Posted on 04/02/2009 4:08:42 PM PDT by Earl B.
As a Notre Dame graduate, a Catholic, and proud father of a young woman who will be enrolling as a freshman at the University of Notre Dame in August, I've been thinking a lot about the University's invitation to President Obama.
I think my biggest reservation about condemning the invitation comes from the way conservatives are treated at liberal colleges and universities. I don't know how many articles I have read decrying the way Justice Scalia, or Justice Thomas, or other conservative thinkers are treated by academia. They get dis-invited, they get boycotted, they get protested, they get shouted down, and in the end they are often denied the opportunity to freely present their views and opinions. I have always found such behavior on the left to be deplorable. To me there would be a significant level of hypocrisy involved if Notre Dame and movement conservatives were to decide that liberal opinions and ideas would not be permitted to be heard at Our Lady's University. Not because the left doesn't deserve to be treated that way. But because if we go down that road we would be no better than those we criticize for being closed minded. We will have become that which we despise.
Maybe I am naive, but it is my hope that Notre Dame can be classier than those other schools by being a shining example of what real free speech, real diversity, and real honest debate and disagreement look like. I also think Notre Dame is being singled out here for some very selective outrage.
Read the rest of this piece at the OC Domer.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocdomer.blogspot.com ...
So, because the libs behave badly, we should just sit back and not defend ourselves? Oh, Okay, the next time somebody insults you, you must just agree with him/or her and apologize for being you.
We conservatives MUST speak up if we are to preserve our beloved country.
I hope there are a LOT of protestors.
I hope they are loud.
But nahhh....I think the Zer0 will get a loud applause when he begins and an even louder one when done.
Or they get hit in the face with pies (didn’t that happen to Ann Coulter?)
Just what are those leftists booing down? Using the constitution when making a decision for our country? How about defending the lives of the most innocent? Is that what the leftists are disinviting? People who champion what this country stands for? YES! This is the reaction of the left to people who promote the values this country was founded on.
Obama is supporting the killing of babies in their mothers wombs. He is aiding and abetting women who are in the most delicate and difficult time in their lives. He admits it is above his paygrade as to when life begins, yet rather than err on the side of caution, he continues his sacrifice to the god of convenience when he opines about his daughters making a mistake and not having to be punished with a baby.
This is the man they want not only to speak, but to honor, and award an honorary law degree to? This is the free speech you want your daughter to engage in? A man that has no conscience? These are the ideals your child should emulate?
No thank you. I am sending my son directly to seminary next year. I called the diocese I live in and strongly condemned the practice of sending the young men and women that we worked so hard to teach the values we are willing to die for to get a BS prior to entering seminary. They agreed and said they offered the full program at our seminary.
I did not spend the last 17 years teaching, praying and sacrificing to throw my child into this pit of Satan that has become our liberal rag colleges. Free speech and diversity of opinion do not peacefully coexist on campus. It is not your old college, these places have been taken over by leftist idealouges, and they have an agenda from hell. Now its ok to bring in a product of this leftist poison to speak at a school and be honored by that school with a degree in the name of free speech? Wake up dad, free speech only exists for the animals on the farm that are more equal than others. Wake up, smell the coffee, and protect your family, this is war.
“...free speech...†This piece is asinine. Notre Dame is HONORING Obama, not inviting him to speak at a forum where every view would be given a hearing. When the ACLU defends the rights of the KKK to march in Central Park, nobody reasonable would think the ACLU endorses the KKK. But when Notre Dame, which would (understandably) never HONOR the Grand Wizard of the KKK, HONORS a pro-abortion zealot, people draw the reasonable conclusion that the Catholic Church doesn’t really care about abortion. I suspect this guy knows his reasoning is specious, but loves Notre Dame so much that he cannot condemn the school. I understand his loyalty, but the stakes are too high here to be sentimental.
NO -— YOU ARE NAIVE!
ND leadership needs to be completely humiliated here.
Do you think, for one moment, that unilateral disarmament on college campuses will advance the prolife or conservative cause one inch?
This guy is a WIMP!
It looks to me like we are having an effect on Fr. Jenkins, this is the auto-reply I got in my email:
Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C.
President
The best response would be for conscientious objectors to stand and turn their backs on Zero and his message of hate and death. Classy, demonstrates total non-approval of the message, and doesn’t bring us to the degenerate Left’s level.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.