Minn. Catholic school deletes student editorials

[WillParkinson]

Minn. Catholic school deletes student editorials
By The Associated Press
11.17.2010 9:00am EST

(St. Louis Park, Minn.) Editorials in a Catholic prep school’s student newspaper about same-sex marriage and gay teenagers are sparking debate about free speech in Minnesota.

Student-written opinion pieces in the newspaper at Benilde-St. Margaret in suburban St. Louis defended gay teenagers and criticized a DVD by Minnesota’s Catholic bishops that denounced same-sex marriage.

The editorials and the nearly 100 comments they generated were deleted from the newspaper’s website over the weekend. The principal says they created confusion about church teaching and an intensity that made an unsafe environment for students.

Some comments praised a gay student’s courage for writing about his experience. Others said the editorials shouldn’t have been published at a Catholic school.

http://www.365gay.com/news/minn-catholic-school-deletes-student-editorials/

[ananda]

1. Oops. Catholic kids thinking for themselves...

.... we can't have that.

(sarcastic emoticon here for the irony challenged.)

[YOY]

2. If they knew how many of the clergy were gay (not pedophiles but gay).

n.t.

[old mark]

3. Catholice in general are not allowed by their religion to hold opinions

or beliefs that conflict with the teachings of the Church. There is NO freedom of thought in that organization, although many people here in the US seem to think there is...Pope Ratzo once stated that the Americans with their free thoughts and opinions should all become Anglicans/Episcopalians because they were not Catholics.

FWIW, I was born and raised in the Catholic Church, stopped believing in it around age 11.

mark

[YOY]

4. They love themselves the uneducated. Their efforts in the developing world are quite impressive.

Truly they do. (And by that I mean those who have not had access to education and not necessarily idiots.)

Gotta be shooting themselves in the foot for Catholic Education though. Makes more of us Agnostics/Atheists than they know.

[Roma]

5. It's not a free speech issue. The church is not government and

cannot violate the 1st amendment.

It's a freedom of association issue.

If you can't abide the TOS of an institution, group or even a web site you are free to disassociate yourself from said entity.

You are also free to try and effect change from within that group but said group is also free to ask you to shut up or leave.

[RetiredTrotskyite]

6. How About Not Worrying About...

the bullies and the haters for a change? If the school is an unsafe environment, it is because of haters, bullies, and the nonsense that the Catholic Church puts out about us. My only regret is that the school saw fit to remove the editorial and the comments.

[immoderate]

7. Interesting that Catholic students should be so "catholic." Not surprised at result.

Not a public school, no public funds. The Pope calls the shots.

In my high school days, (pre-Beatles) we couldn't do editorials or publish letters, except within strict "guidelines." (Basically, you couldn't criticize anything.)

"No one can ever quibble -- with a man who is infallibibble." --Tom Lehrer

--imm