Is "Hate Speech" any Speech with which I Disagree?

Ken Howell has been fired as an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois because one student was offended by his beliefs.

Howell, who taught Introduction to Catholicism and Modern Catholic Thought at the university, sent an e-mail to his students who were preparing for their final exam. In the e-mail, Howell wrote:

"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."

Uh-oh. There it is. Howell implied the Catholic Church viewed homosexuality as sin.

Evidently, an anonymous student in the class was offended by this. I say "evidently" because the offended student didn't come forward to complain. Instead, another student, claiming to be a friend of the offended student, sent an e-mail to the religion department head calling Howell's e-mail "hate speech."

Ah, yes. Hate speech. Any speech which I find disagreeable.

In his e-mail, "the friend" of the offended student wrote:

"Teaching a student about the tenets of a religion is one thing, declaring homosexual acts violate natural laws of man is another."

In his defense, Howell said he was teaching his students about the Catholic understanding of natural moral law. Howell said:

"My responsibility on teaching a class on Catholicism is to teach what the Catholic Church teaches. I have always made it very, very clear to my students they are never required to believe what I'm teaching and they'll never be judged on that."

Never be judged on that. Too bad the University of Illinois didn't cut Professor Howell the same slack.

In an e-mail to other school staff, Ann Mester, an associate dean at the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences wrote:

"The e-mails sent by Dr. Howell violate university standards of inclusivity, which would then entitle us to have him discontinue his teaching arrangement with us."

So the university has standards of inclusivity? Evidently firing a highly regarded professor for agreeing with the Catholic Church's teaching on homosexuality doesn't violate the school's standards of inclusivity.

I wonder if the University of Illinois would fire a biology professor, who not only taught students the theory of evolution, but also openly admitted he believed evolution to be true and creationism false. After all, that doesn't sound very "inclusive", does it. Would it make a difference if a student in the biology class wrote an email to the associate dean saying she was offended by the professor's opinion? Not a chance.

In it's effort to be "inclusive", the University of Illinois includes all opinions except those with which it happens to disagree. Those opinions they consider "hate speech."

I hope someone steps in to restore sanity at the University of Illinois. For now it seems the inmates are running the asylum.