University of Toronto & same-sex politics.

Alphonse de Valk: Introduction

In 1991 the University of Toronto (U of T) gave health coverage and tuition waiver programs to employees who were same-sex partners. In 1993 it extended employee benefits to them and in 1995 it extended the equivalent of survivor benefits to surviving same-sex partners. The University was among the first to do so.

Five years ago, in 1998, the U of T accepted studies of "gays" and lesbians and their behaviour as truly academic courses. Since that time these have grown into what is now called the "Sexual Diversity Studies" program. Along with it, the University has developed "helpful" policies and offices--including one devoted to LGBTQ (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queers).

Robert Birgeneau 

On October 27, 2003, the Toronto Star carried an article by the University's president, Robert Birgeneau, under the title "Celebrating sexual diversity". The article first appeared on the U of T. Website www.utoronto.ca.

President Birgeneau highly praised the "leadership" the University has provided in the area mentioned above. He sees this development as being of the same order as the battle against racism. "If anything is needed now," he added, "it is to move beyond the institutional level of acceptance to broaden awareness and to celebrate our remarkable ethnic and cultural diversity."

The president also warned those who oppose the homosexual lifestyle: "We cannot let controversy or inflexible opinions deter us from raising awareness and promoting understanding." He was proud of the University's tradition of leading the way on these questions, including the current drive for same-sex marriage.

The president did allow that "not everyone in the university community shares the position," but then quickly expressed disapproval of the "uneven acceptance of alternative sexual orientations across ... [our] campuses, "as well as the fact that "incidents of homophobia [are] more persistent in some areas of the university than in others."

So much for President Robert Birgeneau

St. Michael's College (SMC)

SMC is a federated college of the U of T. In the past it has resisted allowing a gay-lesbian group to be a recognized club on its campus, presumably, therefore, being one of the places on U of T campus--or perhaps the only such place--where same-sex activity and propaganda had not been accepted. Well, it is no longer so.

The sentiments expressed by President Birgeneau have triumphed at SMC as well. This past September, the LGBTQUT achieved official status when representatives of the alumni, St. Joseph's, Loretto and St. Michael's College (deans and chaplains) refused to veto them. Apparently, Father Kersch only sees LG-etc-people as people who are "marginalized." End their "marginalization," and all is well.

In addition, opposition to the application had been undermined earlier when a year ago, the Collegium, SMC's ruling council, had added "sexual orientation" as a protected category to its mission statement.

Another factor that featured in the recent acceptance of a gay/lesbian club at SMC is that the campus is no longer Catholic. In our May 2002 edition we pointed out that SMC has surrendered the departments it once had to the University long since and therefore no longer has an Arts faculty, let alone a Catholic arts faculty, except for Christianity and Culture courses. Now it turns out that three-quarters of its students in residence are not even Catholics. They belong to religions other than Catholicism, or to no religion at all.

Dr. David Dooley, who taught English at SMC for many years, and Dr. Brigid Elson, who is an SMC alumna, express their opinions on President Robert Birgeneau's "Celebration." For their critiques see below.

Suggestion

As for myself, may I suggest that SMC graduates cease giving money to SMC and U of T, and, instead, divert their hard-earned money to better purposes. I especially recommend the Academy of Our Lady Seat of Wisdom in Barry's Bay, ON. It has a fully Catholic curriculum for its 30 first--and second-year Catholic University students and is being run on a shoestring. Telephone: [phone]; e-mail: [e-mail]

Dr. David Dooley writes:

President Birgeneau's comparison of the "gay rights" campaign to the civil rights movement of the 1960's is completely inept. The blacks were seeking basic civil rights; the homosexuals already possess such rights, and are seeking something which has never existed in any civil society the right of males to marry males and females to marry females.

The president is an alumnus of St. Michael's College, and a Catholic. Before recommending sexual behaviour ordinarily regarded as deviant, and describing it as the mark of a great university, should he not have considered what the Holy Father said about such actions in his recent reflections on them? After all, the Pope is something of an expert on faith and morals.

Birgeneau comes down hard on homophobia, a very imprecise term. It can possibly mean an entirely reasonable dislike of acts of sodomy, which have always been thought of as gravely sinful, and are now known to be dangerous. Does the president have no fear of encouraging the spread of a loath-some--and fatal--disease in the undergraduate population? Why should he wish its spread throughout the student body?

This is but one reason not to celebrate sexual diversity.

Brigid Elson: The continuing erosion of the rights of conscience in Canada

On October 20, 2003 the president of the University of Toronto, Robert Birgeneau, posted a statement on the website of the university's Bulletin entitled "Celebrating Sexual Diversity."

This statement is both alarming and scandalous for a number of reasons. First of all, President Birgeneau is one of the most prominent Catholics in this city, if not the country. His statement repudiates explicitly and implicitly the official Magisterium of the Catholic Church regarding sexuality.

Secondly, the implications of his statement are ominous for the rights of Catholics to express public agreement with the teachings of their Church, as well as for the identification of St. Michael's College as a Catholic college within the university system.

Birgeneau several times calls for the "celebration" of "sexual diversity." This latter term he seems to identify with, without limiting it to, "lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gendered and queer" behaviour. One may fairly ask if the woolly term "sexual diversity" cannot include pedophilia, bestiality and a host of other behaviours which are sexual. I imagine Birgeneau would repudiate them but he doesn't explicitly do so in this statement.

One may also fairly ask if a bisexual person at the university insisted on his or her right to promiscuous sex as part of his or her identity, would the president endorse that claim? Again I suspect that he wouldn't, but nothing in the statement precludes such an endorsement. To be fair, at one point he mentions "long-term, committed loving relationships between two people" as something "many people on campus believe that society should cherish and solemnize," but again we are left to assume that he is among these many, although he does not actually say he is.

The president notes that "it is in the very nature of any university worthy of the name that it would be a home to dissenting views," referring to the fact that not everyone in the university approves of society's promoting long-term relationships between two people whether of the same or opposite sex. Does he mean here that some people in the university approve of promiscuity, and that is fine, too? His statement oscillates uneasily between recognizing that his readers may not agree with him and all but overtly typifying such disagreement as basically benighted and prejudiced.

The implications of this statement for the Catholic identity of St. Michael's College seem to be rather serious. Birgeneau never mentions St. Michael's by name; he only refers vaguely to dissenters from his position. But he also writes of "inflexible opinions," and the obligation of the university to "show leadership in areas where the general public may lag behind."

If St. Michael's College is to remain identifiably a Catholic institution, then the right of professors and students there to present and defend the official teachings of the Catholic Church on sexuality must be protected. It is difficult if not impossible to see how faithful Catholics could "celebrate sexual diversity" given these teachings. Celebrate human life?--yes; celebrate the dignity of all human persons?--yes; celebrate sex as a gift from God ordained to the transmission of life?--yes; celebrate sexual activity outside of marriage as an option for a Christian? No!

This latest example of a prominent member of the country's power elite--and a Catholic no less--trying to intimidate people who disagree with a grandiose liberal social agenda is frightening. For how much longer will Catholics whose conscience is in accord with Catholic teaching be allowed to state their beliefs in the public square?

The method of using vague Orwellian language--or is it that of Kafka's Trial?--where unnamed people are accused of vague but seriously flawed attitudes and misdleds is unworthy, though perhaps not untypical these days, of a spokesman for an institution whose whole purpose is to be a forum for open discussion.

Readers should be aware (or so I have been informed) that in February of this year the Sexual Orientation Committee of the St. Michael's condemned a speech given by Prof. Peter Kreeft of Boston College a few months earlier. Professor Kreeft's speech (available on tape from Campaign Life) consisted of a standard presentation of Catholic teaching on sexual ethics, given in a friendly and intelligent way. The Committee condemned his speech as "hate speech." I have played this tape for a number of friends; even the most liberal ones who disagree with Kreeft were shocked at the characterization of the speech as "hate speech."

I have written here of the rights of Catholics in the public forum, but these are the rights of many others: Muslims, Hindus, Christians of other denominations, secular people who follow their consciences, any and all of whom might agree with Catholics on sexual ethics. President Birgeneau speaks from a position of power. I would suggest that the vast majority of those who disagree with him do not enjoy an equality of opportunity or position, and will be frightened by the disadvantage.