Young, Dumb, and Grads of Notre Dame

Notre Dame graduates showed contempt for the free expression of legitimate views with their walk-out on Vice President Mike Pence.

By Rob Schwarzwalder Published on May 23, 2017

As a professor, I generally enjoy the bold opinions of my students. The writer of Ecclesiastes said that there is none righteous, not even one. Maybe not. But then, he never met a college sophomore.

That’s why I can’t get too upset about the walkout by about 100 students at Notre Dame’s commencement. Vice President Mike Pence handled their rudeness with the calm bemusement of an experienced dad.

But what the students did was more than silly. They showed contempt for the free expression of legitimate views. 

Notre Dame is Catholic … The Catholic Church Affirms Biblical Marriage

They left because they believed Mr. Pence hates homosexuals. The evidence for this claim does not exist. Instead, as with roughly half of all Americans, Mr. Pence believes marriage is between one man and one woman. So does the university where he spoke. And from which the young people who turned their backs on him graduated.

The Catholic Church affirms what Scripture teaches about human sexuality: Sexual intimacy is reserved for one man and one woman within marriage.

According to its mission statement, Notre Dame “is a Catholic academic community of higher learning” that was founded by the Congregation of Holy Cross.

Just what does the Congregation believe? Its website explains that in 1857, Pope Pius IX gave the organization the Vatican’s seal of approval. The members of the Holy Cross order were in-line with Catholic theology and practice.

Now, the Catholic Church affirms what Scripture teaches about human sexuality: Sexual intimacy is reserved for one man and one woman within marriage. No exceptions. As to homosexual acts, Catholicism teaches they are “immoral and contrary to the natural law.” So, “under no circumstance can they be approved.”

There you have it: The Roman Catholic Church is, by the lights of 21st secular opinion, intolerant and cruel. So it was only fitting that one of our country’s finest Catholic universities would invite a hater like Mike Pence to speak at its commencement, right? Yes, that’s sarcasm.

Mike Pence is No Hater

In 2015, then-Indiana Gov. Pence signed into law a measure that prohibited “state or local governments from substantially burdening a person’s ability to exercise their religion — unless the government can show that it has a compelling interest and that the action is the least-restrictive means of achieving it.” According to USA Today, that made Indiana “the 20th state in the nation to adopt such legislation. It is modeled on the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which President Bill Clinton signed in 1993.”

The so-called “LGBTQ community” came unglued. Mr. Pence was called a bigot. The weak-kneed Indiana State Senate backtracked, the Hoosier media became hysterical, and my friend Curt Smith — head of the Indiana Family Institute — was fired from his job with a prestigious law firm. Why? Because one of their panicked client corporations threatened to take its legal business elsewhere.

Who backed the Indiana law in the first place? USA Today says it was “socially conservative advocacy groups” that were “joined by the Catholic Church, Indiana Right to Life, and many evangelical Christians in supporting the measure.”

Read that again: The Catholic Church — Notre Dame’s sponsor — backed the legislation for which Mike Pence was treated with such disrespect at this weekend’s event. Using their own logic, the students should return the degrees they earned from their school.

Of course, I hope they do no such thing. I hope that as they mature, they will feel a bit of shame, instead.

Wanted: Compulsory Silence

But let’s not lose sight of the irony: Those protesting Mr. Pence’s speech in the name of equality and human dignity can’t accept that others disagree with them about how to achieve these things. Nor do they want to.

As to “gay rights” activists, most of them seem to hate dialog. Rather than debate they demand consensus.

Advocates of marriage-as-it-always-has-been hate no one. We simply don’t believe the Supreme Court should force the American people to accept something — same-sex marriage — that 31 states and more than 50 million voters rejected. We don’t believe same-sex marriage is good for society at large or children in particular.

It’s not that complicated. Kids do best with a mom and a dad, two persons whose sexes have balancing and fulfilling differences. All the social science data show this.

Crimes against persons because of their sexual inclinations and practices should be punished with the same zeal as any other wrongful and illegal acts. But states should not be required to obey five Supreme Court Justices who overthrew about 4,000 years of marriage history with the dash of a pen. 

As to “gay rights” activists, most of them seem to hate dialog. Rather than debate they demand agreement. Do they want diversity? No. They want, from anyone who dissents, compulsory silence.

Notre Dame Grads, Read Pence’s Remarks

The students who left Mr. Pence’s address can’t imagine that honorable people can disagree about, really, anything. They simply don’t want to hear things that don’t fit in neatly with their beliefs.

Had the students who left stayed, they would have heard this: “Far too many campuses across America have become characterized by speech codes, safe zones, tone policing, administration-sanctioned political correctness — all of which amounts to nothing less than suppression of the freedom of speech,” said Mr. Pence. “These all-too-common practices are destructive of learning and the pursuit of knowledge, and they are wholly outside the America tradition.”

Perhaps some of those who embarrassed themselves, their families, and their university by turning their backs on the Vice President of the United States will read his remarks.  Mr. Pence’s thoughtful comments might force these students to think critically and honestly, something four years at Notre Dame apparently did not.

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