This time, everyone came to an agreement. The administration set the rules for the Safer Sex Cabaret, and the organizers of the student event agreed to those standards. The students' reward? A campus venue at which they could hold the same event they held on this campus last year, no questions asked.

This situation speaks to several trends. First, it is commendable of both the student gay rights group, Allies, sponsor of the event, and university officials to cooperative in an effort to reach a peaceful resolution. Many students, as Safer Sex Cabaret organizer Jennifer Dumin said, "certainly understand where the university is coming from and the tight spot that they're in."

We students, for the most part, do understand that if it were not for a certain overzealous state legislator, most of the limitations set forth by the university for Safer Sex Cabaret never would have even materialized.

The rules include: no nudity, lewd or lascivious touching, or actual demonstrations of sexual activities or sexual techniques. In addition, attendance at the program will be limited to enrolled Penn State students and signs will be posted outside the doors of the venue indicating the sensitive nature of the program and warning that some may find the content of the program objectionable.

On the flip side, there is also a disconcerting trend that is surfacing on this campus — a trend that will inevitably chill students' speech, preventing them from saying certain things, organizing certain events, and acting in certain ways that could have served a valuable educational purpose. It also deprives the community of events that could prevent unwanted pregnancies and the spread of STDs — concerns not limited to college students.

Some will argue the university's standards for Safer Sex Cabaret were not extreme, but they beg the question: How far will the university go? What kind of standards can we expect from administrators for the next "questionable" event, or rather, any event that has a title with the word sex in it? It's very obvious that Penn State officials are walking on eggshells in an effort to appease lawmakers. They are reviewing activities with a magnifying glass tinted with "moral" absolutes possessed by the likes of state Rep. John Lawless.

In the end, all of this is teaching students one thing — surrender to those same absolutes or simply forget it. Forget the objectives of your activity, the mission of your organization and your passion for a particular issue if they do not conform to those standards. We celebrate with Allies in their Pride Week and their objective to provide safe sex education through their events. However, the fact that they can still have Safer Sex Cabaret on campus this year because Allies had to agree to specific university demands is by no means a victory for students in the long run.