Marquette University “Likes” Tweet That Calls for Shutting Down Opposition to Gay Marriage

Here is a tweet from a certain Aaron Jay Ledesma, taking issue with an article in the Chicago Tribune by Diana Rickert, defending this blogger’s academic freedom at Marquette.

Here's my response to @Diana_Rickert's @chicagotribune article regarding former @MarquetteU professor John McAdams. https://t.co/5rJHAgPtt1

— Aaron Jay Ledesma (@aaronjayledesma) April 13, 2016

(You have to be signed in to Twitter, and click on the text of the tweet to see who liked it.  At the moment, Marquette is there.)

The article tweeted explicitly says that opposition to gay marriage should be banned at Marquette. Quoting it:

I disagree [with Rickert]. This is a classic response from people who feel entitled to share their disagreement with gay marriage. They can’t stand it when people tell them to keep their bigoted, unsolicited opinions to themselves. The instructor [Cheryl Abbate] did not ask for feedback. This student was out of place. This student wanted to engage in a debate about gay marriage. The professor who had the decency to prevent it was publicly bullied for doing the right thing. Bullied by colleague.

I believe both McAdams and Rickert are wrong. They don’t understand Marquette like I do. They think because it’s a Catholic university, it should allow students to voice their opposition to gay marriage in any way they want. Hateful, ignorant opposition is not the Catholic way.

That’s not what Catholicism stands for.
That’s not what Marquette stands for.
That’s not what America stands for.

Marquette is a place of excellence, faith, leadership, and service. All of this is pursued for the greater glory of God and the common benefit of the human community. Therefore, it makes sense that Marquette, similarly to Pope Francis, respects all people no matter their race, religion, creed, gender or sexuality.

Of course, for Ledesma, respecting people seems to mean protecting them from opinions they dislike. Even if they are at a supposed Catholic university, and the opinions are Catholic teaching. And he seems to have no respect for people who differ from him on marriage.

And of course, Pope Francis has not retracted the teaching that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Ledesma adds that:

• Abbate has every right to shut down racist, homophobic, and discriminatory language in her classroom.
• More people should take Abbate’s stance and say, “NO. This language will not be tolerated in institutions of learning.”
• It’s about time society take a stand against hate speech, which is not the same as free speech.

This appears to be just the routine intolerance of politically active gays (not all gays, but a troublingly large portion of the politically active ones).

But the kicker is this: Marquette University “liked” the post!

Just in case Marquette finds a way to retract the “like” comment, here is a screen capture showing the “like.”



This is the first official statement we have seen from Marquette asserting that certain opinions about marriage should be shut down.

Rogue?

At the moment, we don’t know who controls Marquette’s Twitter account, and maybe somebody went “rogue.” We will query Marquette about this, and update this post with their response.

But there can be no doubt that the attitude that Ledesma expresses is widely supported at Marquette.

Update

Brian Dorrington, official spokesman for Marquette, has not responded to our e-mail and phone call. If Marquette fails to distance itself from this tweet, the only inference is that Marquette has endorsed the Ledesma article.