Did you know it's Life Week? Like many college students, I'm a pro-choice, gay and women's rights, pro-affirmative action, card-carrying liberal. The last thing I'd care about was pro-life activism.

That is, until I found myself getting a ride home from a party in my friend Greg's car. As I was getting into his Audi, I couldn't help but notice that his trunk and back seat were stuffed with wooden crosses.

A soft-spoken, serious and religious type, Greg was hardly someone to be scared of. But his driving around with a car full of crosses was still a disturbing idea. "Oh, they're for 'the graveyard of the unborn'," Greg said with a smile and opened his door.

Perhaps you saw the 170 crosses blanketed in snow on the HUB lawn Monday, representing the number of unborn children lost each hour of every day. Saturday night, this liberal was driving around with those crosses in the back seat and sitting next to who I found out later was the president of Students For Life.

For most of my life, I've always believed "liberal" meant you wanted to make the world a better place and "conservative" meant that you were selfish.

Following such logic, I worked to adopt the altruistic social views. However, this logic didn't quite fit with Greg.

Conversation naturally started with our unusual back seat passengers. People think that if abortion's legal, then it must not be a life; however, science proves that life starts at conception. The only thing that disagrees is Roe v. Wade, which we are keeping to ease the consciousness of the women who have had abortions.

At least this is what Greg told me. I'm completely uninterested in whether you agree with him or not about abortion. Just hold off the letters to the editor for a minute and pay attention to this part -- his sincerity.

"I know two women who have had abortions who are now pro-life," he said with deep sadness in his voice. This was no evil man trying to keep women in the kitchen, like I often hear pro-lifers described by my side. Greg was deeply concerned about the lives of unborn children and equally with the women who were having the abortions.

It's hard for conservatives on this campus to have a respectable voice. It seems many feel they need to be extreme to get heard, which might be the truth. Have you seen the bloody fetus posters the protests have been known to wave at the Allen Street Gates? Like that really makes me want to reconsider my views.

I asked Greg how publicity was going for Life Week. He told me that last year the most attention they got from The Daily Collegian was one photo with a caption, and he wasn't predicting any more for this year.

The more I talk to students with conservative views, the more I hear complaints that no one listens to them. A good friend told me about a professor who was complaining about conservatives on campus. My friend asked if having an open mind meant listening to conservatives, not insulting them. The teacher responded, "I don't think that anyone who believes that the current system is working deserves to be heard" and changed the subject.

Nothing discredits your argument more than not listening to the other side. "That the air may at times seem filled with verbal cacophony is, in this sense, not a sign of weakness but of strength," a famous Supreme Court ruling from the Vietnam War reads.

The Court ruled that a man was allowed to wear a "Fuck the draft" shirt into a courtroom, despite its anti-government message. So again, did you know it was Life Week?

No matter your views, I ask that you get over your differences and realize everyone wants the best for every human involved. Silencing and ignoring conservatives does nothing but weaken our liberal arguments.