Marquette Bureaucrats Trash Catholic Teaching on Gender

From LifeSiteNews:

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin, November 1, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Administrators at Marquette University have rebuked an on-campus demonstration held on Thursday opposing the Catholic university’s embrace of gender ideology.

The protesters, from the American TFP’s Student Action, who were on a tour of Wisconsin, held a 14-foot banner with the quote “God made them male and female” from Genesis 5:2. The scripture quote was followed by, “Stop the ravages of transgender ideology.”

Marquette introduced gender-neutral restrooms to accommodate “transgender” students last year. Signage was replaced, and instead of bathrooms being labeled “Men” and “Women,” they became “Bathroom A” or “B,” and “Bathroom 1” or “2.”

The TFP Student Action demonstration included flyers with information on how transgenderism is dangerous to the family, triggering some hostility and at least one faculty member who attempted to block their message.

A counter-protest by students was joined by the university provost, who said the TFP Student Action demonstration consisted of “messages of discrimination” that do not reflect “who” Marquette is.

“Messages of discrimination are completely out of alignment with who we are,” Dan Myers blogged.

Myers also demeaned the TFP Student Action demonstrators and presumed to speak for their intent, terming them “this small group” who “arrived at Marquette University with one goal in mind  —  to show their disdain for our LGBTQ community, particularly its transgender members.”

He joined the counter-protest by students, lending his signature to their banner that stated, “Transphobia, biphobia & homophobia are not Marquette values,” something he glowingly described in his blog, concluding, “I can’t express how proud I was to see our community rally together.”

Myers was not the only Marquette administrator to show disdain for TFP Student Action’s message, with Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion Executive Director Dr. William Welburn telling the student news service Marquette Wire, “If you’re going to come to our university, you should respect our position on human dignity and what we teach our students.”

Myers had embedded his tweet in the blog post, “All MU members are welcome, any skin color, sexuality or religion. No outside protest changes that,” linking to the Marquette University Diversity Statement. He also included a tweet from Marquette Vice President of Student Affairs Dr. Xavier Cole on the matter in his blog post. Cole also linked to the diversity statement, saying, “I support this statement as well as diversity and inclusion at Marquette.”

Marquette University did not respond to LifeSiteNews’ inquiry into how the message constituted discrimination or disrespects the university’s position on human dignity, the specifics of Marquette’s position on gender fluidity, and whether the scripture quote conflicts with any Marquette policies.

The reason they did not respond is simple: in the world of the politically correct, to refuse to affirm and pander to sexual deviation is the same as “discrimination.” If some person with a penis and Y chromosomes thinks he’s a woman, it would be actual discrimination to (say) refuse to admit him to Marquette, or withhold a scholarship, or refuse to let him participate in student government.

But in the world of the politically correct, you are required to agree that he’s a woman, reconfigure bathrooms and dorms to suit him, and tell women to junk their desire for privacy when he wants to enter the ladies’ room.

He must, like every other politically correct victim group, be pandered to.

The rhetoric about “diversity” and “inclusion” is stunningly hypocritical, since Marquette is being grossly exclusionary toward people who agree with Catholic teaching on gender.

Catholic teaching is clear enough. According to the National Catholic Reporter:

Pope Francis has strongly criticized modern theories that consider people’s gender identities to exist along a spectrum, saying such theories do not “recognize the order of creation.”

Speaking of gender theory in an interview in a new book released in Italy, the pope even compares such theories to genetic manipulation and nuclear weapons.

Gender theory is a broad term for an academic school of thought that considers how people learn to identify themselves sexually and how they may become typed into certain roles based on societal expectations.

“God has placed man and woman at the summit of creation and has entrusted them with the earth,” Francis says. “The design of the Creator is written in nature.”

According to Marquette Wire, the counter-demonstration was quickly organized by Enrique Tejada III, a staff person at the Student Affairs Intercultural Engagement office. How politically correct are the people in this office? They all list their “preferred pronouns.” While most are happy with the traditional ones (“he,” “she,” etc.) Tejada wants “(They/Them/Their(s)).”

This is yet another way in which the politically correct crowd is demanding, not the lack of discrimination, but rather oppressive impositions on the rest of society. Marquette’s English Department has already signed onto this nonsense.

The smarmy self-righteousness of people like Myers and Welburn can’t conceal the fact that they are fundamentally secular people who want Marquette to be a fundamentally secular university, with the proviso that a bit of Catholic window dressing is fine, so long as it doesn’t interfere with pandering to the secular, politically correct left.