Is there a possibility for gender equality in the U.S.? How does the government deal with the solution of Iran’s nuclear weapons program? How are vulnerable people drawn into cults?

These three questions were the topic of debate at the Night of Forensics in the Student Center by the Cerritos College Speech and Debate Team on Apr. 3.

Karla Marquez, speech and debate team member, spoke about Iran’s nuclear program and the ways that Iran could still build nuclear weapons.

“With the nuclear program you can outline it as a syllabus,” she said. “And there are ways that Iran could develop its nuclear (program) with the help from China and Russia.”

She added that inspectors are needed to look at nuclear plants because countries such as India are looking to Iran to develop their nuclear programs as well.

Following Marquez, was Alex Armendariz, who presented an impromptu speech on four subjects, “There is no time like the present,” “Israelis and Palestinians,” “Dracula” character Jonathan Harker, and “Ways to be happy.”

“There is no time like the present when you have MySpace.com,” he began.

He added that the way for people to be happy is to have a source to connect to people via online.

Armedariz concluded that Harker was the one who had an imagination of creating a character that had made people feel happy with details of the man in black.

However the highlight of the program, was when Assistant Director of Forensics Cynthia Lavariere had Rebecca Nunez, Georgina Elizalde, Tisha Harrington, and Angel Castellanos inform the audience of cults that still exist in America.

Cult leader Charles Mason was used as an example for the murder of Sharon Tate.

Afterward, Harrington said, “The hope is to let people know that cults can draw venerable people in.”

“The cults that are still out there claim to be reformed,” she continued, “and also change their names but the cults are still present (to this day).”

Lastly, there was a parliamentary debate between the Government team of Jasmine Wang Chen, student at the Jiao Tong University in Xi’a and Susan Huang Shanshan, student at International University against Cerritos College’s Joe Cobarrubio and Riley Schnitz.

“In American there is the statement that all people are treated the same,” Chen said, “but it turns out that the truth is women have to have survival of the fittest instincts because there are no women in leadership.”

Cobarrubio stated otherwise saying that there is equality in America and in other countries “because of the civil right era (of the 1960s).”

In other words he said, “Just look at people like talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, she is a woman who has had influence over women.”

During the World War II era women were in the workforce, it is true that the “world doesn’t want, but it will have equality because of the war.

Chen questioned the word gender and sexes, which she said, are two different things.

“Gender is masculine and feminism, and sex is male and female.”

She added that the opposition had failed to prove its point because there will be that mentally that women are lower than men.

After the debate the Government team was applauded and ended up winning the debate.

Following the debate Chen said that it was a great learning experience considering that English is a second language.

“For me, the one thing that stood out was the Conscious Collective performance,” she added, “because cults still exits and it was a real eye opener.”