Author:
Matt C
Anti-gay Charlotte Catholic High lecturer sparks controversy
Gay student and peers, parents and alumni want apology for lecturer who said gay parents abuse children, masturbation turns boys gay
by Matt Comer Editor editor@goqnotes.com
Published: March 28, 2014 in News
UPDATE (April 2, 2014): Nun cancels planned May speech at diocesan youth conference in Asheville
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Students and parents at Charlotte Catholic High School are speaking out after they say a campus lecturer forcefully condemned homosexuality with outdated statistics, prejudiced stereotypes and other extremist claims.
As of Friday morning, more than 2,100 people had signed onto a Change.org petitionasking the school and its chaplain, Father Matthew Kauth, to apologize for the lecture led last Friday by Sister Jane Dominic Laurel, a professor at Nashville’s Aquinas College, whose other lectures and presentations posted online also contain wildly inaccurate accusations about gay people and sexuality.
In a separate action, 64 students and 86 alumni signed onto a letter with similar requests and sent directly to school officials.
EXTRA: Read the full alumni and student letter to the school
The letter and petition allege that Laurel said a variety of prejudiced comments about gay and lesbian people during her lecture on masculinity and femininity, including that masturbation or an absent father may make a boy more likely to be gay — two claims soundly rejected by all mainstream medical professionals and associations.
“Then she started talking about how gays [sic] people are gay because they have an absent father figure, and therefore they have not received the masculinity they should have from their father,” reads one student’s account of the message. “Also a guy could be gay if he masterbates [sic] and so he thinks he is being turned on by other guys. And then she gave an example of one of her gay ‘friends’ who said he used to go to a shed with his friends and watch porn and thats why he was gay. … Then she talked about the statistic where gay men have had either over 500 or 1000 sexual partners and after that I got up and went to the bathroom because I should not have had to been subject to that extremely offensive talk.”
A gay Charlotte Catholic student, who did not want to be publicly named because he is not fully out at school or home, said he was upset by the assembly, which was mandatory for all students to attend. He wants the school to apologize, too.
“I would like them to issue a formal apology to the students and to the parents and alumni,” the student told qnotes. “I want them to know how upset everyone is and for them to acknowledge that.”
The gay student corroborated the petition’s several claims about Laurel’s lecture.
“She brought up an abusive Australian couple that was gay and they abused their child, portraying to us that gay people are unfit parents,” he said. “She also said that gay people can become gay because of masturbation or pornography or because they don’t spend enough time with their father because their parents are divorced.”
David Hains, a spokesperson for the Catholic Diocese of Charlotte, told qnotes a parent meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday. It will be held at 7 p.m. in the school’s gym.
qnotes asked Hains what the school or diocese would do to ensure that voices like that of the closeted gay student are considered at the meeting. He said he was certain the issues would be discussed at length.
“The parents of students who are gay and lesbian are obviously going to be welcomed at the meeting,” he said. “There are many of our families at Charlotte Catholic who have students, relatives or friends who are homosexual and that point of view, I’m certain, is going to be represented among the parents at the meeting.”
Hains also confirmed it wasn’t official church teaching that masturbation makes people gay. He said school officials, not the diocese, would have been in charge of approving Laurel’s lecture. Laurel, he said, has a doctorate’s degree in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, and she will be invited back to speak at a diocesan youth conference in May.
“She talks on a broad range of subjects, so I don’t know that the content of the talk at Charlotte Catholic will be the subject of what she will be talking about in May,” said Hains.
Hains also reiterated official church doctrine on homosexuality and LGBT people.
“The Catholic Church believes people who are homosexual or have a same-sex attraction, whatever you want to call it, are people who deserve lives of peace and dignity and, at the same time, the Catholic Church teaches that sex outside of marriage is wrong,” he said.
Hains said LGBT people and others sometimes have a “misunderstanding on the church’s stand on marriage and its welcoming of homosexual people into Catholic churches.”
Laurel, the Charlotte Catholic High lecturer, has a history of extremist, anti-gay views. She has partnered with the Ruth Institute to present lectures and conferences opposing same-sex marriage. The Ruth Institute was formerly funded by the National Organization for Marriage, a group which has pushed anti-LGBT constitutional amendments nationwide and whose founder has compared gays to pedophiles.
In one lecture posted online, Laurel claims that more young women are engaging in oral sex and says, “This is not a normal sexual act. It’s something that’s imported from the homosexual culture. It’s not part of the natural love between man and woman.”
In another lecture, Laurel speaks at length about the Folsom Street Fair, a San Francisco fetish event. In another video, she says that androgyny is a tool of Satan and that “devil-worshipers” have three goals: to continue abortions, to destroy traditional marriage and destroy the distinction between male and female.
Students and alumni have described the lecture as “teachings of hate and intolerance.”
“Last week’s presentation represents a betrayal of trust,” the student and alumni letter to school officials reads. “Your responsibility to provide nurturing and informative education to the students of Charlotte Catholic was shrugged off. Your mission to truthfully convey the teachings of the Church—the teachings of love, compassion, and humility—was replaced by teachings of hate and intolerance.”
A second Change.org petition, with nearly 500 signatures, asks students to “stand up for Catholic beliefs.” It also argues Laurel did not say masturbation makes boys gay, but, rather, describes her remarks as “partaking in masturbation will lessen your masculinity and that through the absence of a parent in the home will also make a greater risk for homosexuality.”
======================================================
Published: March 28, 2014 in News
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Students and parents at Charlotte Catholic High School are speaking out after they say a campus lecturer forcefully condemned homosexuality with outdated statistics, prejudiced stereotypes and other extremist claims.
As of Friday morning, more than 2,100 people had signed onto a Change.org petitionasking the school and its chaplain, Father Matthew Kauth, to apologize for the lecture led last Friday by Sister Jane Dominic Laurel, a professor at Nashville’s Aquinas College, whose other lectures and presentations posted online also contain wildly inaccurate accusations about gay people and sexuality.
In a separate action, 64 students and 86 alumni signed onto a letter with similar requests and sent directly to school officials.
EXTRA: Read the full alumni and student letter to the school
The letter and petition allege that Laurel said a variety of prejudiced comments about gay and lesbian people during her lecture on masculinity and femininity, including that masturbation or an absent father may make a boy more likely to be gay — two claims soundly rejected by all mainstream medical professionals and associations.
“Then she started talking about how gays [sic] people are gay because they have an absent father figure, and therefore they have not received the masculinity they should have from their father,” reads one student’s account of the message. “Also a guy could be gay if he masterbates [sic] and so he thinks he is being turned on by other guys. And then she gave an example of one of her gay ‘friends’ who said he used to go to a shed with his friends and watch porn and thats why he was gay. … Then she talked about the statistic where gay men have had either over 500 or 1000 sexual partners and after that I got up and went to the bathroom because I should not have had to been subject to that extremely offensive talk.”
A gay Charlotte Catholic student, who did not want to be publicly named because he is not fully out at school or home, said he was upset by the assembly, which was mandatory for all students to attend. He wants the school to apologize, too.
“I would like them to issue a formal apology to the students and to the parents and alumni,” the student told qnotes. “I want them to know how upset everyone is and for them to acknowledge that.”
The gay student corroborated the petition’s several claims about Laurel’s lecture.
“She brought up an abusive Australian couple that was gay and they abused their child, portraying to us that gay people are unfit parents,” he said. “She also said that gay people can become gay because of masturbation or pornography or because they don’t spend enough time with their father because their parents are divorced.”
David Hains, a spokesperson for the Catholic Diocese of Charlotte, told qnotes a parent meeting is scheduled for next Wednesday. It will be held at 7 p.m. in the school’s gym.
qnotes asked Hains what the school or diocese would do to ensure that voices like that of the closeted gay student are considered at the meeting. He said he was certain the issues would be discussed at length.
“The parents of students who are gay and lesbian are obviously going to be welcomed at the meeting,” he said. “There are many of our families at Charlotte Catholic who have students, relatives or friends who are homosexual and that point of view, I’m certain, is going to be represented among the parents at the meeting.”
Hains also confirmed it wasn’t official church teaching that masturbation makes people gay. He said school officials, not the diocese, would have been in charge of approving Laurel’s lecture. Laurel, he said, has a doctorate’s degree in sacred theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, and she will be invited back to speak at a diocesan youth conference in May.
“She talks on a broad range of subjects, so I don’t know that the content of the talk at Charlotte Catholic will be the subject of what she will be talking about in May,” said Hains.
Hains also reiterated official church doctrine on homosexuality and LGBT people.
“The Catholic Church believes people who are homosexual or have a same-sex attraction, whatever you want to call it, are people who deserve lives of peace and dignity and, at the same time, the Catholic Church teaches that sex outside of marriage is wrong,” he said.
Hains said LGBT people and others sometimes have a “misunderstanding on the church’s stand on marriage and its welcoming of homosexual people into Catholic churches.”
Laurel, the Charlotte Catholic High lecturer, has a history of extremist, anti-gay views. She has partnered with the Ruth Institute to present lectures and conferences opposing same-sex marriage. The Ruth Institute was formerly funded by the National Organization for Marriage, a group which has pushed anti-LGBT constitutional amendments nationwide and whose founder has compared gays to pedophiles.
In one lecture posted online, Laurel claims that more young women are engaging in oral sex and says, “This is not a normal sexual act. It’s something that’s imported from the homosexual culture. It’s not part of the natural love between man and woman.”
In another lecture, Laurel speaks at length about the Folsom Street Fair, a San Francisco fetish event. In another video, she says that androgyny is a tool of Satan and that “devil-worshipers” have three goals: to continue abortions, to destroy traditional marriage and destroy the distinction between male and female.
Students and alumni have described the lecture as “teachings of hate and intolerance.”
“Last week’s presentation represents a betrayal of trust,” the student and alumni letter to school officials reads. “Your responsibility to provide nurturing and informative education to the students of Charlotte Catholic was shrugged off. Your mission to truthfully convey the teachings of the Church—the teachings of love, compassion, and humility—was replaced by teachings of hate and intolerance.”
A second Change.org petition, with nearly 500 signatures, asks students to “stand up for Catholic beliefs.” It also argues Laurel did not say masturbation makes boys gay, but, rather, describes her remarks as “partaking in masturbation will lessen your masculinity and that through the absence of a parent in the home will also make a greater risk for homosexuality.”
Other stories you might like -
More than 1,000 attend Charlotte Catholic meeting on nun’s speech
Nun with extreme anti-gay views had upset students, parents, alumni
by The Charlotte Observer Charlotte News Alliance
Published: April 3, 2014 in News
By Tim Funk
tfunk@charlotteobserver.comOriginally published by The Charlotte Observer on Wednesday, Apr. 02, 2014
Originally published: April 2, 2014, 10:27 p.m.
Updated: April 3, 2014, 8:37 a.m.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Nearly 1,000 parents gathered at Charlotte Catholic High School on Wednesday night to air complaints about a recent speech to students by a nun who made what many considered inflammatory comments about gays and lesbians, divorce and single parenthood.
So many parents lined up to speak that the meeting with high school officials, the school’s chaplain and the Diocese of Charlotte’s vicar of education lasted more than an hour longer than scheduled.
Though the gathering was closed to the media, texts and tweets from parents inside the school gym cast the meeting as often heated, with emotions running high on both sides.
Diocese spokesman David Hains acknowledged after the meeting that the Rev. Matthew Kauth, the school’s chaplain, apologized to the parents for a March 21 speech by Sister Jane Dominic Laurel that was not the one he expected her to give.
Anti-gay nun cancels planned May speech in Charlotte diocese
Stay tuned to QNotes for more updates and reactions to the meeting in our reports on Thursday
Hains also said the high school committed to developing new policies that would better scrutinize visiting speakers in the future. He said the school also wants to do a better job of communicating with parents ahead of time when such speeches will deal with sensitive subjects such as sexuality.
“Parents should have been better informed,” Hains said.
During her speech, Laurel quoted studies that said gays and lesbians are not born with same-sex attractions, and that children in single-parent homes have a greater chance of becoming homosexual, Hains and others said.
Susan Traynor of Matthews, whose son is a sophomore, said he is usually pretty quiet when she picks him up from Charlotte Catholic High.
But on the day Laurel spoke to the assembly, she said, he spoke right up when he got in the car.
“He said, ‘We had the worst assembly today,’ ” Traynor recalled. “He said he tried to leave with some others, but they were made to sit down. There are students in this school who are openly gay and some who are not out yet. Obviously, they felt bullied.”
Parents who spoke Wednesday night got up to three minutes at the microphone. The meeting started at 7 p.m. and ended just after 9:30.
Some defended Laurel, saying she was presenting traditional Catholic teachings. But Hains and others said the majority of parents who spoke did not agree with the nun or many of her comments.
And some expressed anger at the school for inviting her, for not stopping her when she veered off script, and for not telling parents ahead of time what she would talk about.
“You asked us to trust you. You betrayed our trust,” one parent told the gathering, according to a text to the Observer.
Though the Observer and local TV stations were told to leave the campus during the meeting, a reporter from the Catholic News Herald, the diocese’s newspaper, was allowed in the meeting to cover it.
Before being ordered off the high school property, some Charlotte Catholic High School alumni and parents of former students passed out wristbands critical of the nun’s remarks on gays and lesbians. The wristbands read “We are all God’s children.”
Anti-gay Charlotte Catholic High lecturer sparks controversy
Anti-gay Catholic nun takes 'sabbatical'
===================================================================
‘WHAT WE ARE UP AGAINST{ What LGBT calls "New Civil RightsMovement :P She Didn’t Say Anything Contradicting Our Faith’ Says NC Catholic School About Homophobic Nun | The New Civil Rights Movement
http://learningmycatholicfaith.blogspot.com/2014/04/she-didnt-say-anything-contradicting.html
=================================================================
WHAT WE ARE UP AGAINST-Catholics Students in North Carolina Stand Up to Anti-Gay Nun | Bondings 2.0
Published: April 3, 2014 in News
tfunk@charlotteobserver.comOriginally published by The Charlotte Observer on Wednesday, Apr. 02, 2014
Originally published: April 2, 2014, 10:27 p.m.
Updated: April 3, 2014, 8:37 a.m.
Diane Troy (left), with PFLAG Charlotte outside Charlotte Catholic’s gymnasium before the 7 p.m. meeting puts a “We are all God’s Children” wrist band on Katy Spiecha’s (right), wrist.
Photo Credit: Robert Lahser/Charlotte Observer.
Photo Credit: Robert Lahser/Charlotte Observer.
So many parents lined up to speak that the meeting with high school officials, the school’s chaplain and the Diocese of Charlotte’s vicar of education lasted more than an hour longer than scheduled.
Though the gathering was closed to the media, texts and tweets from parents inside the school gym cast the meeting as often heated, with emotions running high on both sides.
Diocese spokesman David Hains acknowledged after the meeting that the Rev. Matthew Kauth, the school’s chaplain, apologized to the parents for a March 21 speech by Sister Jane Dominic Laurel that was not the one he expected her to give.
related
Anti-gay Charlotte Catholic High lecturer sparks controversyAnti-gay nun cancels planned May speech in Charlotte diocese
Stay tuned to QNotes for more updates and reactions to the meeting in our reports on Thursday
“Parents should have been better informed,” Hains said.
During her speech, Laurel quoted studies that said gays and lesbians are not born with same-sex attractions, and that children in single-parent homes have a greater chance of becoming homosexual, Hains and others said.
Susan Traynor of Matthews, whose son is a sophomore, said he is usually pretty quiet when she picks him up from Charlotte Catholic High.
But on the day Laurel spoke to the assembly, she said, he spoke right up when he got in the car.
“He said, ‘We had the worst assembly today,’ ” Traynor recalled. “He said he tried to leave with some others, but they were made to sit down. There are students in this school who are openly gay and some who are not out yet. Obviously, they felt bullied.”
Parents who spoke Wednesday night got up to three minutes at the microphone. The meeting started at 7 p.m. and ended just after 9:30.
Some defended Laurel, saying she was presenting traditional Catholic teachings. But Hains and others said the majority of parents who spoke did not agree with the nun or many of her comments.
And some expressed anger at the school for inviting her, for not stopping her when she veered off script, and for not telling parents ahead of time what she would talk about.
“You asked us to trust you. You betrayed our trust,” one parent told the gathering, according to a text to the Observer.
Though the Observer and local TV stations were told to leave the campus during the meeting, a reporter from the Catholic News Herald, the diocese’s newspaper, was allowed in the meeting to cover it.
Before being ordered off the high school property, some Charlotte Catholic High School alumni and parents of former students passed out wristbands critical of the nun’s remarks on gays and lesbians. The wristbands read “We are all God’s children.”
Other stories you might like -
Anti-gay Charlotte Catholic High lecturer sparks controversyAnti-gay Catholic nun takes 'sabbatical'===================================================================
‘WHAT WE ARE UP AGAINST{ What LGBT calls "New Civil RightsMovement :P She Didn’t Say Anything Contradicting Our Faith’ Says NC Catholic School About Homophobic Nun | The New Civil Rights Movement
http://learningmycatholicfaith.blogspot.com/2014/04/she-didnt-say-anything-contradicting.html
=================================================================
WHAT WE ARE UP AGAINST-Catholics Students in North Carolina Stand Up to Anti-Gay Nun | Bondings 2.0
Catholics Students in North Carolina Stand Up to Anti-Gay Nun | Bondings 2.0
New Ways Ministry goesAGAINST Church teaching and is NOT a legitimate Church Ministry!
http://learningmycatholicfaith.blogspot.com/2014/04/what-we-are-up-against-catholics.html
New Ways Ministry goesAGAINST Church teaching and is NOT a legitimate Church Ministry!
http://learningmycatholicfaith.blogspot.com/2014/04/what-we-are-up-against-catholics.html
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