According to the City Paper, Duquesne now includes sexual orientation among the classes against whom one may not discriminate.  Previously, the school permitted the establishment of a campus Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA).  News of the non-discrimination language change was news to the GSA.  So much for the School of Communication.

Anyway, now the GSA is lobbying for domestic partner benefits.  Duquesne doesn't think Uncle Ratzie would like that.  I can kind of see their point. It is one thing to say that individuals who happen to be gay should not be targeted for abuse.  That's consistent with Catholic teaching (if not practice).  Spending Catholic $$ to lift up the relationships of unwed couples, straight and gay seems to be pushing it.  A fine line, perhaps.

What would be more advantageous is for the GSA to push for open dialogue to challenge the corners of the campus where sexual orientation is not respected and valued. Make everyone on campus say the word "gay" and smile in a genuine, non-smirky way.  I just can't imagine someone accepting a job at Duquesne and then quibbling about domestic partner benefits. But I'm still hung up on the censorship of WDUQ over Planned Parenthood.

Jerome Sherman must have read my blog yesterday because his background piece on Andre Thomas is featured in this morning's Post-Gazette.  Or perhaps I am prescient. 

I am dissatisfied. The article lays out Mr. Thomas' woes and troubles fairly objectively along with his efforts to turn things around.  But anyone who thinks that attending church a few times and talking with the church pastor about communication and church attendance is the groundwork for an intervention .... sigh.  What are people thinking?  You can't pray away mental illness. Prayer and a faith community can be a good part of a support system, but at what point will someone in his support system put some accountability on Mr. Thomas for his own actions?

Mr. Sherman cannot access Mr. Thomas' records as far as any MH treatments or D&A treatments so we'll never know.  And none of that, as I've said all along, justifies police brutality.  The police should have used the necessary force to subdue him and that's it.  Kicking someone is never part of that equation.

This is going to turn into the poor would-be Christian black man against the big bad police state.  What a horrendous way to diminish the life of Andre Thomas.  Too bad we can't scrutinize his life a bit more as a human being who needed help against the underfunded mental health system (and maybe the big bad insurance industry but I'm just speculating that he didn't have health insurance as he was self-employed).  That might actually help people.