Kenneth Howell Was Hired By The University of Illinois To Teach About Catholicism: So he taught about Catholicism. And then the university fired him for teaching what he was hired to teach.
If that sequence seems a little mysterious, you just have to remember that Catholic doctrine is politically incorrect in many areas, including homosexuality.
Professor Howell has been reinstated, which will please almost all of his students. The University of Illinois may have learned something about the 1st Amendment's protections for freedom of speech and religion, which will please most of us.
But what strikes me about this incident is how routine it sounds — until we get to the reinstatement. Everything happened as if the people involved were following a much-used script, from Howell's innocuous statement of Catholic doctrine, which triggered the anonymous "hate speech" charge, to the panicked firing. We've seen this all before, but usually it does not end as well as it has in Howell's case.
Because these cases are so common, we now have — and need — the Alliance Defense Fund, established in order to defend religious freedom, even on college and university campuses.
(FWIW — not much to administrators at the U of I — Illinois is one of our more Catholic states.)
If that sequence seems a little mysterious, you just have to remember that Catholic doctrine is politically incorrect in many areas, including homosexuality.
David French, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing Howell, underscores an important point: "Dr. Howell's case illustrates the absolute intolerance that has long been emerging on campus towards any kind of dissent or disagreement against the prevailing sexual orthodoxy. It's as if the university community views traditional Christian ethics as the moral equivalent of racism and treats Christians in the same way it would treat a white-sheeted bigot."Old-fashioned liberals would have defended Howell on the academic freedom grounds, but there aren't many old-fashioned liberals left in our universities, and those that are left are not always willing to speak out on such a sensitive subject.
Professor Howell has been reinstated, which will please almost all of his students. The University of Illinois may have learned something about the 1st Amendment's protections for freedom of speech and religion, which will please most of us.
But what strikes me about this incident is how routine it sounds — until we get to the reinstatement. Everything happened as if the people involved were following a much-used script, from Howell's innocuous statement of Catholic doctrine, which triggered the anonymous "hate speech" charge, to the panicked firing. We've seen this all before, but usually it does not end as well as it has in Howell's case.
Because these cases are so common, we now have — and need — the Alliance Defense Fund, established in order to defend religious freedom, even on college and university campuses.
(FWIW — not much to administrators at the U of I — Illinois is one of our more Catholic states.)
- 7:42 AM, 2 August 2010 [link]
From Jim Miller on Politics
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