Urge your Senators to vote against the hasty repeal of the military’s common-sense ‘Gay’ Ban

“People view the military as the last bastion of morals and what is good. If we break that down here, what does it boil down to? What’s left?” – Service member comment made in Focus Group as part of the administration’s DoD’s report on repealing the ban on open homosexuality in the Armed Forces.

According to a Support Plan for implementing President Obama's plan to allow open homosexuals to serve in the military, a couple of male Marines in civilian clothes could kiss and display homo-erotic affection at the local mall without any repercussions. "Standards of conduct regarding public displays of affection (PDA) are orientation-neutral," according to the report (p. 82). What about on base? Obama's radical Repeal plan would degrade the moral authority of our Armed Forces and turn the Pentagon into the biggest bureaucracy working to mainstream homosexuality (sin) that the world has ever seen.

The U.S. Senate is hours, or perhaps a day, away from what I believe is the most important congressional vote on homosexuality ever taken in the USA: a bill that would Repeal the existing ban on open homosexuality in the military [Call your Senators: 202-224-3121]. If we lose and the Repeal goes forward, it will usher in a sea-change of pro-homosexual political correctness — not just on our Armed Forces, but on the rest of society, as a Brave, New, ‘Gay’-affirming Military will be held up as the new “civil rights” paradigm for the rest of America (God help us). The Homosexual Lobby knows what is at stake, which is why they have been pounding Capitol Hill for weeks on the Repeal. Unfortunately, not enough conservatives and people of faith understand the critical importance of this vote.

A handful of Republicans such as Sen. Scott Brown (who has flip-flopped on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” ), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and the two Maine Senators (Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins) may join with the Democrats in supporting the fast-track legislation passed by the House Wednesday (see vote Roll Call HERE). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid needs 60 votes to homosexualize the Armed Forces.

As sure as New Years Day follows Christmas, the Homosexual Lobby would seize upon this (giant) opening and push for more and more pro-homosexuality policy changes in the military — including same-sex partner benefits, “married” housing for homosexual Service members, sweeping pro-gay “diversity” propaganda for our troops, etc.  What a Christmas “gift” for our military men and women! (More like a huge, rainbow-striped lump of coal.) Please pray and do all you can to oppose this radical legislation! — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

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Action Steps:

1) Call your Senators using the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 (www.senate.gov) and urge your U.S. Senators to vote against the Repeal of the military’s “gay” ban — and demand that a full and fair debate be held on this radical legistlation that would turn the Pentagon into the world’s largest de facto pro-”gay” advocacy agency. Here are some key Senators to call in this bill; use the Capitol Switchboard (202-114-3121; 202-225-3121) or even better: go to www.senate.gov for their contact info and call their local office numbers:

Republicans:

• Sen. Lisa Murkowski (AK):
• Sen. Scott Brown (MA):
• Sen. Mark Kirk (IL; still “undecided,” according to his aides):
• Sen. Richard Lugar (IN)
• Sen John Ensign (NV)
• Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME)
• Sen. Susan Collins (ME)
• Judd Gregg (NH)
• George Voinovich (OH)

Democrats:

• Joe Manchin (WV) (he was the only Democrat who voted with the Republicans to deny cloture in the last Senate Repeal vote)
• Bill Nelson (FL),
• Ben Nelson (NE),
• Jon Tester (MT),
• Evan Bayh (IN),
• James Webb (VA)
• Mark Warner (VA),
• Mark Pryor (AR)
• Blanche Lincoln (AR)
• Mary Landrieu (LA)

2) Pray that this Repeal bill would be stalled in the Senate. Contact your friends and urge them to pray as well. If Harry Reid calls the House bill and gets 60 votes, this battle is over — and then (as with Obama-care) Americans will learn the radical ramifications of this legislation!)

3) Pass this e-mail to your family members, friends, and contacts — especially those living in states with key states above, and urge them to take action!

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Background — Working Group Report makes case for NOT repealing the “gay” ban:

I finally read most of the Obama-/Def. Sec. Gates-commissioned Working Group DoD report on the DADT Repeal and – although biased and carefully written and “spun” to camouflage some of the extreme results of allowing open homosexuals in the military, it STILL contains plenty of information showing how damaging the Repeal would be to our military. Here are some findings of and problems with the DoD report:

• 23.7 % of surveyed Service members (38.1 % of Marines) said repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” would cause them to “leave [the military] sooner than I planned” or “think about leaving sooner than I had planned”;
• 44.3% of combat veterans (59.4% of Marines) said that having an open homosexual in their immediate unit in a field environment or out at sea would “Negatively” or “Very Negatively” affect their “unit’s effectiveness at completing its mission”; other survey data shows significant opposition within the ranks to the idea of homosexuals serving openly;

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Elaine Donnelly testifies against homosexualizing the military in the name of "nondiscrimination." Donnelly cautions that few lawmakers realize the radical changes that would result from opening up the Armed Forces to homosexuals -- including the persecution of moral-minded servicemembers and chaplains.

TAKE ACTION: Elaine Donnelly rightly warns in an interview with AFTAH of the devastating impact of Obama’s plan to homosexualize our military. Have you contacted both your U.S. Senators to oppose repealing the military’s common-sense homosexuality ban? Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) says he has the votes to move forward on a Defense bill containing the repeal measure. A repeal vote by the lame-duck Senate could come any time after Dec. 1. Call 202-224-3121 or go to www.Congress.org to make your voice heard!

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This interview [click HERE to listen] with Center for Military Readiness founder and president Elaine Donnelly aired Nov. 20, 2010, and was recorded Nov. 17. As the leading proponent of maintaining the military’s common-sense ban on homosexuality, Donnelly more than any other American has fought debilitating “politically correct” agendas in the Armed Forces. In this discussion, she covers:

• the unforeseen harm to good order and discipline that would result from allowing open homosexuals in the military;
• how the Pentagon working group report on the repeal of the “gay” ban is a thinly-veiled tool to advance President Obama’s radical plan to homosexualize the miltary; 
• how the Obama administration led by Defense Sec. Robert Gates has politicized the investigations of homosexual soldiers violating the existing homosexual ban — effectively neutralizing the law;
• why “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is NOT the law of the land;
• how pro-homosexual diversity sessions and policies would be foisted on the conservative military culture to enforce “sexual orientation nondiscrimination”;

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President Obama degraded the Office with liberal Stewart’s help 

Barack Obama may be setting new highs when it comes to presidential appointments of People Practicing Homosexuality (PPH) in his administration — already more than 150, according to AP – but he’s setting new lows everywhere else. Yesterday, leftie Comedy Central “anchor” Jon Stewart referred to the Commander-in-Chief as “dude” in the course of his half-hour interview with Obama. (Obama is the first president to appear on the show.) 

Read liberal Washington Post writer Dana Milbank’s slam on Obama and his appearance (“On Comedy Central, the joke was on President Obama Wednesday night”) HERE, and watch the “dude” reference in context starting at about 1:45 on Part 3 of the videos of the Daily Show interview HERE.

I agree with this comment responding to a YouTube critical of Obama’s Daily Show disaster: “Obama has diminished himself so many times enough already that even liberals don’t treat him with presidential respect.” We at AFTAH are not nearly as cool as Jon Stewart, and don’t have anything approaching his cultural sway (especially with young people), but here are some questions and comments we wish he would have delivered to the Dude-in-Chief:

• Dude, stop undermining our military by using illegal means to homosexualize it (under the existing law that only Congress can change, homosexuals are barred from serving in the Armed Forces; see www.cmrlink.org); 
• Dude, abortion is the murder of an innocent life; stop promoting it and don’t make taxpayers subsidize it;
• Dude, aren’t you trashing the Defense of Marriage Act and the Constitution by granting via Executive Order marriage-type benefits to homosexual “spouses“?;
• On the same point: dude, you really pulled the wool over America’s eyes (and Rick Warren’s…) with all that talk in the 2008 campaign about how you believe marriage should be preserved as between a man and a woman. If that were true, why didn’t you use your Bully Pulpit to criticize the homosexual activist judge who recently single-handedly overturned California’s Proposition 8 — even though this marriage-defense amendment had passed in a statewide referendum?

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Psychologist Mike Campion was vindicated when the City of Minneapolis settled with him for $211,000 rather than try to prove in court their false charge that he was an anti-gay bigot who could not professionally do his job of evaluating police and firefighter candidates -- due to his past affiliation with a Christian pro-family group.

“Former City Council Member Scott Benson, who is gay and a lawyer, sent a note to then-interim Police Chief Tim Dolan and asked, ‘How did Dr. Michael Campion, who was a board member of the Illinois Family Institute (a notoriously discriminatory anti-gay group) become the psychologist for the Minneapolis Police Dept. for screening new hires etc?’

“The same month the city suspended work with Campion and hired another firm to do screening, citing better ‘diversity and transparency’ issues at the firm.” – Minneapolis Star Tribune, “Minneapolis settles suit with fired psychologist for $210,000″

By Peter LaBarbera

The City of Minneapolis just admitted its guilt and, in effect, shameful anti-Christian bigotry by settling with psychologist contractor Michael Campion for $210,000 rather than go forward with a U.S. District Court trial that it surely would have lost on First Amendment grounds. See the Minneapolis Star-Tribune article reprinted below. 

I know Mike Campion and his wife Kathy. He is a good and decent Christian man whom compassion-challenged liberals put through the grinder merely because he supports the objective truth that homosexuals can change their lifestyle (as countless have). His firm, Campion, Barrow & Associates, is one of the most professional in its field and evidently the City of Minneaopolis could not find anyone who would testify that Mr. Campion had mistreated or discriminated against them on the basis of “sexual orientation.”

In other words, unlike the liberals who sought to destroy him, Campion is no bigot. Pathetically, some city officials even tried to smear Campion as a racist to achieve their goal. End justifies the means, right?

Note the comment by homosexual activist Scott Benson above: a “gay” politician, working with pro-homosexual city officials, gets Campion fired because he was once a board member with a “notoriously discriminatory organization,” the Illinois Family Institute (IFI).

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Would Ann Coulter speak at an event for “Republicans For Responsible Porn Use,” or “Republicans for Higher Taxes,” or Republicans for Choice (Abortion) -- if such groups took legitimately conservative positions on other issues like gun rights?

Contact: Peter LaBarbera: 630-717-7631; e-mail: AmericansForTruth@gmail.com ; August 10, 2010

CHICAGO — Americans For Truth About Homosexuality President Peter LaBarbera today urged conservative pundit Ann Coulter to reconsider her appearance at “Homocon,” a September event for the homosexual Republican group GOProud. 

LaBarbera said: 

As a fan of Ann Coulter, it pains me to see her cave in to political correctness and lend credibility to the phony homosexual “conservatives” over at GOProud. Worse, Coulter is sending a dangerous message to young Americans that homosexuality is OK. (It’s actually a sin.) Fully half of GOProud’s top 10 federal priorities center on using the Government to advance homosexuality, including: 

#4 – “Repealing ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’” – Homosexualizing the military is reckless, especially in wartime. GOProud claims to defend “individual liberty,” but what about the privacy rights of normal soldiers who don’t want to bunk and shower with men who lust after other men? Moreover, if DADT is repealed, the military will become a massive government bureaucracy for pro-homosexual “diversity” – subjecting millions of tradition-minded servicemen to Orwellian, same-sex propaganda to enforce its new lavender crusade. (Chaplains: beware.) 

# 7 – “Opposing any anti-gay federal marriage amendment.” Coulter must know that America might be just one Supreme Court justice away from legalizing oxymoronic homosexual “marriage” – which would undermine religious freedom in every state in the nation. A Federal Marriage Amendment could be the only way to stop this Roe v. Wade-like disaster. And since when did state-enforced homosexual “marriage” – with its corrosive effect on liberty and linkage to Homosexuality Promotion in schools — become “conservative”? 

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Julea Ward

From the Alliance Defense Fund website:

ADF to appeal ruling that allows Eastern Michigan U. to expel Christian students for holding to beliefs
University banished graduate counseling student for not affirming homosexual behavior

DETROIT — Alliance Defense Fund attorneys will appeal a problematic federal court decision issued Monday in a lawsuit filed on behalf of student Julea Ward against Eastern Michigan University after it kicked out the Christian student for holding to her beliefs.  EMU dismissed Ward from its graduate counseling program in March 2009 for not affirming homosexual behavior as morally acceptable.  Ward would not agree to change her religious beliefs about homosexual behavior or express a message contrary to them during counseling sessions as a condition to receiving a degree.

“Christian students shouldn’t be expelled for holding to and abiding by their beliefs,” said ADF Senior Counsel David French, who argued before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan last month.  “To reach its decision, the court had to do something that’s never been done in federal court:  uphold an extremely broad and vague university speech code.”

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Jennifer Keeton

Here’s the latest victim of the Pro-Gay Thought Police (PGTP): Jennifer Keeton. Her predicament is further evidence of the “zero-sum game” in the Culture War between pro-”gay” policies/laws and religious liberty. It’s incredible that this public institution, Augusta State U,, is requiring this principled young woman to alter her beliefs and even attend a “gay pride” parade as a condition for completing the program. (Imagine the outcry if a public university required a committed, secular ”gay” student to go to a Bible-believing church as part of a remediation plan.)

Will authentic Bible-believing Christians (as opposed to the compromised, homosexuality-affirming variety) be boxed out of the counseling profession? If so, faithful Christians will have to support alternative counseling institutions, because unrepentant homosexuality will never be compatible with Christianity. And there are way too many happy ex-gays and ex-lesbians out there for sexually struggling people not to be given this healthy option.

Modern “diversity” is to genuine diversity as Marxist-Leninist “People’s Democratic Republics” are to true democracy. Wouldn’t true “diversity” allow people to exercise their own choice to see either a pro-homosexual counselor or one that adheres to traditional moral views? I guess that’s asking too much of left-wing academics and the pro-”GLBTQ” movement.  – Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org 

P.S. Check out this Queety blog post on the Keeton case. It contains a video of Keeton giving her side of the story. Note the nasty and irrational pro-homosexual comments that follow the Queerty post, including this one:

Imagine if a KKK member became a firefighter and said “If a black person is in a fire I’m not going to save their life. It’s against my beliefs.” Rubbish.

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LifeSiteNews reports [Click HERE to subscribe to LifeSite's daily e-mails.]:

Augusta State Univ. to Counseling Student: Change Beliefs or Get Out

AUGUSTA, Georgia, July 22, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) filed suit against Augusta State University Wednesday on behalf of a counseling student who was allegedly told that her Christian beliefs are unethical and incompatible with the prevailing views of the counseling profession. The student, Jennifer Keeton, says she has been told to stop communicating her beliefs and that she must undergo “training” to accept homosexuality in order to graduate from the counseling program.

Augusta State ordered Keeton to undergo a re-education plan, in which she must attend “diversity sensitivity training,” complete additional remedial reading, and write papers to describe their impact on her beliefs. If she does not change her beliefs or agree to the plan, the university says it will expel her from the Counselor Education Program.

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Dr. Kenneth Howell, Adjunct Associate Professor of Religion, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, was fired after a liberal student complained about an e-mail he sent to his students explaining Natural Moral Law.

By Peter LaBarbera

The University of Illinois has fired Dr. Kenneth Howell, a Catholic adjunct religion professor who was doing his job of teaching a class on Catholicism — after a liberal student complained to the university about an e-mail Howell sent to his students explaining Natural Moral Law. (The professor’s instructive e-mail and the student’s complaint e-mail are reproduced below.)

TAKE ACTION: Contact Michael Hogan, the University of Illinois’s new president, and urge him to reinstate Prof. Howell immediately: phone: (217) 333-6400; Fax: (217) 333-5733. Tell President Hogan that Howell’s firing is a nationwide advertisement that the University of Illinois is bigoted toward and intolerant of people of faith — giving lie to U-I’s mission statement to be “inclusive” and to ”treat each other with dignity and respect.” Board of Trustees: contact the U. of Illinois Bd. of Trustees at 217-333-1920 or write: UIBOT@uillinois.edu.]

The U. of Illinois’ “religion department’s website says Howell was recognized for excellent teaching in the spring and fall semesters of 2008 and 2009,” the Champaign News-Gazette reports.

Howell’s terminatioin draws attention to the emerging, cold reality of modern, politically correct America: in cosmopolitan areas and certainly in academia, you are more likely to be terminated, punished or persecuted on the job for opposing homosexuality than for “being gay.”

Here we are — on the verge, with our Democrat-controlled Congress, of creating federal employment “rights” based on homosexuality (and transgenderism), and people are being fired merely for expressing their sincere religious beliefs — which, in Howell’s case, was his job. Even as homosexual activists falsely claim that thousands of homosexuals face job losses because of “who they are,” the number of anti-Christian firings is piling up: remember the Allstate firing of Matt Barber? Crystal Dixon?

As you can see from below, Dr. Howell is a clear thinker who was doing what he was paid to do – teaching Catholic morality to his students. The complaint e-mail that got him terminated dismissses Howell’s e-mail as “absurd…It sickens me to know that hard-working Illinoisans are funding the salary of a man who does nothing but try to indoctrinate students and perpetuate stereotypes.”

If you want to know about the homo-fascist impulse that dominates so many institutions of “higher learning” (hah!) today, here are the key paragraphs from the News-Gazette story:

In a series of e-mail exchanges between [Robert McKim, head of the U-I religion department] and UI administrators about how to proceed regarding Howell’s teaching and his appointment as an adjunct professor, McKim states he will send a note to Howell’s students and others who were forwarded his e-mail to students, “disassociating our department, College, and university from the view expressed therein.”

In another e-mail, Ann Mester, associate dean for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, wrote that she believes “the e-mails sent by Dr. Howell violate university standards of inclusivity, which would then entitle us to have him discontinue his teaching arrangement with us.”

Inclusivity? What about U. of Illinois’ “inclusion” of traditional Catholic students and students who adhere to historic Judeo-Christian morality? ‘Diversity” has become a code-word for punishing those who dissent from liberal, pro-homosexuality groupthink. Please read the excellent e-letter below on Natural Moral Law by Prof. Howell. And  take action to urge the University of Illinois to correct this injustice. — Peter LaBarbera, www.aftah.org

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Dr. Kenneth Howell’s Teaching E-mail to Students:

The following is the e-mail to students that U. of Illinois religion professor Ken Howell sent to his students, as reported by the Champaign News-Gazette:

From: Kenneth J. Howell

Date: Tue, May 4, 2010 at 9:45 PM

Subject: Utilitarianism and Sexuality (for those in 447 FYI)

Dear Students:

Since there is a question on the final exam about utilitarianism (see the review sheet), I thought I would help with an example. I realized after my lectures on moral theory that even though I talked about the substance of utilitarianism, I did not identify it as such and so you may not have been able to see it.

It turns out that our discussion of homosexuality brings up the issue of utilitarianism. In class, our discussion of the morality of homosexual acts was very incomplete because any moral issue about which people disagree ALWAYS raises a more fundamental issue about criteria. In other words, by what criteria should we judge whether a given act is right or wrong?

Before looking at the issue of criteria, however, we have to remind ourselves of the ever-present tendency in all of us to judge morality by emotion. The most frequent reason I hear people supporting same-sex marriage is that they know some gay couples or individuals. Empathy is a noble human quality but right or wrong does not depend on who is doing the action or on how I feel about those people, just as judging an action wrong should not depend on disliking someone. This might seem obvious to a right thinking person but I have encountered many well-educated people who do not (or cannot?) make the distinction between persons and acts when engaging moral reasoning. I encourage you to read the final essay editorial I sent earlier to reflect on this. In short, to judge an action wrong is not to condemn a person. A person and his/her acts can be distinguished for the purposes of morality.

So, then, by what criterion should we judge whether sexual acts are right or wrong? This is where utilitarianism comes in. Utilitarianism in the popular sense is fundamentally a moral theory that judges right or wrong by its practical outcomes. It is somewhat akin to a cost/benefit analysis. So, when a woman is deciding whether it’s right to have an abortion, the utilitarian says it’s right or wrong based on what the best outcome is. Similarly, a man who is trying to decide whether he should cheat on his wife, if he is a utilitarian, will weigh the various consequences. If the cheating side of the ledger is better, he will conclude that it’s okay to cheat. If the faithful side is better, he will refrain from cheating.

I think it’s fair to say that many, maybe most Americans employ some type of utilitarianism in their moral decision making. But there are at least two problems. One is that to judge the best outcome can be very subjective. What may be judged good for the pregnant woman may not be good for the baby. What may be judged good for the about-to-cheat-husband may not good for his wife or his children. This problem of subjectivity is inherent in utilitarianism for a second reason. Utilitarianism counsels that moral decisions should NOT be based on the inherent meaning of acts. Acts are only good or bad relative to outcomes. The natural law theory that I expounded in class assumes that human acts have an inherent meaning (remember my fist vs. extended hand of friendship example).

One of the most common applications of utilitarianism to sexual morality is the criterion of mutual consent. It is said that any sexual act is okay if the two or more people involved agree. Now no one can (or should) deny that for a sexual act to be moral there must be consent. Certainly, this is one reason why rape is morally wrong. But the question is whether this is enough.

If two men consent to engage in sexual acts, according to utilitarianism, such an act would be morally okay. But notice too that if a ten year old agrees to a sexual act with a 40 year old, such an act would also be moral if even it is illegal under the current law. Notice too that our concern is with morality, not law. So by the consent criterion, we would have to admit certain cases as moral which we presently would not approve of. The case of the 10 and 40 year olds might be excluded by adding a modification like “informed consent.” Then as long as both parties agree with sufficient knowledge, the act would be morally okay. A little reflection would show, I think, that “informed consent” might be more difficult to apply in practice than in theory. But another problem would be where to draw the line between moral and immoral acts using only informed consent. For example, if a dog consents to engage in a sexual act with its human master, such an act would also be moral according to the consent criterion. If this impresses you as far-fetched, the point is not whether it might occur but by what criterion we could say that it is wrong. I don’t think that it would be wrong according to the consent criterion.

But the more significant problem has to do with the fact that the consent criterion is not related in any way to the NATURE of the act itself. This is where Natural Moral Law (NML) objects. NML says that Morality must be a response to REALITY. In other words, sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same. How do we know this? By looking at REALITY. Men and women are complementary in their anatomy, physiology, and psychology. Men and women are not interchangeable. So, a moral sexual act has to be between persons that are fitted for that act. Consent is important but there is more than consent needed.

One example applicable to homosexual acts illustrates the problem. To the best of my knowledge, in a sexual relationship between two men, one of them tends to act as the “woman” while the other acts as the “man.” In this scenario, homosexual men have been known to engage in certain types of actions for which their bodies are not fitted. I don’t want to be too graphic so I won’t go into details but a physician has told me that these acts are deleterious to the health of one or possibly both of the men. Yet, if the morality of the act is judged only by mutual consent, then there are clearly homosexual acts which are injurious to their health but which are consented to. Why are they injurious? Because they violate the meaning, structure, and (sometimes) health of the human body.

Now recall that I mentioned in class the importance of gaining wisdom from the past. One part of wisdom we gain from such knowledge is how people today came to think of their bodies. I won’t go into details here but a survey of the last few centuries reveals that we have gradually been separating our sexual natures (reality) from our moral decisions. Thus, people tend to think that we can use our bodies sexually in whatever ways we choose without regard to their actual structure and meaning. This is also what lies behind the idea of sex change operations. We can manipulate our bodies to be whatever we want them to be.

If what I just said is true, then this disassociation of morality and sexual reality did not begin with homosexuality. It began long ago. But it took a huge leap forward in the wide spread use of artificial contraceptives. What this use allowed was for people to disassociate procreation and children from sexual activity. So, for people who have grown up only in a time when there is no inherent connection between procreation and sex –- notice not natural but manipulated by humans –- it follows “logically” that sex can mean anything we want it to mean.

Natural Moral Theory says that if we are to have healthy sexual lives, we must return to a connection between procreation and sex. Why? Because that is what is REAL. It is based on human sexual anatomy and physiology. Human sexuality is inherently unitive and procreative. If we encourage sexual relations that violate this basic meaning, we will end up denying something essential about our humanity, about our feminine and masculine nature.

I know this doesn’t answer all the questions in many of your minds. All I ask as your teacher is that you approach these questions as a thinking adult. That implies questioning what you have heard around you. Unless you have done extensive research into homosexuality and are cognizant of the history of moral thought, you are not ready to make judgments about moral truth in this matter. All I encourage is to make informed decisions. As a final note, a perceptive reader will have noticed that none of what I have said here or in class depends upon religion. Catholics don’t arrive at their moral conclusions based on their religion. They do so based on a thorough understanding of natural reality.

Kenneth J. Howell Ph.D.

Director, St. John’s Institute of Catholic Thought

Adjunct Associate Professor of Religion, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

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U of I Student’s Complaint E-mail about Religion Prof Ken Howell:

The following is the e-mail complaint from student about U-I religion instructor Ken Howell, as reported by the News-Gazette:

Prof. McKim,

This past semester, a friend of mine took RLST 127: Introduction to Catholicism. Throughout the semester, he would consistently tell me how the teacher [Ken Howell], who I believe is a priest at the Newman Center, would preach (not teach) his ideology to the class. Many times, my friend (whom I wish to remain anonymous) said the instructor would say things that were inflammatory and downright insensitive to those who were not of the Catholic faith–it should be noted that my friend and I were both brought up Catholic. Anyways, my friend informed me that things got especially provocative when discussing homosexuality. He sent me the following e-mail, which I believe you will agree is downright absurd once you read it.

I am in no way a gay rights activist, but allowing this hate speech at a public university is entirely unacceptable. It sickens me to know that hard-working Illinoisans are funding the salary of a man who does nothing but try to indoctrinate students and perpetuate stereotypes. Once again, this is a public university and should thus have no religious affiliation. Teaching a student about the tenets of a religion is one thing. Declaring that homosexual acts violate the natural laws of man is another. The courses at this institution should be geared to contribute to the public discourse and promote independent thought; not limit one’s worldview and ostracize people of a certain sexual orientation.

I can only imagine how ashamed and uncomfortable a gay student would feel if he/she were to take this course. I am a heterosexual male and I found this completely appalling. Also, my friend also told me that the teacher allowed little room for any opposition to Catholic dogma. Once again, he is guilty of limiting the marketplace of ideas and acting out of accord with this institution’s mission and principles.

I have Cc’d Leslie Morrow, director of the LGBT Resource Center, on this e-mail as well as (name redacted), former features editor at the Daily Illini (I’m sure they’d like to hear about this), and Siobhan Somerville, a former teacher of mine and the founder of the queer studies major.

I didn’t go to Notre Dame for a reason,

(name redacted)

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Bio of Kenneth J. Howell, Ph.D. from the St. John’s Catholic Newman Center at the U. of Illinois

Kenneth J. Howell
Director & Senior Fellow, Institute of Catholic Thought
kenneth.howell@sjcnc.org

In addition to being the Director and a Senior Fellow of the Institute of Catholic Thought, Dr. Howell is also an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Program for the Study of Religion in the University of Illinois. Dr. Howell studied theology at Westminster Theological Seminary where he concentrated in biblical languages and systematic theology.

In 1978, he was ordained a Presbyterian minister and served parishes in Florida and Indiana. After completing his Ph.D. in linguistics at Indiana University, he taught Greek, Hebrew, and Latin at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. His teaching duties involved theological research which led to his conversion to Catholicism in 1996. During this time, he obtained another Ph.D. in the history of Christianity and Science from the University of Lancaster (U.K).

Dr. Howell is the author of four books and numerous articles. God’s Two Books: Copernican Cosmology and Biblical Interpretation in Early Modern Science (University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), Mary of Nazareth: Sign and Instrument of Christian Unity (Queenship Press, 1998) is a scriptural study of Marian doctrine. Meeting Mary Our Mother in Faith (Catholic Answers Press, 2003), Questions College Students Ask…about God, Faith, and the Church (co-authored with Christine Pinheiro) (Champaign, IL: The St. John Institute of Catholic Thought, St. John’s Catholic Newman Center, 2006), The Eucharist for Beginners: Sacrament, Sacrifice, and Communion (San Diego: Catholic Answers, 2006).