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Catholic League Challenges Oregon U. Over Anti-Christian “Hate Speech”

By Gudrun Schultz

NEW YORK, May 1, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) –The University of Oregon has come under fire from the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights over an anti-Christian edition of the campus newspaper the Insurgent.

The March 2006 issue of the Insurgent contained two anti-Catholic “rants” and several sexualized depictions of Jesus Christ, including a full-page colour cartoon of a naked Christ Crucified, with an erection, on the front page.

University president Dave Frohnmayer responded to the issue by stating, “While I am an ardent supporter of free speech, I also have strong beliefs that this freedom should be exercised with maturity and good judgment,” adding that “creating controversy for controversy’s sake” was not wise, nor was making individuals “feel that they or their beliefs are unwelcome and belittled.”

William Donahue, president of the CLRCR, wrote a letter of protest to Oregon lawmakers, bishops, and others over Frohnmayer’s “sorely inadequate” response, saying, “If other segments of the student population had been the subject of the Insurgent’s attack, it is highly unlikely that President Frohnmayer would have offered such a tepid response. At the very least, he could have issued a statement of moral condemnation.”

Donahue said the newspaper content was “flagrantly anti-Catholic” and “gratuitously offensive.”

“The entire issue is replete with the most egregious examples of hate speech targeted at Christians…moreover, the two opinion pieces against Catholicism are patently malicious.”

Mr. Frohnmayer responded to publicity over Donahue’s letter by disclaiming responsibility for the Insurgent, saying the student newspaper was “not owned, controlled or published by the University of Oregon and is funded with student fees,” reported World Net Daily.com.

Donahue issued a press release contradicting that assertion, saying students at the University of Oregon pay a mandatory $191 per term in student fees as a condition of class enrolment. The Insurgent received $18,349 in essential funding from student fees this year, as well as the use of on-campus office space and access to the university’s non-profit bulk-mail permit (access which was withdrawn after the March issue.) 

“Given all this, it is so disingenuous for President Frohnmayer to claim that he is impotent to act. He didn’t even have the moral decency to publicly condemn the decision by David Goward, Program Director of the Associated Students of the University of Oregon, who—after meeting with a university attorney—said the Insurgent need not apologize nor refrain from Catholic bashing again.” (His emphasis.)

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