Dan Meyer, writing (Warning: link contains offensive images) for Boston’s homosexual publication the Edge, reports that the homosexual community is making gains on Catholic college campuses. As examples, he cites changes to the student handbook, providing protection for people based on sexual orientation and gender identity, at San Antonio’s Our Lady of the Lake University, as well as examples from Boston College, The Catholic University of America, and Fordham University.

An increasing number of Catholic colleges and universities have seen the addition of student-run homosexual advocacy and support groups and resource centers.

“The Jesuits, who have been historically regarded as in the vanguard of Catholic intellectual activity and social activism, might be the determining factor in LGBT acceptance,” writes Meyer, who says that Fordham “leads the way.”

Fordham, he notes, has an active Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Ally Network of Support student-run group that has received the “full support of the administration,” and the university helps to promote the group on its website.

Meyer writes that Jesuit universities are not beholden to the local bishop, so therefore have more freedom.

“The Jesuits traditionally do not report to the local bishop but rather to their own officers in Rome,” writes Meyer.

“There is no one in the chain of command in the Catholic Church who can have anything to say about what happens at Boston College,” John McGargh, assistant professor of theology at Boston College, told the Edge.

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