Rainbow Flag Sparked Controversy Notre Dame Catholic University

Rainbow stickers have been twice ripped down at an Australian university. LGBT pride flag is not welcome on a Catholic campus.

Two rainbow flag stickers were first put up on the Notre Dame Student Association (NDSA) office and boardroom windows at the Catholic university's Fremantle campus earlier this year.

“We took it upon ourselves to do stuff for our LGBTIQ students, because there was nothing," president Dylan Gojak. Gojak is homosexual and stands against Catholic teaching but wants the benefits of the Catholic University.

At the end of February, the stickers were ripped down. The NDSA put them back up. Last Wednesday, they were ripped down a second time. Gojak like most LGBTQ people are arrogant and demand their rights or else......

The stickers have prompted complaints to university management arguing the "divisive" rainbow flag has no place on campus. Gojak was initially asked by a senior staff member to take down the stickers after complaints were first made.

Gojak and the NDSA pushed back against management, and eventually reached a compromise: Gojak would post an explanation for the stickers on the Student Association Facebook page.

Following the stickers being torn down a second time last week, vice chancellor Celia Hammond wrote an email to Gojak saying that the university does not endorse the rainbow flag but also disapproves of the way the NDSA stickers were torn down.

"While I believe the symbol is divisive, and the University does not support all that has come to be associated with the Rainbow flag, the University does not condone the sticker being deliberately taken down in the way that it was," she wrote in the email.

Hammond wrote that she did not want to cause further distress to either side of the argument: those who think the flag represents a "divisive, immorality, debauchery, against God and scripture, political agenda" or those who see it as "a symbol of inclusion and welcome".

"To that end, while the University does not endorse the Rainbow flag, and does not approve it being displayed on any other parts of the University campus.

The rainbow flag sticker is also displayed on the windows of the university nursing and performing arts societies. Gojak, who is gay, said he did not want to make his presidency about his sexuality, but felt compelled to act when he realised how little there was available for LGBT students on campus. But he has made a controversy and should be dismissed from his position and from the university.

"The concerns here are that the display of the politically charged stickers on the property of the University could be viewed as an endorsement by the University of matters which are inconsistent with Catholic teachings, and that those who are trying to live their lives consistent with those teachings may feel threatened and/or confused by this," she wrote.