Posted on 08/27/2015 2:23:31 PM PDT by NYer
DURHAM, NC, August 27, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) -- Christian freshmen at Duke University are refusing to read an assigned graphic novel depicting masturbation and homosexual intercourse. The university says the assignment was optional and won’t discipline the holdouts.
Brian Grasso emerged as the spokesperson for the dissenters after he posted his decision on the Class of 2019’s closed Facebook page. Opponents have done their best to mock and deride the holdouts as ignoramuses who don’t belong at Duke, but Grasso has addressed all their jibes, first to Duke’s student paper and then in an op-ed in the Washington Post, intelligently and engagingly.
The book at issue is Fun Home, a fictional depiction by lesbian artist Alison Bechdel of growing up with a homosexual, suicidal dad and discovering sex with other girls. “After researching the book’s content and reading a portion of it, I chose to opt out of the assignment,” Grasso told Post readers, explaining he was not opposed to learning about homosexuality any more than he would be with the ideas of “Freud, Marx or Darwin,” though he might find them immoral too.
“But in the Bible,” he went on, “Jesus forbids his followers from exposing themselves to anything pornographic. ‘But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart,’ he says in Matthew 5:28-29. ‘If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away.’” He then cited St. Paul to support his argument.
Grasso knew Christians would be in the minority at Duke, he admitted, but what surprised him was that Duke would blithely assign something so obviously offensive to this minority. “Duke did not seem to have people like me in mind. It was like Duke didn’t know we existed, which surprises me.”
But Patrick Reilly, the president of the Cardinal Newman Society, an organization devoted to promoting American Catholic orthodoxy at Catholic universities, isn’t surprised. “American society has been moving away from Christian values or even neutrality, especially at secular institutions but even at Catholic and other Christian schools,” Reilly told LifeSiteNews. He urged Catholic and other Christian parents and high school students to choose their universities carefully.
Other freshmen have supported Grasso: Bianca d’Souza said the novel’s ideas were important but the salacious content unnecessary and offensive. Jeffrey Wubbenhorst wrote, “”The nature of ‘Fun Home’ means that the content that I might have consented to read in print now violates my conscience due to its pornographic content.”
But others from the class of 2019 responded, “Reading the book will allow you to open your mind to a new perspective and to examine a way of life and thinking with which you are unfamiliar.”
In the same vein students wrote the Duke student newspaper Chronicle, mocking the dissenters with references to a Dr. Seuss children’s book. “Mermaid Warrior,” for example, wrote, “I’m sure there are people who think Cat in the Hat sends bad messages. That’s a big problem I have with complaints like these, ‘I shouldn’t be expected to read stuff I disagree with!’ It’s like, guess what, there’s no way to find something that everyone will agree with.”
But Grasso makes clear his issue isn’t with disagreeable ideas at all. “I think there is an important distinction between images and written words. If the book explored the same themes without sexual images or erotic language, I would have read it. But viewing pictures of sexual acts, regardless of the genders of the people involved, conflict with the inherent sacredness of sex. My beliefs extend to pop culture and even Renaissance art depicting sex.”
Inevitably, Duke itself weighed in. The book was selected for summer reading by the freshman class, explained Duke’s vice president or public affairs, Michael Schoenfeld, “because it is a unique and moving book that transcends genres and explores issues that students are likely to confront.”
After touting its artistic value and noting that a Broadway adaptation won the Best Musical award for 2015, he noted that the book was not a requirement and there would be no examination or grading. He expressed the hope that Duke’s 1,750 freshmen would arrive with open minds willing to “explore new ideas.”
But for all that, Schoenfeld did not explore the issues raised by Grasso: morality, pornography and the sexualization of relations.
“Reading the book will allow you to open your mind to a new perspective and to examine a way of life and thinking with which you are unfamiliar.”
Then the students should read Mein Kampf and the works of Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi. Only the homos get to ‘expand minds’ eh?
Grrrrlllzzzz gotta troll and cruise. How do you think they get "dates"?
Ptui.
“It was like Duke didn’t know we existed, which surprises me.”
They know you exist. They just hate you. So why are you giving them tens of thousands of your dollars?
L
Same here, I just paid a plumber $90 to look at my water heater for 2 minutes, and then tell me I needed a new one!
Vile content aside, why is a supposedly prestigious university assigning graphic novels as a reading requirement?
Bake The Cake!
And this is one of the milder indignities paying students are subjected to. Even though this is insulting and worthless, it gets a LOT worse.
Lol! Water heaters last about 10 years. When mine was replaced, the plumber deducted the cost of the initial visit from the total replacement fee.
I would add business classes to the trade school with a plan to build a business. If you have a teenager, have him watch Blue COllar Millionaires on CNBC. He or she will discover their are other ways to be successful, and wildly so.
Kudos to this young man. These university goons would run into a burning building with a can of gasoline before they would promote a book with Judeo-Christian values. Yet they will push this type of filth any day of the week.
She dresses like her father? Hmm, interesting. She looks like pajama boy, too.
What is this comic rated? I assume they don’t let minors buy it.
Tried to look up the comic’s rating. This site gives it NC-17. Interesting panel shown. The dad says he wanted to be a girl, and dressed up in girl’s clothes. The girl says she wanted to be a boy (says she dressed in boy’s clothes: how can she tell? Did she buy boy’s underwear?) Sounds like the dad was a tranny, not homosexual. Explains why the girl became a lesbian, being raised by a fruitcake.
Forgot link to site: http://thecomicbookteacher.com/2014/09/22/banned-book-week-fun-home-by-alison-bechdel/
Yeah, imagine what would they would say if the Bible was on the reading list.
More bad pub for The Gang of 88 U.
And if your trade is really in demand, industry will pay most of your tuition. I’m training for a second career as a CNC machinist, and nearly all my tuition is paid by industry scholarships.
These religious colleges students who refuse to read a book that was assigned to them are no better or worse than students on the political left who refuse to read certain books that were assigned to them. Just because you are assigned to read a book doesn’t mean you have to like it. What it does mean is that you are supposed to be exposed to ideas that are different from your regular way of thinking, even if you end up hating the book after reading it. I don’t want to support these religious students in their boycott for the same reason I don’t want to support students on the radical left who refuse to read certain books.
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