By Daniel Crandall Here’s yet another case of reality intruding where only the satirical newspaper, The Onion, once trod. An adjunct professor at the University of Illinois was fired for explaining Catholic beliefs concerning Natural Law to students enrolled in a class about Catholicism. Howell, who taught Introduction to Catholicism and Modern Catholic Thought, says he was fired at the end of the spring semester after sending an e-mail explaining some Catholic beliefs to his students preparing for an exam. What bit of pedagogy was so verboten that the University of Illinois could no longer abide Prof. Howell’s presence on campus? That would be nothing less than the Church’s teaching concerning homosexual behavior: “Natural Moral Law says that Morality must be a response to REALITY…. In other words, sexual acts are only appropriate for people who are complementary, not the same.” This bit of Catholic doctrine so offended one student that it resulted in an anonymous message being sent to religion department head Robert McKim complaining of, you guessed it, “hate speech.” The complaining student, however, isn’t even in Prof. Howell’s class: An unidentified . . . student claimed to be a friend of the offended student. The

Read more »