Why is it okay to parody some groups and not others?

Dear Editor,

We, the executives of the Catholic Students’ Club, in the name of all concerned students, express our sincere disapproval regarding the article released in The Medium last week, “O Holy Night”.

The content of the article focussed on and commended a group of students who dressed up as nuns and faked orgasms onstage. Effectively, the article propagated a public mockery of the Catholic faith. The use of the title “O Holy Night”, a well-known Christmas song, to describe the events that took place during the Sex Pub comes across to us as mocking and disrespecting the Catholic religion.

We are concerned that this article disregards religious equity by advocating the actions committed at the event. This fosters a negative attitude towards religious groups on campus. This behaviour is hypocritical, considering UTM’s general care for not offending various minority groups on campus, such as people with disabilities or the LGBTQ community. We’re sure that if there was a group onstage that was somehow homophobic, misogynistic, or racist, it would be publicly treated as inexcusable. Meanwhile, it seems to be increasingly politically correct to offend Christians and other religious students. All students should be treated according to the same standards of respect.

It is fully understandable that The Medium should write about an event like the Sex Pub, since it is the most anticipated event on campus, but the focus of the article could have easily been about something neutral, positive, and of more concern to students, such as the funds the event collected for a good cause. We believe that such information would have been much more in line with what The Medium stands for as our only newspaper, therefore the voice of all Erindale students.

Considering all we have stated and that you and the author of the article knew or ought to have known that some students would find this article disrespectful, we request a public apology for the article in the next issue of The Medium.

Sincerely,

Lisa Caballero, Kateryna Yefimova, Lisa D’Souza, Paul Filaber, & Michelle Duklas

Tags: Catholic, disapproval, parody, volume-38-issue-22

Category: Letter to the Editor