A coalition of Notre Dame students has produced a joint petition-statement titled “Students Against SCOP: A Petition Against University Recognition of Students for Child Oriented Policy.”

The authors of the petition lay out a lengthy “Declaration of Grievances” against “SCOP policy,” which allegedly “discriminates against all non-traditional family structures in a way that is in direct opposition of the university policy on diversity inclusion and message of love and acceptance.” (You can view the statement and petition here.)  Numerous of PrismND‘s (Notre Dame’s gay-straight student alliance) members and officers have signed the petition.

The authors of the document continue:

As a serious academic and research institution, Notre Dame is committed to the pursuit of truth, and SCOP is obscuring the truth in a way that ignores empirical reality and inhibits justice…

In ignoring these facts, SCOP indicts itself—clearly, this group is not actually in the pursuit of knowledge and truth, nor does it want what is “best” for children…

…SCOP implies that any non-traditional family structure is in some way harmful to children. Since SCOP’s argument cannot be supported in any empirical way, this can only be interpreted as discrimination against individuals based on sexual orientation…

SCOP’s blatant ignorance of the facts surrounding same-sex parenting is not in line with these official university policies or “The Spirit of Inclusion at Notre Dame which states that the University deplores any offenses against the inviolable dignity of every person as beloved of God” and “calls all students to be friends and allies of one another.”

The document directs the intellectually curious to the Notre Dame Marriage Petition page on this website for “a full description of [SCOP] policy.”

In the face of such accusations, I can only refer interested readers to the Notre Dame media release concerning SCOP’s Thursday conference, to an Observer op-ed that one of SCOP’s members recently penned concerning the group’s rationale, and to the synopsis of April 3’s events.

Judge for yourself whether the motivation behind SCOP’s upcoming conference and its related Marriage Petition “can only be interpreted as discrimination against individuals based on sexual orientation.”