Should a Catholic university have a LGBTQ student organization?

[sedonaman]

…But okay… Logically, if you have a club for one sexual preference, you will need to accomodate all. Where do you draw the line? Homosexuals are okay? Are diaper wearers okay? What about bestiality?
…

You forgot pedophiliacs [excluding Catholic priests, of course].

 

[triumphguy]

You forgot pedophiliacs [excluding Catholic priests, of course].

I think you should retract this line.

 

[Corki]

Thanks for the responses. The supporters of this at my university say that Catholic universities are bounded by the social teachings of Mother Church (they use that phrase) to include LGBTQ students in their anti-discrimination clauses because the Catechism states, “Respect for the God-given dignity of all persons means the recognition of human rights and responsibilities. The teaching of the Church makes it clear that the fundamental
human rights of homosexual persons must be defended and that all of us must strive to
eliminate any form of injustice, oppression, or violence against them.”

I’d say, if we were asked to support non-discrimination against gay students, sure I may support it, but not supporting a club.

I want to speak out about it gently since it is an extremely liberal student body with many gay students. I don’t want to seem hateful but want to stand by the Church. Is there anything I could say that would go against their “social justice” argument? Anything I could use that wouldn’t come off at too harsh?

I would say, sure support non-discrimination but not in the school’s formal anti discrimination statement. The statement can be used by individuals to claim “discrimination” in every thing from hiring to room mate assignment. To include it could be to put the University in the position of having to accept active homosexuals as faculty members, “married” homosexual couples for student housing and transgendered men in women’s restrooms.

There’s two issues: should a Catholic university include LGBTQ in their non-discrimination clauses and should they have a LGBTQ club. My “Catholic” university already has both.

Our student government wants to urge another Catholic university (ND) to have both as well. I am clearly against this.

However, they claim that they should be included in anti-discrimination clauses because the Church teaches that we must respect homosexuals and there have apparently been incidents (from what I’ve heard from their supporters). If this were the only issue, I may support it, but I do not support a gay rights club.

“They” would be wrong. Respecting homosexuals as individuals does not mean giving them protected status at a Catholic university.

 

[Domer1997]

No.

They don’t need to have a club to fight discrimination. No one can tell they are gay just by looking, unlike blacks, asians, wheel-chair-bound, etc. Unless they tell people they’re gay, no one will know, no one can discriminate against them because they are gay. Did anyone know Rock Hudson was gay? No. Why? Because he didn’t tell anyone and that’s the only way to know. Is anyone discriminated against because they like to wear a diaper and get spanked for being naughty? No. Why? Because no one knows about that perversion.

If it’s not about fighting discrimination, then what? Socializing? A Catholic organization should sponsor a club with the purpose of encouraging “gravely disordered” behavior?

But okay… Logically, if you have a club for one sexual preference, you will need to accomodate all. Where do you draw the line? Homosexuals are okay? Are diaper wearers okay? What about bestiality?

And for Notre Dame…they already hosted a queer film festival.

Notre Dame does not host a queer film festival. They did from 2002-2005 but hasn’t been on campus for years.

 

[signit]

If the LGBT club is only there to fight bullying against homosexuals, then they are okay. However, I have never heard of an LGBT club that does that. The vast majority of these clubs are in support for Homosexual unions and name calling to those against homosexual marriages. So obviously, voting to help these LGBTQ students is probably a BIG NO-NO!

Before I join the rest of you in saying “no,” has there been a problem with anti-GLBT bullying at that institution?

If so, it might be time for some sort of a “safe place” program like at secular colleges. I posted before about what they do at one institution; faculty/administrators publicly sign their names as “Allies” who support a “safe place” for GLBT students.

campus-life.bentley.edu/sites/campus-life.bentley.edu/files/u48/bu-ally-7-10.pdf

I support that 100%. People who are paying to be students have every right to live in peace without being insulted and harassed. And the right Catholic response seems to be not to laugh along with the harassment but to make a statement that it’s wrong.

 

[sedonaman]

Before I join the rest of you in saying “no,” has there been a problem with anti-GLBT bullying at that institution? …

I highly suspect it is similar to the campus rape myth in which bogus statistics are fabricated to support the Leftist ideology. The tactic is to take one data point and extrapolate a whole universe of new “victims”.

 

[Captain_America]

No, they should not.

 

[fix]

I am a freshman at a liberal Jesuit university. Our school does have a gay rights club and is very accepting of the gay community. In fact, one of our more popular events is a drag show the club puts on for gay rights month :banghead: We also have a large amount of homosexual students.

Apparently, the University of Notre Dame does not include LGBTQ students in their anti-discrimination clause and they do not have a LGBTQ student organization. Our student body senate will be voting next week to support the LGBTQ students of Notre Dame and urge them to include these students in their anti-discrimination clause and to allow them to have a LGBTQ student organization. They say ND must do this because of the social justice teachings of Mother Church.

I am a senator and would like to get a Catholic response on how I should vote. I’m leaning towards no, but would like to voice my well formed thoughts on this before the vote.

Any thoughts/opinions?

Should a Catholic university have a gay rights club?

Ask them where, specifically, the Church claims such.

 

[signit]

I highly suspect it is similar to the campus rape myth in which bogus statistics are fabricated to support the Leftist ideology. The tactic is to take one data point and extrapolate a whole universe of new “victims”.

It has, however, happened.

There has been coverage in the mainstream press about the anti-LGBTQ harassment at the local Catholic college. Although one college spokesperson wasn’t pleased that it was happening, I get the idea the college doesn’t do a thing about it.

So the question is, if it happens, what should the people in power do? Watch a bunch of “tough guys” harass someone on a regular basis and let them look like heroes for doing it? Or maybe we should step aside and say, “You know, calling Jimmy bad names/throwing things at him/writing insults on his door really isn’t the right thing to do . . . .”

 

[sedonaman]

…
So the question is, if it happens, what should the people in power do? Watch a bunch of “tough guys” harass someone on a regular basis and let them look like heroes for doing it? Or maybe we should step aside and say, “You know, calling Jimmy bad names/throwing things at him/writing insults on his door really isn’t the right thing to do . . . .”

The Problem

It seems that these problems appear most frequently on college campuses. I went to college in the '60s, and we never had these problems. We undoubtedly had LGBTQs in our student body, but everyone was civil. What is the difference now? I think a quote is in order here: "There are countries where hyping race and ethnicity has led to slaughters in the streets, but you cannot name a country where it has led to greater harmony.” - Thomas Sowell

The government is perceived to be favoring what it deems historically “oppressed” minorities. This extends even to minorities who have never experienced ethnic discrimination.

Self-defense is only natural. Whenever you push guilt by faulting a person for another’s “victimhood”, you have to expect the accused to push back. You can’t rectify A’s doing wrong to B by taking from C and giving it to D.

The Role of Academia

The central credo of the modern Leftist academic is that all intolerance and discrimination must be eliminated. Once liberal tolerance rather than traditional morality becomes our guiding principle, we must ultimately tolerate the presence of evil. Thus, the modern liberal regime bans the merest breath of the Christian religion in public schools, while subsidizing student clubs devoted to witchcraft and mandating “Play Muslim for a Day.”

Another major factor underlying this problem is the inability of the social “sciences” to produce a useful social product in anything like the amounts generated by the study of nature. Without the prestige, support, and self-confidence that such social product confers, the liberal arts have sought them instead through affiliation with what they believe to be deserving movements and causes, each in need of intellectual justification and defense. [Hayek notes that the rise of Nazism was due in no small part to support from intellectuals. We are now seeing its re-emergence in seminars in which “oppressors”, i.e., white males, are the scapegoats and forced to admit guilt fabricated by academic ideology.] It is no secret that same-sex “marriage” is academia’s current cause célèbre. Ideas start in the idea factory [academia] and move out from there. The population at large follows its lead because not following makes one appear unenlightened. You might get them to patronize an idea that is relatively innocuous; however, telling people that their religion is wrong is altogether quite different from the idea of equal pay for equal work. You have to employ “newspeak” to get them to pretend not to know something they do. Students can’t push back at their professors who determine their grades, but they can push back at those whom they perceive to have caused their plight.

The first thing that they can do is to stop hyping differences [AKA “diversity”] in order to expand the numbers of “oppressed” peoples. Of course, doing this means they have no useful social product.

Capisce?

 

[michelleds]

sw85 and Holly

As for those bullying issues, I continue to call foul. I was in undergrad and law school in the 80’s and 90’s and never saw the “bullying” and “discrimination” as claimed. What I saw was claims of discrimination when someone got pushed in a crowded hallway-- it had nothing to do with anything but too many bodies, but to hear the re-telling, the push became a shove became name-calling became threats.

The LGBTQ (q is for queer in some places) group on my campus, of which I was a very active member was ostensibly for support, but it was really about hook ups, parties, proselytizing, hating on “hets” and cementing identity.

 

[signit]

sw85 and Holly

As for those bullying issues, I continue to call foul. I was in undergrad and law school in the 80’s and 90’s and never saw the “bullying” and “discrimination” as claimed. What I saw was claims of discrimination when someone got pushed in a crowded hallway-- it had nothing to do with anything but too many bodies, but to hear the re-telling, the push became a shove became name-calling became threats.

See, I have seen it.

Maybe you didn’t see it in the 80’s and 90’s because most colleges by then (with the possible exception of some Catholic colleges) wouldn’t stand for it.

I am not LGBTQ but I have experienced it. The bullies simply labeled me as that because I didn’t play intramurals and didn’t work out in the weight room.

And whatever you might think about “these people” and “their agenda” and “same-sex marriage,” that doesn’t justify some innocent person getting his head bashed into a door.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I have an objection to the title of the club, not the concept, the movement, of gathering together to support reversion to the faith and the discipline of chastity. IOW, a promiscuous heterosexual reverting to chastity & conformity to holiness is not the same thing as someone who has been living a minority sexual lifestyle with a subculture of its own, and even an “ethos” or (casual) philosophy of its own. Because of that (because of singular pressures within such subcultures), I think it’s possibly wise & practical to have an emotionally safe place to share, as long as there is genuine, orthodox spirituality behind such a group (such as an orthodox, ordained spiritual advisor).

The problem with the secular versions of such clubs (with identical titles as stated in the OP) is that they are mere excuses for libertine indulgence in what is considered by Catholicism sexual heterodoxy, and thus I would think it prudent for the Catholic U in question not to adopt the language of such similar groups, nor their moral orientation – which is that alternative “sexualities” are equally valid manifestations & behaviors as heterosexuality – a position which radically contradicts Catholic doctrine.

Secular versions of these, which this title mimics, endorse alternative sexuality as an “identity,” which also radically opposes Catholic doctrine.

It would be more in keeping with Catholic spirituality to allow varieties of Reversion Groups – those recovering from promiscuous heterosexual behavior, those recovering from porn addiction, those recovering from voluntary identification with an enacted homosexual lifestyle, etc.

 

[sedonaman]

…The problem with the secular versions of such clubs (with identical titles as stated in the OP) is that they are mere excuses for libertine indulgence …

And to provide places to find more partners for those “libertine indulgences”.

 

[Servant_of_God]

I think that the existence of such a club should be up to the school.

Speaking as a former member of the high school version of such a club, I think it’s great when gay students have a presence. It turns LGBT people into real people, not just some group that’s made fun of on tv.

I can see a gay support group, but anything more is not appropriate for a Catholic University.

 

[LiberalPrincess]

Yes. Everyone should be welcome at a Catholic university. Most major Catholic universities, like Georgetown, have an LGBT pride organization. Great progress has been made in recent years!

There was an informative article in the NY Times recently called “A Rainbow Over Catholic Colleges” that discusses the growth of LGBT student organizations at Catholic-affiliated colleges.

 

[Hypnotoad]

I am a freshman at a liberal Jesuit university. Our school does have a gay rights club and is very accepting of the gay community. In fact, one of our more popular events is a drag show the club puts on for gay rights month :banghead: We also have a large amount of homosexual students.

Apparently, the University of Notre Dame does not include LGBTQ students in their anti-discrimination clause and they do not have a LGBTQ student organization. Our student body senate will be voting next week to support the LGBTQ students of Notre Dame and urge them to include these students in their anti-discrimination clause and to allow them to have a LGBTQ student organization. They say ND must do this because of the social justice teachings of Mother Church.

I am a senator and would like to get a Catholic response on how I should vote. I’m leaning towards no, but would like to voice my well formed thoughts on this before the vote.

Any thoughts/opinions?

Should a Catholic university have a gay rights club?

First I don’t believe a Catholic School should have to conform to it’s students any more than the Catholic Church should have to conform to the winds of society. These students freely chose to go to a Catholic University not the other way around. Now they should take responsibility for their choice and deal with it.

Secondly these students need to prove that the social justice teaching of the Church justifies their “right” to having an LGBT club. They would need to prove that an LGBT club is a fundamental right and that this club is defending fundamental rights, keeping in mind that Fundamental rights are rights like the right to “life” and not the right to a “way of life.” I doubt such students are going to be able to show that the right to “life” is as fundamental as the “right to a life of sin”.

 

[St_Francis]

Yes. Everyone should be welcome at a Catholic university. Most major Catholic universities, like Georgetown, have an LGBT pride organization. Great progress has been made in recent years!

There was an informative article in the NY Times recently called “A Rainbow Over Catholic Colleges” that discusses the growth of LGBT student organizations at Catholic-affiliated colleges.

I think that you need to learn the difference between secular social justice and *Catholic *social justice.

No one has a moral right to commit sin or to promote sin. Homosexual activity is a sin; in fact, it is one of the four sins which cry out to Heaven!

A group which helps people to *avoid *sin is good; a group which helps people commit sin is bad.

God has done everything for us–He sent His only Son to die for us on the cross. Can you seriously consider Christ crucified and then say we should *promote *sin, which is what put Him on that cross?

 

[KimberlyCat]

Legally yes. Morally no.

 

[kozlosap]

Yes. Everyone should be welcome at a Catholic university. Most major Catholic universities, like Georgetown, have an LGBT pride organization. Great progress has been made in recent years!

There was an informative article in the NY Times recently called “A Rainbow Over Catholic Colleges” that discusses the growth of LGBT student organizations at Catholic-affiliated colleges.

YES, as long as everyone is invited, straight, gay or transgender.