Dr. Janet Smith Column

Here is my column that appeared in the Creightonian on March 28, 2008, about Dr. Janet Smith’s lecture at Creighton on homosexuality. What are your reactions? Did I leave anything out that needed to be included? For more information, here are three links, which I found interesting in my research.

Dr. Janet Smith’s Web site: http://www.aodonline.org/SHMS/Faculty+5819/Janet+Smith+9260/Dr.+Janet+Smith+-+Welcome.htm

NARTH Web site: http://www.narth.com/

Just the Facts– A compilation of research done by the psychiatrists and other social science researchers. It challenges many of Dr. Janet Smith’s conclusions. It is endorsed by the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Psychological Association, National Association of School Psychologists, Interfaith Alliance Foundation, among others. Note the research done by Wolfe Garofalo, M. Schroeder and others in the references.

Table Tents not Pitched for Smith

I was investigating the case of the missing table tents.

The flyers, promoting Creighton’s Knights of Columbus speaker Dr. Janet Smith, began disappearing from Java Jay and Wareham food court tables as early as March 18, even though Knights of Columbus had reserved the spots until March 23.

Once I located one, their disappearance became more obvious. Smith planned to speak on homosexuality, “its causes, effects and treatments,” and all of this was funded in part by my very own Creighton Students Union.

I could understand why the idea of our student government paying for this speaker, whose ad effectively implied that the GLBT community was disease-ridden, lingered with a disconcerting aftertaste.

I arrived at the talk skeptical and a little bitter after realizing Web site recommended the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality “for more information on homosexuality.” But I left pleasantly surprised.

Smith’s basic argument was that homosexuality does not mean eternal damnation, but rather fulfilling a homosexual desire is a sinful, disordered act. In other words, feel free to love your fellow man, just don’t touch him.

She then used numerous public health and psychological data to argue that this Catholic teaching is rooted in reason. I would have used other data and drawn different conclusions, but her argument, for the most part, seemed understanding and thoughtful.

While I disagreed with Smith considerably, especially her statement, “If you can say two partners is natural, I would say this means heterosexuality is natural” and her “treatments,” which included journaling, praying and forsaking caffeine, the level of open, intellectual discourse startled me.

The audience engaged Smith in a mature discussion about topics that would normally make me snicker under my breath, such as anal sex, masturbation, ejaculations and wet dreams.

At her most empathetic, Smith said, “The Church should be eager to accept homosexuals and make sure they do not feel alienated, isolated from the community.”

When a student asked a question that abrasively began with “the gay advocates on campus who preach acceptance but are highly critical of…”, Smith interrupted and asked the student “not to ruin the good thing we have here.”

When she finished her impressive hour long question-and-answer session, Smith thanked everyone for “positively contributing to the discussion.”

This comment left me considering a scenario that would continue her discussion: If a student organization wanted to host a speaker that would encourage the Church to accept homosexuality, would that speaker be met with CSU funding and, more importantly, a respectful, civil audience?

The answer does not seem so reassuring.

So for now, I will only ask easier questions. Why CSU does not pre-approve all advertising displaying its logo, who stole those table tents, and did they at least recycle?

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Catholic Democrats and the ‘Privatization of Faith.’

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend toured Omaha on March 11 speaking about her book, “Failing America’s Faithful” on the 40th anniversary of Robert Kennedy’s, her father’s, presidential campaign.

The book has two premises.

1. The first argues that conservative Catholics have ignored the Church’s history of social teaching on justice and have instead focused on less important themes. “The Church has shrunk God into three narrow issues: heterosexual marriage, stem-cell research and anti-abortion.” This shift from social justice to single-sided issues occurred during the sex abuse scandals when the Church needed to prove its holiness.
2. The second argues that the Democratic party has attempted disassociate itself from religion and has alienated Catholic Democrats. She believed that the Catholicism and the Democratic Party go together because that the Church has a long history politics (“You don’t remain a Church for 2,000 years unless you are good a politics,” she said) and because the party’s ideology reflects the Catholic social teaching. However, instead of emphasizing community, the Democratic Party has ineffectively chose emphasizing the individual because it is more politically successful.

While Townsend seemed to fit comfortably into the liberal Catholic niche her tone dramatically shift to the right when speaking to Omaha Catholic Democrats at the Firefighters’ Union Hall.

At Creighton she said, “The Catholic Church got the abortion issue wrong.” She went on to criticize the Church because of its sexism and close mindedness. Three hours later, she did not mention the word “abortion,” skipped women’s rights in the Church and offered hope for the possibility of “being on top next week.”

More importantly, she praised State Senator Tom White as a ideal leader for Nebraska Catholic Democrats. Sen. White’s record is a little less praiseworthy. He touted his stem-cell research bill in front of the audience, which included a priest. (In her speech after Sen. White’s, Townsend did not mention her disdain for the Church’s contempt for stem-cell research.)

More importantly, Sen. White said that he was a pro-life politician “beyond the fetus” since he supported the revitalization of Nebraska’s mental health hospitals. However, Sen. White said he would not be supporting the bill in the state senate that would abolish the death penalty. When I said, “Don’t you think the state should not be inolved in the killing of humans business,” he responded about some Catholic theologians in California, as if the state’s name justified his liberal tag.

This dissonance between Townsend’s speech at Creighton and her speech in the city echoes her sentiment that the Catholic Universities lead the way in the social gospel. I still contend that one should not have to scale back beliefs depending on its prediction reception. However, a journalism professor reminded me that she is still asking for a lot of change, but “she has to consider her audience.”

More New Media

Here is a NY Times article about professional bloggers in D.C.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/fashion/09bloghouse.html?_r=1&ref=fashion&oref=slogin

I still don’t know if a “blogging party”suits me–maybe I will be more enthusiastic after completing this class.