  Recent attempts to resolve the ambiguity in the loop quantum gravity
description of the quantization of area has led to the idea that $j=1$ edges of
spin-networks dominate in their contribution to black hole areas as opposed to
$j=1/2$ which would naively be expected. This suggests that the true gauge
group involved might be SO(3) rather than SU(2) with attendant difficulties. We
argue that the assumption that a version of the Pauli principle is present in
loop quantum gravity allows one to maintain SU(2) as the gauge group while
still naturally achieving the desired suppression of spin-1/2 punctures. Areas
come from $j=1$ punctures rather than $j=1/2$ punctures for much the same
reason that photons lead to macroscopic classically observable fields while
electrons do not.
