Australian Catholic University Bans the Pride Flag

... but for reasons that may surprise.

You might have read during the week that the Australian Catholic University has told its various campuses to remove gay pride flags from its libraries.

I spoke about it on the Bolt Report. (You can watch below).

What we did not have time to speak about - and what I don’t believe any commentator has noted, despite extensive media coverage in print and on television - is the reason the ACU gave for the rainbow flag ban.

Spoiler alert: The flag wasn’t removed for reasons of doctrine.

The LGBTQ rainbow flags were reportedly put on display in ACU libraries as part of orientation week back in February. No, not sexual orientation week. That’s not actually a thing.

The flags were hung in the libraries to make gay students feel welcome at the start of a new year.

Which is nice.

But did those from the inclusion cult masquerading as Catholics ever stop to consider that waving gay flags in the Catholic university might make Catholic students wanting a Catholic education feel unwelcome at the start of a new year?

The university sent an email to its librarians advising …

“It is not considered to be appropriate at ACU. If you have any such material on display in your library could you please remove it from the public area.”

Well, of course.

The LGBTQ worldview on sexuality and gender is completely at odds with the Catholic view. And Catholics don’t get to chop and change their worldview to keep up with the latest cultural fads.

Christian doctrine does not change with the times. It is beyond the times.

That’s why I’m always amused by people who complain about Christians: “How can you still hold those views in the 21st Century!”

Well, it’s surprisingly easy actually.

Christians don’t update their views according to the calendar. If God exists, then truth exists outside of time and space. Truth doesn’t have an expiry date.

And if truth exists outside of time and space, then truth is objective rather than subjective.

What’s true is true, even if no-one believes it. And what’s wrong is still wrong even if the entire world (which many people now believe means Twitter) endorses it.

So the removal of flags celebrating gay sex and gender fluidity is hardly surprising, right? The LGBTQ flag is antithetical to Catholic doctrine.

Except that wasn’t the reason given.

When staff and students complained about the gay flag being taken down, an ACU spokeswoman pointed not to the Bible but to their flag policy!

Thank God for the flag policy. It means you don’t have to refer to Saint Paul. But I digress.

The ACU spokeswoman said that under the official flag policy of the university, certain flags were recognised - the Aussie flag, the Indigenous flag, the Torres Strait flag, the Vatican flag - but, sadly, certain flags were not.

There wasn’t a problem with the gay flag per se, it … it just hadn’t - for reasons entirely unknown - made it into the flag policy.

“The university has a policy for the flying of flags,” the spokeswoman said, “which recognises the national, state, Aboriginal, Torres Strait, ACU and Vatican flags for display in public space on ACU campuses.”

It wasn’t a Scriptural issue, it was a policy issue.

But don’t worry. The flag policy committee is reconvening later in the year at which point new pennants will be considered.

The ACU spokesperson continued:

“Staff are free to display other flags at their offices or workstations if that is their personal decision. There is no directive or policy that denies displaying flags or other symbols, rainbow or otherwise, in personal spaces across the university.”

All of this, of course, begs the question as to how gay flags came to be flown in Catholic University libraries in the first place.

As I said on The Bolt Report, if a Catholic institution starts flying the LGBTQ flag it ceases - for all intents and purposes - to be Catholic. The gay flag, in this context, is not so much a welcome to new students as it is a rebuff to Biblical authority. And without Biblical authority, the Catholic Church ceases to be.

But, according to the Sydney Morning Herald, it was the Catholic University librarians who purchased the gay flags - to hang alongside the Aboriginal and a Torres Strait Islander flags - as a welcome to new students.

At the ACU it seems as if the librarians who are the loudest people in the library.

While the university is getting rid of the flags, they might want to get rid of the librarians and replace them with - you know - some Catholic ones.

Speaking of which …

A Professor of History at the Australian Catholic University’s Melbourne campus was quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald saying …

“We want LGBTIQA+ students and staff to feel safe and welcome at ACU. Visibility is part of creating that safe environment. The pride flag and other rainbow imagery says, ‘You are welcome here’.”

Dude! If you need everyone to fly a flag in your honour in order for you to feel safe and welcome, you’re not just doing Catholicism wrong, you’re doing life wrong!

The university’s LGBTIQ+ society complained to vice-chancellor Zlatko Skrbis …

“When you and your representatives should have been promoting messages of celebration, you have decided to ban pride imagery and instead send a message that LGBTIQ+ people are not welcome at your university.”

The Australian Catholic University is clearly tolerant of LGBTIQ+ people as evidenced by the fact that it has an LGBTIQ+ society on campus.

But, of course, tolerance is not enough anymore. As Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said at the start of WorldPride, we must do more than tolerate diversity (by which he meant homosexuality in all its glorious forms) we must celebrate it.

But the ACU cannot “celebrate” homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism or the enumerate proclivities represented by the “+” without transforming into something other than Catholic.

Undeterred, the LGBTIQ + society played the “what abut loooooove” card …

“The directive sent to staff under your watch is, therefore, a direct affront to ACU’s mission to act in truth and love in the pursuit of knowledge, the dignity of the human person, and the common good.”

To claim that adhering to Biblical truth is a direct afford to truth, and love, is just incredible.

Up is down. Black is white.

To claim that a failure to celebrate transgenderism is a direct affront to human dignity is beyond the pale.

Professing to be wise, they became fools.

The ACU spokeswoman assured upset staff and students they were “free to display other flags (ie gay ones) at their offices or workstations if that is their personal decision. There is no directive or policy that denies displaying flags or other symbols, rainbow or otherwise, in personal spaces across the university.”

It’s almost like the only reason the Australian Catholic University has not succumb to an anti-Biblical ideology is because their flag policy has not allowed it.

This tactic might have avoided a bitter fight, but it doesn’t decide the issue. A flag policy can be changed. The Bible cannot. At some point, this will need to be made plain.