Windy City Media Group Frontpage News

THE VOICE OF CHICAGO'S GAY, LESBIAN, BI, TRANS AND QUEER COMMUNITY SINCE 1985

home search facebook twitter join
Gay News Sponsor Windy City Times 2023-02-22
DOWNLOAD ISSUE
Donate

Sponsor
Sponsor
Sponsor

  WINDY CITY TIMES

Notre Dame approves gay/straight alliance
Special to the online edition of Windy City Times
by Chuck Colbert
2012-12-10

This article shared 3357 times since Mon Dec 10, 2012
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email


In a move affirming of gays on campus, officials at University of Notre Dame said last week they would recognize an organization for LGBTQ students—a first for the school.

News of the decision came Dec. 5 in a press release, and comes after a five-month administrative review process and after a decades-long push for a self-governing student club or GSA, a gay-straight alliance.

More than a dozen times and over the same number of years and more, Notre Dame has refused to create a university-recognized student group for gays. Against that historical backdrop, the decision on the South Bend, Ind., campus is considered a breakthrough, especially given the iconic school's Catholic character and identity.

In announcing the change, Notre Dame also said it would expand support and services for LGBTQ students, initiating a new advisory committee composed of undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff to provide guidance to the vice president for student affairs on questions, concerns and needs of LGBTQ identified students.

And Notre Dame will hire a student development professional, a full-time staff member who will oversee the new student organization and programmatic activities.

In all, the response on campus and beyond has been positive, if not enthusiastically so, even as some alumni voiced skepticism and guarded optimism.

Current students involved in the efforts could not be happier or more enthusiastic.

"It's a pretty significant change, given Notre Dame's reputation as the face of a Catholic university," said openly gay senior Karl Alexander Abad of Fullerton, Calif., during a telephone interview.

"I foresee a lot more student involvement here with the change," he said.

Another student leader who participated in conversations with student affairs and school administrators was straight ally, junior Alex Coccia of Columbus, Ohio.

Coccia was key player in the 4 to 5 movement, the largest coalition for LGBT rights at Notre Dame in history, which, last year, brought together students, faculty, staff and alumni in a unified way to tell the administration that they were not doing nearly enough to serve LGBT people in the university community. In fact, social media, like Facebook, raised the profile of the 4 to 5 movement well beyond South Bend.

"I am very excited about it," he said, referring to approval of an officially recognized student organization. "It has a lot of potential and students are excited. Ultimately, having that passion and effort are going to make it successful."

A name for the organization has not yet been selected.

The student group is not a club and not a political advocacy association. Rather, it is an organization open to all students who will elect officers.

Designation as an organization holds some significance insofar as the student group will have an advisor appointed by the office of student affairs. Clubs chose their own advisors.

Another difference is that student organizations must seek approval from student affairs to change their constitutions. Clubs can change their constitutions whenever they wish as long as they follow rules in the governing document to do so.

During a telephone interview, Coccia said designation of the new group as an organization, on the same par as the student government, student union and the yearbook, for examples, raises its visibility and status on campus even as it gives administrators tighter oversight and control.

While Notre Dame has hundreds of clubs, its number of designated organizations is much smaller.

"That's good for questioning students, he said, "because it will be easier for them to find the organization," which will also be permanent.

"It's also good for prospective students because Notre Dame has been on GLBTQ unfriendly lists before," said Coccia. "They may want to come to Notre Dame now that the university has a commitment to them."

Still, Notre Dame lags behind other Catholic colleges and universities as any number of them offer legal protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and/or allow self-governing LGBT student groups, including Boston College, Georgetown University, DePaul University, and Santa Clara University, among others.

Georgetown and DePaul also have LGBTQ resource centers. A little more than a year ago, Georgetown's center received a $1 million gift to fund an LGBTQ life initiative.

With a new approach on LGBTQ issues, one characterized by more openness, inclusion, trust and collaboration, Notre Dame outlined its thinking in a six-page document entitled "Beloved Friends and Allies: A Pastoral Plan for the Support and Holistic Development of GLBTQ and Heterosexual Students at the University of Notre Dame."

The pastoral plan relies on Catholic Church doctrine and teaching on human sexuality and marriage. The pastoral framework cites the catechism of the Catholic Church, writings from the US Catholic Conference of Bishops, and natural law theory. Accordingly, Notre Dame's plan repeatedly holds out chastity as a theological virtue, along with the cardinal virtue of justice, as guiding principles, along with "respect, compassion, and sensitivity" for all.

While calling students to chastity, the plan, citing the catechism, specifically reminds gays that "homosexual persons are called to chastity" and to "friendship" and should cultivate "the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom."

Ultimately, chastity has different meanings for straights and gays. The church holds out sexual intimacy in opposite-sex marriage and family life for non-gays. But chastity for gays requires mandatory life-long celibacy. Same-sex marriage is not a sacramental option, according to church teaching.

Historically, in considering anything LGBTQ, Notre Dame has a longstanding practice of holding out church teaching by repeatedly singling out gays for chaste living, which seems to imply that, for whatever reason, gays are somehow more prone to non-chaste behavior than non-gays.

Below the surface seems to lay an offensively stereotypical operative equation—gay equals sexual activity. In other words, being gay is all about sex.

Therein lies a rub for students and alumni who voiced skepticism and criticism.

As Notre Dame senior Michael O'Brien of Strongsville, Ohio, (suburban Cleveland) explained, "In terms of the call to chastity, I have frequently been upset by the double standard Notre Dame had used to justify exclusion of the GLBTQ community," he said in email correspondence through Facebook.

"The GSA [gay/straight alliance] supposedly would lead too many LGBTQ students to hook up, but speed dating, dorm dances, and Hip Hop Night apparently never cause straight students to act immorally.

"There was also always concern that a GSA would need to be heavily regulated to make sure it was in line with Church teaching. However, this standard is rarely ever applied to other campus organizations.

"The administration never criticizes the Right to Life Club for not campaigning for the abolition of the death penalty. College Democrats and College Republicans frequently promote candidates with un-Catholic stances on issues.

"Why would a GSA be held to a higher standard?

"I see this disparate treatment as a tacit distrust of the university in the LGBTQ community that somehow they are more prone to sin than the rest of the student body."

Added a 2011 Notre Dame alumna Grace Loppnow on Facebook, "Obviously … we're supposed to be chaste, and when other student clubs are proposed, chastity isn't an issue that is explicitly addressed. Do you think the Scrabble Club's application had a response that said, 'We're all called to live chaste lives?' I doubt it."

Still, Abad said school administrators' harping on chastity was "there to protect us from external forces that would have a detrimental effect on the student body."

"I feel it was necessary," he said, referring to Notre Dame's incessant chastity appeal.

Abad may be onto something. Earlier this year, a conservative Notre Dame alumnus watchdog group, the Sycamore Trust, voiced reservations about the possibility of an officially authorized gay student group.

"University recognition and support of a homosexual club would be deeply objectionable for even more fundamental reasons," they wrote on their Web site. "It would give grave scandal damaging to the Church, to the University, to students, and to other Catholic institutions and would establish a potential source of serious mischief within the school."

Notre Dame's call-to-chastity strategy is apparently working. The Fort Wayne-South Bend Catholic diocese issued a statement in support of the school's decision.

Said Bishop Kevin Rhoades, "The University of Notre Dame clearly affirms its fidelity to Catholic Church teaching on human sexuality by affirming that sexuality is ordered to the conjugal love of man and woman" and that "the deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose."

Meanwhile, current leadership from the Gay & Lesbian Alumni of Notre Dame and St. Mary's College (GALA-ND/SMC) voiced its praise and appreciation. "Father [John I.] Jenkins [the schools' president] and the Notre Dame administration took the right step this week in recognizing the needs of the GBLT students in the Notre Dame community," said Jack Bergen, a 1977 graduate, who serves as GALA's vice president for programs.

"We should all be proud of the work that the students, faculty and staff courageously undertook to make this happen. I feel confident that a logical next step in this process will be to officially recognize GLBT alumni members of the community as well," he added in an email correspondence.

"Even now, GLBT alums are working with local alumni clubs to forge this alliance, so it is only a matter of time that this occurs across the broader alumni organization," said Bergen.

A former chair of GALA was more skeptical. "I'm cautiously optimistic that this is at least a step in the right direction," said Liam Dacey, who also expressed hope GALA could make inroads within the larger Notre Dame community.

"It will also be important for GALA to find a way to have a say in all this," he said in email. "We have to find a way to have a voice."

Jerry Seaman, a 1964 gay alumnus of Evanston, Ill., offered an assessment. "I think the acknowledgement by the university is great," he said through Facebook messaging. "However, I'm suspicious about the university's 'control' over how LGBT issues are 'discussed.' This 'call to chastity' language seems to be pretty strong."

GALA—ND/SMC is an independent nonprofit organization that is not affiliated with the Notre Dame Alumni Association.

Beyond the Notre Dame campus, reaction from leadership in LGBT Catholic advocacy organizations and of those who minister with gays and lesbians was upbeat.

Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of the advocacy organization Dignity/USA, voiced praise for Notre Dame's change of heart.

"They are doing what can be done at the moment," she said during a phone conversatin, adding, "For a college of Notre Dame's stature to produce a more inclusive environment for LGBT students at a time when [school officials] are being pressured to preserve the Vatican's ideal of Catholic identity is encouraging."

The executive director of New Ways Ministry said he, too, was pleased with Notre Dame's pastoral approach. "I think that this decision is a victory for the courageous, informed, and persistent approach that students took on this issue," said Francis DeBernardo of the Mount Rainier, Md.-based gay positive organization.

"Supported by the faculty, the students, in fact, educated the administration about the application of Catholic social teaching, and, in the end, their arguments and their witness won the day. That is the best thing about this decision," he said.

DeBernardo also said not to worry about the school's continuous appeal to chastity for all and mandatory celibacy for gays.

"I like how Notre Dame approached this issue through the lens of pastoral care," he said.

"Pastoral care is about helping people develop their relationships with God and developing their consciences. The pastoral care people on campus and administrators should keep that uppermost in their minds when they are developing any programs for LGBTQ students on campus," explained DeBernardo.

"Just because celibacy has been accepted by the Magisterium, it does not mean that faithful Catholics are going to live it out. Simply repeating the teaching in documents does not mean that it will be followed when people's lives, experiences, prayers, and consciences are telling them something else," he added.

Besides, the concerns of many LGBTQ Catholic youth, said DeBernardo and Duddy-Burke, are not at all about having sex. Rather, they concern coming out, family issues, religious identity issues, spirituality (Can I be gay and Catholic?), and dealing with harsh messages from religious institutions, particularly Catholicism.

Others matters that pop up, DeBernardo added, are questions such as "Does God hate me? Am I valued in this campus community? I'm being bullied: How do I respond? I'm afraid to make friends because they may reject me when they find out I'm gay. How can I develop a social life?"

A 1978 Notre Dame alumnus, Chuck Colbert is a co-founder of GALA-ND/SMC and a former co-chair of the organization.

©Copyright. Chuck Colbert. All rights reserved.


This article shared 3357 times since Mon Dec 10, 2012
facebook twitter pin it google +1 reddit email

  ARTICLES YOU MIGHT LIKE

Gay News

More than 100 pro-LGBTQ+ groups, allies urge Target and business community to reject anti-LGBTQ+ attacks 2023-05-30
--From a press release - WASHINGTON - Today, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), GLAAD, GLSEN, Family Equality, National LGBTQ Task Force, National Center for Lesbian Rights and National Black Justice Coalition, in partnership with more ...


Gay News

Leading LGBTQ+ groups raise alarm to business community on coordinated anti-LGBTQ+ attacks; call on Target to lead 2023-05-25
--From a press release - Organizations calling on Target and all businesses to stand up against anti-LGBTQ2S+ extremism in statement below: Family Equality, GLAAD, GLSEN, The Human Rights Campaign, National Center For Lesbian Rights, National LGBTQ Task Force, National Black J ...


Gay News

Target removes some Pride merchandise after receiving threats 2023-05-24
- Ahead of Pride Month (June), Target is pulling some of its LGBTQ+ merchandise after facing "threats" and backlash from customers, Politico reported. Target's website features hundreds of items as part of its Pride Collection but will ...


Gay News

SAVOR 'Round Table II' brings chefs, nonprofits together to discuss collective vision 2023-05-21
- On May 15, the Avondale restaurant eden, 2734 W. Roscoe St., was the site of a rather extraordinary gathering of Chicagoland chefs, nonprofit CEOs and other business leaders in a moving discussion that centered on building ...


Gay News

Advocates applaud Illinois General Assembly passage of House Bill 1286 for gender-neutral multiple-occupancy restrooms 2023-05-19
--From a press release - CHICAGO — Advocates celebrated passage by the Illinois General Assembly of House Bill 1286, legislation that will reduce barriers for businesses serving their communities and customers by allowing for the ...


Gay News

General Assembly moves closer to passing optional all-gender bathroom bill 2023-05-19
- On May 18, the Illinois Senate passed an amended version of a bill that would allow businesses and public institutions to provide multi-occupant all-gender bathrooms if they so choose, The Daily Herald reported. House Bill 1286 ...


Gay News

Chicago Opera Theater announces new General Director Lawrence Edelson 2023-05-12
--From a press release - May 12, 2023 (Chicago) — After a three-month nationwide search, the Chicago Opera Theater (COT) Board of Directors is pleased to announce that veteran artistic leader and stage director Lawrence Edelson has been named the next ...


Gay News

Sidetrack drops Anheuser-Busch products after Bud Light controversy 2023-05-05
- Sidetrack announced May 4 that it would cease selling Anheuser-Busch products after the beverage giant gave in to an anti-trans backlash following an online Bud Light advertisement featuring trans activist Dylan Mulvaney. In a Facebook post, ...


Gay News

Chicago LGBTQ+ bar to discontinue use of brewer after anti-trans acts 2023-05-04
- In light of what it considers to be anti-trans acts by Anheuser-Busch InBev, the Uptown LGBTQ+ spot 2Bears Tavern Group is discontinuing all Anheuser Busch InBev products, including Busch Light, Bud Light and Goose Island 312. Mark ...


Gay News

Lauren Verdich memorial May 20 2023-04-21
- Celebration of Life for longtime Chicagoan LGBTQ activist and business owner Lauren Verdich will be Saturday May 20, 2023, 12:30-4 p.m., University Club Chicago, 76 E. Monroe. Donations can be sent to Lambda Legal in Lauren's ...


Gay News

Lambda Legal applauds re-introduction of Federal Do No Harm Act 2023-04-19
--From a press release - "As the Supreme Court gets ready possibly to expand even further the ability of businesses to use religion to discriminate, the federal RFRA law absolutely needs this fix."—Lambda Legal Chief Legal Officer Jennifer C. Pizer (Washington, ...


Gay News

Chicago Pride Fest returns June 17-18 2023-04-18
--From a press release - Chicago Pride Fest returns June 17-18, 2023, 11 a.m. — 10 p.m., the weekend before the Chicago Pride Parade (June 25). The two-day street festival features live music on three stages, a Youth Pride Space for ...


Gay News

Lesbian-owned Taylor's Tacos opens shop on Chicago's Near West Side 2023-04-10
- In the world of brick-and-mortar businesses, Taylor's Tacos (1512 W. Taylor St.; https://www.taylorstacoschicago.com) is finally making its mark, as the place selling authentic street-style tacos with soulful twists is firmly ...


Gay News

Uprising Bakery to remain open for now, plans eventual move 2023-03-31
- Uprising Bakery & Cafe, which was slated to close March 31, will be staying open for business, according to owner Corrina Sac. The Lake in the Hills establishment had faced reduced business after a number of ...


Gay News

Illinois House passes legislation allowing gender-neutral multiple-occupancy restrooms 2023-03-24
--From a press release - CHICAGO — Advocates celebrated passage by the Illinois House of legislation that will reduce barriers for businesses serving their communities and customers by allowing for the adoption of gender-neutral multiple-occupancy ...


 


Copyright © 2023 Windy City Media Group. All rights reserved.
Reprint by permission only. PDFs for back issues are downloadable from
our online archives. Single copies of back issues in print form are
available for $4 per issue, older than one month for $6 if available,
by check to the mailing address listed below.

Return postage must accompany all manuscripts, drawings, and
photographs submitted if they are to be returned, and no
responsibility may be assumed for unsolicited materials.
All rights to letters, art and photos sent to Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago
Gay and Lesbian News and Feature Publication) will be treated
as unconditionally assigned for publication purposes and as such,
subject to editing and comment. The opinions expressed by the
columnists, cartoonists, letter writers, and commentators are
their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Nightspots
(Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay,
Lesbian, Bisexual and Transegender News and Feature Publication).

The appearance of a name, image or photo of a person or group in
Nightspots (Chicago GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times
(a Chicago Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender News and Feature
Publication) does not indicate the sexual orientation of such
individuals or groups. While we encourage readers to support the
advertisers who make this newspaper possible, Nightspots (Chicago
GLBT Nightlife News) and Windy City Times (a Chicago Gay, Lesbian
News and Feature Publication) cannot accept responsibility for
any advertising claims or promotions.

 
 

TRENDINGBREAKINGPHOTOS







Sponsor


 



Donate


About WCMG      Contact Us      Online Front  Page      Windy City  Times      Nightspots
Identity      BLACKlines      En La Vida      Archives      Advanced Search     
Windy City Queercast      Queercast Archives     
Press  Releases      Join WCMG  Email List      Email Blast      Blogs     
Upcoming Events      Todays Events      Ongoing Events      Bar Guide      Community Groups      In Memoriam     
Privacy Policy     

Windy City Media Group publishes Windy City Times,
The Bi-Weekly Voice of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans Community.
5315 N. Clark St. #192, Chicago, IL 60640-2113 • PH (773) 871-7610 • FAX (773) 871-7609.