CS professor calls for ‘cure for homosexuality’ – THE MERCURY – The UTD Mercury
A senior CS graduate adviser and lecturer said, “Can we at least try to find a cure for homosexuality, especially among men?” in a tweet commenting about monkeypox in New York City.
VP of Pride at UTD and political science senior River Bluhm gave an initial statement from the organization about the tweet.
“It’s incredibly worrying that a professor can openly say something so abhorrent,” Bluhm said. “Even more worrying is that he might face no recourse for this. I can only hope that some sort of recourse will be taken and he will be reprimanded in some way. The safety of students should be an absolute priority, and no queer students should have to take a class with a professor who is so openly hateful.
“Suggesting that being gay is a thing to be cured is horrific and hasn’t been a mainstream way of thinking for decades now. Hopefully whatever course of action the University takes teaches him that he’s wrong. Being gay can’t be ‘cured,’ and a professor suggesting that it can creates an unsafe environment for queer and trans students in an already scary environment.”
SG Vice President and IPE junior Margaret Moore also put out a statement emphasizing UTD’s historic LGBTQ+ representation alongside SG President and cognitive science junior Kruthi Kanduri.
“UTD is a highly-ranked LGBT-friendly campus for a reason,” Moore said. “The Galerstein Gender Center has done amazing work on campus, we’ve got several fantastic, active queer student organizations, and Student Government itself has a strong history of LGBT representation. We want to emphasize to all students: homophobia is not the norm here.”
The tweet was posted by Professor of Instruction Timothy Farage, who came to the University in 2000 after working as a software engineer at Raytheon. He is currently a graduate adviser and teaches Discrete Math and Automata Theory for undergraduates.
When reached for comment, Farage responded,” Can homosexuality be cured? I don’t know. More research needs to be done about it. Please note that I do not think that consensual homosexual sex is a sin.”
Farage continued “For male homosexuals, there are many fewer potential partners than for heterosexuals. Also, male homosexuals have a higher incidence of STDs. And they can’t have their own biological children. Note that these are facts and also note that I have not said one word about homosexuals being bad people. I have homosexual friends just like you do. “
The Mercury has reached out to the University for comment.
This story is still developing. Please follow this page for more updates. If you have information that you want to contribute to this piece, please contact editor@utdmercury.com.