The Email That Got Him Fired

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In light of recent discussion re. homosexuality in the Family Life forum, and also related to the thread containing the Fox version of the news story of the firing of Dr. Kenneth Howell from the U of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, I wanted to share this link to the actual email that prompted the complaint of “hate-speech”, which resulted in the termination of employment for Dr. Howell.

It is a wonderful, concise explication of why the Church teaches that homosexual acts are wrong, one that doesn’t at any point use “Because God/Church/the Pope said so.”

If this whole affair isn’t an affront to Justice, I don’t know what is. But it truly is the logical outcome of using democracy and the majority (or “popular”) vote to determine what is Truth and Justice.
 
So incredibly unjust that this cost him his job. 😦

It was a very well-worded email that had nothing to do with religion…
 
It is a wonderful, concise explication of why the Church teaches that homosexual acts are wrong, one that doesn’t at any point use “Because God/Church/the Pope said so.”
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That’s probably why it got him in trouble. If he wrote that the Church condemned homosexual behavior over “bigotry” or other nonsense, he would surely still be teaching there today.
 
Em_in_FL said:
So incredibly unjust that this cost him his job. 😦

It was a very well-worded email that had nothing to do with religion…
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I think that’s part of the point: the class was about Catholicism, so writing an email, and ending it with the comment that it wasn’t about religion, and then later after he ‘got in trouble’ complaining that it was pertaining to the catholic class kind of got him in trouble.

And it doesn’t take much for a non-tenured professor to be let go unfortunately. Sometimes (not all the time) it can be a revolving door and it doesn’t always have to have “just cause”.

Maybe a Catholic university would be better suited to him. God knows, we need good Catholic professors in Catholic universities and colleges. I don’t know know why he would waste his time at UIC but maybe it was a stepping stone to get elsewhere…?
 
Rence said:
Maybe a Catholic university would be better suited to him. God knows, we need good Catholic professors in Catholic universities and colleges. I don’t know know why he would waste his time at UIC but maybe it was a stepping stone to get elsewhere…?
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UIUC has a solid Newman Center for which he worked, which is who brought him there.

Everyone should join the Facebook group “Save Dr. Ken”. 1,615 members and growing. 🙂 You can read his side of the story and receive updates as things unfold. (Yes, this is a shameless plug. :))
 
The following is my critique of the email.
In short, to judge an action wrong is not to condemn a person.
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This statement should have been emphasized more to diffuse the “negative” connotations that followed.

His references to bestiality and age problems are beyond the scope of most of his message, however. Medical issues (regarding injuries specific to homosexual activity) are a bit of a stretch to relate. Serious injuries are possible in childbearing and birth, after all.

He establishes a causal relationship between modern attitudes toward homosexuality and availability of contraceptives. Both issues have festered on the fringe of society for centuries and helped to further each other in recent decades. However, unless he has already established a connection between the two, it may appear as a non sequitur in his students’ minds.

The email does not claim the issue is not a religious one, however. It was, in part, explaining what he called Natural Moral Theory and most simply call Natural Law. He capped off by explaining that this theory is what the Church uses to ascertain acceptable moral behavior.

He would have done well to run it by an assistant prior to sending. Overall, it was well written but should have gone further to support these sections or simplified them to stay relevant to the immediate point (utilitarianism in homosexuality)
 
We should all keep in mind that Dr. Howell likely never imagined that this one email would be so widely read. I don’t think it was supposed to be some stand-alone summa on the Catholic approach to the morality of homosexual acts. He was just supplementing with what he didn’t have time to cover in class.

I don’t think I could be nearly as articulate on the fly as he is. 😛
 
Rence said:
I think that’s part of the point: the class was about Catholicism, so writing an email, and ending it with the comment that it wasn’t about religion, and then later after he ‘got in trouble’ complaining that it was pertaining to the catholic class kind of got him in trouble.

And it doesn’t take much for a non-tenured professor to be let go unfortunately. Sometimes (not all the time) it can be a revolving door and it doesn’t always have to have “just cause”.

Maybe a Catholic university would be better suited to him. God knows, we need good Catholic professors in Catholic universities and colleges. I don’t know know why he would waste his time at UIC but maybe it was a stepping stone to get elsewhere…?
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We need good strong Catholics teachers speaking out for good, strong morals in all places. I don’t think his time there was wasted… although it may very well be true that now God has a Catholic school in mind for him. 🙂
 
Joe_5859 said:
We should all keep in mind that Dr. Howell likely never imagined that this one email would be so widely read. I don’t think it was supposed to be some stand-alone summa on the Catholic approach to the morality of homosexual acts. He was just supplementing with what he didn’t have time to cover in class.

I don’t think I could be nearly as articulate on the fly as he is. 😛
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True enough. Even had he done the things I mentioned, it likely would have made little difference. He hit the core of the real issue in a relatively brief note much harder than most traditionalists do in much longer writings.
We need good strong Catholics teachers speaking out for good, strong morals in all places. I don’t think his time there was wasted… although it may very well be true that now God has a Catholic school in mind for him.
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We should pray for that.
 
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