BYU Vs. Notre Dame

I read this article and was thinking to myself that BYU could take a page out of Notre Dame's playbook. Notre Dame is to the Catholic Church what BYU is to the LDS church. Despite what people might say, devout Catholics and Mormons are quite similar.

The standards and values debates that occur at BYU happen at Notre Dame as well.

I read this article and think that BYU could learn a lesson from this model. The President of Notre Dame decided NOT to ban a performance of "The Vagina Monologues" or the "Gay and Lesbian Film Festival."

Why?

Rev. John Jenkins' decision comes about 10 weeks after he said he was considering restrictions on those events as part of a broader discussion of potential conflicts between academic freedom and the Roman Catholic university's character.

However, Jenkins said Wednesday he generally will not allow fundraising or publicity that could imply the endorsement of views expressed during controversial events. He also said such events should include diverse discussions that include the Catholic viewpoint. Panel discussions following "The Vagina Monologues" performances this year included the views of theologians and anthropologists, for example.

"This is a model we can move ahead with," Jenkins said in an interview Wednesday. "We have reached a better understanding of how to foster debate that presents challenging viewpoints and presents them in a balanced way and, when appropriate, a Catholic view is presented."

Wow. Seems like a clergy-man has learned how to balance his roles as an administrator of a top University and a man of the cloth.

Maybe someone should tell this to the administrators at BYU.

On a sidenote, General J.C. Christian, Patriot, wrote a letter to one of the administrators responsible for pulling the plug on that BYU screening of This Divided State.

Read it. It's funny.