Gay bashing at Notre Dame

This may be a "mistake" but not one I'd expect from students studying the teachings of Christ; not one I'd expect of university level students at a rigorous institution like Notre Dame. Frankly, it sounds like a hate crime. I'm horrified.

Imagine the result had this been an anti-Muslim cartoon. Or do we even need to? Would an apology, a retraction, and an editor's resignation have been enough?

This is simply further proof, however, of my assertion that the certain elements of the Church's "soft" anti-homosexual stances are but a step on the slippery slope at the bottom of which lies hate crimes of the worst sort.

That the original punch line was changed from "AIDS" to "a baseball bat" in fact makes the situation more troubling. It means that editors actually thought about the appropriateness of the cartoon and decided that making fun of AIDS was wrong, but promoting gay-bashing was okay! Some call it a "mistake." If so it was a carefully-considered, conscious, "mistake."

How have the individuals who'd make such a "mistake" been enculturated? By whom? We'd have to believe that it had something to do with the Catholic "feeder" institutions that send students to Notre Dame. As an alumnus of one of those Holy Cross secondary schools, I find this troubling. Three decades ago, we knew, were taught, that this was wrong. I was the editor of the school paper and would never have considered running such a cartoon. Nor would any of my staff. What has gone wrong?

One wonders if the publication of the cartoon will result in Notre Dame, its students, and its faculty taking a good hard look at where the roots of bias crimes really lie.

Or, will they strive to "put this behind" them? Will they make all the right PR noises, engage in some limited "sensitivity training" and then "move on?"

I'm afraid it's probably the latter. Catholic institutions seem to be manifestly unwilling to engage in any sort of serious self-examination these days, especially as regards how their "policies" might affect society and the world at large. Even worse, they are reluctant to look at how their underlying attitudes shape policy...especially when those underlying attitudes are simply "hate" by another name.

When misogyny, homophobia, and racism begin to shape doctrine, we're in trouble. When such doctrine begets things like a cartoon promoting hate crime at what is perhaps the most prestigious Catholic academic institution in the world, this is not "pro-life" it is "pro-death."

A stupid student prank - which the University and the student population rebuked swiftly and vigorously.

I, too, am horrified. It is stunning to consider how many eyes saw that cartoon, how many hands touched it, how many brains prcoessed it............and, still, that throwback, beyond-the-pale, overtly hateful and violent cartoon made it to press. I imagine gay students, faculty and staff all over that campus experiencing chills racing down their backs when they discovered the cartoon in their campus paper: what does and would it mean for their safety - physical, emotional, spiritual - on campus?

if this was a "mistake", a reflection of immature understandings of provocative editorial cartoons and humor and NOT considered hate speech, then Notre Dame needs to look seriously at the journalistic education its students receive so that they develop greater maturity and skill in their published.

i don't know about expulsion...i would make a list of every single person who saw, touched, heard, smelled that cartoon prior to publication and require for graduation and continued participation in the paper a serious and semester-long remedial course addressing the various isses involved.

Jean