Posted on 05/19/2004 4:15:19 AM PDT by TaxRelief
Program director says courses will appeal to “sexual minorities”
CHAPEL HILL—This fall the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will offer a new minor program: “sexuality studies.” The program will be offered as an interdisciplinary program, similar to nearly 15 others on campus. Students who complete 12 hours’ worth of courses can receive a minor in sexuality studies.
According to the program’s web site, the program is “designed for students who want to explore the study of sexual/gender identities — such as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and heterosexual.”
Some of the courses being taught in the fall semester include a history course on “the history of sexuality in America” and a political science course on “the politics of sexuality.”
UNC-CH Political Science Professor Pamela Johnston Conover, who will head the sexuality studies program and teach “the politics of sexuality,” says the program will not be limited to gay, lesbian, and bisexual students on campus. Instead, she said, the program would be a way to bring about discussion of sexual minorities’ issues at UNC-CH and in other locations.
“It would certainly be a mistake that only LGBT students take these courses,” Conover said. “They are interested in these courses. Most of these courses have appeal to students who are sexual minorities.”
Conover said the program would be important for those wanting to become activists, lawyers, or doctors. “All of these professions deal with sexual minorities,” Conover said. “There is a tremendous benefit to students who want to minor in these subjects.”
In all, the program comprises 33 courses in sexuality studies. Many are geared specifically to discuss homosexual topics of themes. Others focus on gender issues or women’s issues. More than 20 deal with the broader term of “sexuality.”
Pornography in its various forms is also a topic of interest. For instance, one of the courses offered is “communications 549: sexuality and visual culture.” In that class, taught by Associate Professor of Communications Richard Cante, students will “examine how sexuality has changed through films, video, television, theatre, painting, photography, and other forms of media.” Cante’s “communications 545: pornography, sexuality, and american culture” promises to examine “the social, cultural, legal, historical, ethical, and aesthetic implications of pornography.”
Save for two classes sponsored by the Religion Department, none looks at sexuality issues through a religious perspective. One of those classes, “gender and sexuality in the Western Christian tradition,” will focus on contemporary controversies and the teachings and issues involving gender and sexuality within Christianity. The other course, “gender and sexuality in contemporary Judaism,” looks at the development of gender roles in Judaism.
Bill Brooks, president of the North Carolina Family Policy Council, said he was concerned about UNC- CH taking on these courses.
“It is especially troubling that UNC-Chapel Hill seems so intent on affirming and promoting unhealthy, high-risk alternative sexual lifestyle in the wake of investigations, by none other than UNC researchers, exposing what has been referred to as an HIV outbreak among students at North Carolina universities,” Brooks said. “Parents of current and future students should be concerned about the quality of education their children will receive as well as the diminishing value of their own degrees as UNC-CH gains a reputation as a university whose curriculum is inconsistent with traditional family values.”
Advocates of the new minor laud its educational value. One UNC-CH junior, David Barbour, told The Daily Tar Heel that the courses should provide a better understand of homosexual issues on campus.
“In our country, where homosexuality is becoming more visible, I think it is important to find out the struggles [homosexuals] have to go through on a daily basis, like discrimination and what the government is doing,” Barbour said. “[The government] is not dealing with issues in the homosexual community such as AIDS.”
“These areas of scholarship are looking at interesting questions that are not necessarily looked at by other disciplines,” Conover said. “We felt like UNC, because it is a premiere research university, should also have a cause and program that looked at these issues.”
UNC-CH is not alone among universities with a program in sexuality studies. A steadily growing number of universities and colleges across the nation offers some form of sexuality or gender-study programs. Included in that list is Duke University, which has offered a program on sexuality studies since 1994.
Conover said that sexuality programs have been around for much longer than just the last five years.
“If you look around the U.S and universities across the country, for the last 30 years there has been a considerable growth and interest looking at and studying matters of having to do with sexuality,” Conover said. “In this regard, we are simply looking at those national trends.”
In fact, when this program was proposed in 2002, John Younger of Duke University expressed his “fascinat[ion]” in The News & Obsever of Raleigh July 29, 2002, that “UNC has languished until now” in entering the discipline.
“In the last five years, just about every podunk college in the United States has established something” in the field of sexuality studies, Younger said. “It’s very mainstream.”
Shannon Blosser is a contributing writer of Carolina Journal.
In the Bible it is where found this statement might be? Much thanking.
While in collegeI took a course in Human Sexuality. I remember asking a cute girl if she needed a lab partner. She laughed, we dated for a year after that...
re•li•gion a system of beliefs in anything that encourages institutional development, but is not universally and globally accepted as fact. ex. The university is focusing resources on a new religion that will allow followers of Perversionism to feel comfortable believing that they are all "born that way".
Oh come on the sentence wasn't that clumsy. It's usually my spelling that is criticized, and rightly so.
1Tim 6:20 O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vin babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:
Bonus evolution verse:
Jer 2:27 Saying to a stock, Thou art my father; and to a stone, Thou has brought me forth: for they have turned their back unto me, and not their face:...
They've redefined religion to exclude evolution and humanism. It is that narrow definition that excludes idolatry from the ranks of religion that gets their religion preached in all of the public churches sometimes knowns as schools out there.
Jeremiah hit the mark with his description of evolutionists.
a stock = an Old World plant of the genus Mathiola?
a stone = a fossil?
Interestingly prophetic.
Thanks - I'll have a look at those later!
Can you explain what "12 hours' worth of courses" means in real terms of # of courses, for those of us not familiar with UNC?
That would be 4 courses of three hours each, or three courses of 4 hours each (if they had a lab requirement).
I thought it was amazingly prophetic. It only makes sense that a religion as significant and damaging as evolution would not be a new thing under the sun.
| What We Can Do To Help Defeat the "Gay" Agenda |
|
|
| Homosexual Agenda: Categorical Index of Links (Version 1.1) |
|
|
| Myth and Reality about Homosexuality--Sexual Orientation Section, Guide to Family Issues" |
1 Tim. 6:20-21 (RSV): "O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Avoid the godless chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, for by professing it some have missed the mark as regards the faith."
Pretty much sums up modern "education," doesn't it?
Yes it sure brings to mind a lot of things I learned in school that were not only wrong but anti-truth. It also brings to mind a lot of "sciences" that are not science like evolution, global warming, psychology and such. So many of these things are working from false starting points that they sink to pure mythology level.
Not only marriage, but most of what we know and use has already been redefined. Ever seen Noah Webster's 1828 Dictionary? That's fascinating.
" ... what is falsely called knowledge, for by professing it ... "
This brings out the point that "knowledge," "science," or we could call it "materialism," is a form of religious belief, which its followers "profess," just as we profess Christianity.
It didn't have "typewriter."
biblewonk says any word not in the Bible is unnecessary. Or, something to that effect. :-)
COMPUTER, n. One who computes; a reckoner; a calculator.
Uh, sure, whatever.
Homosexual Agenda Ping - Your Tax Dollars At Work, Busily Turning Universities into Branches of Sodom and Gomorrah.
I don't know why any parents send their kids to colleges or universities like these. Even if their kids are brought up right, being surrounded by the forced acceptance of deviance is not healthy, some kids will succomb or get influenced one way or another.
When will it stop? Can you imagine this kind of &#$@ being paraded as a useful academic study years ago?
Let me know if anyone wants on/off this pinglist.
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.
