Georgetown University has approved the establishment of an LGBT-only campus living facility, appealing to the “Jesuit values” that inspire the university’s mission.
The new residential living space is reserved exclusively for students interested in “exploring” gender and sexuality, according to a report by Campus Reform.
Last April, Georgetown’s Office of Residential Life rejected the application for an LGBT living and learning community for the 2017-18 academic year called “Crossroads: Gender and Sexuality,” but the proposal was later approved in December for the 2018-2019 school year.
Katie Heather, the associate director of residential education, informed Grace Smith, the co-chair of Georgetown University Student Association LGBTQ+ Advocacy and Policy coalition, that her proposal had been approved.
In a Facebook post, Ms. Smith said that the move is “A REALLY BIG DEAL AT A JESUIT UNIVERSITY.”
“This means that students will now begin to have a unique residential space dedicated to exploring and understanding themselves and others in relation to gender and sexuality. Congratulations to everyone who made this dream a reality,” Smith wrote.
Prior to the new ruling, Georgetown’s housing policy allowed for students “to live with other students who share their same gender identity, as long as those students identify as one of two binary genders — that is, as male or female,” according to a report in The Hoya.
This meant that “when a student identifies as gender-nonconforming, they must choose to live with either men or women, even if they identify as neither,” the article stated.
According to vice-president of student affairs Todd Olson, the new LGBT campus housing “will provide a community space for discussion on gender and inclusion while upholding the Jesuit values of community in diversity and educating the whole person.”
“Our Catholic and Jesuit values call on us to engage with ‘respect, compassion, and sensitivity’ with our LGBTQ community,” Olson said. “It is in keeping with our Catholic and Jesuit values to provide a language, perspective, and sense of inclusion for deepening our sense of cura personalis.”
Georgetown boasts being the first Jesuit university in the United States to have an LGBTQ Resource Center and now will have the first all-LGBT student housing.
As Breitbart News reported, last October LGBT organizations at Georgetown called for the defunding of the pro-marriage group “Love Saxa,” calling the association “homophobic.”
Love Saxa promoted Catholic teaching regarding marriage as the union of one man and one woman, which LGBT groups denounced as “directly homophobic.”
GU Pride President Chad Gasman accused Georgetown of “funding homophobia” by providing financial assistance to Love Saxa, which, he said, is contrary to “Jesuit principles.” The Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, are a Roman Catholic order of religious men founded by Saint Ignatius of Loyola to defend and promote Catholic teaching.
The Catholic Church teaches that “no ideology can erase from the human spirit the certainty that marriage exists solely between a man and a woman” and that there are “absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.”
“Hateful groups” such as Love Saxa, Gasman contended, “foster an unwelcome and hateful environment for queer students.”
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