"All religion is an essential part of the human story," he tells me, explaining why he became a religion professor in the first place. "The humanities are about humanity, and so everyone should study religion to understand humanity. No one's education can be considered complete without the study of religion, whether one is personally religious or not. Further, the three great Abrahamic religions have been major forces in the history of the world and are still vibrant forces across the globe. To be ignorant of religion is to be ignorant of humanity."
This, of course, is what university life should be about. After this fight, perhaps, the University of Illinois's campus will be a little more aware of its own tendencies toward ignorance. That's a campus awareness trend that could afford to catch on.
David French, a lawyer with the Alliance Defense Fund, which is representing Howell, underscores an important point. "Dr. Howell's case illustrates the absolute intolerance that's long been emerging on campus towards any kind of dissent or disagreement against the prevailing sexual orthodoxy. It's as if the university community views traditional Christian ethics as the moral equivalent of racism and treats Christians in the same way they would treat a white-sheeted bigot," he says.
It leads to a simplistic, wrongheaded view of faith. "Christianity is boxed in," French argues. According to the caricature, dictated from the ivory tower, "the 'good' Christian serves the poor, is always nice to everybody, and -- above all -- never offers any form of moral judgment. The 'bad' Christian may also serve the poor, and may also be exceedingly kind, but if he or she upholds a biblical standard of sexual morality, then they run the risk of punitive actions."
French argues, "The university has become a religious sculptor, chipping away at the elements of Christianity it doesn't like ... until we are left with an image that no longer looks much like Jesus."
In the face of this reality and battle scars, Howell will not shy away from what has been maligned as "hate speech." Students need to know "natural moral law," he tells me, because it "provides common ground for ethical reasoning and decision making. Not everyone will embrace the specifics of a religion, but everyone has access to nature, to human experience and to conscience. We desperately need common ground to debate ethical issues today."
Cries of "hate speech," just keep us in intellectual chains of our own forging.
Howell's reinstatement is a great victory for him, his students, and academic freedom, but he could have very easily been "a casualty of campus tolerance," as French points out. "It shouldn't take lawyers, roughly 9,000 Facebook fans, and an avalanche of media coverage to guarantee the most basic academic freedom rights."