I can tell you what it DOESN’T look like.
Of course, as a private college they can adhere to whatever standards they wish. (Personally, I find them abhorrent, but then, I would never have advocated that my atheistic kid attend BC or Notre Dame, either, much less Liberty or Bob Jones or Taylor.) Clearly, a student who doesn’t agree with those standards should either not apply or be prepared to fake it for four years. In the case of a kid whose parents insist on them applying and don’t realize their kid is gay, well, that kid joins the thousands who haven’t come out yet. They will have to deal with it the same way the other kids do: come out to their parents, or wait until they’ve graduated.
I regard this in the same way I do the issue of transgender students at my alma mater, Wellesley: a student who KNOWS they identify as a male should not apply to a women’s college. I don’t care how many generations of your female antecedents went there. A student who transitions to male while there should either transfer, or refrain from making a stink about gender issues while there. (I’m not saying hide who you are, I’m saying don’t get huffy about female-centric language.) It’s a women’s college. You knew that going in. A student who identifies as female and plans to live as a female should feel free to apply and attend, no matter what their gender assignment at birth. Because it’s a women’s college.
Sure, I have sympathy for a person who finds themselves in such a situation. But don’t expect an institution with a declared special purpose to change because YOU no longer fit that description.
I don’t know that I am afraid of anything, at least anything related to the topic we are discussing here.
I wear contact lenses most of the time. Perhaps it has given me a false sense of security.
Private things that happen in the privacy of someone’s bedroom can’t be what we are talking about, because they are obviously “private”. How can we talk about something we aren’t aware of?
What we are talking about is whether we will allow an institution to exist that promotes the concept of a God who cares about what people do in the privacy of their bedroom. Can Erskine have a mission statement stating they exist to glorify God as a Christian community, and then actually take real positions on the types of behavior that glorify God and those that do not? Do they have to accept the union of a man and man as equivalent in the eyes of God to the union of a man and a woman? Do they have to affirm that gay sex is as natural and normative and part of the created order as an opposite sex relationship, regardless of the fact that only one has the potential to perpetuate the species?
Will these things be required for “acceptance of gays in general”?
I guess if I am afraid of anything, it is that in another generation or two we won’t even be able to openly discuss these questions anymore, since doing so obviously is so offensive and intolerant. Already we can’t ridicule and insult.
There are some worldviews that society as a whole reasonably decides to suppress or prohibit. For example, some may think that God is glorified by racial segregation, or odd treatment of women or children. The majority may disagree.
Our society doesn’t suppress or prohibit religious organizations from doing those ^ things. Houses of worship in America are often racially segregated, and religions prohibit women from taking certain roles, and we as a society don’t do anything about it. In fact, we generally promote it, as evidenced by religious clubs found on most college campuses, including public ones.
There are plenty limits on religion, against polygamy for example, or withholding medical care.
And when a religion decides to open a college or hospital, for example, they should expect more societal oversight than for what they do in a house of prayer.
Didn’t Californians vote in a referendum to ban gay marriage?
My feelings toward Evangelical Christians, @LOUKYDAD, would be perfectly respectful and even accommodating to their beliefs, if some of them did not continually try to politically reduce my freedoms to suit their notions of truth. When science as well as fact are falsified in order to promulgate a world view that I oppose, and that impinges on my and my children’s futures (I’m talking about trying to edit the curriculum of public schools, to stop the teaching of evolution as proven science, for example, or of rewriting history to show only the parts of which they approve–historical understanding is as important to a society’s health as a fundamental understanding of the scientific processes of the world in which they live). As I’ve said, Erskine has the right to make statements about homosexuality and then require its students to respect them, at least openly. As a member of the larger community, however, I think it’s right to point out that those statements are not shared by me, just as I would point out that I, as a Jew, do not believe in segregating the sexes in my temple or making women shave their heads when married. I don’t think my beliefs should threaten observant Jews, who are free to think that my version of Judaism is not as good as theirs. They can even think that God’s judgement on me will be pretty harsh, as long as they don’t try to make me live as they do in order that that judgement will be positive. And that’s the point some religionists have reached, trying to “save me from myself” by arranging society according to their religious views (birth control and abortion being one obvious example: I don’t believe in birth control, so I’ll make sure my employees can’t get it “under my watch”).
When cultures have had only one religion, what usually has happened is that that religion has become a weapon, an arm of the state to impose a certain view on all, to the extreme harm of those “heretics” who don’t accept that view, or perhaps hold a different one. That’s when you get burnings of heretics, as in Reformation Europe, or beheadings, as now in the Middle East. Historically, the more power a dominant religion has had, the more abuses of that power (that dynamic is not restricted to religion).
This country was founded in reaction to the hundreds of years of religious and political strife in Europe, caused by the linking of religion with national identity. By unlinking them in this country, our founders hoped that we would avoid that kind of strife: everyone is free to worship, or not, as they choose, and the state stays out of imposing religious doctrine. That’s why colleges like Erskine are free to do as they like, within the bounds of law. But, since there are people who would like to see such beliefs made into law affecting everyone, not just their co-religionists, I think it is necessary to oppose them, verbally, so that it is clear that religion should stay religion, and not morph into restriction on those who don’t share those beliefs. Often, such people live in an echo chamber in which their beliefs are strengthened rather than challenged, and it lulls them into believing that their views are more widely held than they are. If the line in the sand is drawn around their campus, they need to see its limits.
“Can Erskine have a mission statement stating they exist to glorify God as a Christian community, and then actually take real positions on the types of behavior that glorify God and those that do not? Do they have to accept the union of a man and man as equivalent in the eyes of God to the union of a man and a woman? Do they have to affirm that gay sex is as natural and normative”
Asked and answered, loukydad. Several times.
We’ve all agreed that Erskine has the right to set their standards accordingly. We also then have the right to think poorly of the institution. If Erskine then decides to try to influence the laws of the state / country under the mistaken assumption that we all need to live under what “their god” says, then I’ll object.
Sorry but no “university” that teaches Young-Earth Creationism as fact will ever be anything more than a joke to anyone outside of that community. I feel bad for students who went there for family reasons, because in most places a Liberty University degree will receive nothing but sneers. I understand that people choose different colleges for different reasons, but people will make assumptions.
http://www.algbtical.org/2A%20HOMOPHOBIA.htm
A southern group with an interesting exploration of heteronormativity on its website.
@marysidney, #107 is a great post ^:)^
By the same token, a generation or two ago, it was perfectly OK to openly advocate for segregation, purity of the race, prohibition of interracial marriage and dating, etc. It’s not OK any more. Yes, I find such views “offensive and intolerant.” Most of us do now (including, I’d be willing to bet, you). And most of us believe that those who continue to advocate for segregation are, as someone said upthread, on the wrong side of history. It’s quickly becoming obvious that those who oppose gay rights will very soon be on that same wrong side of history.
I find your comment about ridicule and insult interesting. Do you miss being able to openly insult and ridicule gays?
I think there was a typo in that comment.
While I do think some others are on the wrong side of history, I do think one needs a bit of humility in making that judgment–because, what topic are WE on the wrong side of history on?
I am a rather humorless person, and am a bit uncomfortable with the idea of ridiculing those with different beliefs. However, ridicule and parody have always been used as instruments for social change. I am sympathetic to how difficult it must be to find your beliefs have become offensive, to perhaps a majority of society, instead of a cultural norm. Becoming part of a minority instead of part of a majority is a huge shift. I don’t feel those who marginalized others are unnecessarily disadvantaged in this shift. They still get to live as they choose. They just no longer get to dictate how others live.
I believe there are plenty of people who feel the same way about those of the Muslim Faith. i.e. “My feelings about Muslims would be perfectly respectful if some of them did not continually try to (reduce my freedoms, blow up my infrastructure, behead my dog…etc.) to suit their notions of the truth.”
So you’re in good company.
@Trisherella : the key word in my quote was “Evangelical”: there are Christians who do not try to legislate religion, and I have no quarrel with them, just as I have no quarrel with Moslems who leave me alone. So yes, I object to those Moslems who, like other religious fundamentalists, seek to destroy or forcibly convert those whom they cannot convince. As Karen Armstrong said, it is not that your religion dictates your beliefs, but that your beliefs dictate your religion, which is to say, if you want to seek for power and supremacy over others, you can distort your religion to allow it. If you look for love and charity in religion, that is what you will find. Religion has been a force for good, leading to generosity and kindness and sacrifice; it has also led to some of the worst violence in history, as well as nasty small meannesses of exclusion and shame. I am a historian of the Reformation period, and I could tell you stories of massacres and suffering inflicted by both Christian and Muslim groups, against each other, their own kind, and the Jews, all with the blessing of their respective Churches and states.
LasMa, in post #102, in my last sentence there was a typo. What I meant to say is that we (speaking of those participating in this conversation) can’t seem to discuss it without ridicule and insult. I have no desire to ridicule or insult anyone.
Thank you @LOUKYDAD. I don’t know you very well but that didn’t sound right.
“There are some worldviews that society as a whole reasonably decides to suppress or prohibit. For example, some may think that God is glorified by racial segregation, or odd treatment of women or children. The majority may disagree.”
Sorghum - I understand your argument. I do accept and believe in a social contract, which implies that we surrender certain freedoms and liberties we might otherwise assert to the decision of the majority.
I don’t accept it however in an unlimited or universal sense. I believe just as strongly in natural rights and natural law. A legitimate government is only legitimate to the extent it is exists to secure and protect these natural rights. As someone said in an earlier post, it is a delicate but an extremely important, essential tension that should always exist.
Freedom of thought and of conscience, to hold opinions and to defend them without interference, is a natural right that we should all have, and no government is legitimate when it is trampling on this right.