There are two issues in this thread - a Yukon high school and the GWU Newman Center. Let’s talk on the high school first.
After some searching I found a news story on the policy at Vanier High School that holds that homosexual acts are gravely disordered and immoral. Concerned parents want the policy amended so that gay students don’t feel hurt:
cbc.ca/news/canada/north/story/2013/03/28/north-vanier-yukon-school-meeting.html
To the best that I can find, no students were told not to attend. Some students and teachers have left the school. This is also an odd situation in that the school is administered by the diocese but (apparently) receiving public funding - the Canadian education system mingles public funding in parochial schools to a larger extent than happens in the U.S.
If any of you can find evidence that the bishop kicked out two gay students, please post it here, otherwise I think we’re jumping to conclusions.
On to the title conversation of this thread:
I find it interesting that these gay students were implored to remain celibate by their priest, because this is the exact conversation I had with my priest when I confessed sleeping with my then-girlfriend. It was a conversation that happened a number of times about a number of different girls, until I had a conversion of heart at 22 and remained celibate until I was married. As an unmarried man, I was held to the same standard as a gay man - aspire to chastity in thought and deed. What did these students think the priest would say?
“My son, I counsel your heterosexual peers to abstain until marriage, but because you can’t get married, go have fun. It’s so much more unfair to you that I think you should do what you want so long as you love him.”
No, Catholic teaching is not popular. It’s not intended to be popular but rather reflects the authentic teaching of the church, the Truth as we Catholics believe it to be. That is a fundamental right of any human being (including those protected by the Constitution) that we may believe as we wish and speak to the truth as we wish.
Catholic teaching often offends people. Come to think of it, most religious teaching, as well as most non-religious teaching, offends someone. If the issue were about a Muslim student association that did not like the Church preaching Jesus Christ as the Son of God, Crucified, Died, and Resurrected (all of which contradict Islamic teaching), we’d not be having this conversation on this thread. It should not bother us if Muslims were insulted that our theology and theirs are incompatible. Is it fair to say that Catholics are more torn about how the Church should approach adults in committed homosexual relationships?
One difficulty I’ve found is that it is very difficult to say “what you want to do physically with the person you love is sinful” without coming off as condemning the person. That’s as true for the openly gay couple we know who have been together for a decade as it is for her cousin who is living with his girlfriend before they marry this summer. But to tell the gay couple invites an accusation of bigotry, while to tell the straight couple just makes us sound old-fashioned. Yet we hold them both to the same standard of chaste living. Would it help if we began every conversation of this nature with the truth that our being created with sexual desires doesn’t give us license to exercise them, but rather that a Christian (married, single, gay, straight, or inclined to paraphilia) is called to self-control of mind and body?
Another difficulty in espousing why the Church believes homosexuality to be immoral is that those who hear the preaching conflate a moral stance with a legal stance. The Church is also opposed to pornography, adultery, premarital sex and masturbation, all of which are things that are legal (or, at least, generally not prosecuted) in the U.S. The Church condemns these because they break from a chaste life - if done repeatedly they can become a gravely disordered life. On homosexuality, there’s the added dimension of the debate over gay marriage, and members of a Church have every right (and if we are to preach the Gospel, the mandate) to proclaim the immorality of homosexual acts (as well as others) and the immorality of gay marriage (and cohabitation, open marriage, and pre-marital sex as well).
By proclaim I mean speak the truth - our center is Jesus Christ, and when you introduce yourself as Catholic, talk of Jesus. If asked on sexual morality, speak to chastity. If asked on moral relationships, speak to the Golden Rule. If asked on materialism, speak to poverty and charity. Once legislation is passed allowing gay marriage (something inevitable, I think), we may no longer say that it is illegal, because it will not be, but we may say that we believe it to be immoral. That should not be out of hatred, or out of vengeance, or out of anything other than the desire to speak the truth.
What’s the difference? Consider the case of a Catholic who is homosexual and honestly desires to follow the Church’s call to celibacy. Such people have started threads on these boards - and on one in particular the author was bothered by his friends who, not only supported his homosexuality, but encouraged him to date other men. This is the opposite of what he was looking for. He heard the truth and followed it.
Franco was the leader of the Nationalists and he secured his victory in the Spanish Civil war with the support of Italy and Germany, the Soviets supported the Republican side by providing equipment and through volunteers fighting in the International Brigades. Franco was awarded a medal by the Nazis and wore it the rest of his life whenever he wore his military uniform. It was strange seeing that medal from the 1930s in the early 1970s.