To the University of Notre Dame:
Recognize our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in Christ finally.
Fifteen times the University of Notre Dame has denied official club status to a gay-straight alliance. A GSA would lead to a warm, welcoming environment that students have struggled for year after year.
The university refuses to include non-discrimination toward homosexuals in its non-discrimination clause.
Many Catholic high schools already include that clause. Really. For real.
Notre Dame remains the only top twenty university without a Gay Straight Alliance and without an inclusive non-discrimination clause.
Are you kidding me?
When I was a student at ND, the GSA met on campus, but, hey, it was the 80s, and barely an eyebrow was raised.
And then, suddenly, they were banished from campus.
You know, that campus the powers-that-be spray with massive pesticides every spring.
And Tom Dooley wrote to Fr. Hesburgh. Did it really matter to Father Hesburgh that Tom Dooley was gay? Was Tom Dooley too pink for the sacred Golden Dome?
Not at all.
Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., you can show some true leadership here, as St. Mary’s College, another Roman Catholic college, did long ago.
Check your bible, Notre Dame. Jesus said nothing against our GLBTQ brothers and sisters in Christ.
Rev. Jenkins, "gird up your loins now, like a man" before the petulant armies of Rome stand up for our GLBTQ brothers and sisters in Christ. All of them. And include "sexual orientation" in the university’s non-discrimination clause.
It’s only right.
Stand up for justice. Stand up for what is right. Stand up for our GLBTQ brothers and sisters in Christ who deserve more, so much more, from the educated, those who should know better.
Respectfully,
Gary W. Kopycinski
Notre Dame ’85
