[Please take the time to read an eyewitness report of Penn State "C-fest" event at

To repeatedly sarcastically characterize Dr. David Saxe as a "lone ranger" waging an "unholy war" against the District, and for not reporting that many in this community find him to be an honorable man standing up to a School Board whose arrogance was unbounded, given their complete dismissal of criticism of a harassment policy that was a threat to Constitutionally protected free speech by a significant portion of District residents at various public meetings, in the media, and in private correspondence, is unprofessional.

The biggest failing of the "harassment policy" was the encouragement of aberrant behavior, which needed to be corrected. Any students inclined to such behavior are not being harassed when the consequences of such inclinations are made clear to protect them. This should be a paramount concern if schools genuinely care about the safety of their students. But today student safety is being used to promote sexual deviancy as a civil right by de facto equating self-destructive behavior that is a cause for concern (ref. the latest Center for Disease Control HIV-AIDS/ Surveillance Report Statistics) with immutable, natural characteristics and constitutionally protected behavior.

How can the District go against the wishes of parents who might be trying very hard to get their child to fight such inclinations? Would this action on the part of parents be considered harassment of their children at home? Not if the right to privacy still exists. How then can the District go against the wishes of these parents by enacting a policy that would make similar encouragement within its schools an act of harassment? The District can't do this if the law says that the schools are acting "in loco parentis," (in place of the parent), which is the case in Pennsylvania.

The harassment of students can be discouraged via enforcement of existing regulations without de facto promoting aberrant behavior which is the flip side of formally including that behavior in a school policy statement to the extent that constitutionally guaranteed free speech is at risk. Why didn't the District formally include alcoholism, kleptomania, or obesity in its anti-harassment policy? Surely students who are inclined to drink or eat to excess are made fun of by their peers. The problem is that as soon as you "formally" include such activity in your policies, you are essentially saying to the public and to your students that there is nothing wrong with the activity in question.

Similarly, the Penn State "spinmeisters" are hard at it attempting to portray the Sex Faire, and C-fest obscenity, which was pornographic featuring a bare breasted "lesbian performing artist" among other things, as nothing more than the innocent mistakes of a persecuted group of poor students.

Sorry, it won't work.

It won't work for the very simple reason that we're not talking about one occurrence of this filth but two within a very short time frame, three if you include the promotion of the Vagina Monologues, which is an advert for lesbianism that believes by repeatedly screaming out the "C-word", some redeeming virtue can be salvaged on the part of the screamers and the screamees.  Moreover, what is occurring in Happy Valley appears to be a very disturbing modus-operandi for Penn State, which will be addressed later in this article.

There are obscenity laws on the books. As such, President Spanier's spinners need to be asked, "When do the rights of students at a publicly funded university to promote obscenity in the name of academic freedom using university property and funds in the case of C-fest give way to the rights of the taxpaying residents of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to be protected from being coerced into supporting activities that are contrary to their beliefs?"

Penn State by unquestioningly giving a forum for these sordid activities de facto is saying that they are OK. How does Penn State get away with that given the aforementioned obscenity laws? Is Penn State accountable to anybody other than the liberal ideologues who run it?

There is no such thing as complete academic freedom, by the way. A mathematician cannot tell his class that derivatives and antiderivatives leading to the concept of integrals do not exist. He is restricted to telling the truth, obeying the laws of his discipline, or his employment by the University would cease in short order.

Continuing, Harbaugh gave an apology for the allowance of pornographic filth on Campus by stating, "I believe that higher education is an opportunity to explore ideas, values and principles from the center to the fringe.  That means that some lines will be crossed, some offensiveness enacted."

This hypocritical call for "public morality" is from a campus minister who, along with his colleagues in the United Campus ministries to include Catholic priests at Penn State is on record as promoting homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle in an affirmative action civil rights sense in the student paper.  Should we expect anything less from a campus ministry that toes the company line thanks to its subordination to President Spanier's liaison?

One could logically ask Mr. Harbaugh, "Why should the educational experience of a group of students at Penn State be at the expense of the sensibilities of another group of students, something prohibited by Penn State's sensitivity guidelines in one of its policy handbooks?"

Bishop Joseph Adamec of the diocese of Altoona-Johnstown missed an golden opportunity to give a clear witness to the Faith when, in an official statement regarding the events at Penn State, he says, "I regret that a few students chose to offend the moral standards of those who love God and strive to live in accord with the dignity, which is theirs from the Creator."

Bishop Adamec is fully aware, through many complaints to his office, of the heresy at the Penn State Catholic Center, and that Catholics in this community know that what happened, is happening, and what, no doubt, will happen again at Penn State is a function of the liberalism-run-amuck atmosphere created by President Graham Spanier's social engineering agenda, which has a direct pipeline from Penn State into our local communities.  A United Campus Ministries that has become nothing but a tool for the state with Spanier’s liaison calling the shots promotes this agenda.  Are we supposed to render more to Caesar than what is Caesar's? That's not what the Gospel says but that is what is happening at Penn State.

We hear a lot from these folks about those students who are doing good things at Penn State, and the majority fall into that category. But are we to forget about the sheep that are lost? Please reference the Gospel again, Luke 15, 3.

What is the response from the Christian Community at Penn State to include the Catholic community, and the bishop?  "We're just talking about exuberant kids who don't know any better?"  I am sorry, but that is not the truth, and it hasn't been as evidenced by what has transpired at Penn State since 1996 starting with the desecration of the Mother of God in the vilest of sculptures worthy of C-fest and Sex Faire.

Penn State talks a lot about free speech.  Where was that "free speech" when the University suspended the e-mail account of a Catholic member of the faculty for eleven days in 1996 for exercising his free speech rights by responding to the incessant barrage of pro-homosexual propaganda in University publications via e-mail to the perpetrators?  The computer security head told him that his e-mail account was suspended on direct orders from Graham Spanier.  It seems that one of the pro-homosexual advocates that he responded to took umbrage that he would have the gall to not follow the University line in the promotion of sexual perversion as a civil right, and contacted the administration.

I am particularly sensitive to the plight of this faculty member who had his e-mail account suspended since I see him in the mirror every morning.

When you write in a public forum, you had better be able to take the heat in a democracy from those who don't share you views.  You have a right to respond to these people privately with e-mail being no different than regular mail in that context.  Penn State said that I had no such right, so much for their talk about "free speech", which comes under the aforementioned liberal definition. Concurrently, Penn State has no problem allowing the homosexual community free use of e-mail to promote sexual perversion as a virtue.

I consider the actions of this group in threatening my free speech rights as harassment by them. I consider their pontificating on the "virtues" of the homosexual lifestyle as harassment to the Christian Faith of my family, and to the Faith of the Christian community on this campus. I consider what Penn State did to me as harassment of a Christian member of the faculty who was exercising his right in legitimately responding to University issues.

Penn State showed a callous disregard for people of faith by its nonaction in regard to the desecration of a statue of the Mother of God until nationwide revulsion became apparent. Furthermore, judging by the tenor of the reports from its various news sources and statement of policy regarding the allowance of domestic partner benefits to homosexuals for athletic events, it has created an atmosphere of hostility to Christians on campus by blatantly promoting lifestyles which are counter to Judeo-Christian principles. Christians, to quote a editorial in the Collegian, would be described as "ignorant persons" since "by opposing homosexuality all you do is expose yourself for the ignorant people you are." The irony is that it is these very same Christians who are showing the most charity and love to homosexuals by caring enough for them to tell them the truth as opposed to the lies coming from our institutions of higher learning. You don't even have to be a believer to see the truth of the Natural Law. The consequences for ignoring it are well documented by the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta.

When you stifle dissent, you destroy democracy. You destroy the very reason for the existence of universities like Penn State - the search for the truth. Universities that pride themselves on being tolerant of all with, apparently, one exception - people of faith, create an unhealthy atmosphere where intimidation by a radical minority becomes possible making truth unrecognizable.

Getting back to the false precept that unlimited freedom, academic or otherwise, exists, let us consider the aforementioned desecration of a Roman Catholic symbol, a statue of the Mother of God.

Why should the educational process of Penn State art students violate the very dictums of "sensitivity toward all" as documented in various University policy manuals?  Critics were merely trying to hold Penn State accountable.      

An editorial entitled "Creative Differences" (January 23, 1997 Collegian) stated, "When we ignorantly dismiss foreign ideas because they do not sit well with us, we become part of the very oppression the artist was attempting to expose."  In this case the "oppression" referred to was of women in the Catholic Church. The editorial accused the Church of suppressing the challenge presented by artist to the campus community to think.  Accordingly, here is some food for thought.

The University Policy Manual, as quoted in the Collegian, stated,  "The University is committed to creating an educational environment which is free from intolerance directed toward individuals or groups and strives to create and maintain an environment that fosters respect for others."  Where was this atmosphere of tolerance and respect in the review process for artist's "art"?

 
Did anyone bother to consult the many Roman Catholic sources available, which totally debunk the "political statement" of artist?  [Reference Inter Insignores (1976), Mulieris Dignitatem (1988), Ordinatio Sacerdotalis (1994), and To the Women of the World (1995)]. 

Moreover, did anyone question how, in the name of sanity, such a blatantly obvious vulgar display to Roman Catholics could be seen as "oppression of women?"  (To say that this "art" was characterized by some as a bloody vagina is an apology for it.  It could be described in no other way as that is exactly what it was, complete with surrounding pubic hair.)  The irony is that Mary, according to Catholic teaching, was the most liberated woman of all time being free from Original Sin due to her Immaculate Conception, a dogma of the Church.  Did she have a tantrum when an obscure biblical figure, Matthias, was chosen to replace Judas in the twelve?  No, because she, above all, realized that the ministerial priesthood is inextricably linked to the person of Christ (see previous references and Fundamentals of the Faith by Peter Kreeft).  In short, the artist's art failed on all accounts.  Could that be the reason why it was labeled "untitled"? 

Would an art student be allowed to display a caricature of President Graham Spanier with a swastika on his forehead because the student "believed that Dr. Spanier and many Jews were really Nazi sympathizers?"  Would this abomination be allowed as "art"?  To use the Collegian’s logic, the answer would be yes because the student has absolute rights, since "art has no tangible definition" and "is a form of symbolizing some aspect of reality in a way that will draw it out of hiding." Evidently, the "reality" defined can be a fantasy which exists
solely in the mind of the artist as opposed to "truth."  It doesn't matter that Dr. Spanier and Jews would be unjustly attacked in a libelous fashion in the name of academic freedom. 

How about a caricature of Martin Luther King, Jr. hung in effigy as a political statement to the "oppression of whites due to being forced to use the same restrooms as blacks?"  Not if the words of the University Policy Manual are worth the paper that they're printed on.  The Afro-American Community would have been outraged at this defaming of Dr. King and it would not have taken the Collegian a month to address this issue as it did in the case of the statue of the Blessed Virgin.  Moreover, those who would have brought to the attention of the University the desecration of Dr. King would have been commended as opposed to the ostracism that a former priest of the Campus Catholic Ministry publicly received for doing nothing more than being what a Catholic priest should be, a good shepherd to his flock and a source of pride for Catholics in defending the Faith.

Courts are faced with contentious lawsuits that grow out of complaints about the public display of Christmas decorations - a crèche, a tree, or even simply a star-- which are assailed by critics as an unconstitutional form of government support for religious belief.

If universities receiving federal and/or state funds are prohibited from promoting displays, which encourage religious belief, are they not also prohibited from promoting displays, which discourage religion?  If the Penn State Policy Manual is to be believed, the answer is yes. 

Is this the United States of America or is it something unrecognizable because of the state imposed religion of secular humanism being forced on the citizenry by an activist judiciary counter to the tenets of the Founding Fathers who wanted freedom of, not from, religion? Do the deaths of all of the people who fought in America's wars still mean something?

The Superintendent of the SCASD tells us, "It's ironic that the harassing behaviors our district's anti-harassment policy sought to deter are those same behaviors repeatedly described in news reports about these schools shootings."

The Superintendent and her colleagues in the Administration and the Board of the SCASD continue to ignore the questions that I previously posed. They do so because that would expose their actions to date for the lack of concern for societal common good, which they clearly are. One could ask the Superintendent and the Board, "How can you talk about deterring aberrant behavior when your very harassment policy legitimized such behavior by encouraging students to be inclined to homosexuality at the earliest of ages with no possible means of discouragement that could not have been construed as 'harassment'?" Is that what the SCASD should be doing, de facto telling our children that a lifestyle leading to physical ruin in the way of premature suffering and death is OK? I submit that those who have bought into that heinous lie have suffered mortal consequences of a far greater magnitude than the collective school shootings occurring in this country, which is not to diminish the severity of those crimes in any way.

It's common sense that if a student is being harassed at school, that student has legal recourse to the administration of the school right up the chain-of-command from his/her teacher to the principal. If the harassment is of a serious threatening nature, then we're talking about notifying the police. What is so difficult about the proposition that those who perpetrate such harassment must be held accountable for their actions? Moreover, since they are minors, their parents are accountable for their actions, and as a matter of recourse, must be notified by the District that their child is causing serious problems requiring that the child cease and desist immediately or face the consequences from repeated detention to suspension to expulsion if need be.

One of the primary reasons for the shootings occurring at schools around the country can be directly attributed to the "accountability" ball being dropped by all parties concerned, children, their parents, and the schools who are being handicapped via discipline restrictions as a function of unlimited freedom confused with license, which has become a liberal mantra in that not only "Anything goes," but "Anything must go", the battle cry of the ACLU, replaces the Ten Commandments. Whatever happened to the concept of "discipline being one of the highest forms of love, if not the highest, parents?" That question must be ultimately answered by you, since it is the parents who are the primary educators of their children, an inalienable right which the state, in particular, the school cannot usurp. In that very important context, parents must support the school's decision that discipline must be applied, else the inmates will be running the asylum, and everybody loses in the long run with education impossible. We wouldn't have the problems we now see in the schools if the example of that discipline at home by parents who love their children carried over to the schools. Children are mirrors of their parents. We had better not forget that.

The important point that must not be lost in this discussion is that our schools are supposed to be in the business of "education", not "indoctrination", which was the end result of the SCASD harassment policy that was struck down by the Third Circuit Appeals Court in Philadelphia. When "indoctrination" replaces "education", the ability to differentiate right from wrong vanishes, and we're left with the sad example of the President of Penn State University being unable to tell Pennsylvania legislators, upon questioning at a budget hearing, that pure unadulterated pornography sanctioned on his campus was "wrong". Moreover, the Penn State President was so confused by this straightforward question that he replied, "I don't know what you mean by wrong."

That is problem. Our children are growing up believing the lie that there are no such thing as moral absolutes, right and wrong, because of the example of individuals like the Penn State President, whose agenda and that of his liberal colleagues in academia is to insure that moral blindness is passed on to as many future generations as possible. People need to be made to feel comfortable with their vices at all costs in this brave new world in which we now live where the first causality is "truth."