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Thursday, March 28, 2024
The Observer

Can we be done with this now?

I can not fully express how frustrated I am that The Observer Viewpoint has been completely overrun by the Great Non-discrimination Clause yet again. Can we just be done with it now? Please? This is worse than the annual Vagina Monologues Mud-Sling Fest. As much as I have love for my homosexual friends and neighbors, there's a hard truth that we all must face: The University isn't going to change its policy just because people complain about it. If you haven't noticed, that isn't how Notre Dame policy usually works. (Five-dollar footlongs? Still waiting on that...) My advice to people affected by this policy is simple: Encourage students to accept homosexuals as people completely equal to them, but stop trying to change the policy for now. All it's doing is fomenting conflict. I also advise anyone who wishes to change the policy to read the Papal encyclical "God is Love." You will see that as a Catholic school, Notre Dame has no obligation and really can't change its policy if it wants to remain in full unity with Catholic doctrine. If you are gay and you choose to come to a Catholic school, be prepared that the school will have Catholic ideology. I do not believe that efforts to "de-Catholicize" or shift the doctrinal compass of this University to fit a view of homosexuality that conflicts with "God is Love" will be very successful. Notre Dame does not  sell condoms on campus, it does not allow pre-marital sex among students and it refuses to formally condone homosexuality, all because it is holding fast to its Catholic nature. Let's try to have mutual respect here — respect and compassion for the students and faculty who are homosexuals, and just as much respect for the Catholic faith from which Notre Dame derives its policies.

 

Kelsey Robertson

senior

off campus

Feb. 5


The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.