The panel that should have focused on issues affecting the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community Wednesday never got to its point because the audience didn’t come to listen, they came to complain.

The panel, titled “Defining Minorities: Process of Inclusion,” featured members from both LGBT and ethnic communities. While both groups should have supported one another, many of the ethnic minority audience members brought their own gripes to the table instead of listening to what could have been a fruitful conversation.

The LGBT community has suffered through much of the same alienation and discrimination many ethnic minorities have felt.

As Charles Milne, director of the LGBT Resource Center defined, minorities are those who have undergone systematic forms of discrimination. The LGBT community falls well within this definition.

Organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign strive to bring equal rights-such as marital rights and tax benefits-to homosexuals.

The U’s LGBT Resource Center has done a commendable job partnering with other minority groups on campus to promote all minority issues.

That same respect should have been shown in Wednesday’s panel by many of the ethnic minorities in attendance.

Blythe Nobleman, the woman who serves as the minority affairs director for Rocky Anderson, came under attack for being a sexual minority instead of an ethnic minority. Many said they didn’t feel represented by her. Nobleman’s response is that it isn’t her responsibility to represent, but rather coordinate.

Instead of being berated, audience members should have supported having a diversity of minorities in places of authority.

Squabbling over the title of minority is something best left to academia. Why does the U’s Women’s Resource Center exist when women make up the majority of campus? Because women are discriminated against more often than men, and need a place to turn when in need.

In any situation where there is a large majority and many smaller minority groups, the minorities must come together to stand up for each other.

The panel organizers need to be commended for trying to open up an honest dialogue, but those who attended need to rethink the chips on their own shoulders, and realize that uniting is the only way to making the situation better for everyone.