What I am writing about is a very sensitive subject. This article does not reflect my views on homosexuality. I have my own opinions on the matter, and I wish to keep those out of it.
Dr. Ken Howell was a professor at U. Illinois who taught courses on Catholicism. Let me make this clear: he was a professor who specialized in the Catholic Church, and was brought to the school to educate the students about it. It was not necessarily a course requirement, and was mostly an elective class for students.
Near the end of this past semester, Howell taught a class which focused on Catholic moral positions. As many people know, any religious position can, and quite often does, offend a few people.
Professor Howell gave two certain lectures every year on Catholic moral positions. One was an explanation of Natural Moral Law as affirmed by the Church. The second was designed as an application of Natural Law Theory to a disputed issue in our society.
The disputed law he talked about in the lecture was homosexuality. Howell said the Catholic Church teaches homosexuality is not morally wrong just as no moral guilt can be assigned to any inclination a person has. But based on natural moral law according to the church, homosexual acts are contrary to the human nature and therefore are morally wrong.
He sent these statements in an e-mail to his students as preparation for a test. A few weeks later, he was called before the chairman of the department of religion and was informed someone had sent a letter — in response to the e-mail statements — accusing him of “hate speech”.
He was then told he would no longer be teaching in the department at the university. He tried to sue for breach of contract, but the university covered all their bases and he found out it would be impossible.
The question I had to ask after hearing this story is: how in the world could the university fire him so quickly? I understand the moral position of most Christians is offensive to many types of people. To be honest with you, moral positions of some denominations of Christianity offend other denominations as well.
But if you take a course on an introduction to Catholicism, is it not necessary to learn the morals behind it? If you do not learn them, how will you understand the religion?
I think “hate speech” is starting to become more and more widely defined. Whether it is about race or sexual orientation, it seems people are just looking for ways to be offended.
Who wants to talk to someone who gets offended by everything a person says?
I am not saying this person was just looking for a way to be offended or trying to have Howell fired, but they were overreacting. I read the e-mail and it was a very simple statement which was stated as a fact and not as an opinion.
The man was telling the students what the church believes. He did not go out and say he believed homosexuality was a sin, he simply told the students what the Catholics believe.
How can you fire someone over a statement of fact? I am not saying homosexuality is morally wrong. But how can you fire someone for simply teaching what an entire denomination teaches in a class at a respected university?
I do not understand this. It seems to me our culture is getting more and more sensitive. What happened to people having thick skin? I have to live with science classes which assume the theory of evolution is fact and completely disregard what I believe, but I get through it.
I might disagree, but I am not going to write a letter complaining about what is taught in a class.
I know this is a sensitive subject. I know the teaching of science is different than someone’s sexual orientation, but the idea that a teacher can be fired for stating a well-known fact is insulting to me.
The Catholic Church has its own beliefs. The student took a class that taught those beliefs, and when they heard something they disagreed with, they went above the professor’s head and got him fired. Does anyone else see something wrong here?