom of those who call for strict welfare policies are exerted. Welfare reform disregards the rights of the workers who are forced into working at minimum-wage jobs and the rights of students on welfare who hoped to get a college education while raising their children. YAF hypocritically excludes the rights of the poor.

Just to set the record straight, I graduated in December after the protest. I received a letter from Judicial Affairs in February saying there was an indefinite hold on my registration if I wanted to go to re-enroll at Penn State. A few weeks later I was told that because I graduated, this no longer applied to me.

I encourage all students to take part in creative actions. Though it may cause controversy, it presents your ideas in a fun manner.