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Practical remedies are in short supply

A staff member at a Catholic college--or, to be more precise, a college in the Jesuit tradition, which isn't necessarily the same thing as a Catholic college--has been suspended (with pay, for the moment) while her terrible speech-hate-crime is investigated.

What did she do? She had the gall to stop and talk to some students advertising LGBTA@%!$!% week and to tell them (I know this will shock you) that the Catholic church teaches that there are only two genders. She also (this is even more shocking) referred to one of the students as a man even though he told her he "identifies" as non-gendered.

An alumnus of Loyola Marymount University (in LA) listened to the conversation on a cell phone and agreed with the staffer's account, stating that she was friendly and kind in her dialogue with the students.

Although the accounts differ on some details, what is most frightening about this is the extent to which they agree. That is to say, the students are asserting quite openly that, for the woman staff member merely to say that there are only two genders and to call one of the students a man was "denying the existence" of the "transgender" students and therefore is grounds for dismissal, at least. They also called the LAPD, who I hope will tell them to take a hike and stop wasting the taxpayers' money. (LAPD may have to investigate because some of the sexually themed signs for pansexuality week or whatever it is called were moved behind a garbage can. I gather the staff member isn't being accused of this, but no doubt moving the signs can be ginned up into some kind of crime, the perpetrator of which must be found and punished severely. Which reminds me of all the times over the years that whole print runs of conservative alternative student newspapers have been stolen and burned wholesale on college campuses and nothing has been done, but I digress.)

Loyola Marymount's Bias Incident Response Team swung immediately into action on the terrible behavior of this staff member. The very thought that LMU or anyplace else has a Bias Incident Response Team with its own shiny acronym (BIRT) and is obviously very proud of having one should make one wonder whether to laugh, cry, or be sick. Her ultimate job fate remains unknown, presumably even to her and to her husband.

Now, the question that comes to my mind is this: What would you do if you were in the staffer's shoes?

To begin with, should we all just tell each other now to keep our heads down and our mouths shut and hope to fly under the radar? Clearly, we have passed the point where it can be regarded as safe to speak out and have a respectful discussion of these issues while disagreeing with the leftist establishment. Had she known what would happen, would she still have spoken? Should she have?

I tend to think that we need two groups. One can be the "keep your head down" group, secretly teaching their children and grandchildren subversive ideas such as that there are only two genders. The other group can continue to play the canaries in the mine. With a lawyer on hand preferably and a game plan before speaking out.

Despite the fact that I'm often accused of doing nothing but talking about all the terrible, bad things happening in the world, I actually want to use my posts for practical ends. That's why, when it comes to end-of-life issues, I'm often ending my posts with injunctions not to volunteer to be an organ donor, or to be sure not to sign anything agreeing to forego "extraordinary means." In this case, I'm a bit at a loss for practical advice.

Certainly everybody should know what they are getting into. This is especially true if you are an employee and if your employer is promoting transgenderism, homosexuality, etc. If you express a contrary view and the employer does not punish you, the employer can say that he could be liable for creating a "hostile environment" for members of the specially protected group. This has always been one of the worst aspects of non-discrimination law. It has always impinged upon the speech of all employees because of the regulations surrounding "hostile environment." So don't walk into the punch unprepared if you do decide to speak up.

Also: How many Catholic parents are spending many thousands of dollars or encouraging their children to take on crushing debt to attend Loyola Marymount? I bet a lot. And why? Is it even in part because it's allegedly a Catholic school? Because if so, that's a foolish reason. Whether or not anybody should be taking on crushing debt to go to college is a legitimate question, but certainly don't take it on under a false impression. Don't do it because of the alleged religious identity of a school that, in fact, has nothing but bitter enmity towards basic tenets of that religious identity.

That's all I got in the way of practical advice. May the Lord help and sustain Mrs. ____, the anonymous staffer who is getting crushed by the jackboots this time around. Hopefully she will be able to find some legal options for self-defense.

Comments (25)

The first semi-practical thing is for the alumni to get involved, by withdrawing financial support (donations), and by threatening to bad-mouth the administration publicly. Administrations are quite sensitive to alumni perspectives.

Second of all, organizations that have ANY respect of Catholic parents, who are making the decisions about where to send their kids, can warn parents off from LMU. They should be publicly saying that LMU is an anti-Catholic school, and no Catholic parent should send their kids there. The Newman Society puts out a list of decently Catholic schools, and LMU isn't on the list. I wish they would start to get into actively denouncing the anti-Catholic formerly Catholic schools, including nearly all the Jesuit ones. I guess so far they don't think active denunciations are cost-effective, but I think they need to think it through.

Thirdly, at least for the worst offenders, at some point the Catholic bishop of the diocese needs to be swamped with calls to revoke the right of these colleges to use the word "Catholic" when they describe themselves. (Won't do much good for the Jesuit ones, which often have taken "Catholic" out of their names and descriptions already.) It won't matter to 50% of the student body, but it will still matter to the other half. The bishops need to put their money where their mouths are, and this is one of the places where they can actually do it WITHOUT direct consequences that will hurt in a serious way.

Oh, and can't the local bishop put the school under interdict? We forgot that one.

*Any* putatively Catholic (or even Jesuit) school that is holding a "Rainbow Week" with school-approved signs advertising "pansexuality" should definitely be under interdict until all the administrators responsible repent in dust and ashes and do public penance. And the staff member is restored to her job with compensation for pain and suffering.

*Any* putatively Catholic (or even Jesuit) school

Heh. Ain't that the sorry truth.

For most Jesuit schools, the bishop could try an interdict, but they would probably ignore him and go about their merry business, holding masses as if he had said nothing. More interestingly, he could refuse the theology teachers any permission to teach theology. This would (at a Jesuit school) probably result in an interesting situation of a school offering "theology" degrees with no church that accepts the degree as valid. Probably the Jesuits won't care - nothing in state law requires them to only offer theology degrees if a church stamps it as OK.

In effect, this would probably cause a formal schismatic group to spin off of the Church. Most bishops view such a result as horrible, and refuse to take steps that would have this result. Maybe they are right, but in practice these schools are turning out anti-Catholics who think they are Catholics (sort of, when they feel like it), which isn't doing them much good. At some point, the bishops have to decide to cut their losses: if a school not only doesn't turn non-Catholics toward the Church, but turns Catholics away from Christianity altogether, then they are doing more harm than good, and helping them DECLARE their apostasy and schismatic reality is probably for the best, in my opinion.

After 5 minutes searching on LMU's website, I could not find one use of the word "Catholic". There were 2 uses of "Jesuit", both in the sense of "our historical roots".

First and foremost, the church in the West needs to be the church again. Our parishes and congregations need to collectively stand up and say, "We will be bold. We will be salt and light to a culture and a government that is becoming increasingly unhinged from reality. We will speak the truth in love to those around us. If some of our members in positions of influence lose their jobs because of it, the rest of us will take them and their family in while we help them find a new job. Come what may, we will not be cowed and we will not be silenced!"

Similarly, we need to support legal organizations that are friendly toward moral and religious freedom while there is still time. With these social structures established as our beachhead, all of us need to start speaking up and speaking out on these issues with an eye toward sharing the Gospel. As Benjamin Franklin is commonly thought to have said, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."

As a LMU graduate, this is very dissapointing to hear. I will not be donating any time soon.

Philosofarmer: well said. Some will bear the brunt of being true to our faith more than others, because of their more public positions. The rest of us need to take their needs into account and supply for them, when they lose their jobs. The fear of losing your livelihood is a difficult fear to manage alongside of the sheer difficulty of standing up to the massed bullies ranged against us.

To the same end, I think we need to push for new (or newly polished) professional organizations that denounce nonsense and promote the good - and insist that they get equal billing with the other organizations. Where the American Psychiatric Association tries to define away the disease of transgender feelings, we need to have a Christian Psychiatric Association that (a) says just the opposite (with peer-reviewed papers) and (b) demands just the same standing before legal tribunals. And the same with all the other cruddy so-called "professional" entities. We need to have Christian schools refuse to advertise their openings in the "mainstream" journals that won't publish good work (and make it known that's what they are doing), and refuse to accept the credentials of the worst offender universities that create a strangle-hold, lock-step conformity to PC nonsense. They need to say to the professorial candidates from such schools "you have a Ph.D. from Big & Fat State U? Well, we don't accept that as a bona fide credential, it's no better than a diploma-mill from our standppoint. Sorry. Go get a real degree from a real institution that opens your mind to truth."

Tony,
It is precisely the timidity of the respectable people that has created the present situation.
See David French at NRO today:
nationalreview.com/article/434827/individual-cowardice-killing-american-culture

Political power is not always won by being prudent but requires great deal of sacrifice and hard work.

Tony- I love that approach, taking the high road and not backing down. However, what is stop a group like the SPLC from simply labeling every one of these professional organizations and perhaps even schools as hate groups? I am guessing in most courts that is enough to instantly discredit them, and perhaps make one's association with them even worse than no association at all. On top of that, just about every time the media reports on anything involving one of these associations or schools, no doubt the "certified SPLC hate group" will be mentioned.


"To begin with, should we all just tell each other now to keep our heads down and our mouths shut and hope to fly under the radar? Clearly, we have passed the point where it can be regarded as safe to speak out and have a respectful discussion of these issues while disagreeing with the leftist establishment. Had she known what would happen, would she still have spoken? Should she have?

I tend to think that we need two groups. One can be the "keep your head down" group, secretly teaching their children and grandchildren subversive ideas such as that there are only two genders. The other group can continue to play the canaries in the mine. With a lawyer on hand preferably and a game plan before speaking out."

I agree that we need both groups. I am concerned about just how easy it will be to actually keep your head down, though. In the world of social media, with about everyone having a facebook profile, it may not be hard for someone to figure out who may believe these subversive ideas like marriage is a union of a man and woman. Even more chillingly, it is not difficult for employers to have programs and activities that will weed out people who hold these subversive views. For example, many companies sponsor pride parades. They can note which employees do not participate. I am guessing the self employed and those who work for smaller companies are safer and will have an easier time keeping their head down. Parents of children in public schools (and many private for that matter) may find themselves feeling they must out themselves in order to protect their child. Things are changing rapidly, and it will not surprise me if many people who thought they had kept their head down get caught off guard.

DR84,
That people who believe what virtually the rest of the world believes, these people are to be hounded out, this situation must be regarded as intolerable in itself. It is simply no time for prudence and for hoping to hide-in from the storm. Common people will follow a strong leader, this we have now seen. Unfortunately, the social conservatives have been quite unfortunate in this regard. Their elite thinks like the Canadian anti-euthanasia activist that Wesley Smith wrote about in NRO:

After the Canadian Supreme Court issued its decision, I was particularly disheartened when a prominent opponent of legalization served on a panel to recommend regulatory guidelines to govern doctor-administered death. Her intention was to help limit the harm. Understandable as that is, I disagree vehemently with the approach. Participating as a colleague with pro-euthanasia believers in fashioning suicide rules validates euthanasia as a policy.

This thing, to refuse to validate proponents of abortion, euthanasia, and same-sex marriage as colleagues, this thing the socially conservative activists have never learnt. Indeed, they mostly hate the very idea. To them, victory is secondary to collegiality, to the love of their field, even a field as warped as medical ethics.

Tony,
The strategy that you recommend for the generality of common man, the little people, of lying low and being prudent and private, this is precisely the strategy the Left is counting upon the social conservatives to adopt. They have won their victories by the same reliance on the preference of the little people to lie low and be private.

It partly stems for a political error, that individual families are strong enough to remain counter-cultural even though being fully embedded in the culture.

The strategy that you recommend for the generality of common man, the little people, of lying low and being prudent and private, this is precisely the strategy the Left is counting upon the social conservatives to adopt.

Oh, crap, Bedarz. I did not "recommend" this for the generality of common men. Stop putting words in my mouth. You try to create this fiction in your mind of a wishy-washy useless sort of Christian or conservative, and push that image on me or others who dispute with you. But I won't have it. Its' not what I have said, and it's not what I meant, and it's not a picture of most of the people around here, either.

"What would you do if you were in the staffer's shoes?"

I'd appeal directly to the Pope, who (as it happens) is a Jesuit. I'd also write to Cardinals Burke and Dolan.

I was a little surprised at the staffer's statement that the Catholic Church teaches that there are only two genders. As far as I know, the Catholic Church does not use the modish term "gender" in any of its official documents. Gender is defined as a purely social construct, as opposed to sex, which is a biological reality. What the Catholic Church teaches is that God made human beings in His own image, and He made them male and female. Thus the condition of being intersex is not part of God's plan, and neither is the condition of being transgender.

What the Catholic Church teaches is that God made human beings in His own image, and He made them male and female. Thus the condition of being intersex is not part of God's plan, and neither is the condition of being transgender.

I'm pretty sure that's what the bad guys understood her (rightly) to mean.

Gender is defined as a purely social construct, as opposed to sex, which is a biological reality.

Vincent, I have seen this comment made two or three times in the past couple years. It conflicts with my own memory of its usage back to the 60s. I remember people using "gender" in the exact same sense as the "sex" of the distinct sexes, back then, before there was even remotely a common reference to any "social construct". So, looking up the historical usage, I find this:

gender (n.) c. 1300, "kind, sort, class," from Old French gendre, genre "kind, species; character; gender" (12c., Modern French genre), from stem of Latin genus (genitive generis) "race, stock, family; kind, rank, order; species," also "(male or female) sex," from PIE root *gene- (see genus). Also used in Latin to translate Aristotle's Greek grammatical term genos. The grammatical sense is attested in English from late 14c. The -d- is a phonetic accretion in Old French (compare sound (n.1)).

The "male-or-female sex" sense is attested in English from early 15c. As sex (n.) took on erotic qualities in 20c., gender came to be the usual English word for "sex of a human being," in which use it was at first regarded as colloquial or humorous. Later often in feminist writing with reference to social attributes as much as biological qualities; this sense first attested 1963. Gender-bender is from 1977, popularized from 1980, with reference to pop star David Bowie.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=gender

I recall that in conversations, the use of the word "sex", as in "what sex was that person", was unacceptable because the word "sex" had taken on as its main connotation a referent to sexual activity. "That person's sex" would connote "the sexual activity that person was having" - hardly appropriate to talk about the new baby and whether he was a he or she was a she. In that context, saying "the baby was of the female sex" would have been considered as a slightly archaic usage, and "gender" was the more accepted form.

I think the effort to make "gender" mean a social construct is a much later conscious ploy to remove words (i.e. meanings) from the language by which we can denote the real differences. It didn't mean "a social construct" in the first 2/3 of the 20th century, and I suspect you can easily find plenty of examples of its use in books where all it means is 'the distinct sexes'.

On a slightly but not completely topic, there is another example of word-tyranny that the trans use to try to control the framework of the discussions: "assigned", as in "the gender he was assigned at birth". I reject this as a way to discuss the issues, because it is inherently question-begging. The act of "assigning" is something done by people TO other people, usually without their consent. The word denotes a choice i.e. a chosen act by the person doing the assigning, and connotes a cultural framework for the choice, as if a person's sexual organs could be "male" in one social context but "female" in another. This is crazy nonsense, and we shouldn't give in to the use of "assigned" at all. Don't let them frame the discussion in their crazy language. If necessary, forget the word "gender" or even "sex" and go straight at the heart of the matter: "having male organs" or "having female organs", (or even get more specific, if that's what it takes), to cut through the obfuscation. "He had male organs at birth" is clear, valid, and has no connotations of cultural framework or assignment chosen for him.

However, what is stop a group like the SPLC from simply labeling every one of these professional organizations and perhaps even schools as hate groups? I am guessing in most courts that is enough to instantly discredit them, and perhaps make one's association with them even worse than no association at all.

DR84, I am tend to doubt that, if it is done properly. That is to say, if you approach the effort to refute (just for example) a new trans definition, but you do it with studies and peer review and so on, you have the basis to say "just reporting science, sorry if that ruffles feathers. Evidence is evidence, we aren't responsible for the way the experiments come out." As far as a court goes, I don't know enough about hate crimes. In one sense ANY act you take, from tying your shoes to parting your hair on the side, might offend someone. But not every offense is criminal. I suspect, though I am far from sure, that there is STILL (in most jurisdictions in the USA, maybe not in Canada) a way to run a publication that publishes good psychology and sociology studies as real science, without running afoul of hate crimes laws. Or run an "edgy" college course that "explores untraditional theories of morality alongside traditional theories" like God-given morals alongside "consent-driven" theories. Maybe you have to set up shop in Arizona or Texas, rather than in San Fran or Boston, but that's OK. Maybe you have to take advantage of the fact that an administration can always "disavow" theories held by a professor...free expression, marketplace of ideas, etc. wink, wink.

See, the status of something like the SPLC and its hate list is exactly the sort of thing we need to undercut with our own organizations with their own lists. In principle, no court can grant the SPLC special status, nor more status than a competing organization that performs on a comparable level. It's just a private entity, they aren't the law. Their lists are just a bunch of opinions. So, fight fire with fire: have our organization put out a "hate crime" list that includes SPLC. Better yet, have ALL the Christian groups and schools put out various lists, and make sure SPLC and ACLU get on lots of them. Then in court, you pull out "standings" and "rankings" and list after list after list that shows SPLC is a hate group, and let the jury think "where there's this much smoke, there must be fire."

It isn't good that we have these hate crimes, but as long as we do, use them against the enemy. Call their hate (which really is hate) a "hate crime", instead of treating it as something to ignore. When QBTOPL$@($CGB's set out their little series of posters on "inter" genders and what not, we set up competing signs that say "Denigrating the Bible is a hate crime" and "intolerance of straights is still intolerance".

Heck, crash all of their campus disgusting groups with straights, and just SIT there. When they ask if you are Q or G or L or T or K or N or P or & or F or Z, just say "no, I'm not, I'm straight, but I just wanted to be here. Thanks." By law, they can't exclude straights. If the straights outnumber them, maybe they will be uncomfortable? Maybe that's good? Write down all the hate crimes you observe. When they ask what you are doing, just say "just writing down the good stuff." Don't heckle, don't object, don't get in their way. But after 1.5 semesters, charge every group with systematic hate crimes, get the admin to close the shops "for investigation". Etc.

Tony,
My apologies. It was Lydia in the OP.

I tend to think that we need two groups. One can be the "keep your head down" group, secretly teaching their children and grandchildren subversive ideas such as that there are only two genders. The other group can continue to play the canaries in the mine. With a lawyer on hand preferably and a game plan before speaking out.

And you assume that the "keep your head down" group constitutes the "generality of the common man"...why?

Why not assume that both groups are large? For instance: the canary group might include most to all high school and college students. Most retired folks. Most people in professions (like publishers, photographers, etc) that will be on the front line anyway. And additional people as God's grace leads them. There is no a-priori way of saying how many, relatively, are in the one versus the other. There is no a-priori way of saying who, among ordinary housewives / mothers with babies are being called by God to do front line duty.

I guess if you are forced to bake a cake, make it taste like crapola; if you have to take photographs, take a lot of "artistic license." If they are going to force you to work for them, give them what they ask for, good and hard.

C Matt, as we have discussed here repeatedly, that will simply get you fined _again_ for discrimination and ordered to bake another cake and make it a good one. All that sort of thing was hashed out in non-discrimination law decades ago. Once a group is designated as a protected class, you must serve them (under non-discrimination law) with the same quality of service as you would give to the contrast class. Otherwise you just open yourself to a kind of infinite regress of new discrimination charges.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that any of this is _morally_ incumbent for the baker or photographer. What I am saying is that there is *no solution* in that direction. You won't get punished any _less_ for doing that, any more than a business that has a "no blacks allowed" sign will avoid being driven out of business by serving disgusting sandwiches to blacks. That's the model here, that's all in place in legal precedent, that's how it rolls. You might as well just close up shop now as try that kind of thing.

In any event, none of that really tells the lady at LMU what to do about the "pansexual" display at the Jesuit university to which she has devoted her working life.

Lydia-

This is an aside from the main topic, and I hope that is ok. I heard recently that Jack Philips is in Colorado is still making wedding cakes for men and women, just so long as no one says it is a wedding cake. The powers that be are either not aware of this, or are ok with it. The report I heard did not clarify. Maybe there is a crack in these "anti-discrimination" laws after all that will at least allow these businesses to continue doing what they did prior to Obergefell. Maybe a separate matrimony industry will or can develop alongside the "wedding" industry.

That said, even this could work, it will still be a hit on business because it is likely most "wedding vendors" will not work with nor refer to "matrimony vendors".

C Matt, as we have discussed here repeatedly, that will simply get you fined _again_ for discrimination and ordered to bake another cake and make it a good one. All that sort of thing was hashed out in non-discrimination law decades ago. Once a group is designated as a protected class, you must serve them (under non-discrimination law) with the same quality of service as you would give to the contrast class. Otherwise you just open yourself to a kind of infinite regress of new discrimination charges.

Lydia, I agree that this is how the photographer will be attacked. I don't see why (maybe I just don't know the history enough) he cannot counterattack with "you just don't understand my art, you damn philistines. Don't talk to me about 'bad qualtiy' this is TOP NOTCH STUFF. Get out of my face about whether you 'like' or 'don't like' the results, you signed a contract that gave me 100% license to produce, and I spent 200 hours producing EXACTLY the best artistic product I could with this material. This is darn fine art."

Now, I admit that in some sense, this could be a specious argument. Certainly from a moral standpoint one might argue that it is specious. But I don't know that the law can say that. I don't know that it has a place from which to assert that. Not after Mapplethorpe, for cryin' out loud. Let the artist get in court and bring out Mapplethorpe, hell, even Picasso's later crud. (Try his "Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler: what did DHK think of his "portrait"?) Have the jury pick out the "art" from the "not art". Can't be done. There is no objective measure that the law can point to. A judge cannot tell the jury how to decide which ones are art and which ones aren't.

For fun, the artist should also mount a full-court press - in the press - on the state trying to decide what is art and what is not. No, not the lockstep liberals, but the other outlets, including the ones that just want to see a feeding frenzy and don't care who wins. Better yet, have the artist sell a few of the pictures (not ones that were part of his set sold to the 'couple', other pics that he did not include, and get somebody paying good money for them. Then he can "prove" that it's art. Art is in the eye of the beholder, right?

Do I feel confident that this would work? No, not confident. But I feel that it's worth a shot. The leftists undermined standards and principles for decades, USE that against them: there are no standards for "good" photography that some famous photographer doesn't break. So break them, and do it well.

Tony,
I had believed that the "canary in a mine" metaphor connotes an idea of fewness. One canary is sufficient to tell whether the air is safe or not.

Moreover, the canary metaphor is too passive. The social conservatives can only hold on by being vocal and better organized. Solzhenitsyn wrote that the zeks often expressed the regret that they did not speak out in 1920's when it was just possible to do so. Even the Chekists were reluctant to arrest a person who would cry out in the public.

It was a metaphor, not an actual program of behavior. Gee whiz.

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