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Student, faculty and other members of the Notre Dame community will participate in events this week to demonstrate their desire for the administration to add sexual orientation to the University's non-discrimination clause.
The events kicked off yesterday when students wore "Gay? Fine By Me" T-shirts to show their support for Notre Dame's Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender (GLBT) community. Senior Patrick Bears, a member of the Core Council for Gay and Lesbian Students, said that in light of a controversial comic published in the Jan. 13 edition of The Observer, there has never been a more important time for students to show support for the GLBT community.
"Generally we try to coincide T-shirt day with StaND Against Hate week or National Coming Out Day, but given the controversy surrounding the comic we thought it would be better to do a weeklong initiative promoting these issues," Bears said.
More students and alumni than ever expressed interest in obtaining T-shirts to wear, he said.
Former Notre Dame wide receiver Golden Tate said he wanted to get involved with the initiative to help show Notre Dame's GLBT community that he and others on campus support their decisions.
"I wanted to participate in the project because just like everyone else, [the GLBT community] are people and have rights," Tate said. "The Notre Dame community is a family and family members support one another to make the family stronger."
Senior Johanna Kirsch chose to wear a "Gay? Fine By Me" shirt yesterday for similar reasons.
"I think it's good for the student body to come together and show support for each others' struggles," Kirsch said. "I hope the GLBT community will be able to see that they do have supporters who love and accept them for who they are."
Senior Jessica Mahon, one of the students in charge of organizing the T-shirt day, said she hopes the events planned for this week will show students the ongoing nature of discrimination on campus.
"I think it's important for students to realize it's not a problem that goes away," Mahon said. "It kind of comes in waves. There will be a comic or a Viewpoint letter or something and it'll be a hot topic for a week and then go away. But it's not an issue that goes away for members of the Notre Dame community that are gay."
Bears said his main goal for this week's events is to simply start a discussion on the issue of discrimination against Notre Dame's GLBT community, because it is often ignored on campus.
"I think [this week is] important because these kinds of issues aren't really discussed on campus as well as they should be and there's kind of this veil of ignorance surrounding these issues," Bears said. "From a legal and theological perspective, Notre Dame needs to reinforce its Catholic identity by practicing nondiscrimination."
Senior Madison Prieto, a member of Notre Dame's GLBT community, echoed Bears' goal of educating Notre Dame students and faculty.
"People at this school can be a little closed-minded sometimes, so [the events being held this week are] a good way for people to learn about what's going on and the issues at hand," Prieto said.
Following yesterday's T-shirt day, a silent demonstration will be held today at noon at the University's gates to protest Notre Dame's exclusion of sexual orientation from the non-discrimination clause and the lack of a recognized Gay-Straight Alliance on campus.
Tomorrow, a panel discussion, "Where To Go From Here?: Moving Beyond Fruits and Vegetables," will be held in the Hesburgh Library's Carey Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. The event will consist of a discussion and question-and-answer session about what Notre Dame's student body can do to fulfill the Spirit of Inclusion, a document adopted by the University in 1997.
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21 comments
Thank you for fighting for us still stuck in this place of discrimination. Thank you for attaching your name to your posts unlike the cowardly people who submit under "your name" or only put their first name or some screen name. Notre Dame should also celebrate people like you, who have the true love and kindness of Jesus. Having a 5th grade understanding of the Bible and of religion is fine when one is in 5th grade. Clearly the people pulling the "holier than thou" card on you are in that place. It is clear that you know and love our God very deeply and that your life, and your husband's life, and your life together is one of sacrament. Your homosexuality is a gift from God, and no one can deny that, no matter how many empty words and meaningless phrases they spew out of their mouths.Tanya~
We missed you girl. Your gorgeous girlfriend represented you both beautifully today. When the day comes that you and your lovely lady pronounce your love in the SACRAMENT of marriage, there will an episcopalian deacon/priest (?) who would be honored to bless what God has united in heaven. Yes haters, I said it, their union is a sacrament and it has been united in heaven. I witness their love for one another every time I talk with one or both of them...SO TAKE THAT!!!
Chuck, you should get a refund on the tuition, if any, you paid to Weston, on the grounds that it utterly failed to convey the Catholic Church's basic teachings on human sexuality.
Jesus stunned his disciples with his teachings on marriage. Taking them back to Genesis, he explained that marriage made "one flesh" of the husband and wife, thereby creating a permanent union. He condemned sins against marriage, such as adultery (whether actual or "in the heart") and living with a person outside marriage. He performed his first public miracle at a wedding feast, raising marriage to the level of a sacrament. There is nothing in the New Testament to support the notion that sexual acts between two men, or two women, are to be regarded as morally equivalent to the marital act between a husband and a wife. It's just not there, no matter how desperately you want to see it.
Get your money back! Demand a refund!
We are called to develop Holy and healthy , loving relationships in communion with God. Some of these relationships will develop into Marriage. This is what God intended. Sexual Love and sex are not the same for Love is not possessive to begin with.
Only through Christ, can we no the essence of Love. This is The Truth that will set you free. I Pray you will find Peace in Christ.
I came out officially March of 2009. Yes, while I was a sophomore in college. You have no idea how terrified I was to come out officially to my peers in a campus where I would be discriminated against more than before, as I am also a minority. Little by little I told my friends about the 'real' me and they see it as a completely normal way of life. And before you start judging me, my friends range from liberal to super conservative. Yes, the more conservative ones were shocked and at first didn't know what to say to me or how to talk to me. But I gave them some time to come around and reassured them that just because they knew this new detail about me didn't mean that I was a completely different person and my personality had changed. I was still the same girl looking for love just like everyone else. Now tell me what's wrong with that. Almost a year has gone by and my conservative friends are fine with it. We started slowly talking about it and they saw that being a bisexual didn't affect who I was; if anything, I was happier because I was finally in my own skin and didn't have to hide it ,which in turn made them happy for me and more willing to accept it. I started dating my girlfriend (who by the way ALSO goes to Notre Dame) in April and I'm proud to say that I WILL marry her. I know it. it seems that those who dont believe in our lives and the way we are think we're some sort of sex addicts or something. i mean c'mon 'sinful sexual relationships?!' that makes us seem like some sort of nymphomaniacs waiting to pounce on whoever, whenever. thats not how it works. all we want is a chance to be able to love freely and openly. and im proud to say that even though I go to a school that has refused to give me equal rights as everyone else, I still display my love for my girlfriend openly on campus because you know what? you cant stop me. you cant stop our love. and though you might disagree with it, it's happening. the world is changing and pretty soon your hate will backfire. it's all a matter of time
Most of the folks lobbing those grenades are virtually ignorant of these teachings, having been victimized by what passes for Catholic "religious education" in so many of our homes, parishes and Catholic schools. They have, instead, simply soaked up the relativist poison offered by our secular popular culture, all the while congratulating themselves for their progressiveness, their intelligence, their tolerance, their open-mindedness. Curiously, they are tolerant of almost any belief, except for orthodox Catholicism.What doesn't make sense is why these students and faculty chose to come to Notre Dame in the first place. There are plenty of schools, such as Georgetown, in which students can enjoy a veneer of Catholicism, studying "in the Jesuit/Catholic tradition" while not learning any actual Church teaching. But instead, they come to Notre Dame and are shocked! shocked! to find that the university is serious about its Catholic mission.
Wake up the echoes. Notre Dame is a Catholic institution. Catholic teaching makes clear that homosexual activities are sinful and disordered. There will be no officially-recognized student "gay rights" groups here, just as there are no "pro-choice" clubs. Those who want to attend a university that welcomes and celebrates disordered sexual activities can choose just about any other "top" school in the country.